[Buddha-l] Sharon Stone and Karma

[Richard Hayes]

On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 05:03 -0600, Diana wrote:

> It made me cringe to read Sharon Stone blaming China's earthquake on their 
> collective karma, but I don't know...does Buddhism allow for luck, good and 
> bad, or is everything that happens the result of karma?

If you believe Vasubandhu, the entire physical world and everything that
takes place in it is the result of the ripening of the karma of
uncountable sentient beings scattered throughout the universe. I see no
reason to believe Vasubandhu, but he did have a smidgen of influence on
the thinking of those whose karma predisposed them to believe such
theories.

> I was actually wondering about Buddhism and luck yesterday, and then today I 
> saw this email.  What a coincidence.  Must be my karma.

The theme of luck (or fate) is a huge one in classical Indian culture.
It is a major theme in the epic literature. A great deal that took place
was seen (sometimes quite literally) as depending on a roll of the dice.
(If you have seen "No Country for Old Men" you'll never forget the
haunting image of the psychopathic killer who lets his potential victims
flip a coin to decide whether they live or die.) I think Buddhists in
India tended to shy away from seeing anything of much importance
depending on anything so fickle as fate or chance.

> Fifteen years or more ago, I was in a park and there was a crazy man walking 
> around using a paper cup as a megaphone saying "two earthquakes in three 
> days, God hates America."  I guess that was his version of "it's their 
> karma."

Abigail Adams, wife of the second president of the country in which I
was born, declared that the great influenza epidemic that took the lives
of so many people in the late 18th century was God's punishment for the
failure of Americans to abolish slavery. It's interesting that when I
read things like that, I do not cringe at all---it almost seems right to
me---, but when I read that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for
the failure of Americans to abolish homosexuality, I have fits of
projectile vomiting. I'm not sure I advocate such selective cringing,
but I do have to confess to indulging in it.

About China's earthquakes, there is an alternative account that I have
heard said: the earthquakes may have been caused by skilled Tibetan
meditaters who had gained control over the forces of the earth and shook
the earth in Sichuan to warn the Chinese not to be too cavalier in their
treatment of Tibetans. Independently of hearing that theory advocated, I
happened to read a couple of days ago that Buddhaghosa, commenting on
passages in the Pali canon, explains in some detail just how a yogin can
cause an earthquake. Discretion forbids me from divulging the technique
on e-mail; I fear if I were to reveal this secret I might find myself in
Guantánamo for making weapons of mass destruction available to The
Enemy.

Now for today's homework assignment. From the perspective of Buddhist
ethics, how would causing an earthquake by meditation to warn the
Chinese to think more carefully about how they treat Tibetans compare
with flying a hijacked airplane into a building in a heavily populated
city to warn the Americans to think more carefully about where they
establish permanent military bases? Support your answer with textual
evidence.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico