Loy & Linda Goodhew : The Karma of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings as a modern Buddhist myth? That is not very plausible, on the face of it. As is well known, Middle-earth is derived largely from the Nordic and Germanic sagas that Tolkien knew so well. Although God is never mentioned, the tale also expresses some Christian influence, according to Tolkien's own admission (he was a devout Roman Catholic). There is no hint, either in the story or in its sources, of any Buddhist influences.

Moreover, Tolkien's fantasy world is built on a radical and quite un-Buddhist dualism between unredeemable evil (Sauron, Saruman) and uncompromising goodness (Gandalf, Frodo). The good as well as the bad use violence in pursuit of their goals, and we are entertained with plenty of it. Stupid and cruel as they may be, orcs remain sentient beings. From a Buddhist perspective, therefore, they must have the same buddha-nature as all other living beings, with the potential to "wake up" from their greed, ill will and delusion. Bodhisattvas vow to "save" all sentient beings, in the sense of helping them to realize their true nature. In Middle-earth, though, no one has any interest in helping orcs awaken. The only good orc is a dead orc.

And yet . . . Tolkien's masterpiece achieves what he intended, which was to create a modern myth; and myths, as he also knew, have a way of growing beyond their creator's intentions. The Lord of the Rings is much more than an endearing fantasy about little hobbits, gruff dwarves, and light-footed elves. It has been repeatedly voted the novel of the century-according to some, it is the novel of the millennium!-because so many readers find it deeply moving as well. What is it about the tale that makes it so compelling, so mythic? One answer, for some of us at least, is that despite its European origins it resonates with Buddhist concerns and perspectives.
Evil, for example, is much more nuanced than it appears at first glance. "In my story I do not deal with Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is Zero" (Carpenter, 243). As Gandalf reminds the Fellowship, "Nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so." Sauron too was corrupted, long ago, by his craving for the Ring. It is no coincidence that, as the foremost expression of evil, he is never seen (only his hand and "eye rimmed with fire"). Sauron is more effective as an abstract principle, so malignant and powerful that he could not be depicted as a believable person. The implication, in Buddhist terms, is that evil, too, has no self-being. Like everything else, it is a result of causes and conditions that we allow to infect and defile our minds.

There is also an essential, Buddhist-like thread of nonviolence that runs throughout the tale. Despite all the bloodshed, a repeated act of compassion-sparing Gollum's life-is crucial to the plot. Early in the story, when Frodo comments that it was a pity Bilbo did not stab Gollum when he had a chance, Gandalf contradicts him: "Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity; and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little result from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity." It is important for Frodo's quest that he learns this lesson.
There is virtually no role for religion in Middle-earth, because "the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism" (Carpenter, 172). Nevertheless, The Lord of the Rings can serve as a Buddhist fable because it is about a spiritual quest readily understandable in terms of the teachings of Buddhism. Despite Tolkien's demurral that it has "any meaning or ﾔmessage,'" his tale provides a myth about spiritual engagement for modern Buddhists. Frodo leaves home not to slay a dragon or win a chest full of precious jewels, but to let go of something, which is what one learns to do when following the Buddhist path. His renunciation of the Ring is not done to gain enlightenment, yet it nonetheless transforms him spiritually. The suffering he experiences on the way to Mount Doom deepens him, making him stronger and more compassionate.

