What is Karma?

As with, I think all Dharmic concepts, Karma is best understood as pertaining to systems rather than objects/people etc. So before explaining how I see Karma I’ll outline what a Moral System is to me:

Moral systems have emergent moral properties.

A moral system is a system that can emerge moral properties. I am a moral system. You are. Society is. Religion is. Schools are... and so on. All of these moral systems share the possibility of having moral properties attributed to them. Properties such as right, wrong, fair, cruel and just.

Moral properties are internal, in that they refer to the system or they are external in that they refer to some other system.

In addition these moral systems have the potential of specific attitudes towards other moral properties; my dislike in your unfairness, your compassion for their suffering, a charity’s stance against world debt.

Moral systems have emergent evaluations of moral properties.

Moral systems are able to refer to their own moral systems and in these references they necessarily will value distinctions between moral properties. (I believe it’s these constant valuations that all moral systems have to make that add the core bivalence between right andwrong into our moralities.)

A value within a system is a propensity to pursue or avoid some future state to which the value pertains to. If I value cream-pies then I will pursue those. If I hate cucumbers, I will avoid those. The same is true of moral properties, as moral systems will behave in accordance as to how they value the moral properties they can pursue and avoid.

All of these evaluative properties we can boil down into two abstract notions, the positive and the negative. Loosely, the positive are the things I or you would prefer to be the case and the negative are the contrary.

Karma is the causal interconnectedness between all Moral Systems.

I think that Karma is simply the network of moral causes and effects that radiate from each of our actions out into the world and, importantly, into ourselves.

The moral effects of our actions may be external; you make someone happy, you annoy an entire country . or they may be internal; your pride at your kindness, your guilt at your selfishness. This is all Karma is. We are in a sea Karma. It is our lies and admissions and hopes and fears and all of these motivators that guide not only us as individuals but the institutions around us.

Often people mistake Karma as being a substance or energy or force, and you can see why because all morality is potentially interconnected it is has this substantive aspect but that is just an illusion. The only sense in which Karma can be accurately seen as a Force is by analaogy to physical causation.

The cue ball causes/forces the black ball to move. The bad deed causes/had the karmic effect that Bob was sad.

If you are a good person the chances of you having a good life are increased, not because of some supernatural reward system but because of the “karmic feedback” of your actions and thoughts, internally and externally.

If you are a bad person then your lies and violence and guilt etetcera will increase the chances of you having more negativity in so many ways. Not only the obvious, like punishment etc but also in terms of ones psychology. The Buddha realised this and now so many studies are confirming it.

I think most people, when you take away the “majic” decorations that millennia of Buddhist culture have added to the concept of Karma would see it as the simple and obvious fact: good moral causes have good moral effects.

Bullet Point Karma

1. What Kamma is not:
   1. Kamma is not currency.
      1. It is not earned and spent and exchanged.
         1. In some Buddhist cultures Kamma as merit has emerged but this idea is not in the Core Dhamma.

1. 1. Kamma is not justice.
      1. It does not make judgments.
      2. There is no absolute morality with which Kamma could be somehow entwined.
   2. Kamma is not energy/matter/force
      1. There is no force of Kamma that flows through life effecting things.
      2. There is no wave of Kamma good or bad that can wash over you.
   3. Kamma is not the results of actions.
      1. It is not the fruit (vipaka)
2. What Kamma is:
   1. Logically
      1. All causes have effects
      2. Some causes are moral
      3. Some effects are moral
      4. Some moral causes have moral effects.
      5. All effects are causes
         1. Kamma is moral causation.
            1. Etiology with moral quantifications and conditionals.
   2. Mentally
      1. Mental events events can cause other mental events.
         1. Eg: If I see a sunrise, one mental event, that can cause a change of emotion, another mental event.
      2. Mental states and systems are variouslybalanced between progressive/productive states and regressive/disruptive states.
         1. 1. Eg: Mental States can be "good" (happiness, mindfulness...) or "bad"...
         2. The term "balance" represents the manifold systems and aggregates of mind such that the realised product, the experience settles one macro-state.
            1. Its as if the experience of all the merging causes the experience of now as it is becoming and that experience becomes realised as one particular quality of experience.
               1. Just as the many and various tributaries of a river become that river.
               2. The kamma I create comes back to me in many ways, but it all becomes just the one experience of any given moment.
      3. If a Mental state B is an effect of a Mental state A then there will be a consistent and contiguous distribution of balance between A and B.
         1. This is saying that the mentality of an individual will not not have any random changes of balance between productive and disruptive states.
         2. The disposition/satisfaction/contentment of individuals flows continuous and connected.
            1. There are no gaps in the mental/moral/physical causal chains.
         3. Eg: If I am very happy today, sad tomorrow and quite happy the day after, then this transition will be a continuous and connected change in my mental states.
         4. Think of how a vista of clouds will change when watched. Each new state leads into the next but there are never points of discernible transition or sudden changes of kind.
      4. Disruptive states will most likely produce more disruptive/bad/unwanted states.
      5. Productive states will most likely produce more productive/good/desired states.
   3. Socially
      1. The interconnected systems of individuals and groups has many paths for moral causation.
         1. This interconnected web of moral/other causation is the closest there is to a "force" of Kamma.
      2. Disruptive causes are more likely to have disruptive future effects.
      3. Positive causes are more likely to have positive future effects.
      4. We can think of decisions we make as havingsocial feedback.
         1. Well intentioned decisions will have more positive social feedback than bad.
            1. This feedback may be extant and obvious
               1. Eg: Mary is a good person because she saved the orphans and this fact causes other people to be good to her and her to feel good about her self and other people to be good to others.....
            2. The feedback may be subtle
               1. Eg: The smile from a stranger causes you to.....
      5. Understanding the karmic relationship you have with others is essential to following Dharma.
   4. Altruistically
      1. Good actions have more ways to benefit the doer than bad actions.
      2. Kamma is the motivation/intention.
         1. It is not the fruit (vipaka)
   5. Individually
      1. Only the individual has awareness of the mental states they experience.
      2. Only the individual has potential causal controlover their mental states.
      3. Mental states and decisions are causes.
      4. Only the individual can choose to cause a change in their mental states.
   6. Philosophically
      1. Kamma emerges when there is a sufficient depth/complexity of interconnected systems with choice/morality/self-interest to allow for macroscopic changes in the mental states of individuals.
         1. EG: You may feel "glum" for no reason you can pinpoint but there will be antecedent reasons/decisions of immense complexity that entail this "glumness".
            1. Antecedent causes could be material (more selenium!), sensory (my back aches) or more directly to do with thought and consciousness(life is rubbish today!) and there is acompatibility between them.
      2. Kamma supervenes upon/emerges from mental-moral-social systems where decisions are thesignificant motivator.