The Ninth Discourse

On the Dark Powers

Men Chow: Sifu, I have been thinking about karma. My Buddhist teachers taught me that we have many lives and that pleasant lives are the inheritance of good deeds and pain is the inheritance of evil deeds. But from you I have learnt that good and evil are illusory. So what to make of karma and reincarnation?

Fu Hsiang: You have to be careful in saying that good and evil are illusory. I did not teach you exactly that. People will say I am leading you astray. No, good and evil exist, but not in the way that most people think.

Men Chow: I understand, sifu. But I am still not clear about reincarnation and how it works.

Tsia Tung: I have always had problems with the idea of karma. I mean how does it work? How do evil deeds create future suffering? I have heard people say that in heaven there are Lords of Karma who run about doling out good and bad lives according to merit. But this seems to me just an affectation of the mind; to believe that the universe is run by secret police, just like in China.

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