Critical Commentary
HOMEWORKMARKET.COM – YOUR HOMEWORK ANSWERS
chat0
Post a question
Help
Homework Answers
Login
Not a Member? Sign up!
Religion, Mind, and Society Critical Commentary
Home
Psychology homework help
Religion, Mind, and Society Critical Commentary
Synchronizing Karma: The Internalization
and Externalization of a Shared,
Personal Belief
Steven G. Carlisle
Abstract When people internalize cultural materials, they do not absorb them as passive recipients
but, rather, adapt and apply them in ways that satisfy personal needs while also expressing them in
ways acceptable to the community. It is not just a process of moving things into the individual but one of
synchronizing imaginings of experience. For Bangkok’s Buddhists, karma is a concept that is both cul-
turally shared and, often, deeply personal. Karmic experiences are understood individually and shared
through personal karmic narratives. A set of shared standards determines which stories can be accept-
ed as describing karmic experiences while also serving to shape the individual’s interpretations of those
experiences. Although social monitoring of interpretations of individual experiences makes belief in
karma acceptable, the intersection of abstract doctrine with personal interpretations gives the doctrine a
nearly undeniable veracity. Therefore, synchronized karmic beliefs thrive, despite Bangkok’s rapid de-
velopment and cultural change. Addressing dynamics of synchronization moves psychological
anthropology beyond frameworks of acquisition and internalization to considerations of negotiating
agency in the reproduction of culture. [Buddhism, internalization, karma, imagination, narrative]
Because people have different experiences, how is it that they can come to have beliefs that
are shared across the demographic spectrum of a society while also being deeply integrated
into their understandings of the workings of the worldFthoroughly believed to the point
that they can affect many of a person’s habits? That is, how are shared religious beliefs in-
ternalized? Although it may appear counterintuitive, for beliefs like karma, internalization
comes through processes relating to the formation of projective systems. The idea here is
not that people project thoughts and feelings out and that other people take them inFit is
that the rules that govern the projective system are negotiated publicly, and allow people
to synchronize their interpretations of personal experiences, creating the sense of a shared
experiential reality. Public karmic narratives sit at the nexus of abstract religious doctrines
that describe the nature of reality, personal experience, and the social sanctioning of inter-
pretations of those experiences. Social monitoring of karma narratives keeps karmic
interpretations of personal experience broadly acceptable and consistent while these per-
sonal experiences of karma give the doctrine a compelling veracity. At times, therefore, the
karmic order is accepted not because it satisfies people’s desires but because it appears ab-
solutely true. If deeply held beliefs grow out of shared negotiations, then perhaps we should
look at processes of synchronization, rather than internalization.
194 ETHOS
ETHOS, Vol. 36, Issue 2, pp. 194–219, ISSN 0091-2131 online ISSN 1548-1352. & 2008 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1352.2008.00011.x.
The ethnographic material here is drawn from participant-observation of and interviews
with middle-class Thai Buddhists, all of whom also expressed a belief in karma. Research for
this article took place over 30 months between 1999 and 2001. Subjects were ethnic Thai
Buddhists in their twenties, thirties, and early forties at the time; all were residents of
Bangkok; and all were members of the middle classes.1 The informant base includes, for
example, teachers, small merchants, and low- and mid-level executives. This work involved
more than two years of participant-observation, and extended ethnographic interviews with
approximately 20 subjects. Data include karma stories told by several dozen individuals, as
well as stories available in Thai public media since 1999. Interviews, conducted primarily in
Thai, were open-ended, but generally focused on questions concerning family life, morality,
love, and Buddhism. Although stories often arose during the natural course of discussions, a
few were solicited, after a subject had made it clear that he or she believed in karma. The
stories selected for this article were typical of the larger pool: especially among the young,
anecdotes that involved cruelty to animals were common, as were stories about repayment
for the sacrifices of elders.
Personal narratives are more than reports about reality. They embody theories about con-
nections between events (Bruner 1987; Capps and Ochs 1995). They do not just describe
things as they are, but participate in the production and affirmation of visions of reality.
Synchronized belief in karma is carried through narratives that follow negotiated guidelines.
What sorts of negotiations give rise to shared yet personal systems like karma? Some broad
restrictions on stories must apply if a projective system is to be able to allow information to
work along the two axes, the social–personal and the doctrinal–experiential. First, however,
it is necessary to sort out the type of karmic narrative that is relevant here. In addition to
occasional discussions of Buddhist doctrine, the subject of karma appears in conversation
in a number of different forms. Most commonly, people discuss their own experiences,
descriptions that often take a form like this: ‘‘I went to the temple and made an offering to a
monk [which is a source of good karma], and I felt good about it.’’ They occasionally make
vague references to one another’s karma, as when one struggling merchant announced that
another merchant, who had done well during the economic crisis of the late 1990s, had
succeeded because of his karma. What contributed to his good karma, however, and how,
exactly, it contributed to his success in business, remain unknown to the speaker. A third sort
of conversation about karma also takes place: one in which specific moral actions and karmic
responses are connected and described, often in great detail. This article will focus on this
sort of narrative, in which projections are clearly defined.
Such narratives constitute approximately half of the stories I gathered during the research,
and nearly all of the best-elaborated narratives.
The Bangkok-Thai Buddhist doctrine of karma is straightforward: good acts are always re-
warded, bad acts always punished, in proportion and in kind. Because of personal interest
and attention to cultural norms, many residents of Bangkok develop individual relationships
SYNCHRONIZING KARMA 195
with their karma, through a process of reification of projected information. The idea that
the universe at large is ordered is academic to them; what is of interest is not the universe’s
relationship to karma but their own. Because of individuals’ ability to project ideas onto the
universe, they perceive karma as more than a force of nature. Just as Weber’s Calvinists’
concerns led those subjects to think about the double-predestining God as personally sig-
nificant, thoughts about karmic retribution and reward lead many Thai Buddhists to think
about karma as an active presence in their own lives. This ranges from a mild but persistent
preoccupation, described by one person as a feeling of being unclean, to a life-shaping ob-
session. Chatri, in his early thirties, has shaped much of his life around his belief.2 He claims
that his planFwell underwayFis to commit his life to giving of himself, and to die without
accepting more than the minimum of gifts and kindnesses, so that in future incarnations he
will thrive. For many urban, middle-class Thai Buddhists, karma is not simply an ordering
principle; it is a force with which they interact, and with which they have personal relation-
ships. Karma helps order the universeFbut what matters in these cases is the fact that it
orders their lives in it.
Analysis of karma stories can go beyond general statements about a desire for order. In
this article, I examine personal anecdotes about karma in an effort to understand specific,
widely shared guidelines that shape that order, and the particular forms of engagement that
make karma both universal and personal, connecting Thai Buddhists not just to the uni-
verse, but, through socially shared experiences, to a view of the world that they share with
one another.
Context: Anthropological Literature and Theory
Many scholars have approached the topic of karma, but for the most part, they have not
explainedFand rarely examinedFkarma’s ability to take on deep personal significance.
Since Rhys Davids (1896) began to publish his work on Buddhism around the turn of the last
century, a variety of approaches have been taken in analyzing this phenomenon. The works
of K. N. Sharma (1997) and Gombrich (1996) take broadly historical and theological van-
tage points, whereas the contributions of others (E. Daniel 1983; S. Daniel 1983) rely on
contemporary source material for symbolic analyses and treatments of contemporary social
significance. Others (such as Lau 2001) take a psychological approach, looking at karma as a
response to needs and desires. About one thing, however, all analysts agree: karma works as a
bridging concept, one that spans the gap between the mundane and easily considered reali-
ties of daily life, and the great, abstract order of the universe. It is on this level, what Hiebert
calls the ‘‘transempirical’’ (1983:121) while also this-worldly, that explanations for karma
can be sought: it is seen both as experiential and as universal.
Karma poses a problem on the practical level. Although the idea that every moral action is
eventually met with an appropriate responseFa sort of ethical first law of thermodynamicsF
there is no way of knowing exactly what that response will be, or when it will come. Because
196 ETHOS
of the existential firewall that exists between incarnations, allowing karma to carry over from
one lifetime to the next while blocking out memories of the past, there is no way of har-
nessing knowledge about an individual’s karma for practical effect. No one can say with any
certainty what will happen, and, except in cases where one’s karma returns during the same
lifetime, why something will happen.
