The Way of Wisdom: The Clockwork Universe

The Buddha, accoding to Phra Cittasamvaro Bhikku last night in the seventh of his eight rains-retreat Dharma talks, said that there are four imponderables, four things just not worth thinking about as you'll never understand them. One is the source of psychic powers, another is the mind of an Arahant, the third is the mind of a Buddha, and finally, karma. Trying to figure out how karma works will do little more than split your head into seven different pieces the Buddha said.

But, in the same way that a pet dog might not fully understand how the universe operates but manages to get by with a sufficient working understanding of how it impacts on those things that concern the well-being of a dog, we too, Phra Pandit suggested, can get by with just a basic outline of the principles of karma without delving into its more complex, imponderable, depths. And that basic outline is simply that everyone has karma and so we must be careful of what we do.

"That's it", Phra Cittasamvaro said. "Finished. Anything that comes next is, unlike most of the Buddha's other teachings, going to be mainly speculation." He didn't actually stop there of course, but for more details the best place to go would be the Littlebang website. Basically, Phra Pandit teaches that karma consists of, as he put it in a wonderful talk two years ago, the choices we make that establish who we are and which have inevitable future consequences in terms of what we do and how we perceive and respond to the world.

If I have one criticism of the talks this year it's that there is no time for questions, and so discussion was restricted to the skytrain journey home. Will wondered if Phra Pandit's future emphasis on karma as choice or intention didn't somehow pass over the question of past karma operating now. Certainly there was nothing in Phra Pandit's talk comparable to the passage I quoted last week from Phra Bhasakorn Bhavilai: "Huge, violent, killer waves of our own making are bearing down on us, ready to smash us against the rocks."

But the lesson is the same. We protect ourselves from past karma, and I tend to see much more of what happens in my life as karmic rather than mere chance, by what we do now. "Somehow, we see more clearly, we improve ourselves, we reject our past behaviour and we embrace the five precepts. By changing our mental state like that... the power of our bad deeds to effect us has been reduced... The waves will hit us, we can't stop them; but they only take a limb or an eye or some teeth. We are left alive. The five precepts will reduce the negative effects from our past."

Which does indeed make intention the key to karma, and I can't help but be reminded of Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu. "How much karmic merit have I earned by ordaining monks, building monasteries, having sutras copied, and commissioning Buddha images?" the emperor asked. "None." Bodhidharma replied. And then there's the story of Nanta, the old lady who, despite her poverty, lit a lantern for the Buddha with such sincerity that not only did it burn late into the night but she was also promised future buddhahood from that single act of devout intention.

Littlebang:

Notes on The Clockwork Universe

Marcus' Journal:

Pra Pandit's 2007 talk on Karma

A personal post looking at the working of karma in my own life

Photo: Early 18th century mural (detail), Wat Ko, Phetchaburi. Apologies for the poor quality of the image.