Day 42 of 365: Karma

How do these Middle Way logics apply to karma?  

For those belonging to the family of the noble ones, karmic actions do not exist and results of karmic actions do not exist either.

The logic behind this is a fairly straightforward examination of actors and actions.  Look at which came first.  Neither the actor nor the action could come first because then you would have an actionless actor and an actorless action respectively.  And, they cannot be independent and arise at the same time either because independence implies that there is, in particular, no causal relationship.  Thus, they are are dependently arisen mere appearance as would be any resulting karma.

This is a really interesting logic from a conduct standpoint.  Our immediate reaction is to go towards nihilism. If there's no karma, then it doesn't matter how I conduct myself.  This is the way our mind moves.  However,  until we realize and stabilize the profound Middle Way view, our conduct matters very much.  We could, taking this logic in a naive way, further ensnare ourselves in the net of samsara.  Though neither karma nor samsara exist in an ultimate sense, we spend 99% of our time convinced they do in our guts.  So, our karma, most of the time, is just as real.  No wild kegger tonight for us!