Karma Question

[Horin]

Dear Roshi, dear sangha.
Today it would be my deceased grandpas bday, and while remembering him questions were arising in my mind.. so i understood the concept of karma like this: my granddad and grandmother raised their children and me as well in a very wholehearted, beloving way, with their idea of ethics and respect.. so my mother raised me in some way she grew up with their parents (uncles, cousins, siblings and so on).. the result is a great family influenced by my grandparents efforts. so i got impressed and i raise my children as well in kinda way.. so the karma of my grandparents is having effects even after their death into some generations...

My question is, i have heard that buddhas/enlightened beings wont create any karma at all, but how is this possible.. they still act/interact with people, in some i think beloving way, not harming...and impress the others? Even shakyamuni created good karma with his teachings that still have effects up to now? am i wrong with my ideas?

Gassho,
Ben


Stlah

[Jundo]

Hi Ben,

You describe a beautiful family, and it is wonderful that you remember your grandpa so.

Karma traditionally meant a system of the universe in which our volitional actions (the meaning of "Karma"), both good and bad, would result in matching good and bad effects in this life, and also in future lives after death. The goal of traditional Buddhism was to escape from such cycle of rebirths, both good and bad. A Buddha was said by some to be beyond all such volition caused by desire, so are free of Karma. Buddhist philosophers have debated what exactly that means for millenia. Others might say, for example, that a Buddha does create Karmic effects while in this world, but only good ones.

Here is a scholar's article which gives a taste of the kind of debate on this topic, in this case the creation of Karma by Arhats ...

[Rosui]

One time during the annual human rights learning meeting this guy from the Shumucho asked us: "So you guys are going to be priests doing funerals. What are you going to say to someone who died's grandkids if they ask 'So is Grandpa in heaven now'?" This was actually really difficult for me because I'm not really into the hocus pocus supernatural beliefs. So I asked Ohashi Tanto Roshi and my Teachers dad about this problem. When you do a Japanese funeral You have to write something called an ihai which is sort of like a memorial tablet for that person. At the very bottom of this tablet is the character rei 霊　which can be interpreted as spirit. Ohashi Roshi explained that that is not the meaning though. The meaning is that that person is no longer suffering from delusion. Only the living suffer from not seeing things as they are.

A funeral was never conducted on a rainy day and it used to be considered a celebration the same as a birth. If people didn't die then there wouldn't be room for people to keep being born.

As far as Karma I believe I read in one of Uchiyama Roshi's books that Buddhas don't do anything because they're perfectly content where they are. That's why you need Boddhisattvas. They're capable of action. Of course I take it as psychological allegory for a state of mind.

I believe that the no self doctrine means that there is no part which is self. I feel this means that my Grandparents for example are still part of me and thus never really died. There's a lot of them that influences the way I see the world

Anyway this is kind of a rant but I hope it helps a little bit

Gassho

Rosui

st

[Jundo]

Thank you Rosui. Very very interesting.

We discussed this a little explaining last week's "Obon" holiday, and the ambiguity in Japanese Buddhism of the "spirits" of the ancestors who come back to visit during that time. I have heard Japanese priests explain this ambiguity several different ways. Some of told me that there is a spirit, but it is ultimately empty (as are we).

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?16396-Obon

We remember the dead in our Sangha in February for Nehan-e (Celebration of "Final Nirvana"), the holiday of the Buddha's "non-passing" (because never came or went anywhere really), and we have an "Ihai" for all the Zen Ancestors (the black colored object in the middle).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlzAppJq-3c

It say something like, "For All the Generations of Zen Ancestors." There is a Ceremony in Japan (and other Asian countries) to "activate" the Ihai by actually bringing the spirit into the Ihai. I consider it just a marker, and never had it "activated" in a ceremony. It is active enough, and any spirit does not come or go.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_tablet

I need to translate some of your "Zen words" into good 'ol English : Shumucho is the administrative "head office" of the Soto school in Japan. Tanto Roshi is the Roshi (Senior Teacher) who is head of monk's practice in a monastery.

Death is complicated! Thus there are as many interpretations as there have been living people. I just know that we do have effects for good and bad on ourselves, those around us, our world (not two, by the way), and that we go but do not come and go.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Horin]

Thank you for these answers. I have read a lot about karma, as well the "big questions", your teaching was really clear jundo. Anyways i discussion with others, especially theravada-fellas the concept of karma seems sometimes too far away, very theroretically, though i can follow and agree on them to a certain point.. yesterday it seemed so clear to me as a direct experience. So, in my job in social work i work with so many people and my influence to them will impress them in a certain kinda way, as well my klients impress me as well.. so its a constant change, an interdependence in a way..

