Causality

A core principle in Buddhism is causality: We reap what we sow. Good results in good, and bad incurs bad. We have created our lives and are thus responsible for them. Since we are the ones who have created our lives, we alone can change them. Understanding that unhappiness is caused by craving and expectations, we can begin to change our lives by eliminating these negative emotional habits. If we have no expectations of someone or of certain circumstances, we will not be subject to disappointment and will not react with annoyance or anger. And if we are not immersed in frustration and resentment, we can remain calm.

The law of causality is not a man-made law or a judgment by an external force that impinges upon our lives: Causality is a natural law, as natural as a ball bouncing back to me after I had thrown it against a wall. As the physicist Isaac Newton said, every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. Simply put, we reap what we sow. Since causality is a natural law, there is no judge, jury, or ruling body that determines our consequences: Our past thoughts, speech, and actions determine our lives today. And just as our lives today are the result of our past, what we say, think, and do today will shape our future. 

The Buddha explained that phenomena are created by the heart. If we speak or act with an impure heart, then suffering will follow us, as surely as a cart follows the oxen that pull it. If we speak or act with a serene heart, then happiness will follow us just like our shadow does.

From a Buddhist perspective, the law of causality explains that things happen to us because of what we have done in the past. We are responsible for ourselves. Hence, we cannot blame another for the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Understanding this, we will gradually learn to stop blaming others, our environment, even our parents for what happens to us. The inequalities in life are due to our own past thoughts, speech, and actions. These result in the family that we are born into, the person we marry, the children we have, and even the environment in which we live.