When the question of karma comes up in Buddhist circles, it is quickly followed by the question, “If there is no self, who does the karma and who gets the results of the karma?”
The correct answer to this question is that it is not properly formulated. It takes the teaching about the not-self, interprets it as a teaching about the not-self, and contextualizes it. Then he tries to fit the teaching of karma into this context, but realizes that it doesn’t fit. So this leads to the question of how karma came to be included in the teachings of the Buddha, and whether it really should be there.
However, the correct way to phrase the original question is to reverse the context. Starting with karma as a context, how does the teaching of no-self fit into this context? In other words, what karma – action – is the perception of non-self? When is it good and when is it not? If we formulate the question in this way, we can see that the two teachings fit together nicely.
But even though this formulation of the question makes sense, what other evidence is there that this is the correct formulation? The Buddha is recorded as saying that consistency is not proof of the truth of a teaching (MN 95), but he also says that consistency is one test of what can be accepted as true dhamma (DN 16). In other words, if a teaching fits with what you know to be dhamma, you can consider it dhamma. This means that showing that an interpretation is consistent with other parts of the early texts may not be true, but it does show that the interpretation belongs to the dhamma, so it’s worth putting it into practice and seeing the results.
We can start by noting two things:
1) Karma means intentional action. It’s something you do with a purpose.
2) The teaching about no-self belongs to the category of discrimination. MN 135 states that the distinction begins as follows:
“This is the path to insight: when I visit a seer or brahmin, to ask, ‘What is skillful, venerable sir?’ What is clumsy? What is objectionable? What is blameless? What should be cultivated? What should not be cultivated? What will happen to the long-term damage and suffering I have caused? prosperity and happiness?” — MN 135
These discriminating questions are questions of karma both in their premise and formulation. Questioning is an example of karma, as questions are asked with a purpose: they are aimed at long-term prosperity and happiness. Discourse highlights this fact by including them in the list of actions with long-term consequences. In terms of framing, they try to achieve their goal by understanding the pursuit of happiness in the context of action: what to do do it to achieve long-term happiness. In other words, the questions themselves are not passively asked, and they do not ask about things like the true nature of reality in the abstract. When you ask wise people these questions, you want to know exactly what it takes to be truly happy in the long run.
The standard answer exists on two levels, mundane and transcendent. On an ordinary level, it is good to avoid the ten types of unskilled actions:
physical – killing, stealing, illicit sex;
verbal – lying, divisive speech, rude speech, idle chatter; and
mental – inordinate greed, malice and wrong views that deny the reality of skillful and unskillful actions and the reality of life after death.
As the Buddha states, skillful action on this mundane level can lead to happiness now and to future lives in higher and more refined worlds of existence for a long, long time.
The transcendent level of skillful action is the noble eightfold path to the end of suffering—what the Buddha calls karma, which leads to the end of karma (AN 4:237). This path leads to the ultimate bliss of dissolution (nibbāna), which is beyond the worlds and completely beyond the boundaries of space and time.
Well, the primary distinguishing factor of the Noble Eightfold Path is right view, which means that right view is a type of karma. And just as the path as a whole is the karma that leads to the end of karma, right view is the karma that leads to the end of views.
Right view at this level is expressed in the four noble truths: the truths of suffering, its causes, its cessation, and the path of practice that leads to its cessation.
The First Noble Truth defines suffering as a set of five attachments. Both attachment and aggregates are a type of karma. Aggregates are form, feelings, perceptions, mental fabrications, and consciousness. Each of these is defined by a verb: The form is deformed, feelings are felt, etc. (SN 22:79). The act of attachment—identified by the Buddha as a type of mental nourishment—takes the aggregates as raw material for creating sensual phantasies, worldviews, ideas about what customs and practices to follow in order to find happiness in the world, and ideas about self-identity: our role in the world. Clinging is clinging to these actions with one goal in mind – to find happiness. But as the Buddha notes, the act of feeding on these actions always involves suffering and stress to a greater or lesser degree.
The second noble truth defines the cause of suffering as three types of desire: sensuality, desire and passion for becoming (assuming identity in the world of experience), and becoming to be annihilated. And this desire is a condition of knowing the four noble truths.
