Karma: The Key to a Better Future

Every thought, word, and action matters

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Do you remember the American television sitcom “My Name Is Earl?”

Earl was a good-for-nothing guy who won the lottery. While celebrating his good fortune (before cashing in), he was hit by a car. Adding insult to injury, Earl couldn’t find his winning lottery ticket either.

While recuperating in the hospital, Earl had an epiphany as he watched a television talk on karma.

This light bulb moment made Earl realize he must let go of his evil ways to avoid future misfortune and secure real happiness. He also decided to make amends to every person he had previously wronged.

After his first good deed, Earl found his lost lottery ticket! He took this as a sign that karma is real. He had stepped onto the right path!

Earl presented his new karma-informed mission at the start of most episodes in season one:

“You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks? Well, that was me. Every time something good happened to me, something bad was always waiting around the corner: karma. That’s when I realized that I had to change. So, I made a list of everything bad I’ve ever done, and one by one I’m gonna make up for all my mistakes. I’m just trying to be a better person. My name is Earl.”

This is not an altogether bad explanation of karma.

In his monologue, Earl hit on several key points related to the law of cause and effect:

• Harmful actions result in negative karma

• Negative karma always comes to fruition sooner or later

• You can change your karma by engaging in positive actions

But there’s a little more to karma. Let’s take a look.

The Definition of Karma

It’s said that only an enlightened being can fully understand the ins and outs of individual and group karma, but we regular humans can understand its basic principles.

The Dalai Lama explains karma like this:

“The Sanskrit word ‘karma’ simply means ‘action.’ So when we talk about our karma, we are referring to all our intentional acts of body, speech, and mind, and when we talk about the ‘fruits’ of our karma, we are talking about the consequences of these acts. The doctrine of karma is grounded in the observation of causality as a law of nature.”—The Dalai Lama in Beyond Religion

So, karma is not fate or predestination. And life doesn’t happen by chance. The origin of karma doesn’t lie in an outside force, either.

Instead, we’re the creators of our karma. Every action you take produces a result in the form of good, neutral, or negative karma. The results of your actions affect the quality of your current life and future ones.

Karma always comes to fruition.

However, its results may be delayed, making it difficult to remember the original cause. That’s also the case because a result can come from several different karmas ripening together.

Due to the complexity of karma, we may not be able to see a direct link between a particular behavior and its result. But if you look back on your life, I’m sure you’ll be able to identify harmful actions that resulted in a negative outcome.

It’s apparent, for example, when you hit someone and they hit you back.

But the fruit of your karma often doesn’t occur in such an immediate fashion. Karma can ripen years and even decades later. And Buddhists believe it can take effect in your next life.

“What you are now is what you have been, and what you will be is what you do now.”—the Buddha

The Power of Our Actions

Our future depends on the actions we take now.

Therefore, it pays to engage in positive actions and avoid harmful ones. If you engage in harmful actions, you harm others and create more suffering for yourself.

But karma is not a punishment. It’s simply the fruit of your actions.

Mahayana Buddhism offers ten negative actions to avoid. These are not commandments from an external creator but counsel on actions that typically bring negative results.

Neither are these black-and-white rules. Each circumstance must be carefully examined to determine the best course of action in the short and long run.

Here are the Ten Negative Actions to Be Avoided according to the Buddhist view:

1. Taking life

2. Taking what is not given (Stealing)

3. Sexual misconduct

4. Lying

5. Sowing discord

6. Harsh speech

7. Worthless chatter

8. Covetousness

9. Wishing harm to others

10. Wrong views (For example, believing your actions have no karmic effect or ascribing to eternalism or nihilism.)

Killing is considered the worst of the ten negative actions.

“In the Sutra of Sublime Dharma of Clear Recollections, it is said that one will repay any life one takes with five hundred of one’s own lives, and that for killing a single being one will spend one intermediate kalpa in the hells.”—Patrül Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher

Whoa, that’s intense! In Buddhist cosmology, a “kalpa” can last between millions and trillions of years.

Should we take that literally? At the very least, we can take it to mean that killing is the most serious of actions and brings highly adverse consequences.

Eigth-century Buddhist philosopher Shantideva has suggested the hell realms are states of mind rather than actual places. Just like your mind creates nightmares that seem real, it can color your entire experience of life.

