A SPIRITUAL MANIFESTO FOR THE NEW MILLENIUM, or CAUSES AND
CONDITIONS OF THE
I.
It has been argued for millennia that humans are characteristically action-oriented. This means that our lives are mostly comprised by our actions. The repetition of certain actions within the scope of life leads to the creation of certain tendencies in the individual, these tendencies in turn lead to certain outcomes. Each of our actions therefore carries a certain amount of habit-energy. This habit-energy, known as karma, makes it difficult for the human to act in complete freedom and creative spontaneity. We are limited by our habit-energies to act within a certain proscribed range of behavior.
The guiding principle that governs our various habit-energies is simple repetition. By repeating certain actions over a long enough period of time, we lock ourselves into habitual modes of behavior that typically yield recurring consequences. While it is important to note that we always have the existential freedom to act in any way possible, this is not the point. The point is: despite the freedom to choose something different, we typically act according to our past karma. And throughout a lifetime, we do little more than accumulate more and more karma, which makes it harder for us later in life to change.
Any addict knows the profound force of karma. What makes an addict an addict is the fact that he or she has a tendency toward repeating a certain behavior. This behavior may involve a substance or may not involve a substance, this behavior may be socially acceptable or socially unacceptable, this behavior may be considered healthy or unhealthy. The behavior in itself does not make a difference in light of karma. As the Zen masters say, “All karma is bad karma.” All addictive behaviors are the result of the gross accumulation of a certain amount of karma. The addict feels compelled to repeating a certain behavior, such as taking drugs. She has very little choice in the matter; her karma propels her into further drug use. Caught within the impossible grip of habit-forming energy, almost without the ability to act otherwise, the addict feels she must act on her cravings.
The specific and varied addictions should not be thought of as separate and distinct problems but rather viewed as the many streams flowing into a single ocean of universal addiction. All addictions are one. When you look at the similarities between a drug addict, an alcoholic, a sex addict, a gambling addict, and a workaholic, the only logical conclusion is that the various addictions are merely symptoms of a singular human illness.
In addition, this human illness is not something that is characteristic only to a specific population of humans called “addicts”, but rather, it is part of the very make-up of being human. Addiction is not the exception to the rule, but the rule itself. This may be off-putting to many who do not consider themselves addicts. But consider for a moment that karma is not a phenomenon that affects the addict alone. Simply find someone with a habit, any habit; it doesn’t even need to be a bad habit. How did this person acquire the habit? She repeated a certain action and thus developed the tendency toward doing that action over a period of time. Everyone accumulates karma because everyone is a responsible agent who acts in the world. These actions add up over time. They begin to carry their own momentum. And they return to the responsible agent in the form of consequences.
Those who are addicted to substances, or gambling, or sex, merely represent the portion of the population in which a certain type of karma is most manifest. The rest of the population, which society does not label as addicts, carries what I call unmanifested karma, which is a form of energy that has not expressed itself in material consequences yet. Because the actions of “non-addicts” tend to be more diverse in nature and less obsessive-compulsive, their karma does not build up to the dimensions that it does in the addict. While unmanifested karma carries with it fewer consequences and tends to be less severe, it is also less visible and harder to do something about.
II.
The Buddha put forth the argument two thousand years ago that all of us are addicts to some degree. He said that cravings lead to attachments, which in turn, lead to suffering. The logic behind this is simple. We find something that we like, and which gives us pleasure, and we keep doing it. This is the attachment: We are attached to what gives us pleasure. Money provides us with luxuries and material comforts that give us pleasure. In this era of late capitalism, our attachment is to money. But we addicted to activity, to ceaseless movement, and constant doing. We work to escape ourselves. Work becomes an endless distraction for our minds. Work creeps into our personal lives. To be sure, corporate culture thrives on this model, blending the line between work and life. Work removes us from the investigation of the soul, and from exploring our personal interests and our heart’s desires. The critic might argue that an idealist will surely incorporate her work with her passion. This is decidedly so. The idealist chooses a profession where she can explore herself and her passion while working and getting paid. However, I raise the argument that, in our capitalist society all work eventually gets reduced to dollar signs. As work, an individual’s own passion transmutes into a dollar sign and thus ceases to be one’s authentic expression of oneself. Therefore, karma is the result of attachment but the process of addiction. Karma is the result of repeating any action in the world. In the cultural and historical example I have chosen, karma is the result of working too much. As we become more attached to the material rewards that our work brings, the cycle of addiction gets fueled.
Of course, you may argue that certain actions need to be repeated. For example, what if I go to school, shouldn’t I repeat the action of going to class every day? Yes, of course. But the attachment forms when one feels the compulsion to continue performing the past action. Compulsion is the red flag for karma. The individual can almost feel the force of the energy pulling her into the past action. So while repeating a certain action like going to school is harmless, going to school for the rest of one’s life so as to avoid the real world is not. In most examples, it is clear whether the karma is a result of an attachment or not.
But what happens when it is not so clear whether karma is operating in our lives? In the final section of this essay, I will discuss the devastating impact that cultural and historical karma has on our lives without us even being aware of it.
III.
My father “took off work” a day last week so that he could be with me as I recovered from surgery. He happened to be on call for the emergency room that day, something that every doctor in the hospital, no matter how many years on the job, must do. He received a phone call nearly every two hours from the nurse asking what to do about a certain patient. The patient was a seventy year old who fell off her bike and shattered her tibia, the other doctor who visited the patient examined the wound, and thought that the leg might need to be amputated. This was brought to my father’s attention later that night, not during the day. During the day, he tried to give orders to the nurses but he was slowly becoming agitated because he didn’t want to go to the ER, he wanted to spend the day with me. Nevertheless, late at night, he decided to rush to the hospital and take a look at the patient. He had rounds scheduled early the next morning so he didn’t come home at night. Then he worked all day. For his age, my father works too much. He knows he works too much and he’s trying to cut down. But he’s been doing this constant working for nearly thirty-five years. It’s not like a switch you can just turn off. Karma doesn’t work that way. The more you work, the more unable you are to rest. That also means not being able to sleep peacefully at night.
My
friend John Griffin recently started a landscaping business in
My
father came to the
Naturally, second generation Americans will attempt to learn from their parents. They estimate the value of their parent’s lives in their own eyes and shape their own lives on the basis of where they believe their parents failed or succeeded. There is a shift in values based on the fact that the second generation finds themselves in an entirely new historical milieu than their parents found themselves. For example, during the sixties, children rebelled against their parents. It was not uncommon for them to leave their homes and separate themselves from their parents. Today however, more and more children are returning to their parent’s homes after college and depending on their parents for financial support. The second generation has also seen the first generation work themselves to death; they’ve seen the effects of workaholism and divorce on the family and on the individual. It is more likely that second generation, with more financial freedom and more leisure time, will carve out a space for their own individual interests and personal desires. At last, there will be a time for me, or will there?
John Griffin set up his landscaping business with himself in mind. He wants to work during the summer, spring, and fall, and in the off-season, he plans to travel. Traveling is what makes John feel alive and therefore he esteems it as vital to his life. This attitude may not have flourished in the times of his father. But with enough financial security, John may make it happen. There is only one pitfall; and this is the pitfall we all must watch out for. John’s mentality is that during the season he will work extra hard so that he can enjoy himself and relax and not have to worry about money in the off-season. According to the logic of karma, however, this reasoning will not work. We are also a culture of extremes: we like to work a lot and then do nothing, hence, the philosophy of retirement.
Individual conditioning also plays a big part in karma. If John has programmed himself to work during the landscaping season is it likely that he will be able to enjoy himself and relax during the off-season? No. He has even told me that sometimes when he travels after saving up a lot of money, he brings his work-mentality to the new country and attempts to hit every tourist spot on the map. As I said before, karma does not turn off like a switch. In order to lessen the effects of karma, one must work less and integrate non-working into one’s life. To balance doing with non-doing, not to simply work a whole lot and then give up work entirely for the rest of the time.
Not only individuals but societies carry the sum of karma. Western culture of the new millennium, specifically the American culture of late capitalism, is being carried by a karmic wave of ceaseless activity. There is a certain dynamism and vibrancy to this over-activity in which we see the results of technological progress and cultural achievement. We may even take pride in the size of our growing cities or in the amazing medical advances that have taken place in the last hundred years. Because it is in our very karmic nature to work hard, to excel, and to improve the conditions of our life we are often blind to the forces that control us and lead inevitably to our suffering. Cultural conditioning has a larger impact on us than we think. We are taught in this country from an early age to hold up a material ideal of success as the model of the good life. We are taught that if we work hard in school than we will get a good career and if we work hard in the career world then we will be able to buy nice thing for our families.
We are taught to value such things as big houses, expensive cars, and nice clothing. Two parts are necessary to the equation: continuous exertion (or productivity) and continuous spending. These two aspects are vital to the working of our economy and our cultural industry. The fuel that drives our capitalist society is hard work and money. After two hundred years, this type of society begins to accumulate karma. The karma carries a weight of its own and gathers force and speed with each of the coming decades. Today our fast-moving culture is becoming blind to its own disease. After years of conditioning, it becomes almost impossible to stop the body from being in an active state. We are either on the cell phone, eating, talking, using the computer, or watching television. Non-action sounds absurd to an American. If you tell an American that non-doing will bring them peace and happiness, they will laugh. It simply doesn’t make sense to most people to sit on a cushion and do nothing.
Without any time devoted to non-doing, the human being only learns one behavior, that of doing. Doing and over-activity becomes a sort of narcotic. Mass culture strains itself by working long hours in high-stress environments. The reward that society offers the individual for her work: money, a quickly disappearing and completely instable piece of paper. The cycle is perpetuated by longer hours and more stress. Consequently, the individual slaves itself to society without ever cultivating one’s own interests or passions. Material riches become the priority of life. The line of what is so-called necessary to survive gets raised. The rewards get shiner and faster and bigger. We never stop working, afraid that if we stop, we will have nothing else to do. For it is true, we have never learned any other behavior than work. We have never taught ourselves to enjoy ourselves, to discover what makes us happy on the inside, and to rest in one place.
10/14/2005
[1] I use the terms first-generation and second-generation loosely. Mainly, I am referring to my parent’s generation as first and mine as second.