Karma vs nirvana

Unfortunately, however, we are not yet finished with karma. What we have been discussing so far (in ch.4 part a) is established Buddhist doctrine, but it is only the established doctrine of one aspect of Buddhism: what is sometimes known as “karmic” or “popular” Buddhism. Side-by-side with the cosmic house points system is another sort of Buddhism with different, perhaps contradictory, goals and values: what may be called “nirvanic” or “monastic” Buddhism. Many Buddhists may still feel that the previous section completely misses the point, because the ultimate goal of Buddhism is not to get “good” karma, but to get no karma at all. The state of nirvana modelled by the Buddha is already one of freedom from any attachment to the consequences of one’s actions. As frequently, many of the criticisms given in the last section have been preceded by a spoiler in Buddhist doctrine itself.

The distinction between karmic and nirvanic Buddhism (terms first used by the sociologist Melford Spiro) can be strongly associated with the social division in traditional Buddhism between monks (or nuns) and laity. Monks seek nirvana, therefore their ethical practice is understood as involving different requirements from that of lay people, who only seek a better rebirth. For this reason, the rules followed by monks and nuns (the Vinaya) differ from the precepts followed by lay people: for example, monks and nuns should be completely celibate, whereas lay people are expected to marry and should only avoid sexual misconduct such as infidelity. Although the separation between monk and lay has sometimes been softened in the Mahayana, the underlying division of goals between good karma for most lay people and no karma for monks (sometimes extended to serious lay practitioners) still prevails in most schools.

However, there are some schools and movements (such as the FWBO/ Triratna Buddhist Community) that have abandoned the monk-lay division, particularly in the West. Although here the social situation that supported it has vanished, however, the gaping contradiction in Buddhist doctrine remains. How can one seek good karma and no karma at the same time? If one obeys the rules and is good, one is apparently digging oneself deeper into delusion, and only showing one’s attachment to karmic rewards. If, on the other hand, one disregards the rules and tries to completely transcend all worldly concerns, one becomes apparently above and beyond all morality, and one’s spiritual elevation seems to become completely disconnected from common human experience. For example, how can celibate monks preach to lay-people in favour of a sexual fidelity they may never have experienced, and which is, in terms of their own rules, an evil to be avoided?

One tempting solution to try to reconcile the two models is to see “good” karma as tapering-off, self-destructive karma. If one applies an incremental model, good karma is only relatively good because it helps you reach no karma at all. However, the best way to no karma at all would not be to do good deeds, but to do no deeds at all. Even when one takes into account the mental conditions for good karma, no mental deeds at all (just staying still and doing nothing, with no volitions and complete passivity) should be the quickest route to no karma. Of course, by the worldly standards of “good karma” this would not be desirable at all, but would be ducking one’s responsibilities. There is no standard according to which good actions are a staging-post to no actions, apart from a contradictory standard.

The contradictory standard has been glued together so long by appeal to the authority of the Buddha. The Buddha clearly gave one sort of teachings to lay people and another to monks, but also softened the boundaries by encouraging monks to be compassionate and lay people to make limited renunciations. Buddhists through the ages have accepted the mystery of the contradiction, evidently in the hope that it would be resolved when they reached nirvana themselves. However, the effect of this has been simply to increase Buddhist dependency on the authority of the Buddha, and on faith rather than consistent reasoning. The mystery here is not of the sort that we need to accept because it would be unhelpful to try to find an answer (as in the case of the beginning of the universe), but simply a contradiction. Instead of helping us to address conditions through the recognition of our ignorance, this contradiction simply makes us more ignorant because it drives us into metaphysical beliefs about nirvana and the Buddha’s revelation.

The alternative to accepting this contradiction is to decisively reject both the doctrine of karma and the doctrine of nirvana as they have been handed down. If we think of each of these only in terms that can be clearly understood within our own experience, they become practicable rather than confusing. If instead of a doctrine of karma we try to recognise ways that our mental states often have effects on our experience, and if instead of a doctrine of nirvana we simply recognise that progress is possible, nothing has been lost from Buddhist practice, except confusing conceptions which were weighing it down and unnecessarily putting people off.