So pay attention because your joys and sorrows come from your actions.

“The joys and sorrows of beings
All come from their actions, said the Buddha
The diversity of actions
Creates the diversity of beings
And impels their diverse wanderings.
Vast indeed is this net of actions!”
—from The Sutra of a Hundred Actions

The Role Intention Plays in Karma

Intention determines whether karma is positive or negative, heavy or light.

Your actions can be entirely positive, entirely negative, or a mixture of both, according to this matrix from The Guide to The Words of My Perfect Teacher:

• Completely positive actions: The intention and the act are entirely positive.

• Entirely negative: The intention and the act are both negative.

• Mixed actions include negative actions committed with a positive intention, a positive act with a negative intention, and actions that mix positive and negative intentions and actions.

Thus, the state of mind when taking action is critical.

Pause and think before you act. Ask yourself, “What is my intention?” If your intention is mixed or negative, pause and rethink your next steps.

“The gravity of an action is a function of three aspects of the intention motivating it—constancy, compulsiveness, and absence of an antidote (all three of which apply to positive and negative actions in a similar way)—and of whether it is directed at those with good qualities, those who have helped us, or those who are suffering.”—The Guide to the Words of My Perfect Teacher

4 Kinds of Karmic Effects

When we examine the effects of bad karma, we see that it’s not just payback for a negative action. Every harmful action you take also creates a propensity to repeat that action in the future.

As a result, you can get sucked into an endless cycle that brings more and more suffering.

These are the four main kinds of karmic effects.

1. The fully ripened effect

This is the moment when the karmic impact of an action takes maximum effect. This can be quickened or delayed due to the effects of other actions you have taken.

For example, actions committed due to hatred, desire, or ignorance lead to rebirth in Buddhist cosmology's corresponding lower states: Hell, the Hungry Ghost, and the Animal realms.

2. The effect similar to the cause

When you’re reborn as a human again, you experience effects similar to the cause. This means you now have a propensity to engage in the same action that initially accumulated negative karma.

For example, if you kill someone, you’ll have a propensity to kill again. If you steal, you’ll tend to steal again.

This might explain why a young child may engage in cruel behaviors.

You’ll also have experiences similar to the cause. If you killed, your current life may be short and subject to frequent illness. If you took what was not given, you’d be poor and subject to robberies yourself, and so on, for each of the ten negative actions.

3. The conditioning effect

The conditioning effect relates to your environment. For example, killing results in birth in a depressing landscape and mortally dangerous environments that contain treacherous cliffs.

4. The proliferating effect

We tend to repeat our previous actions repeatedly, which brings us endless suffering in this life and our lives to come.

This might explain, in part, why it can be challenging to put an end to negative behaviors. But it’s not impossible. A happier future depends on doing just that.

“Do not take lightly small misdeeds,
Believing they can do no harm:
Even a tiny spark of fire
Can set alight a mountain of hay.

Do not take lightly small good deeds,
Believing they can hardly help:
For drops of water one by one
In time can fill a giant pot.”
—from The Sutra of the Wise and Foolish

How to Repair Bad Karma

Like Earl, you can clean up your bad karma. Take these three steps:

1. Confess with regret any past harmful actions and vow never to repeat those actions again

2. Engage in positive actions

3. Abandon all other negative actions

Positive actions will not immediately undo the consequences of your previous negative actions. Depending on their severity, you may still undergo years of consequences.

But slowly, you’ll see more positive results in your life.

Mindfulness: Your Best Ally

Mindfulness is more than sitting on a cushion or chair and relaxing your mind in the present moment. It helps you to remember to act in positive ways.

The Guide to the Words of My Perfect Teacher explains three ways mindfulness can help us create better karma:

• Mindfulness means remembering the actions to be accepted and rejected

• Vigilance means to examine one’s thoughts, words, and actions.

• Carefulness means exercising good judgment before acting.

Incorporate these three aspects of mindfulness into your life, and you’ll make wiser karmic choices.

Take Earl’s Advice to Heart

You can’t go wrong if you remember and act upon these three points from Earl’s monologue:

• Harmful actions create negative karma. Positive actions create positive karma.

• Karma is inescapable. It always comes to fruition sooner or later.

• You can change negative karma by engaging in positive actions.

Is karma real? I don’t know for sure.

But doesn’t it feel better to do the right thing?

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