I've written an article about why karma is so important to Buddhist ideas about morality. I'm not sure I've explained it clearly, but it seems to me this is a topic that always can use more discussion.
The Sunday New York Times had an article by the novelist Tana French called "The Psychology of an Irish Meltdown." French discusses social-psychological causes of the 2008 economic collapse in Ireland, which seems to have been a lot like everybody else's economic collapse but possibly worse than most. Economic collapses are a bit outside the scope of this blog, so I'm not going to dwell on that.
French writes that Irish society had developed "a total disconnect between action and consequence." In particular, the people in charge of the financial sector seemed not to perceive that anything they did actually affected people. I was struck by this passage in particular:
"For many of these people, action and consequence don't apply; their lives are mapped out from birth, and nothing they do will alter that map. It seems to me that that would be intensely disempowering, even terrifying. Instead of being a series of interlinked actions, life is made up of a scattering of events that have no discernible relationship to one another and that you don't influence in any real way. In that climate, it would be difficult to develop the sense that your actions make any difference, that you have any responsibility for the consequences. Without cause and effect, there's no foundation for morality."
"Without cause and effect, there's no foundation for morality." That made me want to cheer. I've long felt that moral systems based mostly on following a list of external rules are not really moral.
I also get frustrated by the secular Buddhist tendency to dismiss karma as superstitious nonsense. As I keep saying, karma can be appreciated on some mundane levels that are not mystical at all. Once you understand what it is, you can see it working in your life and other peoples' lives.
To me, that deep respect for cause and effect, coupled with the realization that we are all interconnected, is the only basis for real morality. Without that, the list of rules doesn't mean much, even to people who believe that breaking the rules leads to an eternity in hell. People will always rationalize why the rules don't apply to them. Or, they develop a rigidly legalistic reading of the rules, bereft of compassion and a sense of responsibility, which takes us to "morality" imposed by witch hunts and scarlet letters.
The failure to appreciate cause and effect and interconnectedness is not just causing economic hardship around the globe. It's also trashing our planet. Maybe there is no other topic more important than cause and effect right now.
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