“It’s our country’s karma.”
“I’m paying for my family’s karma.”
“With the current collective karma, there’s nothing we can do.”
These phrases present karma as an external force that imposes a destiny upon us. A sort of spiritual bill that we must settle simply because we belong to a group.
To understand karma in Buddhist teaching, however, we must start from another question: with what intention do we act?
Karma begins with our intentions
The Sanskrit word karma, or kamma in Pali, means “action.” In Buddhism, intention occupies a central place: the Buddha defines karma by the intention that leads to action through body, speech, or mind.
Let’s take a simple example.
You accidentally knock a glass over onto someone. Another person intentionally throws their glass in someone’s face to humiliate them.
In both cases, a person ends up wet. However, the intention is radically different: absent in one case, malicious in the second.
The same visible result does not mean the same karmic action.
Karma, therefore, is not understood by looking only at what happens.
We must also consider what each person chooses to do and the motivations for their acts.
However, one must distinguish intention from the physical consequences of our acts. If you plunge your hand into boiling water, whether voluntarily or by accident, you will get burned regardless. Heat does not need to know our intentions to act: this burn, therefore, does not constitute a "karmic punishment."
A driver puts their passengers in danger
Imagine a driver who decides to drive dangerously despite the protests of their passengers. They cause an accident.
All may suffer the consequences. But not all of them made the decision to drive poorly; they are simply suffering the consequences of another’s actions. Do not believe that the passengers were specifically brought together by karma to suffer this accident.
The passenger who asked them to slow down suffers the consequences, just as the one who encouraged them to speed up does.
This example shows an essential distinction:
We can suffer the consequences of an action without being the authors of that action.
Sharing a vehicle does not create a shared intention. Neither does sharing a family, a country, or an era.
In the same family, everyone makes their own choices
Imagine a family where one member defrauds their clients.
One relative knowingly participates in the fraud. A second discovers it and tries to stop it. A third knows absolutely nothing about it.
Their situations are different. A family name is not enough to attribute identical responsibility to them.
Of course, the consequences can affect everyone: financial difficulties, tensions, loss of trust, or a bad reputation.
But the familial repercussions of an act are not proof that everyone carries the karma of its author.
The Buddha specifically invites everyone to reflect on the fact that they are the heir to their own actions and nothing else.
A disaster does not allow us to judge its victims
A flood hits a village. Very different people lose their homes: generous or selfish, honest or dishonest, adults or children.
The fact that they suffer the same event does not allow one to conclude that they all committed the same fault.
In the Sivaka Sutta, the Buddha rejects the assertion that everything a person experiences is due to their past actions. He mentions several causes for painful sensations, including physical ailments, climate variations, and injuries inflicted by others.
When it rains, it rains and everyone gets wet; no “karmic magic” gathered only the people whose karma it was to be wet.
Telling someone who is suffering “it’s your karma” does not automatically explain their situation.
And it never exempts us from helping them.
Facing a person in difficulty, we can seek ways to reduce their suffering rather than inventing an invisible fault for them.
What then does “collective karma” mean?
The expression exists in certain Buddhist traditions, particularly to speak of actions in which several people participate together. Thubten Chodron uses it in this sense.
Other teachers, like Thanissaro Bhikkhu, reject this expression and insist on the individual nature of karma, even when several people experience similar results.
We must therefore be precise about what we mean.
Ten people knowingly organize a scam: each participates with their own intentions and actions.
Ten people live in the same building: this proximity is not enough to attribute a common moral responsibility to them. And no, if the building burns down, there is no reason to claim that karma gathered them there to punish them. We are in real life, not an episode of "Final Destination";o)
Acting together and suffering together are two different situations.
The idea of “collective karma” becomes misleading when it is used to assert that we would be automatically guilty of a group’s acts, or condemned to a destiny we could change nothing about.
Personal does not mean we control everything
We do not choose all of our living conditions. Illness, political decisions, violence, and the actions of others can significantly reduce our freedom.
Recognizing the personal nature of karma does not consist of claiming that everyone controls everything that happens to them.
It consists of recognizing that our present actions also count. Thanissaro Bhikkhu emphasizes that the present is not entirely determined by past actions: the choices we make now also contribute to shaping it.
After an injustice, we can seek to protect ourselves, ask for help, or obtain reparations. Compassion does not require us to let ourselves be mistreated.
After a mistake, we can acknowledge our responsibility, make amends for what can be repaired, and change our conduct.
Our room for action varies according to the circumstances. It does not become useless for all that.
A question more useful than “why me?”
Understanding karma invites us to examine our intentions, our words, and our gestures.
The question then becomes:
“In this situation, what can I do not to add suffering, and if possible, to diminish it?”
We are not the authors of all the misfortunes that befall us. We do not automatically bear the responsibility for the acts of those around us.
But when we can act, what we choose to do counts.
That is where the teaching of karma takes on its full strength: in personal responsibility and the possibility of transforming our conduct.
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