The idea of ‘karma’, stripped of all religious connotations, is essentially the fact that actions have consequences. The workings of your mind and body influence the decisions you make, why you make them, and the impact each step on each path has on other paths, other steps, and other lives, all inexplicably intertwined. The results of your actions are the results of the complex interplays between the countless variables leading up to them.
For this reason it makes perfect sense why many notable individuals in risk-tolerant professions (celebrities, politicians, financiers, entrepreneurs, athletes, etc) find themselves eventually drawn to meditation. Well-funded meditation communities make a point of sponsoring high-profile folks and proselytizing among the elite. They know the rest of us are thus more likely to follow. But why?
I think it’s because every self-aware person wants to see themselves as a ‘risk-taker’. We want to be courageous. We see what we could be if we learned how to perfectly match up our actions and ideations with the natural and artificial laws governing various systems. Everyone has at least one courageous friend who seems to be able to tolerate and manage risk better than anyone else, and is rewarded with both success and self-respect. Most of us probably also know someone who takes ample risks but is awful as managing them, constantly floundering in the inconvenient (if not disastrous) consequences of their own short-sightedness. And, lastly, we know plenty of people who constantly contemplate doing things they care deeply about, things that could bring them great reward, but never manage to take action. That category scares us most.
How can we use the tools of mindfulness to manage our judgment of risk?
How can we muster the courage to commit to important decisions, learn new skills, and embark on new ventures?
In every moment there are countless choices before us. Even two lives that appear quite similar on the surface differ in the ways each person approaches thought and action. The finely-woven web of thought, action, intention, and consequence is so complex that many people would rather give up and leave everything to chance. And most people do, generally; we can see this in the career choices, spending habits, and risk-averse behavior of the vast majority of people. Those who do embrace risk often do so haphazardly, gambling with major life decisions or blindly trying to ‘play’ various complex ecosystems: social circles, markets, ideological frameworks— the list goes on.
That’s where ‘awareness’ comes in. This isn’t to say that meditation or self-knowledge will magically make anyone able to handle risk better than anyone else. But the slow process of knowing oneself morphs over time into the even slower process of knowing the world. We move along the path step by step. If we take the initiative to participate in this process, we begin to open ourselves to new knowledge. This knowledge, tempered by experience, becomes wisdom. Eventually doors begin to open than we would have never noticed before.
It’s obviously important to focus on the concrete goals of the day-to-day. But if we add this element of self-inquiry into our lives, we become more aware of the whys and the hows. We understand why our intentions are one way, or why our actions are another way, and how they impact one another. All of the previously complicated variables start to make more sense. And we can start thinking and acting in a way that allows all of these variables to be harmonious with our actual selves. As this unfolds, we become masters of actions and, thus, masters of risk.
All of the most important decisions of our lives, from relationship commitments and friend choices to career moves and investment decisions, come down to intention and action. We don’t just make choices for no reason. To understand why we make the decisions we make, and how we can make them in a more refined way, is the essence of what decides how much we grow, how much risk we can tolerate, and how large the rewards we reap. There are many subcategories of ‘reward’— material, emotional, psychological, physical, social. There are just as many subcategories of risk.
The more enthusiasm we can find for this process of awareness, deconstruction, intention and action, the more actively we can participate in our own lives.