From a socially-engaged Buddhist perspective, concerned to bring Buddhist teachings to bear on contemporary social issues, one of the striking aspects of the plot is that Frodo does not want to have the adventures he has. He embarks on the quest because it cannot be evaded. At the beginning Sam is excited about going to "see elves and all," but Frodo is more apprehensive, and for good reason. The Ring must be destroyed and he is the best one to carry it. In some mysterious, inexplicable way the task has been appointed to him. There is nothing he hopes to gain from the journey. By the end, he and Sam expect to be destroyed themselves soon after the Ring is cast into the Chamber of Fire, and indeed they nearly are. Their total renunciation is a powerful metaphor for Buddhist practice. As practitioners, we are sometimes willing to give up everything for enlightenment-but that is the catch. It is the self that seeks to be enlightened, that still wants to be around to enjoy being enlightened. Self remains the problem. Frodo and Sam show us something deeper. They let go of all personal ambition, although not the ambition to do what is necessary to help others. In Buddhist terms, don't they become bodhisattvas?
Frodo's quest is not an attempt to transcend Middle-earth by realizing some higher reality or dimension. He is simply responding to its needs, which because of historical circumstances (the growing power of Sauron, now actively seeking the Ring) have become critical-as are the needs of our beleaguered earth today. The larger world has begun to impinge on his Shire (and ours). If Frodo were to decline the task and hide at home, he would not escape the dangers that threaten. The Dark Lord would soon discover him and his Ring, and the Shire along with the rest of Middle-earth would fall under his baneful control. When we consider the ecological and social crises that have begun to impinge on our own little worlds, is our situation any different?

So is Frodo's journey a spiritual quest or a struggle to help the world? In The Lord of the Rings these two are the same. Frodo realizes ("makes real") his own nonduality with the world by doing everything he can to help it. Middle-earth needs to be saved, not denied or escaped. The goal is not another world but another way of living in this one, even as nirvana is not another place but a liberated way of experiencing this one. In the process, Frodo learns that this world is very different from what he thought it was. And by doing what he can to transform it, Frodo transforms himself. That is how his selflessness is developed. Frodo does not change because he destroys the Ring. He changes because of his tireless efforts to destroy the Ring. His early adventures on the road to Rivendell challenge and toughen him, giving him the courage to be the Ringbearer. His own strength of heart and will grow from those encounters, teaching him initiative and perseverance, and eventually developing into his unassuming heroic stature.

Frodo’s journey does more than illustrate the Buddhist path. It teaches us how karma works and even helps us to understand Buddhism today. Middle-earth is a morally balanced world. As Randel Helms has pointed out, the essential law of Tolkien’s story is that good intentions lead to good results, while evil intentions end up being self-defeating (Helms, ch.4-5). In Buddhist terms, we could say that Middle-earth is structured karmically: the way the main characters in Middle-earth act becomes the way Middle-earth responds to them. What they put out comes back to help or haunt them. This Buddhist-like principle of moral causation is one of the keys to the plot, recurring again and again.
It is easy enough to see how good intentions are rewarded, but the negative consequences of bad intentions are just as important to the happy ending. The best example is, of course, Gollum. He does not want to help Frodo and Sam. He wants to get his hands on the Ring. To do so, however, he must help them again and again. When they are lost he leads them to Mordor. When they become stuck he shows them a mountain path that leads (through Shelob’s tunnel) toward Mount Doom. At the end, when an exhausted Frodo can no longer resist the lure of the Ring, Gollum appears one last time to bite off Frodo’s finger―and fall into the fiery pit, to be destroyed along with the Ring. Yet this can happen only because of the compassion toward Gollum repeatedly shown by Frodo and eventually by Sam too. King Theoden sums it up best in the inevitable aphorism: “Strange powers have our enemies, and strange weaknesses! But it has long been said: oft evil will shall evil mar.”

In Middle-earth this karmic law works as inexorably as gravity, but, as we know all too well, karma does not operate so neatly in our world―at least, not in the short run. Evil often seems to succeed; goodness has a harder time prevailing. “Here is perhaps the basic difference between the moral structures of Tolkien’s world and our own. We know that intention has nothing to do with result” (Helms, 75). According to Buddhism, however, intention has a lot to do with results in our world too, for intention is the heart of karma. But if, as religious scholars often point out, religious language should usually be taken metaphorically, Buddhist teachings about karma can be and perhaps should be understood less literally and mechanically than they usually are.

On our earth as in Middle-earth, it is clear that karma does not mean all events are predestined to happen. Some inexplicable destiny has given Frodo responsibility for the Ring, as Gandalf and Elrond realize, yet what he does with it depends upon his own decisions. His success is not preordained. In both worlds karma creates situations but does not determine how we respond to them.

