This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. So good evening, everyone. I'm going to change my view so I can see all of you. It's a joy and honor to be with you all again and welcome you on this lovely fall evening. Just so you know, it was a choice to be either between the Zen Center board meeting or giving this Dharma talk. So you have me here. I don't know which would be better, but this is what you have tonight. So for those of you who don't know, here at Beginners of Mind Temple and in the online practice center, we're in the midst of a 10-week practice period during which we've taken up the study of karma. And so we're taking a study of trying to understand karma, to work with karma and to ultimately become unbound or say go beyond karma.

[01:11]

And so this evening and the continuation of conversations, I'd like to share with you a few thoughts on the idea of collective karma, as well as consider some possible connections between karma theory and social justice. And in case there's anyone who is not familiar, so familiar with karma, the idea of the term karma, it's a Pali word, and it means action, deed, or doing. Although Buddhists emphasize in using the word karma, intentional action, or you could say relational action, action that is willed or intended in some way. And the Buddha himself said, intention is karma. Intending... One does karma by way of body, speech, and mind. So in Buddhism, the theory of karma is also known as a theory of cause and effect. The law of karma applies to all the actions which have, you could say, a moral content.

[02:14]

Meaning they are either good, or I prefer wholesome or beneficial. They have wholesome or beneficial consequences. Or they're bad. harmful or unwholesome consequences. And so this is why karma is described as the moral law of cause and effect. And there are, of course, other forms of causation that manifest in the world, other types of laws, but karma is said to be preceded by the mind. So this is why it's so important for us to be aware of what's in our mind at every moment, with which mind are we acting. So it's Because of this, karma is something that we can work with. We can do something about. And as such, we consider it a field of practice. Karma is a field of practice because karma is a matter of how we are in relationship with ourselves, with each other, and with the world.

[03:19]

So karma always has ethical and social implications. It's inescapable in that sense. And according to Buddhist understanding, much of what's happening in the world right now is largely because of our karma. So to say it's our karma means that it's happening because of a complex interconnection of causes and conditions. So Buddhist thinking everything comes into being... through causes and conditions. Nothing is purely random or accidental. Everything we're witnessing right now, both at a personal level and at a larger social level, global level, is the fruition of all the choices that people have made over time, along with all the choices people are making right now. So this includes the choices that you and I make every day.

[04:22]

as well as the choices of our parents, our grandparents, and that all of our ancestors before us made. And also, in that sense, includes the state of consciousness in which they lived at that time, and they made those choices. So the world we live in is the consequence of all of our thoughts, our actions, our choices, our intentions. as well as all the thoughts, the intentions, the choices and actions of everyone who has ever lived. So karma, the fabric of karma is that intimate, that profound. It's unfathomable, actually. It's kind of what the Buddha taught. So, now I don't, you know, I personally find this a rather sobering realization, given that the world we find ourselves in at the moment is deeply troubled.

[05:33]

Maybe you agree with me, or maybe not. But from my perspective, we have a lot of problems. So today we're hosting, we are witnessing a whole host of societal and ecological crises. There's poverty, violence, overpopulation. Homelessness, racial injustice, gender inequity, sexual orientation discrimination, pollution, climate change. And that's just naming a few of them. And the thing is, much of these crises is a result of human action, of the human mind. And from that perspective, we can see that the actions we take, as well as the actions we don't take, they have a great impact. An impact that goes beyond our own personal life. So take the ecological crisis, for example. The reality is that it's a human creation.

[06:37]

Even though there are people who deny that. That's what I believe. It's a human creation. It's what I see. And as humanity, we all created it together. We're all responsible for it to some degree. It's reality, the reality of the ecological crisis is a karmic manifestation that we can actually no longer deny. So we're all witnessing and feeling the impact of the law of karma. And while the theory of karma teaches us that the social and the environmental conditions happening now are somehow the result of our own actions, It also teaches that we can do something about them. So it's not all gloom and doom, right? There is a sense of possibility, potential of hope in this. Our intentional actions in every moment, they have results.

