Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 8/27/2010

Question
Is Newton's Law of Motion, "For every action there is an
equal and opposite reaction" another way of explaining
karma?

And another Law of Motion, "Every object persists in its
state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it
is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon
it" another way of explaining dependent-arising?

Answer
Hello Rachel –

Thank you for letting me answer your questions.

I have heard the phrase “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” used as a simple way to describe karma.  From what I understand about karma so far, it is close but not entirely accurate.

If you use “equal and opposite” to mean similar, “every action has a similar reaction” – like in a physics experiment hitting the balls that hang on strings as you hit them on one side, the similar amount of reaction is seen on the other side; then from what I understand about karma yes, you are right. A karmic action can only create a similar reaction or result.  They often give the analogy that if you plant a tomato seed, you will get a tomato plant.  You will not get a mustard plant from a tomato seed.  So the reaction to the karma you create will be like the action that created it in the first place.

However, if you take the phrase “equal and opposite” just to mean equal then that is not entirely true. The exact amount of force you create on one side does not always equal the amount of force you get on the other.

One of the properties of karma is that it can actually grow over time.  So the karmic seed you plant today by your actions will not necessarily produce a karmic result equal in size to the original action. Over time the karmic seed you plant can grow bigger so that when the karmic seed ripens the karmic debt you will pay as a result of an action might be bigger or worse than the original action that created it.

That might seem illogical but lots of things that begin small can grow into large things. If you look at the seed of a redwood tree, it is very tiny, but it can grow into an enormous tree.  It is the same with karma.  If you plant a karmic seed in your mental continuum, the longer it takes for that seed to ripen in your continuum the larger the karmic result will be; either positive or negative.

Then again with the physics experiment of the balls hitting into each other, each time you hit the balls on one side, they move on the other.  This is a property of karma because karma is definite.

However, there is one caveat to this and that caveat is that you can do things to purify the actions that you did so that they don’t manifest the result of the action. One can purify karmic actions by doing practices such as the Vajrasattva practice and others whereby if done, the karmic action is purified and does not manifest.

So, from my experience that is the best answer I can give you to the question about whether the term “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” explain karma.

Now moving on to the phrase "Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it"  I learned this law with different wording, so I am going to use the wording I am used to, which is “A body in motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by some unbalanced force; and a body at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by some unbalanced force”

I hope you are in agreement that your phrase and mine mean the same thing. So you ask, is this the same as the principle of dependant arising.  From what I have learned about dependant arising thus far in my studies, I would have to say no and yes, but mostly no.

In a way, I can agree: Dependant arising is as I understand it the merging of two concepts to create one. There is the dependant part and the arising part. Dependant arising means that things arise, abide for a while and fall away dependant on causes and conditions.

So take a baseball that is on a shelf in an attic (persisting in a state of rest) not being used because it has been forgotten about, until some kid goes up to the attic and starts playing with it. So then the ball would be “compelled to change” by the child who would be the “forces impressed upon” it, as you say or the “unbalanced force” as I say. Then when the kid was bored, they would put it down and it would return to a state of rest. Therefore, the movement of the ball would be still (fall away) arise, when the child began to play with it, abide for a time (as long as the kid was interested) and then fall away again when the kid got bored, fall away and return to being still.

From my side, this is where the yes stops and the no answer to your question starts.

The reason is that even if something is at rest and inert, it is still in the state of arising, abiding and falling away.  Even a baseball sitting on a shelf is being affected by the elements of air, humidity, etc. It is always changing, even though it is imperceptible to our eyes.

What gets us humans in trouble is that we think that if something is at rest that it is staying the same and we get attached to it being the same all the time when in fact all the time, it is in a state of change; arising, abiding and falling away.  Even a mountain is being worn away by the wind or water all the time, though we cannot see it so it appears solid and stationary. We take for granted that something will always be there, the same as it is now and never change when in fact there is not one second when it is never changing. So even though it looks like it is at rest, it is not. So things are always arising, abiding and falling away.

Dependant arising also means that something, like a ball, is brought into existence dependent upon causes and conditions. So someone had the design for a ball in their mind and they drew the plans and they got a patent and sent it to a factory and they made the machines and the people manned the machines and other people brought the materials to the factory and the people made the ball. So we can see that pretty much everything that we can think of is dependent on something else.

From my side, this concept is not found in the phrases “a body in motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by some unbalanced force”, or “Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line…”

The idea of dependant arising eventually leads us to learn about emptiness; that nothing is as it appears. That everything is always changing. That things are always arising, abiding and falling away.

And that things that seem like a single unit like a baseball are really dependant on a zillion things. A ball seems so real but it exists in dependence on the people who use it and the store that sold it and the factory that made it and the people in the factory that made it and the materials it was made from and the people that harvested those materials and the transportation that got the materials to the factory and the people that built the roads that the trucks road on to get the materials to the factory and the people that built the trucks that drove on the roads and the mothers of all those people involved in making the baseball – so, where is the baseball now? It is no longer a solid thing. It is a part of all the above mentioned things. It has come into being based on all those causes and conditions. It is not an inherently existing baseball.

Eventually we realize because of the concept of dependent arising that nothing has an inherent motion, or inertia and that there is no inherent baseball to begin with.

So, from my side, the law of motion, "Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it" is really not another way of explaining dependent-arising.

However, I am only one person and my idea of dependent arising may not be correct so you may want to check with more qualified spiritual teachers than myself to get their thoughts.

If you have any questions about what I have said, don’t hesitate to ask.
Namaste - Laurie