There is, however, much more to say about what karma is and how it works. Karma and rebirth have become a problem for modern Buddhists that can no longer be evaded. To accept what the earliest Buddhist teachings say about them as literal truth – that karmic determinism is a “moral law” of the universe, with a precise calculus of cause and effect – leads to a severe case of cognitive dissonance for contemporary Buddhism. The physical causality that modern science has discovered about the world seems to allow no mechanism for karma or rebirth to operate. How should we as modern Buddhists respond to this situation?

In the Kalama Sutra, sometimes called “the Buddhist charter of free inquiry,” the Buddha emphasized the importance of intelligent, probing doubt. We should not believe in something until we know its truth for ourselves. For us to believe in karmic rebirth in a literal way, simply because it is part of the Buddhist teaching (or part of the way that the Buddha’s teaching has traditionally been understood), may thus be unfaithful to the best of the tradition. This is not to deny the possibility of a truth that we cannot confirm. The point is that our modern ways of knowing offer no support for those teachings, and given a healthy skepticism about the Iron Age belief systems of the Buddha’s time, we should hesitate before making such a leap of faith. Maybe rebirth according to one’s karma is literally true as an explanation of what happens after we physically die. However, it may not be true. Instead of tying our spiritual paths to belief in such a doctrine, isn’t it wiser for us to be agnostic about it? Consider the way the Kalama Sutra concludes. After emphasizing the importance of evaluating for oneself the spiritual claims of others, the Buddha finishes his talk by describing someone who has a truly purified mind:

"'Suppose there is a hereafter and there is a fruit, result, of deeds done well or ill. Then it is possible that at the dissolution of the body after death, I shall arise in the heavenly world, which is possessed of the state of bliss.' This is the first solace found by him.
"'Suppose there is no hereafter and there is no fruit, no result, of deeds done well or ill. Yet in this world, here and now, free from hatred, free from malice, safe and sound, and happy, I keep myself.' This is the second solace found by him.
"'Suppose evil (results) befall an evil-doer. I, however, think of doing evil to no one. Then, how can ill (results) affect me who do no evil deed?' This is the third solace found by him.
"'Suppose evil (results) do not befall an evil-doer. Then I see myself purified in any case.' This is the fourth solace found by him."
(A.iii.65)

These intriguing verses can be understood in different ways. The Buddha is speaking to non-Buddhists, so he does not presuppose a Buddhist worldview in describing the fruits of a purified mind. Yet there is another way to take this passage, which is more relevant for twenty-first century Buddhists. Do our actions bear fruit in a hereafter? For the sake of argument, at least, the Buddha adopts an agnostic view in this sutra. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. In either case, a purified mind finds solace by cherishing good deeds and avoiding bad ones.

In this passage, as in many others, the Buddha’s lack of dogmatism shines forth clearly. We can understand his tactful words as a skillful means for speaking with the Kalamas, who are weary of doctrinaire spiritual assertions. But we can also focus on the agnosticism about rebirth, which also implies a different understanding of karma and its consequences. If we are honest with ourselves, we really do not know what to think about karma and rebirth. Most of us would like to believe in the law of karma and literal rebirth, and we wonder if testimony about near-death experiences supports them. At the same time, they hardly seem compatible with what modern science has discovered about the physical world. So are they fact or myth? If I consider myself a Buddhist, do I have to believe in them? Here the Buddha speaks directly to our skeptical age: in the most important sense, it does not matter which is true, because if we know what is good for us we will endeavor to live the same way in either case.

Challenging a literal understanding is not to dismiss or disparage Buddhist teachings about karma and rebirth. Rather, it highlights the need for modern Buddhism to interrogate them. Given what is now known about human psychology, including the social construction of the self, how can karma and rebirth be understood today?

One of the most basic principles of Buddhism is interdependence, but we do not usually realize what that implies about the original teachings of the Buddha. Nothing has any “self-existence” because everything is part of everything else. Nothing is self-originated because everything arises according to causes and conditions. Yet Buddhism, as we know, originates in the experience of Shakyamuni, who became “the Buddha” – that is, “the awakened one” – upon his attainment of nirvana under the Bodhi tree. Different Buddhist scriptures describe that experience in different ways, but for all Buddhist traditions it is the source of Buddhism, which unlike Hinduism does not rely upon ancient revealed texts such as the Vedas.