[07:39]

And so if we want to change the future, if we want to create a better world, we first clarify and choose how we want to be in relationship. with our mind, with ourselves, with each other, and with the world. And then we consciously or mindfully choose first, and then consciously and mindfully act all the way. And it's in this way that we have the power to reshape the future, make a better future, a future which one we look forward to. Our own future we can shape as well as the future of all of humanity. Everyone who will come after you will inherit your mind by virtue of the actions that you take today. Will ripple throughout all time and space.

[08:46]

All beings will be impacted by their ripple of the mind, the intention that comes forward. in this moment, in every moment. As a part of my personal study and teaching preparations for leading this practice spirit on karma, I've been dipping into David Lloyd's book with a provocative title, of money, sex, war, and karma, right? Notes for a Buddhist revolution. Does that make you want to pick it up? So one of the things that I appreciate in David Lloyd's writing is his call for Buddhists to develop a clearer understanding of the function of what he calls collective karma. So Lloyd points out in his book the unconscious impact of

[09:52]

of industrialized habitual ways of thinking and acting. So we can think of these industrialized habits as the shared mindsets and group activity or group functions within which we're continuously embedded. And as Laurie frames them, The core themes in the title of his book, Money, Sex, and War, become various strategies that exploit our need to make ourselves more real. So he argues that we use money, sex, war in order to fill an inner void with either things, material objects, or with sometimes pleasure. What these things do, money, sex, war, and so on, they provide us a flight from our sense of unreality and lack.

[11:00]

The thing is, that unreality, that lack, is built into the fact that what we think we are isn't inherently existent. There's no separate self here. And we sense that at a fundamental level. It terrifies the ego. It terrifies the sense of self. And therefore, it wants to kind of fill in anything that it can grab on to make it feel more substantial in some way. And even with a little examination, it's not hard to see the samsaric results, the suffering in our lives. of never having enough, that feeling of always lacking, right? Never having enough money, never having enough love, or for example, settling down with what we think would be the perfect partner.

[12:06]

And also he talks about engaging on a much national level, kind of this endless military conflicts that our countries engage in. in order to feel more protected and whatever, you know, as a nation. Although karma as something that's collectively created and shared was not the traditional understanding of the concept of karma in early Buddhist teachings. And I'll say a little bit more about that in a moment. But to my mind, I think it's an important and necessary evolutionary aspect to include in karma theory. In my mind, it's not enough to simply, although it may not be so simple, but to wake up to the delusion of our individual creation of a separate self. That's only a partial awakening.

[13:11]

It's what you do with that insight, that awakening. That actually matters most. So it's essential to also, because the Buddha said, I and all beings awake together. It's essential to also awaken to the way that we are part of a collective. You think that our group function, right? The way in which we as a collective create a sense of group selves or group egos. And oftentimes they're separate group selves. in the ways that these are also these group selves, collective selves, subject to the laws of karma and to emptiness, of course. As Lloyd points out in his book, when it comes to the ecological crisis before us, the

[14:16]

technology that we've devised to control the conditions of our existence, right, to make it more comfortable, more pleasant, to help us live longer and feel better and happier. Of course, a lot of technologies like modern transportation, energy creation, temperature control, mass manufacturing, and so on. It's all of that that was initially designed to help us live longer and feel better and be happier, it's now a threat to our very existence. And while many consider the cause of the ecological crisis to be a political and technological problem, Laurie says in his book, he reminds us that it's fundamentally a spiritual problem. That is, it's a delusion of separation. So where do we feel that separation? It's not just one person to one person. It's actually a separation if we're going to think in terms of groups, right?

[15:21]

Nation versus nation. Species versus species if you want to go beyond humans, right? And all of it supported by a continuous institutional reinforcement of the three poisons of greed, ill will, and delusion, right? So this dynamic creates a human experience that set apart from the true reality, the way things are, it's set apart from our vital interdependence with all things, our intimate connection with both sentient and insentient phenomena. And to practice with this awareness means that we notice where we have unthinkingly adopted negative biases.

