In the East, the law is at the popular level karma it was often the source of speculative explanations about the objective causes of everything between heaven and earth. According to this popularized understanding of karma, the burglary in your home appears precisely as the result of your breaking into the thief’s house in a previous life. They pay you back in exactly the same coin, strictly one-to-one. This perception is not uncommon at the popular level in Buddhist countries, but as we have explained, it is inconsistent with essential karmic psychology. The suttas say that the network of internal and external causes that bring about the ripening of the fruits of one’s karma is so vast in complexity that the attempt to understand all the causes is classed by the Buddha as “incomprehensible.”
By recognizing the limitations of our understanding of the law of karma, we develop a deeper respect for the complexity of karma, moving beyond the simplistic concept of retribution to embrace a more realistic perspective on ethical action and its far-reaching effects. This helps us gain a clearer perspective on how our actions affect the interconnected web of life in ways that are often hard to grasp but can have a significant impact on ourselves and others. Nevertheless, it is still possible to understand that an event caused by another person’s free will is not a karmic result of our own past actions, but rather contributes to its unfolding. Furthermore, we always have the ethical choice to respond in a helpful or harmful way in the present moment.
The psychological subjectivity of law
As a rule of thumb, the understanding of the law of karma is developed by the meditator, gaining insight into the legal conditions of his own life history. In vipassana, the meditator understands that this lawfulness is about how his specific actions, depending on healthy or unhealthy roots, bind him to suffering or free him from suffering in this life. And this is regardless of what suffering the meditator has been subjected to due to the general conditions of the cycle of rebirths. In other words, it is important to emphasize the primary psychological and subjective nature of the Buddhist concept of karma, to set aside the process of death and rebirth for the time being, even though the accumulation of karma within one life is ultimately a condition for a new existence. For now, it suffices to note that a person’s rebirth into a specific family in a specific cultural environment initially sets the course for certain objective events and conditions that are likely to be encountered. However, according to the Buddha, it does not eliminate the subjective perception of the fruits of karma, which are achieved in the receptive phases of perception. It does not eliminate the range of free will in the proactive phase for different ways of relating to what is happening.
The course of substantive action
The Buddha mentions ten actions that lead to suffering in an unhealthy karmic process. Many suttas also mention the healthy actions of ten opposing processes. On the plane of the karma of the body, these include the shaping activities of loving-kindness (metta), generosity (Dana), and impeccable sexual behavior. On the level of speech, this includes those formative activities that, according to his knowledge, are peaceful (not defamatory), gentle instead of annoying, wise instead of confusing, and in line with the truth. On the plane of the inner mind they include thoughts that are free from desire-thirst, rooted in loving-kindness, and based on right views, including the realization that one’s mind is subject to a conditioned influence, whether binding or liberating; that the will is ethically free to choose. This includes the understanding that the immutable ego, the immutable self-identity, the concept of the core-self is an illusion that is the source of suffering as a motive for action. When right speech and right action are mentioned as waypoints in the moral section of the Noble Eightfold Path, then the path link of right livelihood is added, which includes making a living without harming others. It is also worth mentioning that Buddhism’s approach to sexuality is free from the moralistic features so common in religions. In Buddhism, there is no sexual norm for the laity other than a thosea moral precept or guideline regarding abstinence from sexuality that harms others. However, in the broader Sangsari perspective, sexuality is seen as a shackle to the cycle of rebirths.
Moral fear and shame
During the choice between healthy and unhealthy roots, attention is guided by the activities of intuitive fear (take it) and intuitive shame (city), which the Buddha calls “the moral pillars of the world”. These formative activities form a bulwark against anything unhealthy and protect the development of healthy karmic patterns. The moral intuition of shame is based on an individual’s self-esteem, which prevents them from acting in ways that would be blamed by people whose moral judgment they trust, while moral fear is based on an intuitive orientation to the consequences of an unhealthy action on oneself and others. In other words, intuitive fear and shame are karmic activities of the conscience. Hiri and otappa always appear in healthy states and with experiential confidence (saddha) as a strong incentive to act according to the ethical orientation of healthy states of mind.
Insight into Meditative Karma
When freedom of choice is the object of focused reflection in the karma phase, the will is expressed as a conceptual intention (Chanda). A special category of spiritual intentionality (the end) directs the mind towards the karmic actions of the Noble Eightfold Path.
By recognizing the nature of existence, that in this subtle sense we can cultivate an unshakable, ephemeral calm amidst the vicissitudes of life.
When the mind is immersed in vipassana, the first link on the path, the intuitive level of right view—that is, personal direct understanding of the mind in this way—is activated. This insight is rooted in a constellation of healthy root conditions that activate karma, which is “neither dark nor bright and leads to a result that is neither dark nor bright—it is karma that leads to the cessation of karma.” It is the powerful vipassana-karma that extinguishes all binding inflows (don’t be). The influx ceases irrevocably when we fully understand it in a life-historical and buddhist-meditative sense—that is, in an intuitive understanding of the three universal characteristics: momentary change, dukkha, and the coreless self—and thus understand that there is nothing in the sangsara to cling to. By recognizing the nature of existence, that in this subtle sense we can cultivate an unshakable, ephemeral calm amidst the vicissitudes of life. The ultimate fruition of karma, which is neither light nor dark, culminates in transcendental nibbana, which irrevocably seals this liberation.
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Appearance: In Search of the Untraceable Buddha © 2026, Uffe Damborg. Reprinted by Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com in its agreement