As Buddhists we usually take the above for granted, yet there is a problem with it: it is a myth of self-origination. If the interdependence of everything is true, the truth of Buddhism could not have sprung up independently from all the other spiritual beliefs of the Buddha’s time and place (Iron Age India), without any relationship to them. Instead, the teachings of Shakyamuni must be understood as a response to those other teachings, but a response that, inevitably, also presupposed many of the spiritual beliefs current in that cultural milieu – for example, popular notions of karma and rebirth, which were widespread at that time in India although not universally accepted. In some of the Pali sutras, the Buddha mentions remembering his past lifetimes. We should ourselves remember that the reality of past lives was generally accepted then, and that an ability to remember them was not unique to Buddha or Buddhists.

Consider the following insightful comment that Erich Fromm made about another (although very different!) revolutionary, Sigmund Freud:

The attempt to understand Freud's theoretical system, or that of any creative systematic thinker, cannot be successful unless we recognize that, and why, every system as it is developed and presented by its author is necessarily erroneous….the creative thinker must think in the terms of the logic, the thought patterns, the expressible concepts of his culture. That means he has not yet the proper words to express the creative, the new, the liberating idea. He is forced to solve an insoluble problem: to express the new thought in concepts and words that do not yet exist in his language.... The consequence is that the new thought as he formulated it is a blend of what is truly new and the conventional thought which it transcends. The thinker, however, is not conscious of this contradiction. (Fromm, 1, 3)

Fromm’s point is that even the most revolutionary thinkers cannot stand on their own shoulders. They are dependent upon their context, whether intellectual or spiritual – which, to say it again, is precisely what Buddhist emphasis on impermanence and causal interdependence implies. Of course, there are many important differences between Freud and Shakyamuni, but the parallel is nevertheless very revealing: the Buddha, too, expressed his new, liberating insight in the only way he could, in the language that his culture could understand and that he himself was a product of. Inevitably, then, his way of expressing the Dharma was a blend of the truly new (for example, anatta, paticca-samuppada) and the conventional religious thought of his time (karma and rebirth?) “which it transcends.” The implication that there is always tension between what is new and what is conventional speaks directly to a possible inconsistency that has puzzled many Buddhists over the centuries: is anatta really compatible with the older, traditional beliefs in karma and rebirth?

During the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, karma and reincarnation were widely although not universally accepted religious principles. They were part of the cultural milieu within which he grew up. Earlier teachings such as the Vedas tended to understand them more mechanically and ritualistically. To perform a sacrifice in the proper fashion would invariably lead to the desired consequences. If those consequences were not forthcoming, then either there had been an error in procedure or the causal effects were delayed, perhaps until one’s next lifetime. The Buddha’s spiritual revolution transformed this ritualistic approach to controlling one’s life into an ethical principle by focusing on our motivations. The Dhammapada begins by emphasizing this:

Experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, and produced by mind. If one speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows even as the cart-wheel follows the hoof of the ox.
Experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, and produced by mind. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows like a shadow that never departs. (Dh.1-2)

Here it may be helpful to distinguish a moral act into its three aspects: our motivation when we do something, the moral rule (for example, a Buddhist precept or Christian commandment, but this also includes ritualistic procedures) we are following, and the results that we seek. These aspects cannot be separated from each other, but we can emphasize one more than the others―in fact, that is what we usually do. (In modern moral theory, for example, utilitarian theories focus on consequences, deontological theories focus on moral principles such as the Golden Rule, and “virtue theories” focus on one’s character and motivations.) In the Buddha’s time, the Brahminical understanding of karma emphasized the importance of following the detailed procedures (rules) regulating each ritual; naturally, however, the people who paid for the rituals were more interested in the outcome (results). Arguably, the situation in some Theravada countries is not much different today: monastics are preoccupied with following the complicated rules regulating their lives, while many laypeople are eager to accumulate merit by giving gifts to them. Unfortunately, this arrangement loses the Buddha’s great insight about the preeminent importance of our motivations. How should we today understand the originality of his approach?

