Expert: Joe McSorley - 7/8/2011

Question
Greetings,
I am trying to learn the underlying teachings of Buddhism to better understand the over all  metaphysical system. Can you help me understand how Buddhism gives account of how the universe and governing laws such as Karma are guaranteed to remain constant and not change? Or how Nirvana might not change into a type of hell? Or the meditative techniques might not cause another undesirable result in the future? What prohibits these universal laws from changing?
Thank you for your time,
Todd

Answer
Hello Todd,
   Buddhism is not about trying to establish or explain universal laws.  In essence it could be said to be anti-metaphysical in its attempt to ‘see things as they are’.  
    Technically speaking Buddhism is not a religion; it is not theistic and does not have an external means of salvation.  In Buddhism one’s awakening and redemption is all through self-effort alone.  Historically speaking Buddhism came about because of the life of the Prince Siddhartha, who when coming upon suffering, sickness and death, wanted to find an answer to the cause of suffering for humans.  He tried to lose himself in the pleasures of the world but found no solace.  He then became an ascetic and this too yielded no answers.  Here he rejects the metaphysical abandonment of the self.  After many years of searching and frustration he finally sat under a tree and declared that he would not move until he understood the solution.  According to legend, several days later as he glanced up at the morning star his mind became clear and he was enlightened.  From this he postulated the Four Noble truths of Buddhism:
Life (human) is dukkha . (Suffering, with no apparent cause), There is a cause for the suffering. ( avidya or ignorance.), the cause can be abated, and there is a path ( Margo yoga).  The crux of this is that our minds do not see reality clearly, we do not know who we are, both to ourselves and in relation to the universe.  The cause for this is ignorance that arises because of ours ego; the ego being that which needs to maintain separation to exist, in other words dualistic consciousness.  We only know things as distinct from other things but not as they are to themselves.  This is contradistinctive thinking in Buddhism.  There is nothing metaphysical to master here, nothing above and beyond.  Knowing that we are but not who we are creates the suffering of the human condition.  This can be remedied.  And there are many ways to do this, such as yoga, contemplation, self-examination, etc.  When one realizes the true nature of reality, often called ‘seeing things as they are’, one has an identical experience to the historical Buddha so there is no hierarchy.  The word ‘buddha’ means ‘awakened one’ so anyone can become a buddha.  As Buddhism evolved through the centuries there have been many different sects arising that have developed each with their own view of Buddhism and their own practices.
    
   As far as karma goes there are different interpretations of karma and it is now used as a ‘spiritual’ term rather than pertaining to the here and now.  One of my early Indian teachers taught that term originally comes from Jainism and meant “ reaction to action”.  What that meant was that our minds stir up or react to outside stimulus and that it is a false view of the world.  The idea was to keep the mind still and to see things without creating thoughts, to see things directly without a personal reactive thought to it.
 Karma has since come to mean causation in regards to reincarnation but I have trouble with this.  I think what karma really means is simply cause and effect.  If you hang out with thugs you will eventually end up in trouble, if you eat the wrong foods you will eventually get sick.  If you only develop your mind you will have a weak body and if you only develop your body you will have a weak mind. It tries to explain the causal relationship between things whether it be pure physics or mental states; there is still a cause and effect.   Most of us follow the same thought patterns over and over, do things the same way but expect different results.  We ignore our karma by doing so.  If you have been raised in an exceptionally disruptive household you will have learned to do things and to reason in a faulty manner.  It is the cause and effect of one’s upbringing.  What one needs to do is to recognize their karma, what ever that be, and break through it, to free oneself from the confines of their own egotistical view of reality and to see a more complete reality.  
  I searched many websites about karma and they have many different opinions.  The new age sites have their own agenda when speaking about it and I don’t care for them.  There is this inclination in today’s world to think everything has a personal meaning with a spiritual cause.  Those who are comfortable and wealthy feel that they are blessed spiritually and claim it’s their karma to be so successful.  To do so is a horrible insult on the less fortunate of the world.  It means that the victims of the tsunami are somehow responsible for their fate.  The karma/cause and effect is that they lived too close to the water, period, and has no spiritual meaning.  There are many books on karma about living the ‘right’ life by men who are very rich and successful and they claim it is their spiritual karma to be so.  I think this type of thought is rather tragic and selfish but I see many very well known lecturers teaching this around the world.  Of course they ignore the success of the many dictators worldwide when doing this along with insulting the poor and oppressed.  Please beware of these types of interpretation of karma.
    Nirvana means extinction, it does not mean a place like heaven.  Here again the West distorts this idea and creates a place called Nirvana….and a band too, but that’s another story.  Nirvana means to extinguish the ego, to overcome the dualistic thought process and to see the world in the immediate present.  Nirvana is the awakening to there here and now to see things as they are; it is the extinction of the ego centered mind.
  There are no immutable universal laws; everything is always changing and coming into and out of existence.  The coming into and going out of existence cannot be separated from each other, they are each other.
  I hope this has helped you. Take care,
               Joe