Gross Karma, Subtle Karma

Karma. What does that mean?

For most people I know, karma is this wishy-washy idea that what you do comes back to you. Some people say flat out that it's nonsense, but most seem to identify with some aspect of it. Usually, it seems to me, there is a kind of hesitant belief in it, without really understanding what it means. 

Well, karma means "action": plain and simple. But what from whence comes this assumption that action influences that future? 

Well, it sounds absurd when I put it like that. I know if I buy milk and a banana in the evening, my morning cereal will be a lot more enjoyable. I know that if I buy my friend a coffee on Monday, he may buy me a beer on Saturday. No one in their right mind would deny this sort of gross cause and effect. 

But what if we do good things and no one notices? Can we expect that our kindness will be repaid by some benevolent mystical force? 

Well..yeah, sort of. It depends on what you mean by "good things". 

And there is a difference between doing good things with an open heart and doing good things with a closed heart. If I leave an envelope full of money in a poor neighborhood, with the sole motivation of reaping the karmic benefits, it may be just as well to spend that money on something for myself. 

You have to give with an open heart to reap karmic fruit. You must be truly vicarious, because it's the vicariousness  itself, that generates the good karma--and I don't think it's too hard to see why. When you feel genuinely joyful at the thought of other people's happiness, it's like any other kind of happiness--it makes you feel happy! 

Here's where the western mind gets suspicious--it's the idea that the present happiness is creating favorable conditions in the future. If you think of yourself as separate from the world as a whole, the idea seems fucking crazy. However, if you see yourself as a not separate from the universe as a whole, this kind of cause and effect seems perfectly natural. 

For me, the reach of karma extends into mere thought. Of course, it's a worthwhile practice to cultivate peaceful thinking for it's own sake, but sometimes its seems very difficult. Negative thoughts creep in, and say that it's futile. It's at these moments that I take comfort in the idea that I am every second creating my future, on a very subtle level.