The important point about karma is not whether it is a moral law involving some inevitable and precise calculus of cause and effect. More than a means to control what the world does to us, karma is better understood as the key to spiritual development: how our lives are transformed by our motivations. When we add the Buddhist teaching about nonself―the claim, consistent with modern psychology, that one’s sense of self is a mental construct―we can say that karma is not something I have, it is what I am, and what I am changes according to my conscious choices. “I” (re)construct myself by what I intentionally do. My sense of self is a precipitate of my habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. Just as my body is composed of the food I eat, so my character is composed of my conscious choices, constructed by my consistent, repeated motivations. People are “punished” or “rewarded” not for what they have done but for what they have become, and what we intentionally do is what makes us what we are. An anonymous verse expresses this well:

Such an understanding of karma does not necessarily involve another life after we physically die. As the philosopher Spinoza expressed it, happiness is not the reward for virtue; happiness is virtue itself. To become a different kind of person is to experience the world in a different way. When your mind changes, the world changes. And when we respond differently to the world, the world responds differently to us. Since we are actually nondual with the world―our sense of separation from it being a delusion―our ways of acting in it tend to involve reinforcing feedback systems that incorporate other people. People not only notice what we do, they notice why we do it. I may fool people sometimes, but over time my character becomes revealed through the intentions behind my deeds. The more I am motivated by greed, ill will, and delusion, the more I must manipulate the world to get what I want, and consequently the more alienated I feel and the more alienated others feel when they see they have been manipulated. This mutual distrust encourages both sides to manipulate more. In The Lord of the Rings Saruman and Wormtongue exemplify this cycle of negative feedback. On the other hand, the more my actions are motivated by generosity, loving-kindness, and the wisdom of nonduality, the more I can relax and open up to the world. The more I feel part of the world and at one with others, the less I am inclined to use others, and consequently the more inclined they will be to trust and open up to me. Frodo and Sam’s encounter with Faramir is an example of such positive feedback.

Consistent with this view of karma, the traditional “six realms” of samsara do not need to be distinct worlds or planes of existence through which we transmigrate after death, according to our karma. They can also be the different ways we experience this world, as our character, and therefore our attitude toward the world, change. For example, the hell realm becomes not so much a place I will be reborn into later, due to my hatred and evil deeds, as a way I experience this world when my mind is dominated by anger and hate

What is the Ring? Its magnetic attraction is a profound symbol for the karma of power. We think we use the Ring, but when we use it, it is actually using us, it changes us-this is the essential karmic insight. Power corrupts, and the absolute power of the Ring corrupts absolutely. At the end even Frodo cannot resist it, as he stands exhausted before the Crack of Doom.

Power wants to be used, as Gandalf realizes: "A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it." The Ring has a will of its own. It gets heavier. It wants Frodo to slip it on his finger. If he were to do this, though, it would corrupt him, as it corrupted Sauron and Gollum long ago. Gollum is Frodo's alter ego, a constant reminder to Frodo of what he could become.
Power is eager to test and display itself. What is the point of having an overwhelming military machine if you don't use it once in a while? When you create a new weapon (for example, a "smart" bomb), you want to see what it can do in a combat situation. The scientists who created the first nuclear bombs during the Second World War, all the while hoping these weapons would not be needed, learned about this the hard way. Once the bombs had been made, their own wishes were of no consequence. But is there something more to learn from the Ring of Power?

Buddhism has not had much to say about power. Traditional teachings warn more about sex and other physical cravings, which play almost no role in The Lord of the Rings. The absolute prohibition of sexual contact for monastics suggests that sexual desire is the archetypal craving that needs to be transcended in order to achieve the serenity of nirvana. Whether or not that was true in India 2,500 years ago, our situation calls for a different focus. Today the primary challenge for socially engaged Buddhism is the individual and collective craving for power, which Midas-like destroys whatever it touches. Power and money may be quite valuable as means to some good end, but they turn destructive when they become ends in themselves. Sauron and Saruman, like Gollum, no longer have any goal but power itself-the power that is the Ring. With them Tolkien shows the suffering that results from a quest for power lacking a moral dimension.

