Karma is a concept we’re all vaguely familiar with. I could be mistaken but it would probably not be a leap to imagine the general consensus being that if you do something good something good will happen to you and in turn doing bad will result is something bad happening back to you. That is a rather crude explanation but I imagine it more or less stands up. The next question would be whether the resulting return is the equivalent to the action, for example if you give a homeless man a sandwich will you get either a sandwich given to you later or the moral value of the sandwich in the form of something else? In truth I can’t answer that because I don’t know. It surely wouldn’t be too much of a push though to find holes in this idea of direct equivalence. In that case it must be more of a general thing, do some good and some good will happen to you.
There is one thing that I have always struggled with though and it is the idea that we can do good with the intention of receiving good in return. In George Orwell’s Burmese Days, U Po Kyin the corrupt magistrate and resident bad guy of the story, admits towards the end that before he dies he plans on building a series of Pagodas in honour of The Buddha and that with this act he will earn enough good karma points to receive a positive rebirth in the next life. This raises two issues, firstly that the Buddhist idea of karma revolves around the concept of rebirth unlike ours which is just that good shit will happen to you and secondly the rather perverse notion that you can buy good karma. I once asked some people at a pagoda when I was in Burma about being able to buy good karma and for them it seemed perfectly reasonable. The point here then returns to this idea of what the intentions behind the act are. For example if you buy one hundred meals for homeless children purely for the sake of the children this is an uncorrupted act. If you do the same but with an awareness that you’ll receive the equivalent in return this is not a positive act despite the positive outcome, the selfish intentions surely nullify any karmic points that you hoped to accrue. Does this mean that with the knowledge of and belief in the existence of karma your actions will forever be slightly tainted despite you best efforts? The knowledge and creation of karma renders a karmically pure act impossible? Fuck knows but surely just having loads of cash shouldn’t make it easier to avoid coming back as a frog.
If we insist on giving the receipt of positivity or negativity a name then so be it, but surely by merely being a good person and doing good things we find ourselves on a general level surrounded by good people and good actions. There will be extreme instances which go against the norm but it’s not hard to imagine. In a way it is the classic like attracts like argument and is easily just another way of describing a view of karma. Naturally the Buddhists would be able to look at this and say I’m not describing karma at all and clearly misunderstand it, in that case so be it. This then can be more about the idea that good people tend to be surrounded by other good people and bad with bad. It is probably worth mentioning that I also have issues with the concept of good and bad, and cringe at my own use of it. Maybe that could be for tomorrows piece though. In the meantime I’m going to go buy a sandwich and see who I can find, just in case.
Observations and Misunderstandings 