Expert: Joe McSorley - 7/30/2003

Question
Hi, would you agree that there are times when conditions for spiritual activities are ripe, which are beyond our control but conditioned by karma?

I came across this in Theravada buddhism and it seems so as I make effort during this time.

For example, I am finding motivating myself to meditate very difficult, it seems such a task just to meditate or to do tai chi?

Any thoughts?

Answer
Dear Jody,
First of all we have to define what karma is.  The 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.
Karma has since come to mean causation in regards to reincarnation but that is not a very good understanding of it.  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.  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.  
  Now getting back to karma and what you call spiritual activities.  To sit and hope for the right conditions for a ‘spiritual awakening' is fruitless.  If one were to sit at a piano bench and wait for the conditions where one wants to practice nothing would ever be achieved.  If one forces oneself to practice, even thought the mind does not want to, you begin to set up the karma or cause and effect for inspired playing.  In my thirty years practicing Southern Mantis Kung fu if I had ever given into the doldrums of not wanting to practice I would have achieved nothing. It was dragging myself to the kwoon and forcing myself to go on that resulted in the blossoming of the style and not some detached karma.  So we create this cause and effect, it is not magical. If you want the benefits of meditation than you must discipline yourself to attain this.  There is no lazy man's guide to awakening no matter what New Agers want to sell you, it's rubbish.
 Now if you do put forth the effort and tenacity to practice then you will reach a point where things are ripe for blossoming, however, you created this karma.  So they are not beyond our control and in the hands of karma by any means.  This would deny the achievements of any pro musician or athlete that it was ‘beyond their control and conditioned by karma' but rather it was their sweat and toil that caused them to blossom in their endeavors.  Likewise, those who endeavored for awakening, as the historical Buddha did, enjoyed the fruit of their labor.  The historical Buddha did not say that it was outside his control and a matter of karma that he chose to sit under the bodhi tree after years of arduous searching and became awakened. On the contrary, it was his own self effort, which is why Buddhism is the religion of self-awakening rather than ‘karmic fulfillment'.   I hope this has helped you. Take care,
       Joe