Evident Inequality

The fact that we’re meditating shows that we believe in at least some of the principles of karma: that by working on our minds, we can improve our minds, and that improving our minds is worthwhile. The mind is not just a passive recipient, an epiphenomenon of physical properties or physical laws. It’s actually an important agent. When the mind has been trained, it can make a big difference in our lives. So it’s worthwhile training, worthwhile sitting here with our eyes closed, putting up sometimes with the pain, putting up with the distractions, learning how to overcome them, putting forth the effort to overcome them. Because it does make a difference.

When I first went to Thailand, I was really struck by the fact that people cheerfully agreed that it was not self-evident that we were created equal. For them, it was self-evident that people are unequal. Some people are born strong; some are born weak. Some are born healthy; some are born sickly. Some people have a long life; some people have a short life. Some people are rich; some people are poor. Some are good-looking; some are ugly. Some are intelligent; some are dumb. These are just facts of life. And they’d be explained to me in almost a cheerful way, not just by the rich and the powerful, but by anybody: that everything depended on your karma.

The reason they were cheerful is because there’s a way out of the inequalities if you’re on the low end of the inequalities. It’s a way open to everybody. In other words, karma is impermanent. The fact that you’re on the low end of the scale right now doesn’t mean you have to stay on the low end. You can rise up. And the means for rising up are equal.

The Buddha illustrates this principle with the image of fire. He says that if an outcast makes a fire it’s just as bright as a fire made by a brahman or a noble warrior. In other words, the good you do is really good, regardless of what your background is. That’s why there are people who come in darkness but can go in light, just as there are people who come in light and can go in darkness. How you come is a measure of some of your past karma. How you go is a measure of what you’re doing right now, right here. And that’s something you can choose.

Ajaan Fuang was orphaned at an early age. His relatives sent him off to a couple of monasteries, yet for a long time he wasn’t really listening to the Dhamma. He was just hanging out with the other temple kids, who were a pretty rough bunch. But around age 16 he began listening to the Dhamma and came to realize that here he was: He was poor, didn’t do well in school, was deprived of his parents at an early age. He must have some pretty bad karma. So he was eager to get ordained and make some good karma for himself, to take himself out of that hole.

When he ordained at age 20, he started studying the Vinaya and realized that the village monastery where he was staying was not really holding to the Vinaya. That discouraged him for a while. But then during his second rains, he heard of Ajaan Lee, went to see Ajaan Lee, who had just come to Chanthaburi and was staying at a spot just outside the city. He listened to Ajaan Lee’s Dhamma and was impressed by his personal example. So he decided to reordain and become a forest monk. That’s how he dug himself out of the hole.

Now, it is possible to look at the teaching on karma as justification for inequalities and for the idea that you should keep the inequalities as they are, but that’s a misunderstanding. In fact, it’s actually worse in some of the Mahayana countries. In Tibet, for example, they have laws that say that if there’s a court case between a rich person and a poor person, the rich person obviously has better karma than the poor person, therefore the rich person has to win. We know, of course, that those laws were written by rich people and that they’re abusive. Actually, there’s a certain satisfaction in knowing that people who take advantage of their superior position right now, lording it over others because they’re wealthier and more powerful, are going to fall. So that’s one check against abuses.

The other check is the realization that some of your karma is hidden. There’s the principle the Buddha teaches about the complexity of karma, that you may do good in this lifetime, but then there may be some bad karma from a past lifetime. Or after you’ve done good in this lifetime, you change your views and start doing unskillful things, or you develop a wrong view at death: Any of those bad factors can pull you down, even though good karma* *is still there in your field. It’s just that these other factors are temporarily keeping it from sprouting. But it will sprout someday.

So you can’t tell a person’s* *karma just by looking at them. That motto, “If you want to see a person’s past karma, look at their present condition. If you want to see their future condition, look at their present karma”: That’s not true, because there’s a lot that’s hidden in people’s past karma. And just because you’re doing good now doesn’t guarantee that things will go immediately well in the future. You have to be careful; you have to be heedful.

