Shared and individual karma

A terrible earthquake devastated a vast region of China. Many people died, many were injured, and many homes were damaged. Students of karma call a common disaster like this cộng nghiệp (shared karma).

In a quiet neighbourhood, Mr Ba was passing by when a broken street power line fell on him. He died on the spot. This case is called biệt nghiệp (individual karma).

With individual karma the matter is simple: whoever sowed the karma bears it. But with a common disaster, things are far more complicated.

It is not necessarily that people who suffer the same disaster together do so because in the past they banded together to do one evil deed. They are simply people with similar karmic results who, driven by karma, have found their way to a shared environment.

Forty people who shared the karmic result of a road accident bought tickets for the same coach. When the driver reached a deserted stretch of road, he saw the figure of a girl in white, her hair loose, fluttering in front of the vehicle. He hurriedly let go of the wheel and stamped on the brake. The coach lost its balance and overturned into a field beside the road. Those with heavy karma died; others suffered broken limbs and injuries. A few with light karma went through a moment of terror and were only slightly scratched.

It was the karma of the 40 people that created an illusion in front of the driver. Many explain it by saying that a ghost at that bend in the road wanted to overturn the coach to find more dead companions.

It is not certain that these 40 people had created a shared evil karma in the past. They may have created karma separately, yet all brought about the same kind of karmic result, so karmic conditions drove them to board the same fateful coach.

The Mekong rose and flooded many areas downstream. One of the causes found was the smoke from the Kuwaiti oil wells set on fire by Iraq, which disturbed the Earth's weather, together with deforestation upstream, from the Himalayas through Yunnan to Laos, Thailand and beyond, leaving too few forests to hold back the rainwater. So, is it that the Iraqis created the cause and the Vietnamese suffered the result?

No. That is only cause and effect in physical science, in physical space. It is only the visible surface of the law of karma hidden behind it.

The consequence of deforestation at the headwaters is flooding downstream. Everyone with the karmic result of suffering floods will be born and grow up, or move from elsewhere to live, in those regions, to suffer the shared disaster together. And those who cleared the forests at the headwaters will have their "accounts settled" in the future.

In another respect, people who create the same karma together can easily suffer the karmic result together at the same time.

For example, an official orders the killing of a good man only because the man defended the poor against rich people who oppressed them. As he is burned at the stake, the rich people cheer to show their approval. In a future life, the official, the executioner and the crowd who joined in gather, without meaning to, in a big dining hall. Then the hall catches fire, the diners panic in terror, the official and the executioner are burned to death, and the others are badly burned.

Rejoicing in others' karma also makes us share the misfortune. Whenever we see someone slaughtering pigs or cattle, fighting or robbing, if we cannot stop it, so be it, but we should not let sympathy with them arise in our minds. If we have a thought of sympathy, one day we will "ride along" with a little of their karmic result. Many idlers like to crowd round to watch someone butchering a dog, giving a few eager opinions and hoping to be given a share. They do not know that this karmic cause will make their own flesh spill and their own blood flow in a later life.

There are also cases where many people create karma together, but, lacking the conditions to meet, they receive their karmic results separately in different places, although the results are quite similar.

For example, three people together resolve to build a road so that villagers can travel more easily. But because their thoughts and some of their other karma are not alike, in the next life they are born in three different countries. Each studies road and bridge construction, and each succeeds and becomes wealthy, with almost the same good outcome. In the story of the elder Losaka Tissa, it is told that because in a past life the elder had been jealous of an arhat, for many lives afterwards he fell into being a hungry dog, and when he returned as a human being he also suffered terrible hunger and want. In his last life, when he was conceived in a fishing village, the whole village was suddenly struck by disasters such as a failed catch, a fire, a drying lake and punishment by the king. They found that the bad luck came from the child's family and drove the pregnant mother away. The mother begged for food to raise her child. As soon as the child could just toddle and beg, the mother ran away! Later the boy was taken in by Venerable Śāriputra and was called Losaka Tissa. Although he attained the fruit of an arhat, the elder still suffered hunger and want all his life (A Treatise on Cause and Effect).

In this case, it was not that they had created shared karma with the elder in the past. It was simply that, because the elder's karma did not allow him to live in comfort and he had to wander, hungry and hard pressed, it drove the entire village to manifest their own bad karmic results, so that they were forced to drive away the mother who was carrying him.

It is not necessarily the case that evil karma of this life will bear its result in the next life. It can be postponed for several hundred years. There are famous prophets, such as Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm (1491–1585), Nostradamus (1503–1566, France) and Jeane Dixon (America), who could foresee events very far into the future. Nostradamus could prophesy events 7,000 years after his time! To this day, when his allusive prophecies are checked, many details are found to be strangely accurate. The French Revolution with the Paris Commune is described clearly; the figure of De Gaulle is mentioned in fair detail... That such common events were predicted so long ago shows that the law of karma, from within the Fundamental Nature, arranged everyone's karmic results quite clearly many thousands of years beforehand. Nostradamus had an extreme spiritual sensitivity and was able to "read" this process even though there was not yet any sign of it in physical space.

