Fusatsu: On Karma and Choice
Photo by Wouter Supardi Salari
In this fusatsu talk, Zuisei examines the role of mind in creating karma. Using the Buddha’s words in the Dhammapada as a jumping off point, Zuisei distills the chain of cause and effect from what we think to what we say, do, and experience to a simple proposition: a troubled mind will lead to trouble; a clear mind will lead to happiness. Challenging us to make this teaching personal, Zuisei points to the radical proposition that everything we experience—in our minds, in our immediate lives, and in the wider world—is our responsibility. Put another way, “It’s all up to me.” The question then is, How will we act?
Zuisei draws on the Buddha’s teachings in the scriptures of the Pali canon, the words of the Gatha of Atonement, and the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment—psychologist Walter Mischel’s study of willpower and delayed gratification in children.
This fusatsu talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
I am Happening: On Karma and Choice
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01 : Past Actions, Present Karma with Zuisei Goddard
02 : Free Will and Karma with Zuisei Goddard
03 : Not Even the Now with Zuisei Goddard
Tonight I want to speak about karma. To begin, let me read a quote my friend Kim shared with me as part of the material we’ll read for her class next week:
All experience is preceded by mind,
Led by mind, made by mind.
Speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows
As the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.
All experience is preceded by mind,
Led by mind, made by mind.
Speak or act with a peaceful mind, and happiness follows
Like a never-departing shadow.
These are the first two verses of the Dhammapada, arguably one of the most well known and best loved of Buddhist scriptures. And I think the reason it’s so loved is because the teachings are so simple yet so profound. Here, in two verses the Buddha laid out the relationship between cause and effect, between what we think and what we live. We could just study and practice these verses for the rest of our lives and never be done with them.
Creating Karma
Mind precedes experience—all experience. Another way of saying it, you can’t experience anything without mind, apart from mind. But this is still a bit abstract. Make it personal; see that a muddy mind, a troubled mind creates suffering, and the relationship is so close as that of a wheel following an ox’s hoof. The good news is that the opposite is also true: a clear mind, a peaceful mind leads to happiness and these two are as close as you and your shadow, which you’re never without. This, in a nutshell, is how karma is created.
A troubled mind will act, will speak, will think troublesomely, and the result, inevitably, will be some kind of harm. This is what the Gatha of Atonement that we chanted at the beginning says: All harmful karma I’ve ever committed—all karma throughout space and time, comes from my greed, my anger, and my ignorance, taking shape through my actions, my words, and my thoughts. There’s no other way that harm is created, you see?
It all comes from mind. But all good also comes from mind. A clear mind will act, will speak, will think clearly, and the result, also inevitably, will be some kind of good. Bad karma, good karma, and the linchpin of both is the mind. But why is this such a profound teaching? Doesn’t it seem obvious that if I think harm or speak harm or act out harm, then the result will be harm, and the same with good?
Well, let’s change these verses slightly. Let’s make them even more personal:
All that I, Zuisei, experience is dependent on my mind,
Led by my mind, made by my mind.
So, when I speak or act with a troubled mind, suffering inevitably follows.
But when I speak or act with a peaceful mind, then happiness is the result.
Do you see what the point is here? It’s up to me. It’s always been up to me, it’ll always be up to me. It’s not the fault of my parents or my teachers or my leaders.
It’s not the fault of immigrants or lgbtqers or liberals or conservatives. What I experience is completely dependent on mind, yes, and more specifically, the way I use my mind. It’s nowhere else, it’s no one else.
Now, it is true that things happen all the time that we can’t control. It is also true that when those things happen, we can always, always choose how to respond. That is what these verses are saying. They’re also saying that when the mind is troubled, when we don’t understand the way things work, suffering is sure to follow. When we think that my happiness is more important, more worthy than yours, then the choices I make will reflect that, and suffering is sure to follow. Exhibit A, B, all the way through Z: our political climate.
Karma in Samsara
Anyone who says “This group of people is more important, more worthy than this other” doesn’t see the truth of things, doesn’t understand the way things really work. Because if this was the way things work, then the world as it is should be working. We should live in harmony with one another, with the natural world, with ourselves. Holding things up, putting things down, hoarding and fighting should all work and what we should experience is a kind of peace, a kind of happiness, lasting happiness.
If this is the world we have, then how do we live well in it? That’s the whole project we’re engaged in.
I think we’d be hard pressed to argue that’s where we are. But we could argue that this is the way things work in samsara, and as my friend Yeshe says, you can’t get rid of samsara. Which is a bit like saying, This is the world we have. But the question remains, If this is the world we have, then how do we live well in it? That’s the whole project we’re engaged in.
A troubled mind will lead to trouble. A clear mind will lead to happiness—bad karma, good karma. But we shouldn’t take the Buddha at his word. We should test this for ourselves. What happens when I train my mind, when I work to understand how my thoughts shape my actions and my words, which in turn shape the world I inhabit?
As I was writing this talk I kept thinking of that famous experiment on delayed gratification. In the 1960s and 70s, a researcher at Stanford, Walter Mischel, studied the effects of delayed gratification on a person’s development. He left a preschooler (around 4–5 years old) alone in a room with a single marshmallow. The child was told they could either eat the one marshmallow now, or wait fifteen minutes for the researcher to return and receive a second marshmallow.
To avoid giving in, some kids covered their eyes. Some talked or sang to themselves, or prayed to the ceiling. Some played games—and one even fell asleep. My favorite was the kid who carefully looked around the room, took an Oreo—they had other treats to distract them from the main attraction, but eating them would disqualify them from the second marshmallow. He took the Oreo, pulled it open, licked the cream off, and put the chocolate halves together, sure that no one would notice.
Free Will and Karma
They tracked the kids as they got older, and found that those who were better at delaying gratification became generally more successful in life. Not a direct correlation, since the kids all had similar socioeconomic backgrounds, so when you vary the sample, the results are a bit weaker. But I think the experiment still points to something the Buddha recognized in another teaching:
I do not perceive even one thing, O friends, that leads to great harm as an undeveloped mind, as an untamed mind, an unguarded, unprotected, unrestrained mind. I do not perceive even a single thing that leads to such great suffering and great harm as an undeveloped and uncultivated mind.
I do not perceive even one thing, O friends, that leads to such great benefit as a developed mind—tamed, guarded, protected, restrained mind.
So, if I had to summarize in a sentence what I’d most want you to leave with tonight?:
It isn’t just “This is happening to me,” but “I am happening as this is happening, so how will I act, what will I choose?”
This fusatsu talk on Karma and Choice was given by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, Zen Buddhist Guiding Teacher of Ocean Mind Sangha. Audio podcast and transcript available.