[16:23]

Other. Or less than. And we created boundaries, particularly rigid boundaries. Self, me, my people, my country. et cetera, right? We study where we've created these biases and these boundaries. And at the same time, we study how they are all empty and non-dual. And so we study the teachings of non-duality as well as the teachings of compassion. And too often, practitioners under dharmas focus solely on kind of the individual boundary. We kind of focus on me. How am I doing? How's my practice? So we focus on the small I, the small sense of aggregates, right? And we forget to look at the collective, at the relational boundaries. You could say the small we, in which our role, well, it may only be one member of many, among many.

[17:35]

It's no less vital or worthy. All of us play... An important part, you know, our presence is significant. Everything we do is significant. We can't deny that. So from the point of view of collective karma, everything that's happening in the world is no longer someone else's karma. It's our karma. So, you know, we could say perhaps that your karma is my karma. And my karma is your karma. Because our individually enacted karma, it has an impact on others. In any number of interdependently conditioned and mutually effective ways. For example, we all share related and perhaps a similar fate.

[18:41]

Because of our individual and collective actions in the past and in the present, we humans are changing the very environment in which our lives depend. And now, while no one person caused our environmental crisis, we all at some level contributed if we are enjoying or relying on any of the so-called modern conveniences and technologies, right? And the same could be said about our unweldy and inequitable economic system, of which we are all participants to varying degrees, whether intentionally or by default. So what is our participation? What's the level of participation? And when we study that, we also study what's the level of how we can affect the system, affect change.

[19:44]

Now, one could make the case that if the so-called self is co-created or co-conditioned by other beings and also by non-dharmas, as Buddhism teaches, by non-self-dharmas, I mean, then there is no such thing as my karma. So this is an argument that was made in another book that I've been reading, which is also included in one of the resources, the resource list for the practice spirit for anyone who might be taking the class. And the book is entitled Rethinking Karma. You probably can't see it because of the glare. All you can see is the Buddha. There, you might be able to see it now. Rethinking Karma, the Dharma of Social Justice. And it consists of a number of essays by various Buddhist scholars and social justice activists, including the book's editor, Jonathan Watts.

[20:48]

And in it, each writer takes the stance that karma is a collective and social manifestation. Just as our individual self is constructed within society and within relationships. Idea of collective karma, however, it does not relieve individuals of the responsibility of their actions. But if a Buddhist understanding of karma allows for the transformation of individuals, transformation of our mind, transformation of our actions, transformation of our character in that way, then we can say that collective karma, therefore allows for the transformation of society, which implies a role for social action. How will you engage as a social being in society to effect transformation?

[21:51]

Now, I should acknowledge the idea of collective karma is actually not a mutually agreed upon concept in Buddhist circles. So it's actually, for some, somewhat controversial. There are a number of contemporary Dharma teachers, from what I can see, particularly in the Theravada and Zen traditions, and maybe just I'll throw out one example, Brad Warner, who are adamant in denying that there's such a thing as collective karma. And they tend to point out that There is nothing like the idea of collective karma. Nothing like it is found or even hinted at in the Buddhist original teachings. Nor was it said to be a part of Indian thought. And there's no Pali or Sanskrit words for collective karma in the traditional lexicon that we've inherited. And the idea is also absent from later Buddhist texts.

[23:05]

It seems to kind of come up more in the Mahayana tradition with the Bodhisattva vow and how that developed over time. The critique they have is that basically collective karma, that idea is a modern invention. And it's one stemming from the way in which... I read somewhere that Theosophical Society, which was this group started in 1875 or something like that, taught the so-called law of karma. And so they gave this idea of collective karma. Others argue that the notion of collective karma is consistent with kind of the notion of collective punishment that we might find in many theistic So, for example, the Old Testament, we often see how an entire people was unfairly punished as a group for the actions of just a few.

