The Buddhist conception of Karma (from Sanskrit: action, work) is the impetus behind Samsara, or the cycle of suffering and rebirth for each being. Both good and bad actions produce “seeds” in the mind of the individual that will either come to fruition in this life or in a subsequent rebirth. In Theravada Buddhism there can be no divine salvation or forgiveness for one’s Karma, since it is a purely impersonal process that is a part of the make up of the universe. Thus, one must absorb suffering in order to ultimately transcend earthly agonies.

Famous poet Ted Hughes’ poem, Karma, is a melancholy meditation on the suffering and carnage wrought by “civilized” man. It is influenced by the Buddhist belief in the retracing of time and the inexorable karmic bondage to suffering. In the poem, the narrator feels profound sadness as he contemplates the suffering around him, and realizes that there exists no earthly rationale that renders human misery comprehensible. However, by embracing the fact that there is no solution or explanation for suffering, he is able to absorb it fully and transcend the bondage of blame.

Karma

When the world-quaking tears were dropped
At Dresden at Buchenwald
Earth spewed up the bones of the Irish.

Queen Victoria Refused the blame
For the Emperors of Chou herding their rubbish
Into battle roped together.

The seven lamented millions of Zion
Rose musically through the frozen mouths
Of Russia’s snowed-under millions.

They perch, as harps,
Over the slaves whose singing blood still flows
Through the Atlantic and up the Mississippi

And up the jugular
Smoulderingly,
Skywriting across the cortex

That the heart, a gulping mask, demands, demands
Appeasement
For its bloody possessor.

And a hundred and fifty million years of hunger
Killing gratefully as breathing
Mouldered the heart and the mouth

That cry for milk
From the breast
Of the mother

Of the God
Of the world
Made of Blood.

They have gone into dumber service. They have gone down
To labour with God on the beaches. They fatten
Under the haddock’s thumb. They rejoice
Through the warped mouth of the flounder.

They have melted like my childhood under earth’s motherly curve
And are nowhere they are not here I know nothing
Cries the poulterer’s hare hanging
Upside down above the pavement
Staring into a bloody bag Not here

Cry the eyes from the depths

Of the mirrors seamless sand.

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