The following article was taken from a writing that Ryuei McCormick Shonin did in November 2007. This article was prepared with his permission.
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The law of cause and effect on it’s most basic level is not the monopoly of Buddhism. “As you sow, so shall you reap” is pretty much a given in just about any religious tradition. You are responsible for your actions and your actions will have consequences both here and in the hereafter.
One way of putting the Buddhist view of cause and effect is this: If you want to know what causes you made in the past, look at the effects in the present. If you want to know what effects will be felt in the future, look at what causes you are making now.
The word “karma” actually means “action” and refers to the intentional actions we make with body, mouth, and mind that become causes for future effects. The actual word for effects is “vipaka” or “phala” (fruits), though when something happens to us we tend so say, “It’s my karma” when really we should say “It’s my vipaka” or “It’s my karma coming to fruition.”
This view of karma or cause and effect does presuppose the process or rebirth (or as some say redeath). But the flow of causes and effects is something that happens in every moment – it is what moments are in fact.
Now there are a lot of more complexities and subtleties to be revealed. For instance the law of karma or cause and effect is an organic process and not a mechanistic tit for tat system.
The Buddha cautioned us against oversimplifying karma or presuming to judge the karma of others (or even ourselves). There are more causes at work than just our own indivudual intentional actions.
Also, rebirth and the way karma carries over from lifetime to lifetime does not imply a fixed identity that carries over, though there is a karmic continuity. It is important that people do not make mistake of thinking that the law of cause and effect is simplistic or the mistake of
trying to apply it in a simplistic, superstitious, or judgemental way. That is not what it is for.
What is it for?
At the most basic level when someone is beginning Buddhist practice I think it should help people take two things to heart:
1. We have the power to influence the course of our lives and the kind of people we become through the causes we make.
2. We have the responsibility to influence the course of our lives and to determine the kind of people we become through the causes we make.
Before even getting into Buddhism proper, it is important that we realize that we have this power and responsility. Our lives are not simply random nor controlled by outside forces like luck, or fate, or God, or nature, or other people with more power than ourselves. Rather, we have the power to determine, in the long run, the course of our lives.
If we have not been given this insight growing up or through some other spiritual tradition, then in coming to Buddhism we can realize and put it into practice, thereby, perhaps, gaining a sense of meaning and direction in life. This does not mean we gain total or immediate control over reality – but it does mean that we discover that life is an organic process like a garden and that in terms of our own life we are the primary cultivators who will plant the seeds, weed the garden, and harvest the fruits.