[24:14]

When I read those passages as a kid in the Bible, I was just kind of horrified. I was like, it's not going to happen to us. I do agree that we need to keep in mind the ways in which... the principle of karma has been misused. You could say in some way, re-Brahmanized, because of how the Brahmanistic religion has used karma, refugged karma. And it's also been applied to validate systems of social and political oppression, exploitation and violence, and many of the challenges that this presents. So I think it's for this very reason that the relationship between karma, and social justice has been, you could say, an uneasy one. Many Western practitioners are perhaps unaware of the way in which Buddhist teachings of karma worldwide have served to rationalize tragic social injustice of one class of people against another.

[25:23]

And the reality is that the oversimplified and twisted views of karma that many have held have been used to legitimize structural oppression against women, children, LGBTQ-identified folks, various racial and ethnic groups, economic classes, as well as those who are physically and mentally disabled. And I first had a sense of this when I remember traveling in Thailand in the mid-'90s. I spent a year traveling through Asia. The first country I went to was Thailand. And I ended up visiting a rural Buddhist temple and had engaged in a friendly conversation with a Thai monk. And I was basically enjoying myself in the conversation up to the point that he told me. And I can't quite remember how we caught on to the topic of HIV and AIDS. But he basically said HIV and AIDS was a karmic retribution for the evil of homosexuality. And I didn't bother to tell him, to inform him that as a queer identified person who had worked in HIV education for many years and who had scores of friends who died of AIDS, that I naively perhaps expected a more considered and passionate view from a fellow Buddhist practitioner such as himself.

[26:48]

So I was kind of like, there's something not right here in the way that... This is kind of used as a religious retribution. I was trying to flee my own Christian upbringing, which kind of thought was often prevalent. And the teaching karma is also used to justify outright direct violence. I don't know if any of you who listen to Dr. Williams' Dharma talk for a Sikh center on Saturday. He mentions that the predominantly Buddhist Burmese military regime's treatment of the multi-ethnic peoples in the Shan state was very oppressive and violent. And there's also the example of the Buddhist Sri Lankan majority targeting the minority Muslims with decades of violence. So Buddhist-oriented cultures...

[27:50]

And power structures are not above misusing the teachings of karma to justify violence and social injustices. Is it possible, therefore, for our practice to acknowledge and hold the reality that much suffering in the world is wrought under the name of collective karma? And more specifically, action deliberately taken against a particular group identity. One group which is raised up at the expense of another and in which no one person is held accountable for the harm that's done to the other group. And we can think of white supremacy in this case, white privilege, how the economic and the social and the racial disparity that has come up, has created, you know, collective harm and injustice.

[28:55]

So we need to be on the lookout for how karma theory is misapplied. It's misused to basically perpetuate and validate our internal sense of lack of separation in some way. for the most part, throughout millennia, the Buddhist understanding of karma, practice, and liberation has been, I'd say, focused entirely on the individual. There's been acknowledgement that the Sangha or community is an essential support for an individual's practice, but I think it's fair to say that only fairly recently have Buddhists started to apply Buddhist principles to considerations of human actions and response and suffering at the collective level.

[30:00]

And maybe it's because for now we're so much more aware of the tremendous global impact. It's no longer just about our village or maybe our nation. Now it's about the entire world. In fact, sometimes Buddhism is criticized because the Buddha himself, in not only his personal experience, quest for liberation, but also in how he eventually shaped the community of practitioners that gathered around him when he began teaching. You know, he was advocating a turning away from the world. So in his search for personal liberation, the Buddha left behind his family and his communal responsibilities, effectively turning away from the existing society. And then after his enlightenment, It's true that Buddha went on to eventually create a new spiritual society, a sangha, which consisted of a collection of people whose sole endeavor was personal freedom from samsara, from suffering.

[31:10]

And what we see is, in the initial emphasis in early Buddhism, the emphasis was on the arhat, on the path of individual liberation. working through one's karma was therefore considered an individual endeavor. However, in creating the container of Sangha, in which people practiced together and conducted themselves consciously within an ethical framework, within the Vinaya, and also within the teachings guided by the teachings of the Buddha, The Buddha and his disciples created in time an alternate form of society that was meant to be more conducive for a collection of individuals to harmoniously and mutually support each other in their ultimate concern, which was liberation. But the Buddha also had and taught many lay followers, so it just wasn't his monastics in which he was teaching.

