Gleaning Insight from Inconceivable Matters

At the popular level in the East, the law of karma has often been a source of speculative explanations about causes for everything objectively between heaven and earth. In this popularized understanding of karma, a burglary in your home would be presented precisely as the fruit of the fact that you had committed a burglary at the thief’s house in a previous life. You are being repaid precisely with the same coin in a strict one-to-one relation. This perception is not uncommon at the popular level in Buddhist countries, but as explained, it is not in accordance with the essential karma psychology. The network of inner and outer causes for the maturation of a person’s karma fruits is said in the suttas to be of such extensive complexity that an attempt to understand all the causes is categorized by the Buddha as one of the “inconceivable matters.”

By recognizing the limits of our understanding of the law of karma, we develop a deeper respect for its complexity, moving beyond the simplistic notion of retribution to embrace a more realistic perspective on ethical action and its far-reaching impacts. This helps us gain a clearer perspective on how our actions influence the interconnected web of life in ways that are often hard to grasp but can significantly affect both ourselves and others. Even so, it is still possible to understand that an event caused by another person’s free will is not the karmic result of our own past actions but rather a contributing factor to its unfolding. Additionally, we always have the ethical choice in the present moment to respond in a way that is either helpful or harmful.

The Psychological Subjectivity of the Law

As a rule of thumb, the perception of the law of karma is developed by the meditator with insight into the law’s conditioning of her own life history. In vipassana, the meditator comes to understand that this lawfulness is about how her specific actions, conditioned by the wholesome or unwholesome roots, bind her to suffering or liberate her from suffering in this life. And that is regardless of the suffering the meditator has otherwise been exposed to because of the general conditions in the cycle of rebirths. In other words, it is important to emphasize the primary psychological and subjective nature of the Buddhist concept of karma, in that for now, the death and rebirth processes are set aside, even though the accumulation of karma in one lifetime ultimately serves as a condition for a new existence. For now, it is sufficient to note that a person’s rebirth into a specific family within a specific cultural setting initially sets the path for certain objective events and conditions that one is likely to encounter. However, according to the Buddha, it does not eliminate the subjective perception of the fruits of karma that are brought to maturity in the receptive phases of perception. Nor does it eliminate the range of free will in the proactive phase for different ways of relating to what happens.

The Course of Meritorious Action

The Buddha mentions a list of ten actions in an unwholesome karmic process that lead to suffering. Many suttas also mention ten wholesome actions of the opposite process. On the karma plane of the body, they include the formative activities of loving-kindness (metta), generosity (dana), and blameless sexual conduct. On the plane of speech, they include those formative activities that according to one’s knowledge are conciliatory (rather than slanderous), mild instead of vexatious, wise instead of muddled, and in accord with the truth. On the plane of the inner mind, they include thoughts that are free of desire-thirst, rooted in loving-kindness, and grounded in right views, including the recognition that there is a conditional effect on one’s mind, either binding or liberating; that will is ethically free to choose. This also includes the understanding that the notion of the unchanging ego, the immutable self-identity, the core self, is an illusion that, as a motive for action, is a source of suffering. When right speech and right action are referred to as path links in the moral section of the noble eightfold path, the path link of right livelihood is added that entails earning a living without harming others. It is also worth mentioning that Buddhism’s attitude toward sexuality is free from the moralistic idiosyncrasies that are so common in religions. There are no other sexual norms in Buddhism for laypeople than a sila, a moral prescription or guideline that concerns abstaining from sexuality that harms others. However, in the broader sangsaric perspective, sexuality is considered as a fetter to the cycle of rebirths.

Moral Fear and Shame

In the choice between wholesome or unwholesome roots, attention is guided by the activities of intuitive fear (otappa) and intuitive shame (hiri), which the Buddha calls “the moral pillars of the world.” These forming activities act as a bulwark against anything unwholesome and safeguard the development of wholesome karma patterns. Moral intuition of shame is based on the individual’s self-respect, which prevents her from acting in ways she would be blamed for by people whose moral judgment she trusts, while moral fear is based on the intuitive orientation to the consequence of an unwholesome action for herself and others. In other words, intuitive fear and shame constitute the karma activities of conscience. Hiri and otappa always co-arise in wholesome states and with the experiential confidence (saddha) as a strong incentive to act in accordance with the ethical orientation of the wholesome states of mind.

Insight Meditative Karma

When the freedom of choice in the karma phase is the subject of focused reflection, volitions are expressed as conceptualized intentions (chanda). A special category of spiritual intentionality (dhammachanda) orients the mind toward the karma actions of the noble eightfold path.

By realizing the nature of existence as impermanent in this subtle sense, we can cultivate an unwavering tranquility amid life’s fluctuations.

When the mind’s immersed in vipassana, the intuitive level for the path’s first link, right view, is activated—that is, the personal direct understanding of the mind’s thusness. This insight is rooted in a constellation of the wholesome root conditions that activate karma that is “neither dark nor bright and which leads to a result which is neither dark nor bright—it is karma that leads to the elimination of karma.” This is the powerful vipassana-karma, which extinguishes all binding influxes (asava). The influxes cease irrevocably when they are fully understood in a life-historical and buddho-meditative sense—that is, in the intuitive understanding of the three universal characteristics: momentary change, dukkha, and no-core self—and thus the understanding that there is nothing at all to cling to in sangsara. By realizing the nature of existence as impermanent in this subtle sense, we can cultivate an unwavering tranquility amid life’s fluctuations. The ultimate fruition of karma, which is neither light nor dark, culminates in the transcendental nibbana that irrevocably seals off this liberation.

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Forthcoming from Tracing the Untraceable Buddha © 2026 by Uffe Damborg. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com