This may be why many of the anthropologists who have looked at karma report that it is
often an explanation of last resort. People generally rely on more clearly defined explana-
tions before falling back on karma (Babb 1983; Beck 1983). Hiebert (1983:120) reports that
his informants frequently attribute events to physics, fate, astrology, spirits, and the gods as
well as karma. Why, then, maintain the karmic tradition at all? Why is it that karma plays a
central role in ancient Vedic texts as well as contemporary television dramas?
Gombrich (1975:219) argues that karma’s golden-rule implications make it socially useful.
Keyes asserts that, although making merit results in good feelings, ‘‘it is not the state of
mind that is significant . . . but the social recognition of being a person of virtue’’ (1983:268).
He uses this conception to explain one of the central problems faced by anthropologists of
Buddhism: how to explain karma’s persistence among worldly populations. Karma can be
used as a basis for an ethical system among worldly Buddhists because of the ability to
transfer merit from one person to another (Keyes 1983:270). Keyes sees merit being made
primarily in religious contextsFwhen one transfers it to the dead, and when one receives it
by sponsoring a young man when he enters the Sangha (1983:273–274). He views merit as
compensation for those who sacrificeFas a reward, for example, for wives who lose their
husband’s labor to the monastery (Keyes 1983:282). I have found, however, that in Bangkok,
it plays a role away from the temple as well.
Obeyesekere (1968, 2002) argues that karma is not so much social necessity as logical
necessity. He argues that reincarnation religions will, once they have become ethicized
and conceptualized, develop along two distinct but necessary tracks: one that leads to
Nirvana and escape from the cycles of birth, suffering, and death, and one that leads
ultimately to karmic justice within the system of rebirth. Karma exists as a theodicy (or
as an answer to theodicy, depending on one’s interpretation of the word [Obeyesekere
1968:11]).
Many other scholars (such as Hiebert 1983 and Sharma 1973) follow a similar line of rea-
soning. They begin with the idea, along Geertz’s (1973) lines, that concepts like karma
persist because, if they cannot make the universe known and controlled, they make it seem
knowable and controllable.
Religious answers to [the problem of theodicy] do not try to deny that the just suffer sometimes, in spite of their righteousness, but only deny that their suffering is inexpli- cable, or without either value or meaningFeven if that meaning is not fully accessible to human comprehension. [Sharma 1973:347]
SYNCHRONIZING KARMA 197
Karma is a concept that defines the universe as an orderly and balanced place.3
Obeyesekere moves beyond this. Where Obeyesekere argues for the philosophical need for a
just universe, other thinkers argue that karma fulfills desires that reflect cultural modes of
satisfying personal needsFemotionally, cognitively, or otherwise. There is merit in both of
these approaches, but this second approach raises questions that it does not answer: what,
exactly, could make a universe feel ordered? How does this doctrine of karma satisfy this de-
sire? And why stick with karma, especially in globalized cultural environments, when other
explanations are available? Given the fact that karma’s effects on psychological well-being are
often negative (in the form, e.g., of that persistent feeling of uncleanness, because of the
awareness that one has accrued a karmic debt that must be repaid), then does the desire for a
particular form of ordered universe continue to hold when that order offers the potential not
just for bad feelings, but for events as terrible as, for example, retributive murder?
The utility of an idea is importantFbut when it comes to internalization, this is not suffi-
cient. In this article, I argue not that middle class Thai Buddhists internalize karmic
doctrine because it is useful to them, as some of the authors noted above have argued but,
rather, because in spite of its drawbacks the forces that lead to the internalization of karma
cause it to appear to be undeniably true.
Internalization
The notion that the projection of ideas is integral to internalization may seem more than a
little counterintuitive. The problem lies in the fact that internalization is not an apt term to
describe the variety of processes that the word needs to describe. Before we can proceed,
then, we need to make sense of the notions behind internalization.
An understanding of internalization, which we can define generally as the processes through
which people become invested, emotionally or cognitively, in cultural information, is es-
sential to making sense of human cultural experience. The term, however, does not serve its
users well for several reasons. First, the use of a single term that covers a wide variety of
processes suggests that the different internalization theories are comparable. Throop (2003)
attempts to compare them. But he points out that Melford E. Spiro’s use of the term focuses
on the ‘‘binding of emotion to cultural propositions,’’ whereas Obeyesekere’s theoretical
attention is drawn to something rather different, ‘‘the effects of cultural propositions on
cognitive and perceptual systems’’ (Throop 2003:114). Instead of attempting to critique one
against another, we might recognize that this class of theories describes many discrete but
similar processes ranging from the internalization of material attached to precultural expe-
riences (e.g., Spiro 1997) through childhood and child-rearing experiences (Briggs 1998;
Vygotsky 1981) to mature, shared understandings of reality, like Turner’s ritual process
model (1969), that attempt to demonstrate that organized rituals allow for the creation of
deep-seated beliefs in one’s position in a social structure. Shore develops this connection
198 ETHOS
between ritual and internalization further, arguing that, through repetition, rituals create
procedural memories (as well as episodic ones) and lead to the development of a semantic
code for interpreting events (1996:259). If we keep in mind the different contexts for which
they were developed, we do not need to prioritize one theory over another.
There is something that all of these theories share: all are poorly served by the choice of the
word internalization. The word brings with it certain assumptionsFassumptions that most
internalization theorists actually appear to eschew. The word suggests that the processes
that are of interest are ones in which conceptualizations enter a mind and body, like salt
poured into a shaker. Anthropologists cannot understand internalization, however, if
we look only at the way cultural materials go into a person; after all, every day, everyone
encounters a wide variety of cultural information, and, as Spiro (1997) points out, some
becomes deeply internalized, or relates to things that have already been internalized,
whereas much of it does not.
To distinguish between different levels of internalization and differential relevance among
individuals, we need to look not at the way information enters, but at the ways it gets used.
Do many situations evoke particular pieces of information? Is this information applied to
many issues? Does it shape one’s perspectives on certain circumstances? To understand
whether a piece of information has been internalized, anthropologists need to make sense of
an individual’s perspectiveFto understand the way a person envisions the structure of re-
ality, understand the ways the individual applies that structure to the environment, and the
ways he or she communicates that structure to others. It is not the process of information
coming in that is useful; it is the processes through which information comes to fit in with
what appears, to the individual, to exist outside, and how each person communicates this to
others. This is, of course, what makes salt worth thinking about. What is most interesting is
not what happens when it goes into the shaker (that comes later in the discussion), it is what
happens when it comes back out again: to what it is applied, with what effect.
There are several ways to talk about this sort of relationship between the individual mind
and the information available in a society. We could talk only about personal, idiosyncratic
internalizations that give rise to things like what Obeyesekere calls an individual’s set of
‘‘private symbols’’ (1981:14). This process demonstrates the ways that material enters an
individual and becomes idiosyncratic. But for the most part, when anthropologists talk
about this relationship, they are concerned with the ways that people across a society
manage to come to believe what appears to be the same basic thing in what appears to be the
same basic way. Moving from the individual level to the social, then, internalization
becomes not just a question of information going into a mind or information coming out,
but rather of the reproduction of informationFthe ways that people communicate cultural
information to one another so that it is received, integrated, and then communicated to
potential recipients, recipients who have their own personal, distinct patterns of internalized
material with which to think. Receive, integrate, expressFthese all must contribute to the
study of internalization.
SYNCHRONIZING KARMA 199
This is quite a heavy burden for a word like internalization to bear, implying only ‘‘taking in.’’
The word itself suggests that it is the processes that get the information into a person that
matterFthe ways information is conveyed, the social, cultural, and ideological structures
that create an air of veracityFand an incautious reader may take it to imply the reification of
culture: if people internalize culture, then it is culture that plays actively on (and through)
the recipient. This fits in well with certain older models of the relationship between culture
and people (e.g., that of configurationists like Benedict [1934]Fthe term may be an artifact
of earlier anthropological culture theories that describe one-way streets).
It is worth noting, however, that this is not adopted by the other thinkers cited here. As Briggs
(1998) argues, experiences happen to individuals, and the idea that there is a generalized indi-
vidual, that minds could be shaped culturally to receive the same information in the same ways,
makes very little sense. It is clear, however, that people do accept or construct similar versions
of the same idea, and do use ideas in ways similar enough to allow effective communication.
The process of integrating shared cultural information involves finding a place for it in an
individual’s idiosyncratic, experientially based vision of the world. From the individual’s
point of view, then, the process is one of fitting pieces of cultural information into one’s
vision of the world. In that case, if we focus on the active abilities minds employ, it makes
more sense to talk about the externalization of cultural information. Internalization is not
reified culture acting on identical people; instead, coming to terms with culture involves
active minds communicating more-or-less similar ideas, creating a comprehensible social
environment in which others can learn or reaffirm previously held ideas.
Neither internalization nor externalization describes the process completely. One suggests the
reification of culture as the active force, the other suggests that minds are fundamentally free
from cultural influence. We need to recognize that there is an interactive relationship, people
acting in culturally informed ways, and cultures acting through people. There does not seem
to be an ideal term in English for this, but for our purposes here, the word synchronization will
suffice. It allows for analytical recognition of differences between individuals while also iden-
tifying shared beliefs and ideas. If it does not directly suggest the processes of internalization
and externalization, then at least it does not exclude either of them, or play favorites. As it is
commonly used, the word does not suggest the notion of deep structuring of worldview, but
I will ask the reader to include that sense in its meanings as well.
Projection and Projective Systems
The synchronization of a common belief in karma among middle-class Thai Buddhists is
made possible by the human ability to externalize their notions. The mechanism that makes
this synchronization possible is the human ability to create projective systems. In this case,
the system operates based on a number of generally unarticulated rules that relate to the
interpretations of personal experiences in two ways simultaneously: they connect doctrine
200 ETHOS
to narratives based on experience, and they allow individuals to develop stories that fit into a
socially favored form. In this way, interpretations of personal experiences, shared as karma
stories, help stabilize and make acceptable the popularly sanctioned, popularly shared belief
in karma, whereas doctrinal abstractions about the nature of reality are given the veracity of
those experiences.4
There are cases in which the projection of thoughts and feelings is both necessary and cul-
turally appropriateFcircumstances in which people have questions that they need to
answer to know how to act, but for which it is not possible to find empirical evidence to
support any particular view over another. Is the universe just or not? Is God really working
in mysterious ways? Lacking incontrovertible evidence to answer questions like this, one
must rely on subjective reflections of what makes sense to an individual or a group. Here, we
find projective systemsFsystems of conceptions that reflect an individual’s own under-
standings and feelings read onto reality. Kardiner (1945:38–46) described this as a basic
property of cultures. Along with systems based on experience-based reason, projective sys-
tems serve to allow people to make sense of their worlds. Instead of depending on empirical
evidence to understand the ways things work, he wrote, projective systems rely on the ex-
ternalization of repressed childhood fears and traumas as the basis for understanding.
Functioning as defense mechanisms, they serve as responses to the traumas inflicted on
children by the members of a society. The early fear of a punishing father, for example, gets
expressed as fear of a punishing god, and the need for obedience in the familial environment
is translated into religious prescriptions.
If we accept Kardiner’s idea that cultures really are primarily the outgrowths of psycholog-
ical needs, with some secondary feedback mechanisms moderating them, then his
conceptualization makes sense. But if we look at the history of a concept like karma, then the
idea of this particular projective system growing out of child-rearing practices frays around
the edges. As a fundamental tenet of both Buddhism and Hinduism (and found, in various
forms, elsewhere as wellFin Ancient Greece, e.g., or among certain Native American
groups [Obeyesekere 2002]), the belief has spread, with relatively little change, across a large
number of diverse societies (e.g., Keyes and Daniel 1983). Furthermore, belief in karma has
lasted through the changes of several thousand years. Although it may serve to protect
people in some societies against particular common traumas, we need to find a stronger
explanation for the prevalence and endurance of this idea.