[32:17]

and offering spiritual guidance. He was also supporting and teaching those who were actively engaged in dharma practice while also living in conventional, you could say, material society. So he didn't forsake the lay practitioner by any means. In Wapala Rahula's excellent book, What the Buddha Taughts, I highly recommend this, another recommendation. He points out that the Buddha of history, while absolutely focused on ethics and spirituality and philosophy, over the 40 years that he taught, he also spoke on society, on economics and politics. And he writes in his book... The Buddha did not take life out of the context of its social and economic background. He looked at it as a whole, in all its social, economic, and political aspects.

[33:23]

His teachings on ethical, spiritual, and philosophical problems are fairly well known. But little is known, particularly in the West, about his teaching on social, economic, and political matters. Yet there are numerous discourses dealing with these scattered throughout the ancient Buddhist texts. And then he, Vapala, goes on to offer a few textual examples. He cites a sutra called the Kakavati Sihannanda Sutta. It translates to the wheel-turning emperor sutta. And he uses it as an illustration of the Buddhist concern with material life, with everyday life, like with lay life. how to deal with things of the world in your everyday life. And in this text, the Buddha specifically addresses poverty. And he claims that poverty is the cause of theft, of falsehood, of violence, of hatred and cruelty.

[34:28]

One only engages in those activities because one does not have the means. Because of They're experiencing poverty. And then elsewhere in the Kuttadanta Sutta, he rejects punishment as a way of solving social ills. Saying that the fixes to, for example, address poverty. And that society through its governments, its leadership, needs to be involved in ways to mitigate the suffering of people. So there you're basically hearing, seeing the seeds of criminal justice reform. Just punishing people isn't going to make things better. Look at the root for why they are acting, the way they are acting, and meet their needs. And so the foundation is there for having a moral,

[35:37]

ethically supported collective society that is harmonious, that attempts to everyone's need in some way. So there's ample precedent for social engagement and even something to think of as a moral compass in those early teachings of the Buddha. But we need to keep in mind also You can think of it as the two truths, right? The relative and ultimate. The Buddha Dharma tells us that the relative world, the causal world, it's true. It's real. It is relative reality. And we arise within this relative world through causes and conditions, through karmic conditions. And our choices, therefore, and our actions create circumstances for others as well as yourselves.

[36:38]

So we're all, all of us caught up in what Dr. Martin Luther King poetically framed as an interdependently arisen nature of reality. He said, within an indivisible garment of destiny. And what is also true is all of it is empty. All of it's empty of own being. All of it, including karma, is empty. Cause and effect is empty. And because it's empty, it's fluid. We can change things. It's not fixed. So exploring the connection between karma and social justice offers us a way to think about karma as a collective phenomenon. And in doing so, hopefully see the implications for beneficial social action and change. And if we... to the Buddha's original teachings, we might take note that, well, he didn't say much about the practice of being just.

[37:42]

In fact, he had much less to say about the concept of justice, or let me rephrase that. He actually had much to say about the practice of being just. How does one act just? But he had much less to say about the concept of justice, particularly in comparison with with the Abrahamic religions. So it's important to recall that the Buddha's early teachings of karma were in part a response to the religious and the social context in which he lived. He was a man of his time. He was responding to the circumstances of his time. He was responding to the causes and conditions of his time. And our own turning our own engagement and expression of the Dharma, equally needs to respond to the context of these times in which we find ourselves.

[38:46]

A context in which we see now more than ever, you know, the tremendous and global impact that our minds, our intentions, and our actions, How they're not just our lives, but the lives of every other living being on the planet. How will you live with that understanding, with your place in that mandala of all being? How will you act? So in terms of collective karma, particularly in regard to issues of social justice, how do we proceed? with questions of societal poverty and wealth, with questions of racism, with questions of kind of the sense of great separation, isolation and pain that we feel, how are we going to engage? And maybe there's, maybe rather than doing things, not doing things in the old way, maybe there's a new way to engage.

