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What is Karma in Taoism?

Unlock the secrets of karma through the lens of the 4 Ascendant Taoist Tradition. This article explores the unique Taoist view of karma, distinguishing it from popular ideas and other traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism. Learn about the 3-Pole Karmic Model, how karmic energy powers your choices, and why understanding karma is crucial to creating a meaningful, happy life.

Karma in the 4 Ascendant Taoist Tradition

Karma is one of the three crucial energies (a.k.a primal energies) in Taoism, alongside qi and abundance. Without building karma, it’s difficult to make real progress toward spiritual enlightenment or lasting personal happiness. If these are your goals, understanding karma deeply is essential. Otherwise, life can become frustrating and full of obstacles.

Taoist Karma is Different

It’s important to understand that Taoist karma is not the same as the versions you might hear about in Buddhism, Hinduism, or pop culture. Ideas like “instant karma” are misleading. Taoist karma has its own principles, and it’s important to approach it without relying on those outside ideas.

The Human Realm vs. the Tao Realm

Understanding karma can be challenging because humans often seek right and wrong, and expect justice from the universe. This expectation leads to the belief that karma enforces fairness. In Buddhism and Hinduism, karma is seen as part of this cosmic justice system.

But in Taoism, things work differently.

While justice is important for human society, the Tao doesn’t operate on the same terms. The Tao contains everything—good and bad, creation and destruction, beauty and ugliness. It doesn’t take sides. The responsibility for creating a just world falls on us as humans, using our free will. The Tao won’t interfere with that process.

In Taoism, the universe is built on choice and free will. That’s the central law of the Tao. Karma is the energy that powers this law, enabling our choices to have real impact.

The Taoist 3-Pole Karmic Model

So, if karma isn’t about rewards for good behavior or punishments for bad, how does it work?

In the 4 Ascendant Taoist Tradition, karma operates through a 3-Pole Model: a Positive pole, a Neutral pole, and a Negative pole.

At first, it’s common to associate these poles with “good,” “neutral,” and “evil,” but this is a simplified view. As your understanding deepens, you’ll need to let go of these basic labels.

You accumulate karma based on the choices you make. Positive choices build positive karma, and the more you accumulate, the more power you have in the positive pole. This power helps you make greater changes in your life.

Karmic Math: Balancing Your Choices

Karma operates like a balance sheet. If you’re working to build positive karma and then make a negative choice, that negative action subtracts from your positive karma. If the mistake is big enough, it could deplete all the positive karma you’ve built and possibly shift you into the negative pole.

It’s also possible to build up negative karma and gain power from it. However, even in this case, a positive choice will reduce that negative karma. This balance is what keeps the karmic system in motion.

Most Taoist traditions favor building positive or neutral karma. Historically, those who pursued extreme negative karma were often stopped, as their actions posed a danger to the well-being of society.

Graphic illustrating karmic poles of taoism

Why Karma Matters

Karma is the force that gives your choices real power. Without it, you can struggle to manage the “Big Four” areas of life: resources, relationship self-development and self- maintenance. When you lack the ability to influence these areas, unhappiness usually follows.

Karma makes it more likely for you to achieve enlightenment, but it isn’t required for enlightenment. Karma isn’t part of a reward system leading you there. Instead, it’s the energy that empowers your choices, helping you succeed or fail as you move forward.

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2 Responses

  1. Hello and thank you for your comment.

    Your question is mostly about self awareness, “How do I know what I am and how I should behave?”

    Becoming self aware is part of an overall process both in the pursuit of happiness and in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. You acquire self-awareness through following practices like the 3 level method, and using the Taoist mind to solve your day to day problems.

    Specifically to Karma:

    Humans have a natural sensitivity to karma. That sensitivity, combined with trial and error, will very quickly reveal specifics of karmic rules to you. Your best bet is to activate that natural sensitivity and put that tool at your own disposal. Otherwise, you will be caught in a cycle of constantly asking others what their tool reveals about karma. It is better to be in a situation of asking questions about the tool rather than asking about karmic values.

    Activating the karmic tool is difficult because it is masked by the Social Mind. The Social Mind functions at greater ease without having people capable of choice, so a large part of its structure is dedicated toward preventing karmic accumulation. What that means is that you must weaken the Social Mind to allow the karmic tool to function. That leads you back to 4 Ascendant Taoist practice like that of the 3 Level Method.

    In response to your actual questions, “Yes.”

    If you want to a general method for accumulating a constant, but low level amount of karma, refer to the gratitude invocation.

    Warm regards!

  2. So by making choices in a given pole it will give you the karma of that pole, how can you tell what pole you’re in and how can you tell what pole your choices are in? do you get better at telling if you’re making a positive, neutral or negative choice over time? does the neutral pole have the same system as the positive and negative when your in one of those poles and you make a choice in the other pole you get subtracted that amount of karma in the pole you are in?

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