Everything is due to kamma, right?

Bhikkhu Sujato, 14/6/2008

After the terrible disasters recently in China and Myanmar, Sharon Stone famously suggested that the suffering was due to kamma:

"I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans… and then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma?"

This received widespread condemnation, despite the fact that she merely raised the question and did not assert anything. Recently, in an interview on the ABC radio PM show, the Dalai Lama was quoted as saying in response to Stone’s comment:

Of course from a Buddhist viewpoint, every event is karma, due to karma. So the tragedy on Tibetan, tragedy in Burma, tragedy in China, all this is karmic.

It should be noted that the Dalai Lama is not demonizing any country here, as he pointedly includes Tibet among those countries suffering due to kamma. 

Nevertheless, I don’t believe this view accurately represents the teachings of the Buddha, nor are they rational. This matter is of great concern, as many people see such assertions as blaming victims for their sufferings. In modern India, for example, similar ideas are used to justify the inequalities of the caste system. I am not, of course, suggesting that this is the Dalai Lama’s own view, but merely pointing out how such views can be taken. With all my great respect for His Holiness and his teachings, I think it is important that we should consider for ourselves whether such views are an accurate reflection of the Buddha’s teachings.

Here are some Suttas, taken directly from the Pali canon, the earliest records of the Buddha’s teaching, so that you can make up your own mind.The translations are by Venerable Thanissaro. To emphasize the current issue, where Thanissaro translates 'what was done before' I substitute 'past kamma'. Also, I highlight the crucial passages.

AN 4.77: Unconjecturable

"There are these four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them. Which four?

"The Buddha-range of the Buddha is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it.

"The jhana-range of a person in jhana...

"The results of kamma...

"Conjecture about [the origin, etc., of] the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it.

"These are the four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them."

This sutta immediately tells us that we cannot pretend to use kamma as a catch-all explanation. We simply cannot know, given the vast complexity of the webs of cause and effect, how kamma is actually operating in any given situation. This is even more so in the context of widespread disasters, such as in China and Myanmar. If the acts of the leaders are the cause of the disasters, how come the leaders seem to get out unscathed, while thousands of innocent people, who have not contributed to the problems, must pay with their lives? This is not the law of kamma at all, it is something quite different.

This point is emphasized in the following sutta, which explicitly states that not all our experiences are due to kamma. The examples used by the Buddha for alternative causes of pain and pleasure - bile, phlegm, etc., - were the standard causes of diseases recognized in Indian medicine.

AN 36.21 Sivaka Sutta

On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling near Rajagaha in the Bamboo Grove Monastery, the Squirrel's Feeding Place. There Moliyasivaka the wanderer went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there, he said to the Blessed One, "Master Gotama, there are some priests & contemplatives who are of this doctrine, this view: Whatever an individual feels — pleasure, pain, neither-pleasure-nor-pain — is entirely caused by what was past kamma. Now what does Master Gotama say to that?"

[The Buddha:] "There are cases where some feelings arise based on bile. You yourself should know how some feelings arise based on bile. Even the world is agreed on how some feelings arise based on bile. So any priests & contemplatives who are of the doctrine & view that whatever an individual feels — pleasure, pain, neither-pleasure-nor-pain — is entirely caused by what was done before — slip past what they themselves know, slip past what is agreed on by the world. Therefore I say that those priests & contemplatives are wrong."

"There are cases where some feelings arise based on phlegm... based on internal winds... based on a combination of bodily humors... from the change of the seasons... from uneven care of the body... from harsh treatment... from the result of kamma. You yourself should know how some feelings arise from the result of kamma. Even the world is agreed on how some feelings arise from the result of kamma. So any priests & contemplatives who are of the doctrine & view that whatever an individual feels — pleasure, pain, neither pleasure-nor-pain — is entirely caused by what was done before — slip past what they themselves know, slip past what is agreed on by the world. Therefore I say that those priests & contemplatives are wrong."

When this was said, Moliyasivaka the wanderer said to the Blessed One: "Magnificent, lord! Magnificent! Just as if he were to place upright what was overturned, to reveal what was hidden, to point out the way to one who was lost, or to carry a lamp into the dark so that those with eyes could see forms, in the same way has the Blessed One — through many lines of reasoning — made the Dhamma clear. I go to the Blessed One for refuge, to the Dhamma, & to the community of monks. May the Blessed One remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge from this day forward, for life."

Bile, phlegm, wind, a combination,

Season, uneven, harsh treatment,

and through the result of kamma as the eighth.

This is straightforward. The teachings of the Pali canon are clear: not everything is caused by kamma.

This understanding is preserved in the Pali commentarial tradition, which speaks of various systems of natural law (niyāma), for which I give an approximate modern equivalent: genetics (bījaniyāma), physics (utuniyāma), psychology (cittaniyāma), kamma, and Dhamma (which includes such things as the Four Noble Truths, Dependent Origination, etc.) These are not meant as an exhaustive system, just a few important examples. From this we can see that, according to Theravadin views, an explanation of the world that ignores kamma – as does modern science – is incomplete. But equally inadequate is a view that reduces everything to kamma.

The various conditions, such as bile, etc., which arise in the body during the course of life are not due to kamma, but to combinations of natural causes – diet, exercise, environment, and so on. This is accepted and understood universally in the world. While kamma may, of course, be playing a role in such matters, to insist that disasters and suffering generally experienced by people in this life is the product of past kamma is to misrepresent the Suttas. Kamma is always a teaching which encourages us to accept personal responsibility for our acts. Leaders of countries who make decisions to go to war, to kill or oppress will certainly have to accept the results of this. But this has nothing to do with what the people experience. I noticed that the Burmese junta leaders seem to be doing fine after the cyclone. 

It is simply irrational to point to large scale events affecting thousands of people and assert that somehow they have all done the same kamma, and therefore are experiencing the same results. The crucial thing about kamma is not finding a simplistic way to externalize blame, but to use as a reflection for purifying and perfecting our own ethical choices.

For those who wish to read further, following is a more lengthy Sutta on the same topic. This is a great Sutta, one of my favorites, and you should read the whole thing. But here I just give the section dealing with the non-Buddhist doctrine that everything is caused by past kamma. You might also be interested in reading a longer discourse on the same topic, the Devadaha Sutta. Incidentally, the fact that there are several discourses dealing explicitly with this topic shows that this was an active question in the religious debates at the Buddha's time, and one which the Buddha took a definite and consistent position on.

 AN 3.61 Tittha Sutta "Sectarians"

             See also:  MN 101 Devadaha Sutta at: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.101.than.html)