[39:54]

Something that's maybe more open-minded, more open-handed, more generous in the spirit, you know, that's collectively considered. And Wapala Rahula also points in a helpful direction in his book. He cites the Jataka tales. I don't know if any of you are familiar with those. They're popular legends of the Buddha's lives before he became the Buddha. And within them, we find ten attributes of a king. And it's easy to see these as the ten attributes of a, you could say, rather than a king. Most of that isn't so relevant to us. I don't know how many of us here are kings or queens or royalty in that sense. Oh, one of us. Great. Thank you. Good to meet you, Queen Holly. It's easy to see, though, that these are skillful, compassionate leaders, attributes of a skillful, compassionate leader. And you could also apply it to a good, effective government.

[40:58]

And I'm going to suggest that they equally stand as pointers for a healthful and generally collective and healing engagement with society in all of our columns and all of its ills, right? And the Indian Buddhist Studies professor Ravi Shankar Singh, he has an essay on the teachings of Buddha and good governance in modern India. And in it, he enumerates the 10 qualities of a king or what I'm kind of referring as a mindful, skillful, compassionate leader. And we're all leaders because we all have action. We all lead with our action in the world in that sense, right? So I think these can be easily reframed or summarized. You can summarize these points in a way that responds to how do we engage from a place of social justice? So I'm going to finish up just by sharing this list with you, and it goes as follows.

[42:01]

So the first one is BANA, which is charity or generosity. It says, being prepared to sacrifice one's own pleasure for the well-being of the public, such as giving away one's belongings or other things to support or assist others, including giving knowledge and serving public interests. The second one is sila or morality. And this is practicing physical and mental morals or ethics and being a good example to others. And the next one is altruism, being generous and avoiding selfishness, practicing altruism. The fourth, ajava, which is honesty, being honest and sincere towards others. performing one's duties with loyalty and sincerity to others. And there's also madava, which is gentleness, having a gentle temperament, avoiding arrogance and never defaming others.

[43:07]

The sixth is papa, self-restraining. And here it says destroying unwholesome passions and performing duties without... indolence, or laziness, or stinginess. And then, which is non-anger, so being free from hatred and remaining calm in the midst of confusion. And then there's which is non-violence. And this is exercising non-violence and not being vengeful. You can hear some of the precepts, the 16 bodhisattva precepts within these as well. And there's kashanti, forbearance, practicing patience and trembling to serve public interests. I love that use of the word, trembling to serve, trembling with anticipation, with excitement to serve public interests. And the last one, avodana, which is uprightness, respecting opinions of other persons,

[44:15]

avoiding prejudice, and promoting public peace and order. So all of those, again, they can be framed while they might be qualities for a good mindful leader or a good government, they're also qualities for us to be a good participant in society, a good member of the collective, if you will, and also how we might engage in social justice. So I was going to share with you also, Buddha speaks about the four sublime states, the four form of your haras, of loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, and also speaks to avoiding the four biases or prejudices, which is interesting, says that no matter where they live, a good leader will not be biased towards other people regardless of where they live, and also their skin color, which is interesting given our racial dynamic in these times.

[45:21]

And so not being biased for like or dislike or delusion or fear in any way. So, yeah, so that's all I have to say. So I think I, once again, I went to the end, and my apologies. I... What I offer tonight isn't meant to be a comprehensive exploration of the concept of collective karma or karma vis-a-vis social justice. It's just meant to be a brief exploration of how we might understand where our own personal karma, our individual karmic perceptions and intentions and actions, and the karma of others, where they intersect with our collective or shared mindsets and behaviors. and how this place of intersection impacts the world, whether for better or for worse. My aspiration is that I hope is yours, is that we all choose to turn the mind towards, to think and act in ways that take into regard our collective well-being, our collective happiness, and our collective liberation.

[46:35]

So thank you for joining me in this endeavor. And now we will say the closing chant. Thank you again for your patience and attention. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[47:11]

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