In order to put an end to this suffering at its cause, the Buddha describes tasks for each of the four noble truths: Suffering must be understood, its cause must be abandoned, its cessation must be accomplished, and the path leading to its cessation must be developed.
Suffering must be understood, its cause must be abandoned, its cessation must be realized, and the path leading to its cessation must be developed.
The understanding of suffering requires an end to all suffering toward activities that bring suffering (SN 22:23). Relinquishing the cause of suffering requires developing passion for both desire and objects. So these two duties both involve the development of dispassion. It is something you do, and the right view does, if you use the right perceptions and mental fabrications for the right purpose.
This is where the perception of no-self comes into play as the perception that produces dispassion. Notice that the Buddha is not the self perception, meaning it is a label applied to identify things or indicate their meaning or value. In this case, it is a value judgment: If something is not me, then it is not worth clinging to it as if it were yours. The fact that the concept of no-self means two things:
1) It is not a determination of whether there is a self or not. According to the Buddha, questions such as “What am I? Do I exist? Do I not exist?” they do not deserve attention because the attempts to answer do not lead to the end of the suffering. In fact, it would pull you off the path into the “wilderness of views, the thrashing of views, the distortion of views”—not a place you want to be (MN 2).
2) Unlike later Buddhist traditions, the Buddha never described non-self as a characteristic of things. Instead, as a perception, it is a mental action that you apply to things in order to make a judgment about them. In this case, it is done with the aim of developing dispassion in them, so it focuses on their negative side. As the Buddha notes, the aggregates each have their own pleasant side. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t fall for them and stick to them. In order not to cling to them, you must focus on their disadvantages (SN 22:60). This is the task that the perception of no-self, along with its companions of impermanence and stress, is meant to fulfill.
So the perception of no-self is a kind of karma, part of the duties of the four noble truths and the comprehensive karma of the path as a whole.
When these perceptions have thoroughly aroused the passion for aggregates, they have completed the first step of their task. The next step is to get them to let you go. After all, as perceptions, they also count as aggregates. If they did not encourage you to let them go, the karma of these perceptions would not completely lead to the end of karma.
This is why the right view is expressed by finally letting it go. One discourse puts it this way:
“Whatever is created is invented, willed, dependent co-creation: It is permanent. What is permanent is stress. Whatever stress is, it is not me, not what I am, not my self.” – AN 10:93
Well, this view itself is fictional, co-created by will and dependent. Which means that once it’s been used to trigger a passion for all the other fictions, it can turn itself on to trick you into letting go. From the point of view of the discourse, he sees the higher escape from it. As with the questions that triggered the beginning of the distinction, the discourse also highlights the function of the correct view here. as an action focusing on the karmic consequences of holding onto a view and letting it go.
A similar principle applies to other formulations of the right view, such as “All dhammas are not self-interested” (Dhp 279) and “All dhammas are not worthy of attachment” (MN 37). It should be noted that among the many meanings of the word “dhamma,” there are three that are relevant here: dhamma as teaching, dhamma as phenomenon, and dhamma as action. Since these statements are dhammas in all three senses of the word, the principle of non-observance can ultimately be reversed and applied to them as well.
And since these statements are examples of karma serving the path, they are considered karma leading to the end of karma.
Using these teachings in this way brings the mind to full awakening—the six-sense independent dimension of consciousness (MN 49). When the mind returns to experience the six senses, it experiences them as “detached” from them (MN 140). In other words, it no longer feeds on them. And while the mind may still have intentions, it does so in such a way that they no longer produce karmic consequences (AN 3:34). Later, when the awakened one dies, the six senses become cold (Iti 44), but the dimension of the awakened consciousness, since it is independent of the six senses, is not affected by the growing cold. If there is no contact with the senses, there is no karma. In the terms of the canon, this consciousness Is Such—simply what it is and nothing else.
This is how the Noble Eightfold Path works, like karma leading to the end of karma. If we understand the role of the concept of no-self in the service of this karma, then we can understand how the teaching of no-self can best be seen in the context of the teaching of karma—and the dhamma as a whole. It is meant to be used as a means to an end and then let go.
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This essay was originally appeared on dhammatalks.org. If you want to learn more about this topic, please do check out Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s appearance in the latest episode Tricycle conversations.