So there’s some equality in the principle that the opportunities for getting out are open to all. Wealthy people may have more opportunity to be generous with their wealth than poor people do, but it’s good to note that when the Buddha is talking about the merit that comes from a gift, the material cost of the gift is never a factor. What is a factor is your attitude, and poor people can develop a good attitude just as well as rich people.

Sometimes there’s a multiplication effect when they make what’s proportionately a bigger sacrifice. Ajaan Fuang liked to tell the story of a very poor old couple in the time of the Buddha, so poor that they only had one over-robe between the two of them. In those days, you didn’t go out into public without wearing an over-robe. So if the wife went out, she would take the over-robe, and the husband had to stay home. If the husband went out, he would take the over-robe, and the wife would have to stay home.

One night they heard that the Buddha was going to come and give a talk, so they decided the husband would go. As the Buddha was giving the talk, he realized that the old man had some potential, so the talk went on and on and on about the virtue of giving, the perfection of giving.

The man was thinking to himself, “This is why we’re poor. My wife and I have never given anything.” So he thought to himself, “What do I have? I just have this over-robe. It’s my one possession.” He fought with himself, back and forth, back and forth till quite late at night. Finally, he decided, “I’m going to give the robe.” He stood up and shouted, “Chaiyo! Chaiyo! Victory! Victory!” Then he went and handed the robe to the Buddha.

It so happened that the king was in the audience. He heard the man shouting, “Chaiyo! Chaiyo! Victory! Victory!” Now, that’s usually a shout reserved for kings, so he wanted to know what this person was victorious over. The Buddha explained that he was victorious over his greed, victorious over his stinginess.

When the king saw that the man didn’t even have an over-robe to wear anymore, he gave him a large amount of wealth to the man. The man gave it all to the Buddha. The king doubled the amount of wealth, and the man gave that to the Buddha. This kept up until it got up to sixteen times the original gift. Then the man gave eight of those, whatever the items were, and kept the remaining eight for himself and went home. Then the Buddha said, “If he hadn’t taken so long to overcome his stinginess, he would have gotten even more.”

Ajaan Fuang really liked that story, and considering his background, you can understand why. Sometimes it is more difficult for poor people to be generous, but there’s more value in overcoming whatever your karmic weakness is.

So in that sense, we’re all equal. Whatever kind of fire we make, it’s all equally bright. On top of that, there’s always the opportunity to go in light. Whether we come in darkness or light, that’s not what really matters. As I said, you can’t judge a person’s value by what you see. We all may have some hidden good karma that we don’t know about. We also may have some hidden bad karma that we don’t know about, so we have to be heedful.

This is why the proper reflection is, if you’re in a position of superiority and you meet someone who’s in a lower position, ask yourself: If you ever fall into that lower position, what kind of treatment would you like? What kind of treatment would you respect? Well, give that person that treatment, because someday you may be in that person’s position. You don’t know.

It’s the uncertainty of past karma that makes it livable—and the certainty that good karma will get you out that also makes it livable. The uncertainties are basically over the fact that you don’t know how much longer the results of your good or bad karma will last. But the certainty is that if you do more good karma, the results will be good.

Now, whether those results are going to be as good or as fast as you’d like, that’s something else. It’s a little bit beyond your control. But have faith in the fact that when you’re training the mind, you’re training your actions. And your actions are going to determine the course of your life.

So it’s a good thing that we’re working on training our minds right here, right now, because that’s how we get out of this mess we’re in. That’s the other part of the good news: It is possible to find a happiness that goes beyond karma, beyond all these uncertainties.

Think about the Buddha looking back on his past lifetimes: up and down, up and down, up and down; down, down; up, up, up; down, up. When he finally found something inside that was not dependent on conditions, not dependent on karma, he knew that it would be the ultimate happiness. And again, it can be found by following the path of practice. The path of practice doesn’t cause the unconditioned, but it gets you there—just as the roads to Denali don’t create Denali, but they can get you to the mountain.