Karma and Rebirth

Author(s): Christmas Humphereys
Publisher: Albemarle Street London

Page 86

THE ENDING OF KARMA AND REBIRTH refuge in none, while doing acts he is not doing anything. Free from desire, his thoughts controlled by the SELF, having abandoned all attachment, performing action by the body alone, he commits no sin. Content with what he receives, free from the pairs of opposites, without envy, balanced in success and failure, though he has acted he is not bound. For with all attachment dead, harmonious, his thoughts established in wisdom, his works as sacrifices, all his actions melt away.
The secret, then, is motive. Action must go on, for only by right action can the Law be used to its own ending. But the notive for each act must be increasingly selfless until all that we once thought I, and such a splendid I, is seen to be dross and purged away. Thercafter there is a doing of the deed that must be done, and the docr's motive is merely that, being right, it should be done. It must be noted that such action has become 'right' in the highest sense, by being that which should be done. So long as the thought of self remains, a good deed binds the docr as much as any sin. If I am generous, with the thought of how generous I am, the results will be good, but I must return to receive them. Only when each act is a cheerful, unattached performance of right action ’ is the doer free. As is said in Light on the Path, “Desire to sow no seed for your own harvesting; desire only to sow that seed the fruit of which shall feed the world.” Otherwise, “Verily, Brethren, there is no end to the suffering of beings buried in blindness who, seized by craving, arc brought again and again to birth unceasingly.” 1
The Buddhism of the Northern School, the Mahayana or Great Vehicle, has developed a lovely doctrine of the Bodhisattva, one who having attained Enlightenment works on for humanity, guarding him so far as the Law permits from folly, guiding him with a finger pointing the Way. These great Ones of all religions, variously known as Arhats, Bodhisattavas, Rishis, Mahatmas, Masters, Saints and Brothers, form collectively, the Wisdom tells, a guardian wall about humanity, and watch its progress with a troubled eye. For though cach has
1 Samyutta Nikaya.
79