Karmic Actions and Effects
Now we’ll take a closer look at exactly how karmic actions are formed, how they plant karmic “seeds”, and how those seeds ripen into various karmic effects.
All of the principles we’ll talk about here equally apply to skillful and unskillful actions, ie, to both positive and negative karma.
A karmic action is complete and a seed is planted when all five factors below are present. The strength of the karmic action and the specifics of what kind of seed are planted depend on the specifics of these five factors.
1) Intention: The first factor is intention, which is what is driving the action. A positive intention could be creativity, love, compassion, discernment, wisdom, etc., etc. A negative intention could be any of the kleshas, like aggression, jealousy, greed, pride, and they all have some level of ignorance (even within the positive ones).
As a positive example, being motivated by compassion for all beings would be an extremely positive intention.
As a negative example, being motivated by resentment towards all the difficulties in life would be a negative intention.
2) Object: The object of our action.
Positive example, from that compassion, we see that our loved one is struggling. Our loved one would be the object.
Negative example, from that resentment, we’re annoyed that our loved one didn’t let the dog out on time and don’t even realize that they’re visibly upset about something.
3) Action: This would be the actual action.
Positive example, we listen to our loved one, console them, and offer support in whatever ways we can.
Negative example, we yell at our loved one for not letting the dog out.
4) Completion: The action is completed and we don’t stop halfway through.
Positive example: we continue to listen and be present with our loved one
Negative example: They reply that they had a horrible day, we kind of start to listen, but then pull out our phone and get distracted and annoyed with them, while the dog is barking
5) Non-regret: Having completed the action, we let it be, and we don’t try to purify or undo it later.
In either case, it we just see through the action and go on with our day, a full karmic seed is planted.
With negative karmic actions, if we begin to regret what has happened and go back and try to purify it, we can interrupt the karmic process.
For example, in the negative version of the example, say we realized we were being unkind, apologized for yelling, put the phone away, made amends, and had a conversation unpacking the dynamic and came to a better place, in that case, we’d have not completed the planting of that negative karmic seed.
Once karmic seeds are planted, both positive and negative, they ripen into four kinds of effects. The strength and kinds of these effects of course depends on the strength and kinds of the above five factors.
1) Fully ripened effect: In terms of the Buddhist view of lifetimes, a very powerful karmic seed can actually lead to a particular birth.
For example, being born human is considered to be the result of very positive karmic seeds, so something has gone well for us this time
On the negative side, very powerful actions from each of the kleshas can lead to less fortunate births in a variety of realms that would be a bit beyond the scope of this class, suffice it to say, our mind creates our world.
2) Effects similar to the cause:
a. Actions similar to the cause: This means that we tend to want to repeat actions similar to those we’ve done before.
For example, if we’ve been kind to our loved ones a lot in the past, we’ll tend to want to be kind now.
b. Experiences similar to the cause: This means we’ll tend to have experiences in life similar to how we acted when we planted the karmic seed.
For example, if we’ve been kind to our loved ones a lot in the past, we’ll tend to meet with people who are kind to us now or be able to get along with the people we do meet.
3) Conditioning effect: This refers to the state of the environments we find ourselves in.
For example, if we’ve practiced meditation a lot in the past, we’ll tend to be born in places where it’s available.
Or on the negative side, if we have many centuries of negative collective actions based on greed and destruction of our environment, then the environments we’re born into will be polluted and out of balance. Or if we’ve personally spent our careers exploiting the earth, we might get reborn as a fish in a polluted river, or something like that.
4) Proliferating effect: Because of all of the above, and that we tend to keep acting in the ways we’re accustomed, then for either better or worse we’ll keep creating further karmic cycles.
For example, if we’re kind to loved ones, practice meditation, etc., and we keep doing it, then we keep helping more people practice, keep forging positive relationships, keep helping each other be more healthy, and all those other people are also able to do the same, and we just keep creating more and more positive karma.
Or, if we keep collectively exploiting our earth, and then our whole economy and supply chains are based on that, then it’s very hard for any of us to just go about life without creating more negative karma…for example, when I’m driving my truck to bring meditation cushions and gear to my events, I’m also burning gasoline, using all kinds of mining resources, etc., etc. I miss living in the monastery where 30 of us could share only two vehicles and lots of other resources too, though we had a long way to go as well.
For this article, I used relatively easy and simple examples, but all of these very same principles apply to the “juicy” stuff of life, like how we transform generational karma in our families, how we be the change we want to see in society, and how we plant seeds individually and collectively for a brighter future.
Karma means that change is possible, and it’s in our hands in every moment.