Expert: Joe McSorley - 2/26/2011

Question
QUESTION: Joe,

I, like many westerners I suppose, am interested in Buddhism but have trouble comprehending Kharma (and re-birth).  If Kharma is simply cause and effect, as you've stated in a post here in 2004, then what about the freak accidents or random killings?  I see how if I drive too fast I can get in an accident, that's cause and effect.  But what about the random person who's shot standing on a street corner?  Where is the cause and effect in what appear to be random acts?

ANSWER: Hello Robert,
  We, as humans, always want a reason why something happens. The randomness of life is quite unthinkable to most of us.  The thought that we can just be killed or hurt without some type of rationale, logic or lesson behind it is overwhelming and terrifying.  We not only want a reason for why it happens but we want a good reason.  The wind blows down a tree and a squirrel is killed or a nest of baby birds dies and we don’t think about the randomness of it all but if the tree falls on us then we look for a moral, ethical, spiritual or religious reason.  Last year, not far from my house, a woman was killed while jogging through the park when a branch fell on her head from a tree.  She was wearing headphones and never heard or saw it coming.  What possible reason can there be for this?  Can it be justified by karma or an all loving God?  Was her family supposed to take a lesson from this?  Did she insult a tree in her past life? It happened because she was born and throughout her life did things that led her to jog at that hour, on that day and in that park.  The cause is nature and its workings.  The tree grew old, was dying and in that moment when the branch fell the woman was there.  It is cause and effect. There are millions of times when a branch falls and no one is hurt.
   This past December I was bringing my wife home from the hospital and for some reason, for the first time ever, missed my exit on a highway I drive almost everyday.  I got off the ramp went down it and back up onto the highway in just a few seconds.  No big deal, it just added 20 seconds onto my trip.  I got off at my regular exit, went down a country road and about one mile later a deer came crashing through the woods to the left of me, jumped between two moving cars and into my window.  If I was there a second sooner or later this would not have happened.  If I had not gotten off on the wrong exit it would not have happened.  If something hadn’t spooked the deer at that second it would not have happened. If my wife hadn’t been rushed to the hospital the night before it would not have happened, etc. etc. etc.   To make some personal cosmic cause and effect for this is not necessary.  If I am to put a cosmic reason on it then the universe wanted me to learn I could get a replacement mirror on my car for only $29 online and it was easy to put on.  I sleep easier now knowing I can do that.
  The random bullet that kills a stranger happened for a myriad of reasons starting with the birth of the person who fired that shot.  Actually it predates the date of that person but I don’t want to write a book here.  All through their life they were put in situations that led them to the point where they fired that shot and the person that got hit arrived there the same way.  It all happens for a reason just not the reason we want it to be.  It is all cause and effect and in essence is not at all personal.  How about all those times people were not hit in random gunfire, do we search for a reason why there were not hit?  Thousands of animals got swept away in the tsunami a few years ago and there isn’t a why to it other than the geophysics of it all but for the humans who died we look for a personal reason why it happened.  It happened because they were there for it to happen to.  Chuang tzu says “Nature treats man as straw dogs” and he is right but the crux of this is; who is it that it happens to?  All things are subject to cause and effect but the root of it for Zen is; who am I that this is happening to?  Nature is rising and falling, creating and destroying simultaneously, not linearly.  There is nothing personal about the life and death of all other creatures in nature but we humans take it completely as a personal event.  Why? Because we perceive ourselves as not being nature, as something that stands outside of it looking in and trying to make sense of it. Who is it that stands outside of nature making these judgments?  This is the root of the problem and the source of its resolution.
   On a personal note a friend of mine was brutally sexually assaulted years ago while walking home from the store, two blocks from her house.  She suffered greatly from it and in effect blamed herself for it for she had to do something to cause it.  She could not reconcile this with her religious beliefs for she was a good person.  It was personal and it had to have meaning other than it just happened.  I watched her torture herself for months over this.  One day while visiting her I noticed she had a pet rabbit running around the apartment and asked her how it was taking care of it.  She told me that she was quite worried about it getting out and getting eaten by a stray cat or dog.  It had, on occasion, escaped the confines of her place.  I asked her that if it did get out and was attacked would it be its fault; would there be a personal reckoning on why it got eaten?  Would it be judged by its family or friends and could it have done things differently?  She thought the idea was ridiculous and said it would just be the randomness of nature; it’s just time and place, not its fault.  I asked her how it differed from what happened to her and she was dumbfounded.  For the first time she saw that it was not her fault, it was tragic but it was not personal.  A few months later the perpetrator got arrested.  He had been involved in a series of attacks.  When asked how he selected his victims he merely stated, “opportunity”, there was nothing personal about it.
        Many religions try to answer why bad things happen to good people.  As I right this I realize they never try to answer why good things happen to bad people but nonetheless, there is never a really good arguable answer given.  Some say it’s a mystery while others blame it on past lives and none of the answers are tenable.  There are Buddhists who have written me attacking my position but when you ask them how cause and effect initially started for us their logic falls apart. We were perfect beings that fell from perfection.  Well, then we weren’t perfect if we fell.  It’s circular logic.
  Things happen due to cause and effect, the cause and effect of being, the one particular thing happens because of all the particular things before it.  It is not personal, it is nature.
    For Zen it is to know who stands apart from nature to see cause and effect.  It is resolving this that is freedom.
       I hope this helps you.  Take care,
         Joe


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Okay, so, then rebirth is irrelevant too?  Worrying about something that is not know seems to be irrelevant.  

bt

Answer
Hello Robert,
  It might be more relevant to ask yourself, what is known?  What is it you actually know?  Do you know who you are and how you, as Robert the personal identity, come into being?  I know you stated in your first letter that you were interested in Buddhism and did not specifically state Zen so please understand that different schools of Buddhism place different emphasis.  Zen is not concerned with Buddhism other than it teaches a way to awakening.  All the accoutrements of the religion generally have no part in Zen which is why it is often described as ,”going beyond the texts, not relying on words or letters’. In other words Zen is only concerned with driving the individual towards awakening and not studying Buddhism.  Now that I’ve said that I must also state that Zen, as I have seen it taught in the US, seems to be totally preoccupied with the ritual and robes of Buddhism.
  From the Zen perspective if rebirth were real then the fact that you are now human and have a chance at awakening means that you must do everything here and now to awaken.  You must do this because it might mean a thousand painful rebirths until you reach this point again.  Believing in rebirth can cause a laziness that lets the individual take it easy because there’s always a next time.  It seems to me that if we are supposed to learn from life to life we sure don’t seem to learn much because humanity is horribly troubled.  If I’ve been a teenager hundreds of times before I’d have thought I’d do it a little better.  I think the argument for individual rebirth is specious at best.
   Rebirth is not irrelevant if you consider it to be a problem you want to overcome.  If you really think you come back over and over again it might be the extreme impetus to overcome it and awaken here and now.  What may be a refuge for some Buddhists is the driving point for others.
  As always, the crux for Zen is, who is it that was born and dies?  Who observes this? Ultimately, who am I?  We can conjecture about meaning, belief, rebirth or anything else but if you don’t know who the self is that is searching then you will never resolve it.
  Take care,
        Joe