Returning to the level of conscious experience, the question remains: if there is no permanent ego-self then how can the experience of self-coherence be explained? Or in other terms: “how and why do the momentary arisings of the elements of experience, the five aggregates and mental factors, follow one another temporally to constitute recurrent patterns?” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, p.110). Within Buddhism, two concepts attend to this problem. The first is the Buddha’s explanation of causality which explains our pratityasamutpada, literally, our “dependence (pratitya) upon conditions that are variously originated (samutpada)” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, p.110). The second is the concept of karma.
Karma in the Buddhist sense does not refer to the idea of a pregiven fate, karma “constitutes a description of psychological causality – of how habits form and continue over time” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, pp.110-111). Causality does not refer to external physical laws of cause and effect. Causality is a “causal analysis of direct experience” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, p.111). Karma and causality come together in the binding chain of causality or codependent origination, also known as the ‘Wheel of Life’ or the ‘Wheel of Karma’. This twelve linked chain, or wheel, provides an explanation for how the karmic causality of experience works at any level of experience, be it the level of a single moment, a lifetime or several lifetimes. The chain of causality is an examination of phenomenal causality and as such is central to the analysis of action to be employed in this research.
The first link in the chain of experiential causality is the state of ignorance of the lack of an ego-self. Ignorance in this sense also refers to the mistaken beliefs and emotions that arise from a belief in an ego-self. The second link refers to the volitional actions that arise from a belief in an ego-self. These initial two links are considered the prior conditions for the next eight links, three through ten. The third link is the state of consciousness, that is, the dualistic state of knowing discussed earlier as the fifth aggregate (see section 4.7). Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991) comment: “remember that consciousness is not the only mode of knowing; one is born into a moment or a lifetime of consciousness, rather than wisdom, because of volitional actions that were based on ignorance” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, p.113).
The fourth link, the psychophysical complex, relates to the fact that any moment of consciousness requires coordination between mind and body. Any particular moment of consciousness may have more emphasis at either the physical or mental end of the spectrum of the psychophysical complex but every moment will contain aspects of both ends. Consciousness with a body and a mind leads to consciousness of the six senses: hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, seeing and thinking. These sense consciousnesses constitute the fifth link. Contact between consciousness and its object is represented by the sixth link and the feelings that arise from contact produce the seventh link. This is the point at which awareness of being in the world arises. From feeling comes craving, the eighth link, and from craving comes grasping, the ninth link.
According to Buddhist canon, the first two links represent the past, links three through ten represent the present, and it is action with respect to craving, the eighth link, that determines whether the chain is broken, creating the possibility for change and transformation or whether habitual patterns continue to be perpetuated. Usually craving automatically leads to grasping. Craving involves both the desire for that which is pleasurable and the aversion to what is not pleasurable. Likewise, grasping involves both grasping after what is desired and avoidance of that which is not desired. Grasping automatically initiates the tenth link, becoming. Becoming joins the links that create the present (three through ten) with links eleven and twelve, those that are part of the future. As such becoming “initiates the formation of new patterns that carry over into future situations” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, p.114). The eleventh link is birth and usually it is only at this point that the Wheel of Karma is perceived. In birth, a new situation occurs as well as a new mode of being in that situation. The final link in the chain, death, like birth is considered part of the future as the death of the present moment is considered a causal precondition for the arising of the next moment (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, p.115).
This relentless circle of conditioned human existence is referred to as samsara. The continual turning of the wheel of samsara leads to unsatisfactoriness and is continually driven by causation unless the individual learns to sever the chain between links eight and nine. The practitioner learns to do so through the practice of mindful awareness. Once the practitioner has learnt to sever the chain they gain further mindfulness, which can then be brought to bear on the process of severing the chain. In this way, momentum builds.
Within Minsky and Papert’s model of the mind as a society, coherence is a product of emergence. Within the mindful awareness tradition, coherence, or the “repetitious patterns of habitual actions emerge from the joint action of the twelve links” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, p.116). Within Minsky and Papert’s model of emergence, the action of any individual agent can only be defined in relation to the state of the whole system. Likewise, in mindful awareness, the action of any one of the links in the chain of causality depends on the whole chain. In other words, “as in any agency, there is no such thing as a habitual pattern per se except in the operation of the twelve agent motifs, nor is there such a thing as the motifs except in relation to the operation of the entire cyclic system” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, p.116).
In Buddhist terms, the individual’s formation and accumulation of patterns and trends throughout life becomes the mistaken basis for the perception of an ego-self. The principal sustaining and motivating factor in this process is intention. Intention enters the chain of causality at the link of volitional actions and leaves its trace from that point forth. This results in the accumulation of wholesome and unwholesome habits, responses and tendencies. This is what karma is most often assumed to refer to: “when the term karma is used loosely, it refers to these accumulations and their effects. Strictly speaking, though, karma is the very process of intention (volitional action) itself, the main condition in the accumulation of conditioned human experience” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, p.116). In effect, karma refers to the assumptions the individual makes about the possibilities of action. The artefacts of consciousness enter into the causes of actions at the third link. Action is the method by which consciousness gains causal efficacy, action is what makes consciousness ‘good for something’.