In contrast, the strength that Gandalf, Aragorn, Frodo, and others demonstrate is shown not by accumulating or exercising power but in their willingness to give it up. Gandalf has no selfish craving for mastery. He wishes only to serve: "The rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I also am a steward."

Gandalf gives us the definition and the model of a modern bodhisattva, the sort we need today. Are they so rare among us, or is it that the Saurons and Sarumans are so much more visible? And so much more powerful, in the conventional sense, because in our world it is not so much physical craving as lust for power that motivates the greed, ill will, and willful ignorance now endangering the earth. People have always craved power, but because of modern technologies there is now so much more power to crave and use; and because of modern institutions, such power tends to function in impersonal ways that assume a life of their own. Transnational corporations and stock markets institutionalize greed (never enough consumption or profit!) in a world where the centralized bureaucratic governments of nation-states unleash institutionalized ill will (horrific military aggression) in pursuit of their "national interests." Under the guise of globalization, ever more sophisticated technologies are deployed to extend the institutionalized delusion that dualizes us from the earth (by commodifying, exploiting, and laying waste to its furthest corners). Today these institutionalized versions of the three poisons are the Mordor that threatens our future. If Buddhist teachings cannot help us understand this, perhaps there is something wrong with our understanding of Buddhism.

Hobbiton expresses Tolkien's nostalgia for the vanishing rural England in the West Midlands of his youth, but we should not dismiss such homesickness with the reassuring Buddhist maxim that "everything passes away." Our collective attempt to dominate the earth technologically is related to the disappearance of the sacred in the modern world. If we can no longer rely on God to take care of us, we strive to secure ourselves by subduing nature until it meets all our needs and satisfies all our purposes-which will never happen, of course. Because our efforts to exploit the earth's resources are damaging it so much, the fatal irony is that our attempt to secure the conditions of our existence here may destroy us. Is there a clearer or more dangerous example of institutionalized delusion? We are one with the earth. When the biosphere becomes sick, we become sick. If the biosphere dies, we die. The technological Ring of Power is not the solution to our problems. It has become the problem itself.

Instead of seeking power, happiness for our heroes is connected with the ability to delight in the simple pleasures of everyday life: enjoying a glass and a song by a warm hearth in the company of others, for example. The fellowship of loving friends is contrasted with the greedy, private pseudo-happiness of those who seek only the Ring. Sauron, Saruman, Gollum: each tormented, solitary soul looks out only for itself, and knows nothing of the wide community of willing helpers that enables Frodo to complete his mission.

We need to recover such community and such an ecological sensibility if we are to make it through the dark times that threaten our world. We also need new types of bodhisattvas, inspired perhaps by the fresh models that Tolkien's myth provides for socially engaged Buddhism. As with Frodo on his improbable quest, it is easy to become discouraged. There is, however, something to remember at such times. Frodo's task was appointed to him in a mysterious way that he did not understand because it cannot be understood. The implication is that the mission he and others undertook was successful in the end because they were a part of something greater than themselves. For us, too, to be spiritual means opening up to a transformative power that works in us and through us when we do the best we can. Is that also true for the world that we are nondual with? Who knows what is possible, or even what is actually happening today? Who, for example, anticipated the worldwide collapse of communism in 1989, or the sudden end of South African apartheid in 1994? The task of socially engaged bodhisattvas is not to unravel the mystery that is our world, but to do what we can to succor its sufferings in this time of crisis. Frodo and Sam discovered many unexpected helpers along their way, and so may we.

References:
Carpenter, H. ed. (1981). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Fromm, E. (1982). The Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Thought. London: Sphere Books.
Helms, R. (1974). Tolkien's World. London: Thames and Hudson.

This essay is a condensed version of "The Dharma of Engagement," Chapter 1 in David Loy and Linda Goodhew's new book The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004).