The common karmic results of everyone, such as natural disasters, wars and fires, seem to have been arranged long in advance. They are the gathering together of everyone's karma from all over the world. For example, three thousand people create evil karma scattered in different places. Their karmic result is quite similar: they must suffer a violent volcanic eruption. But the causes and conditions for them to gather and live together at the foot of the volcano need a further five hundred years. And a few outstanding prophets have seen this event that is to come. There is one common disaster that all of humankind must bear: the end of the world! Some religions speak a great deal about the end of the world to encourage followers to strive to do good from now on. Scientists have shown that in the Jurassic period a collision occurred between the Earth and a large celestial body, causing the dinosaurs to seem to become extinct all at once. In 1988 a large meteorite crossed the Earth's orbit at a place the Earth had only just passed. Astronomers still fear that a similar encounter will occur at another time. If there were such a great collision, it would surely be the end of the world for humankind. However, there is one end of the world that is most certain and that we cannot avoid: in a few billion years the sun will have cooled and no longer warm the earth, and then a terrible cold will destroy all life on this planet. That day is too far off for us to worry about; what we should fear is unexpected disasters beyond human anticipation, occurring very soon, when humans are not yet able to carry themselves off to another planet to take refuge.

The end of the world, a common karmic result for all living beings (especially animals): what is the karmic cause for everyone?

This collective death comes from the fact that everyone living on the earth, for the sake of their own survival, has constantly created the karma of DESTROYING ONE ANOTHER'S LIVES.

More capable animals eat less capable ones. The strong tiger seizes the weak goat and pounces on the slender human. The big fish swallows the small fish. Humans are clever enough to kill all other species and their own kind.

Killing animals with consciousness usually brings clear karmic results within a fairly short time: a few years, a few lives, a few hundred years. The culprit has to repay alone (individual karma), through injury or death; or must suffer a disaster shared with many others (shared karma), such as natural disasters, epidemics and traffic accidents.

There is one karma of "destroying life" that is very quiet, and its results are hard to see, yet they are enough to bring about the end of the world: cutting down and destroying plants. Plants have life and have a spirit, a simple spirit. Although plants do not feel pain, whoever destroys the life of plants (especially by deforestation) brings upon themselves the karmic result of having their own life destroyed later. All of humankind, every day, destroys the green life of the planet to make food (vegetables), to make utensils (timber) and to make fuel (firewood). That cause of destroying green life, accumulated over many lives, many millions and billions of years, must lead to a terrible end of the world.

In physical space, deforestation does serious harm to the Earth's ecology. Dense old forests filter the air like a lung of the planet; forests absorb the heat of sunlight, soften the sun's heat and keep the air moist; forest roots hold rainwater so that it does not form floods, and keep the soil moist when the rain has stopped, so that springs are maintained throughout the dry season. Deforestation is an act of self-destruction, but it is not enough to be called the cause of the end of the world. The karmic result of the end of the world spoken of here rests on spiritual space. Destroying the life of plants, destroying their simple spirit, creates a karmic result more serious than we imagine from physical space. It quietly accumulates little by little until it brings a terrible disaster to all living creatures, one deserving to be called the end of the world.

We may raise the question: if we do not use plants, directly or indirectly, how can humans meet the needs of life? Precisely because we have together accumulated the karma of destroying green life, the end of the world for humankind cannot be avoided. But in any case, in the endless cycle of rebirth, birth and death following one another for ever, what is so important about death at the end of the world that we should fear it? So long as we have a very great store of merit, accumulated over many lives, enough to carry us into a new life on another planet many times happier than Earth.

After the end of the world, those with much wrongdoing will be reborn on a planet full of suffering, upheaval and wildness. Those with merit will be reborn on a civilised planet, comfortable and brimming with happiness. The cycle of rebirth keeps rolling on for ever; only those who have attained the Absolute Fundamental Nature and are completely liberated are no longer governed by it.

If humankind continues to destroy one another's lives and the green life of plants with cruelty, the end of the world will come closer. If humankind knows how to nurture and protect one another's lives, and the green life of plants and grass, the end of the world will recede ever further; but in any case the end of the world must come when the sun begins to cool. The law of impermanence, arising, abiding, decaying and ceasing, cannot be avoided.

So, being present in this life, let us cherish the lives of all beings, whether human, animal, or the leaves and flowers of plants. Let us love and protect them all, to help push the end of the world further away.