Karma: What It Is, What It Isn't, Why It Matters.

by Traleg Kyabgon

Chapter 5 - “NO KARMA – EMPTINESS AND THE TWO TRUTHS”

Karma is central to Buddhism, as far as this discourse has contended till now, and
yet, on another level, the ultimate reality of karma is not recognized. At this
point, the two levels of truth in Buddhism become relevant: empirical and
ultimate reality. Karma possesses only relative reality by nature, and because of
that, it is something we can transcend. Karma is something we need to overcome
in fact. What this amounts to is aiming not only to overcome negative karma but
also positive karma. Both kinds of karma lead to rebirth, and it is the exhaustion
of our karmic propensities and tendencies that is the ultimate aim.”

The Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism, we briefly noted, alongside

the Yogacara school, was to have an important philosophical influence on the
notion of karma as well. Founded by Nagarjuna in the late second century ce,
Madhyamaka thinking expounds the notion of two truths—the relative truth and
the absolute truth. Karma is seen as real only in relation to relative truth, but not
in terms of ultimate truth, because the ultimate truth is emptiness. Karma in itself
has no fixed nature. It is a phenomenon; it is not reality. Again we need to qualify
this statement as an expression of the ultimate viewpoint. Karma does have
relative reality. Nagarjuna’s fundamental point was that karma is really created
through mental fixation, through our getting too enamored with our concepts,
ideas and thoughts, our mental projections, and our inveterate tendency to reify
all that we think about. The objects of our thoughts are given a solid reality,
whether they exist or not. This is called “mental imputation,” whereby we
provide things with many more attributes than they actually have. Imputation or
projection has a huge impact on our mental well-being, how we proceed to
cultivate (or fail to cultivate) our feelings, and how we deal with our emotions
and what we think about.

By contemplating emptiness, one can loosen the grip of mind’s fixation. Even in
terms of karma, Nagarjuna states that if we fixate on it, which is our standard
tendency—if we fixate on the agent, the action, and so forth—we will be unable
to free ourselves of it. The result becomes quite the opposite because thinking
along fixated lines leads to conceptual proliferation (prapanca). Basically, the
mind starts to go haywire. Not only do we give more reality to what we see,
smell, taste, and touch but we even start to imagine all kinds of things existing
that do not exist. God and soul and things of that nature are examples of this,
according to Nagarjuna. Merely the fact that we can think of something prompts
our tendency to think that there must be an actual corresponding object of that
thought. Apparently, it seems entirely logical for us to assume that if we are
capable of thinking of such-and-such a being, that being must therefore exist—
otherwise where would the capacity to think it come from? Western philosophers
and theologians of the past have used this very argument to support the existence
of an omnipotent, omniscient being, insisting that our endowment with this
mental faculty, the ability to imagine an omniscient being, proves that such a
being must exist.

Nagarjuna used what was later to become known as the “Prasangika razor,”
which essentially refers to a chopping down of every philosophical position, a
cutting at the root of all that we think. It is a ruthless examination of all claims to
a real or true existence. He had followers that took his theories even further, such
as Chandrakirti, and the Prasangika Madhyamikas, who employed a reductio ad
absurdum system, reducing or demolishing every philosophical position to its
fundamental inconsistencies, without taking a position themselves. The main
point to be made here is Nagarjuna’s insistence that due to all things’ being
dependently arisen, nothing has inherent existence, and therefore everything is
empty. This is not a vision of pure emptiness, which would be the conclusion of
the nihilistic view. Nagarjuna actually thought that the nihilistic understanding
was completely errant, a lethal type of thinking, suicidal—like taking hold of a
snake by the tail incorrectly, so that it swings around and bites our arm and
poisons us. Therefore it is completely incorrect to interpret Nagarjuna as denying
the existence of karma. In fact, he states that it is far better to revert to
conventional ways of thinking, to believing things actually exist as commonsense
people do, than to entertain nihilistic ideas that nothing really exists. This is a
crucial point in understanding Buddhism. Because everything is interdependently
arising, karma is also an interdependently arising phenomenon, lacking inherent
existence, and thereby able to be overcome. Nagarjuna’s logic also explains why
samsara and nirvana are dependent concepts. Without samsara there can be no
nirvana, and without nirvana there can be no samsara. This is elaborated upon in
his main text Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika).

Excerpt From: Traleg Kyabgon. “Karma: What It Is, What It Isn't, Why It
Matters.” iBooks.