Karma

That cosmic bank-account that is not

If I take your eye out, Karma will ensure that my eye will also be taken out. The same applies to your and my teeth. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth..” so it goes. A cosmic bank account, that keeps track of everything we’ve done, and ensures justice. Over some arc. I don’t know how long. Apparently.

This view has always been problematic for me. For three reasons.

Justice, Accounting and Certainty

1. Justice

Is there justice in the world? Actually? Too many things feel too unjust and too arbitrary. So many people who have never taken anyone else’s eye out, or have never done anything terrible, get their eyes and teeth pulled out.

2. Accounting

If there were some cosmic ledger that kept track of everyone’s deeds, where exactly is it? How is it stored? Can we take a look at it? Perhaps do an audit? Who has eyes and teeth in credit? Who has debt? Is there interest?

3. Certainty

I don’t believe in many things, but there is one thing I do believe in: Uncertainty.

Two factors drive my personal beliefs. The first is my (no doubt meagre) knowledge of theoretical physics. The world is made up of entirely random matter and events. The second is my (even more shallow) knowledge of Buddhist cosmology. For the wise, “the future is uncertain, unpredictable, and unknowable”.

If so, can we expect justice to act with any certainty? If I take your eye out, all I can say is that either my eye will be taken out (if you seek to take revenge on me, for example), or it will not be taken out (if you, for example, forgive me). I can’t say anything with certainty. Revenge and forgiveness are far more real than justice, and uncertainty is far more real (and certain) than all these things.

The, inevitable, other hand

On the other hand, if I were to take your tooth out, I would feel bad about it. Hence, even if you don’t take revenge on me, there is some lousy side-effect that I feel, often instantly. Something is clearly “going on”, and probably deserves more analysis.

Why would I want to take your tooth out? Probably because I greed after a future where you miss a tooth, and suffer the resulting indignities. From pain to a warped appearance, to ridicule from society.

While you have a perfect set of teeth in the present, I crave a future where that perfectness is diminished. 32 (a nice prime power of the smallest prime number) becomes 31 (a prime, but a unexceptional prime none-the-less).

And so, driven by that craving, and a belief in your toothless future, I act. A well-aimed uppercut neatly dislodges your upper left incisor.

But then, after achieving this future, and certainty that I craved, I feel bad about it. Why? Well, if I were a psychopath, I might not feel bad about it. And that seems even more interesting. So let’s talk about that.

Karma and the psychopath

I (psychopath) dislodge your tooth and walk away smiling. Where is Karma now? What happens next? Perhaps, nothing.

Except that I (the psychopath) believes in a specific set of things. I believe in the possibility of certain futures. Futures where you loose teeth. I believe in craving for ideas and getting them. “Things” like futures where you miss teeth. This belief could lead to other things.

My belief in a certain future that is bad will lead to me feeling anxious. A belief in one that is good will lead to hope — which might lead to sadness if that hope is not satisfied. And if I can believe in the future, I can also believe in a past. And with that belief, just like anxiety and hope, comes regret and nostalgia. And with these bad things, come other bad things.

Hence, we see how even a psychopath will not be able to walk away, smiling. For before long, something else will catch-up. Not the bank-balance type of Karma. But a far more powerful Karma. One that is beyond to justice, accounting, and certainty.

This Karma is beyond justice because instead of saying “if you do bad things, then bad things will happen to you” it says “if you believe in bad things, then you believe in bad things”. It is beyond accounting because instead of saying “You did a bad thing. Your Karma balance is now 132,000κ (κ, or “kappa” the international unit of Karma)” it says “You did a bad thing. So, you did a bad thing”. Finally, and most importantly, it is beyond certainty because instead of relying on certainty, it punishes belief in certainty. No certainty and there is no Karma.

That cosmic bank-account that is not

Hence, if I do take your eye or tooth out, perhaps Karma will get me. But, perhaps, not the way you (or many people) think. And certainty not with any certainty.