Thats why i was curious, because even a buddha lives in this world, interacting, doing (good) things. So his deeds will continue in the sense of karmic law unless he is not some hermit far from society and people imo. even freed from the three poisons of greed, aversion and ignorance he will still doing things.

so your answers and links are very useful and thank you very much for your words.
Gassho
ben


Sitinajiffytrytolendahandtoday

[Jundo]

Hi Ben,

Traditionally, Karma was about how the actions of the individual effects the individual, not others. Your good and bad actions would result in your rebirth as a god or earthworm. There was sometimes some limited notion of group or collective Karma, but really your idea of Karma as your impact on others is not traditional.

However, personally, I like yours better. Since we are all things and beings, even the mountains and trees, our volitional actions really do impact others who are also our other faces. It may not be "kosher" as Karma for most Buddhists, but I like it and find it in harmony with Zen teachings.

Gassho J

StLah

[Horin]

Thank you Jundo, for the reminding of the original meaning of karma as well.
Gassho

Ben

St

[Shinshou]

When I studied the Bhagavad Gita (the perennial Hindu book of Krishna's instructions on Karma Yoga), I was intrigued by the teaching that creating good karma was just as imprisoning as creating bad karma, and that it was not actions, but rather the attachment to the results of actions that created karma - therefore, act without thought of results. Then I started reading more about Zen Buddhism, and my understanding was that the accumulation of karma was due to the desire that preceded an action. These days, I personally regard questions about karma like questions about the existence of god, what happens after we die, do ghosts exist, is reincarnation true, etc.: fun to think about, but we'll never know the answer, so when it inevitably stops being fun and starts to produce anxiety, it's time to let it go and get back to chopping wood and carrying water and let karma - if it exists - take care of itself.

Shinshou (Dan)
Sat Today

[Jundo]

When I studied the Bhagavad Gita (the perennial Hindu book of Krishna's instructions on Karma Yoga), I was intrigued by the teaching that creating good karma was just as imprisoning as creating bad karma, and that it was not actions, but rather the attachment to the results of actions that created karma - therefore, act without thought of results. Then I started reading more about Zen Buddhism, and my understanding was that the accumulation of karma was due to the desire that preceded an action. These days, I personally regard questions about karma like questions about the existence of god, what happens after we die, do ghosts exist, is reincarnation true, etc.: fun to think about, but we'll never know the answer, so when it inevitably stops being fun and starts to produce anxiety, it's time to let it go and get back to chopping wood and carrying water and let karma - if it exists - take care of itself.

Shinshou (Dan)
Sat Today

And just try to be as gentle and kind as one can.

Karma or no Karma, if ya gonna make Karma make some of the good kind!

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Tairin]

I think karma is easier to look at as cause and effect.

While there is no guarantee that well intentioned actions lead to positive effects it is almost assured that malicious actions lead to negative effects. Abiding by the Precepts is a good way of trying to live with well intentioned actions in this life and hopefully leading to positive effects


Tairin
Sat today

[Mp]

I think karma is easier to look at as cause and effect.

While there is no guarantee that well intentioned actions lead to positive effects it is almost assured that malicious actions lead to negative effects. Abiding by the Precepts is a good way of trying to live with well intentioned actions in this life and hopefully leading to positive effects


Tairin
Sat today

Yes, nicely said Tairin. Karma can be in each moment, in each action ... both the positively and negatively.

Gassho
Shingen

Sat/LAH

[sjlabat]

This is fascinating, and in my view more than merely 'fascinating" regarding the Ihai. I may not be expressing myself well - but how do people who use, have, 'activate' the Ihai interact with it? With their ancestors (I assume those they have known and those who they honor but have never met in the flesh)? So often for us good 'moderns' alive is alive and dead is dead (and that is true), but many don't experience that 'duality' in quite so rigid a way...
gassho,
sat,lah
sjl

[Jundo]

This is fascinating, and in my view more than merely 'fascinating" regarding the Ihai. I may not be expressing myself well - but how do people who use, have, 'activate' the Ihai interact with it? With their ancestors (I assume those they have known and those who they honor but have never met in the flesh)? So often for us good 'moderns' alive is alive and dead is dead (and that is true), but many don't experience that 'duality' in quite so rigid a way...
gassho,
sat,lah
sjl

Many Japanese people I know, especially older widows and widowers, would interact with the "Ihai" and the entire "Butsudan" (home Buddhist altar) much like widows and widowers anywhere, actually talking with and interacting with their lost spouse through it. Many families may actually think that there ancestors are somehow "there," or that it is a kind of phone booth to them, and that the ancestors (parents, grandparents and perhaps earlier) are actually reachable somehow through there, watching out for the family somehow (events like weddings and graduations will often also be announced to them through the Butsudan). Frankly, the "Buddha" and Buddhist meaning seems to take a back seat somehow to the Butsudan as a place for the ancestors.

The younger generation now seems to be losing this connection to the Butsudan now, but maybe they will feel it more strongly when they get older themselves.

Here is a very interesting short documentary I just found on Obon in Japan, including the Buddhist Altar at home ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFKADRlkoL8

And a typical daily home ritual at the Butsudan ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DqZyZnCPnw

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH