The Karma of Not-self

When the issue of karma comes up in Buddhist circles, it’s quickly followed by the question, “If there’s no self, who does the karma, and who receives the results of the karma?”

The proper response to this question is that it’s not properly framed. It takes the teaching on not-self, interpreting it as a teaching on no self, and makes it the context. Then it tries to fit the teaching of karma into that context, only to find that it doesn’t fit. That, then, leads to the question of how karma got included in the Buddha’s teachings in the first place, and whether it should really be there.

The right way to frame the original question, though, is to reverse the context. Starting with karma as the context, how does the teaching on not-self fit into that context? In other words, what kind of karma—action—is the perception of not-self? When is it skillful and when is it not? When we frame the issue this way, we can see that the two teachings fit together neatly.

But even though this way of framing the question makes sense, what other evidence is there that it’s the right way to frame it? The Buddha is on record as saying that consistency is no proof of the truth of a teaching (MN 95), but he’s also on record as saying that consistency is one of the tests of what can be accepted as genuine Dhamma (DN 16). In other words, if a teaching fits in with what you know is Dhamma, you can regard it as Dhamma. This means that to show that an interpretation is consistent with other passages in the early texts may not prove that it’s true, but does show that the interpretation belongs in the Dhamma, and so is worth testing by putting it into practice and seeing the results.

We can start by noting two things:

1. Karma means intentional action. It’s something you do with a purpose.
2. The teaching on not-self comes under the heading of discernment. MN 135 states that discernment starts in the following way:

“This is the way leading to discernment: when visiting a contemplative or brahman, to ask: ‘What is skillful, venerable sir? What is unskillful? What is blameworthy? What is blameless? What should be cultivated? What should not be cultivated? What, having been done by me, will be for my long-term harm & suffering? Or what, having been done by me, will be for my long-term welfare & happiness?’”

These discernment-fostering questions are an issue of karma both in the act of asking them and in the way they’re framed. The asking is an instance of karma in that the questions are asked with a purpose: They’re aimed at long-term welfare and happiness. The discourse highlights this fact by including them in a list of actions with long-term consequences. As for their framing, they attempt to achieve their purpose by understanding the search for happiness in the context of action: what to do to attain happiness that’s long-term. In other words, the questions themselves are not asked idly, and they don’t ask about such things as the true nature of reality in the abstract. When you ask these questions of wise people, you want to know specifically what to do to be truly happy over the long term.

The standard response comes on two levels, mundane and transcendent. On the mundane level, it’s skillful to avoid the ten types of unskillful action:

bodily—killing, stealing, illicit sex;

verbal—telling lies, engaging in divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter; and

mental—inordinate greed, ill will, and wrong views that deny the reality of skillful and unskillful actions, and the reality of life after death.

As the Buddha states, to act skillfully on this mundane level can lead to happiness now and into future lives in higher and more exquisite worlds of existence for a long, long time.

The transcendent level of skillful action is the noble eightfold path to the end of suffering—what the Buddha calls karma that leads to the ending of karma (AN 4:237). This path leads to the ultimate happiness of unbinding (nibbāna), which lies beyond worlds and entirely beyond the confines of space and time.

Now, the prime discernment factor of the noble eightfold path is right view, which means that right view is a type of karma. And just as the path as a whole is karma leading to the end of karma, right view is the karma leading to the end of views.

Right view on this level is expressed as the four noble truths: the truths of suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path of practice leading to its cessation.

The first noble truth defines suffering as five clinging-aggregates. Both the clinging and the aggregates are a type of karma. The aggregates are form, feelings, perceptions, thought-fabrications, and consciousness. Each of these is defined by a verb: Form deforms, feelings feel, and so on (SN 22:79). The act of clinging—which the Buddha identifies as a type of mental feeding—takes the aggregates as raw material for constructing sensual fantasies, views about the world, ideas about what habits and practices should be followed to find happiness in the world, and ideas about self-identity: your role within the world. Clinging holds on to these actions with a purpose—to find happiness. But, as the Buddha notes, the act of feeding on these actions always entails suffering and stress to a greater or lesser degree.

The second noble truth defines the cause of suffering as three types of craving: desire and passion for sensuality, for becoming (the act of taking on an identity in a world of experience), and for becoming to be destroyed. This craving, in turn, is conditioned by ignorance of the four noble truths.

To end this suffering at its cause, the Buddha describes tasks for each of the four noble truths: Suffering is to be comprehended, its cause abandoned, its cessation realized, and the path to its cessation developed.

To comprehend suffering requires that you end all passion for the activities that constitute suffering (SN 22:23). To abandon the cause of suffering requires that you develop dispassion both for craving and for its objects. So these two duties both entail the act of developing dispassion. That’s something you do, and right view does it by using the right perceptions and thought-fabrications with the right purpose.

This is where the perception of not-self comes in, as a perception for inducing dispassion. Note that the Buddha calls not-self a perception, which means that it’s a label you apply to things to identify them or to indicate their meaning or value. In this case, it’s a value judgment: If something is not-self, it’s not worth clinging to as you or yours. The fact that not-self is a perception means two things:

1. It’s not a statement as to whether there is or isn’t a self. According to the Buddha, questions such as “What am I? Do I exist? Do I not exist?” aren’t worthy of attention because any attempt to answer them wouldn’t lead to the end of suffering. In fact, it would pull you off the path into a “wilderness of views, a writhing of views, a contortion of views”—not a place you’d want to be (MN 2).
2. Unlike later Buddhist traditions, the Buddha never classed not-self as a characteristic of things. Instead, as a perception, it’s a mental action you apply to things to pass judgment on them. In this case, it’s done with the purpose of developing dispassion for them, so it focuses on their negative side. As the Buddha notes, the aggregates all do have their pleasant side. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t fall for them and cling to them to begin with. To stop clinging to them, you have to focus on their drawbacks (SN 22:60). That’s the task that the perception of not-self—together with its fellow perceptions of inconstancy and stress—is meant to accomplish.

So perceptions of not-self are a type of karma, part of the overall karma of the duties of the four noble truths and the path as a whole.

When these perceptions have induced dispassion for the aggregates in a thoroughgoing way, they’ve completed the first step in their task. The next step is for them to get you to let go of them as well. After all, as perceptions, they count as aggregates, too. If they didn’t inspire you to let go of them, the karma of these perceptions wouldn’t lead completely to the end of karma.

This is why right view is expressed in a way that leads you ultimately to let go of it. One of the discourses expresses it like this:

“Whatever has been brought into being, is fabricated, willed, dependently co-arisen: That is inconstant. Whatever is inconstant is stress. Whatever is stress is not me, is not what I am, is not my self.”

Now, this view is itself fabricated, willed, and dependently co-arisen. Which means that after it’s used to induce dispassion for all other fabrications, it can turn on itself to induce you to let go of it. In the terms of the discourse, you see the higher escape from it. Like the case of the questions that spark the beginning of discernment, the discourse here highlights this function of right view as an action by focusing on the karmic consequences of the act of holding to a view and of letting it go.

A similar principle applies to other formulations of right view, such as “All dhammas are not-self” (Dhp 279) and “All dhammas are unworthy of adherence” (MN 37). We should note that the word, “dhamma” has, among its many meanings, three that are relevant here: dhamma as teaching, dhamma as phenomenon, and dhamma as action. Because these statements are dhammas in all three of these senses of the word, the principle of non-adherence ultimately can be turned around and applied to them, too.

And because these statements are instances of karma in service of the path, they qualify as karma that leads to the end of karma.

Using these teachings in this way brings the mind to full awakening—to a dimension of consciousness independent of the six senses (MN 49). When the mind returns to the experience of the six senses, it experiences them “disjoined” from them (MN 140). In other words, it no longer feeds on them. And although the mind still can have intentions, it does so in such a way that they no longer create karmic consequences (AN 3:34). Later, at the death of the awakened one, the six senses grow cold (Iti 44), but the dimension of awakened consciousness, because it’s independent of the six senses, isn’t affected by their growing cold. With no contact at the senses, there’s no karma at all. In the terms of the Canon, this consciousness is Such—simply what it is, and nothing else.

This is how the noble eightfold path functions as the karma that leads to the ending of karma. When we understand the role played by the perception of not-self in service of this karma, we understand how the teaching of not-self is best regarded in the context of the teaching on karma—and of the Dhamma as a whole. It’s meant to be used as a means to the goal and then let go.