Projective systems appear often across the spectrum of human cultures serving the vital pur-
pose of providing people with the relatively abstract guidelines they need to make sense of the
workings of the universe. This allows them to make many of the decisions they need to func-
tion in daily life. If we approach projective systems not as an excrescence developed from
childhood trauma, but rather as a historically produced (and psychologically reproduced) tool
used for dealing with the ordinary exigencies of living, externalizing notions of the ways the
unknowable works, then we can talk about things like karma stories as the practical, inten-
tional externalization of Thai Buddhists’ interpretations of ideas of moral balance.
SYNCHRONIZING KARMA 201
In the case of projective systems, a belief becomes acceptable not on the basis of authority of
any direct, culturally unquestionable evidence but because of the fact that members of a
society accept the idea that the object onto which ideas are projected (God, the universe, or
anything else) behaves in line with the individual’s culturally informed expectations.
Projection, as a defense mechanism, involves the externalization of a particular emotion,
motivation, desire, or idea by one individual onto an outside entity as a way of dealing with
an otherwise-intolerable stress of recognizing it in oneself. Projective systems, however, in
normal sociocultural functioning, involve externalization not because the feeling or thought
is intolerable, but because it is necessary or useful in making sense of some aspect of the
workings of reality.
Projected beliefs differ from socially sanctioned beliefs in that social sanctioning can explain
why people pay lip service to a belief, why it gets talked about in a community, but this does
not explain how people come to feel invested in it. For this to happen, people must be more
than familiar with a doctrine: they must be able to see it relate to their experience. Thus,
communities with effective projective systems are able to span the gap between shared
doctrine and individual experience using a set of rules that guide the interpretation of ex-
periences, fitting them into a general schema that allows for a belief to be both shared and
personal. An understanding of doctrine comes to meet an understanding of experience.
That is, the belief can be synchronized.
Karma as a Projective System: Standards for Interpreting and Talking about Karma
Lambek (2002) has considered the relationship between socially shared projections
and culture among Malagasy-speaking sorcery victims. The rules that govern the relation-
ship between victim and malevolent spirit bear some resemblance to the rules that guide the
relationship between Buddhist and karma. He writes that the account of one informant
shows:
an interesting implication of the rule that the healer or diviner should not reveal the identity of the sorcerer. The curer’s reticence provides the victim the opportunity to construct her own interpretation, one which is consistent, meaningful and psychologi- cally relevant to her and which will not be challenged in any public forum. Thus, the victims of sorcery internalise its meaning. [Lambek 2002:206]
Schieffelin reports something similar among the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea.
There, mediums put on performances for the community in which various spirits are
thought to emerge, and give, among other things, information about the locations of lost
pigs. The medium does not know the whereabouts of the missing animals, but has an idea of
the sorts of places they might be found, and goes on to describe a location in terms specific
enough to draw out exact locations from the members of the audience, but vague enough to
provide cover in case the pig is not where the listeners decide it is (Schieffelin 1985:718).
202 ETHOS
In this way, the medium creates an opening in the narrative into which the audience can insert
its own ideas. Coming in to the séance predisposed to believe the medium, the members of the
community then ‘‘complete the construction’’ of the sense of reality of the medium’s descrip-
tions (Schieffelin 1985:721). The medium guides the creation of a story, which the audience
itself has helped produce, and in which it can believe, and this, then, serves to demonstrate the
veracity and value of the medium’s spirit communications to the community.
In Lambek’s and Schieffelin’s work, as in this study of karma stories, the effort is made to
connect personal perceptions, emotions, and ideas to the greater whole of the culturally
conceptualized universe. (Unlike Lambek’s and Schiefflin’s cases, both of which depend on
specialists in developing vague-but-recognizable narratives, karma stories are usually cre-
ated and judged by amateursFordinary lay Buddhists whose intention, generally, is to
explain events in their lives.) It appears that the rules that govern the projective system must
lead to certain types of conclusions: these conclusions cannot be so vague as to be mean-
ingless, but they cannot be so specific as to be visibly wrong; they must be consistent enough
to produce narratives that fit into recognizable categories, without being so rigid that they
can be disapproved through analysis. They cannot be so private as to be entirely idiosyn-
cratic and incomprehensible to others, but they cannot be so standardized as to be
inapplicable in specific cases.
Projective systems are also socially sanctioned. Just as the successful medium develops a rep-
utation for effective spirit communication, successful karma stories serve to reinforce the
notion that karma is a potent force in Buddhists’ lives. Thus, projective narratives tend to
reinforce the rules governing the creation of the next generation of stories, at the same time
that they follow the rules set out by their predecessors. This means that it would be possible
for the nature of stories that grow from projective systems to evolve, as new judges negotiate
the validity of new narratives in new circumstances, the shifts must gain acceptance over time.
In the case of karma stories, these requirements are satisfied through adherence to a specific
set of generally unarticulated standards, constituting principles of karma. Some narratives
make broadly acceptable karma stories; others do not. Here is a brief synopsis of the shared
standards (to be discussed in greater detail shortly), drawn from popular Buddhist beliefs, of
the principles a believer must keep in mind when forming karma narratives:
1. Karma, inherent in the universe, is always just, but never merciful.
2. Karma is impersonal. As a force and not a sentient being, it cannot play favorites, for-
give, or persecute vindictively.
3. Because humans have no absolute way to measure right and wrong, one must gauge
one’s karmaFand, thus, develop karma storiesFbased on how one feels. If a person
feels she has done something very bad, she can expect a very strong karmic response.
4. Karma makes metaphorical connections between actions and events, which humans
can perceive.
SYNCHRONIZING KARMA 203
5. At the same time, karma is private. Except in cases in which the causeFeffect rela-
tionship is extremely intense and visible, the importance of feelings and the scope of
personal history mean that the individual is the final arbiter of his or her own percep-
tions of karmic causeFeffect relationships. (This would hold unless a story violated
another standard.)
Narratives are formulated in such a way that they can be shared and evaluated as really being
about karma, and really being true or notFwhile reflecting the idiosyncratic ideas of an
individual mind. When these rules are followed, the story can become socially sanctioned:
belief tends to reinforce belief, evidence to reinforce evidence. The following example
demonstrates the workings of these standards:
From the ages of 10 to 12, Aw says, she used to prepare crabs for her family’s dinner. She bought them live, and before killing them, she would poke their eyes out with her knife. She liked the way they pulled their eye-stalks back, and the way the dark liquid would ooze from the damaged sockets. She did this for quite some time. Several years after she stopped, however, she developed a pain in her left eye. It grew worse and worse; she wore glasses, then covered the eye for parts of the day, but nothing relieved her suffering, and her doctor could find no physical problem. It interfered with her studies and made her chronically uncomfortable. The problem continued for a year, until Aw and her mother took a temple retreat. At the temple, Aw meditated for a week. As she meditated, the pain in her eye faded. Aw believes that her malady was karmic retribution for slicing the crabs’ eyes, and that the meditation improved her karma, which resolved the issue. She now can see perfectly. Today, she is in excellent health, except for an occasional pain in her lower back; she used to like cutting ants in half with her cooking knife.
Standards 1 and 2: Karmic Doctrine and the Human Universe
According to P. A. Payutto, an influential theologian on the subject whose teachings are
broadly representative of many Bangkok Buddhists’ beliefs, karma describes one aspect of an
immense system of causes and effects in which everything is related, connected together
in a great chain of changes, thoughts, words, and actions (1993:11). ‘‘Buddhism teaches
that all things, both material and immaterial, are entirely subject to the direction of causes
and are interdependent’’ (Payutto 1993:1). The Buddha divided Dhamma (‘‘the law of na-
ture’’ [Payutto 1993:1]) into five categories. There are five kinds of causes, each associated
with its own sort of effect: there are physical causes and effects, the effects of heredity,
relationships between thoughts and other objects of the mind that give rise to further
mental objects. Then there is karma, which describes another subset of natural relations, the
causeFeffect relationships between human intentions and their results. Finally, there is
‘‘the natural law governing the relationship and interdependence of all things’’ (Payutto
1993:2), which asserts that all these causes and effects are connected: an idea can lead
to a physical action from which further feelings may spring, inspiring karmic retribution,
and so on.
204 ETHOS
Because of the interrelation of all things, the Thai Buddhist conception of related actions
involves recognizing connections that might not be identified by others. Doctrine dictates
that the laws of physical Dhamma are in action when a glass falls to the ground, and breaks
on impact. In the same way, karma dictates that every intention is returned to the intender: if
the glass was broken in anger, then in some way, that anger must return to the actor. At
times, the connection will be clear: the glass breaks and the breaker cuts his or her hand as a
result. At other times, however, the connection is not physically immediate. For example, a
valued piece of glass could break later, resulting from a different physical cause, but from the
same karmic cause. (This sort of cause and effect mix and match is considered par for the
course.) In this case, the connection can only be made metaphorically. Similarly, if one slits
the eyes of a crab, one must expect a return following the other rules of DhammaF
one might cut oneself immediately if the knife slipsFor later, experience pain through a
connection that can only be made metaphorically. According to the Dhamma, then,
metaphorical causes and effects are every bit as natural as physical collisions.5
Payutto uses the word flow to describe these connections. For example: ‘‘If there is wrong
view, it follows that any subsequent thinking, speech, and actions will tend to flow in a
wrong direction’’ (1993:12). The word works to conjure, in some minds, at least, the image
of all things creating a stream, all moving along togetherFeach thing as integral to every
other thing, as what drops of water become after they have entered a stream.
Payutto uses the word outflow to describe the connections that are taken as evidence of the
actions of karma. He quotes the Buddha:
Monks! What is Right View? I say there are two kinds of Right View: the Right View (of one) with outflows, which is good kamma and of beneficial result to body and mind; and the Right View (of one) without outflows, which is transcendent, and is a factor in the Noble Path. [Payutto 1993:13]
Notice that this flood of causes that starts other causes is the inevitable result of karma. An
enlightened one who is without karma has managed to step out of this stream and dry him-
self (psychologically) of the causes and effects of desire. Everyone elseFand everything
elseFis stuck in this integrated Dhammic system, subject to all five sorts of causes.
Karma, then, cuts both ways. Intentions and desires are the source of suffering, and call to be
eliminated; but if one does good things and makes merit, the doctrine of karma teaches that
one will necessarily be rewarded. This gives rise to the impetus to give gifts, especially to
monks (more rewarding recipients of gifts than the laity, because monks are, theoretically, at
least, purer): in addition to developing connections, any debt accrued by others will neces-
sarily be repaid by someone at some point in the future. Karma is always just. There is no
escape for the wicked; misdeeds are always repaid in kind. This idea forms the core of the
narratives that people tell about karma. This idea of justice is the first requirement for
determining whether events are karmicly related in developing a karma story.
SYNCHRONIZING KARMA 205
At this point, I have given a brief overview of a complete and viable philosophical descrip-
tion of reality, a system that could exist but that, on its own, without the support of the other
standards, lacks a compelling veracity. With regard to karma, the system could just as well be
fantasy. What is needed, before this can become personalized as a projective system, is a way
for humans not just to share a potential universe with karma but to connect directly with it.
This is the job of the next standard.
Standard 3: The Importance of Feelings in Gauging Karma
Different cultures employ different models to describe the workings of the mind,
and, thus, formulate the relationship between individuals and reality in different ways.
According to D’Andrade, the European American folk model of the mind places
emotions somewhat at odds with certainty of beliefs in some cases: ‘‘Feelings are portrayed
as ‘coloring’ one’s thinking, ‘distorting’ one’s judgment. . . . The image here seems to
be of a force which is a sort of perturbation of the medium’’ (1987:124). In other societies,
however, feelings need not cloud the issues, but can, in fact, clarify them. By many
Thai ethnopsychological standards, ones’ own emotional status is taken to be an important
indicator of the nature of reality as well. In answering the question, ‘‘What is good?’’ many
Thai Buddhists tend to depend on their emotions more than, perhaps, many Americans
might. But the issue goes much deeper than this. When evaluating the questions ‘‘What is
real?’’ or ‘‘What is true?,’’ the tools that these individuals use rest on emotion and intuition
as well as on reason and perception. Emotion and intuition are often thought of as the
bases for evaluating reality. Lacking the sort of intuition that comes with enlightenment,
it is emotion that matters to most people when making sense of karma. Reality testing,
then, is more a holistic matter than simply a rational one. (A similar point is made by
Nisbett et al. [2001].)
There is a widely shared belief in Thailand that karma plays an important role in the