Meditation 30: Do We Reap What We Sow?

Do we reap what we sow? The short answer to this question is "yes," unless external factors interfere. The metaphor of sowing and reaping brings this out.  A farmer plants seeds in fertile soil, it rains the right amount, the weather is clement, and the earth produces its bounty at harvest time.  In a predictable way, the anticipated crop comes in as the normal result of physics, biology and genetics. Here the external factors are weather and soil conditions.  In the case of human behavior, the student who does the course work generally will reap good grades, and the athlete who trains to run the marathon will be most likely to stay the course.  The drinker and smoker sow alcohol and smoke in their bodies and reap liver and lung problems.  Habits have long term effects that cannot be wished away.  What are all the pleasures of drinking or smoking to the person who is dying as a direct result of indulging in them?

So what about external factors?  Sometimes the rains do not come and the crops fail. The seeds are sown, but nothing is reaped.  There is no harvest for the farmer.  The student gets sick on exam day. The marathon runner sprains an ankle and is unable to compete.  Smokers and drinkers live to a ripe old age and die in their sleep of causes unrelated to their vices, due to a peculiarly robust physical constitution.  Worse yet, frauds and con-artists have successful careers in crime and never get caught.  Murderers disappear and are never brought to justice.  The external factors that prevent these people from reaping what they sow are things like luck; the naivety and gullibility of people, and the ineptitude or corruption of the police.

The last case points up the reason that people have needed to believe that there is God or Divine Providence that arranges things for the best.  The con-artists and murderers who escape justice in this world receive it in another.  The question whether we reap what we sow takes on a sharper focus here.  The answer we want is "yes."  We want to believe that if we sow goodness in the world, than we will reap goodness.  We want to believe that if we sow evil, then evil will come to us.

We know this is not always true.  There is enough uncertainty and chance in life to make us recognize that we do not always reap what we sow.  There are always exceptions to the rules, though the rules show us what happens in normal cases.  Normally, all things considered, we do reap what we sow.  Our plans will mature. Our lifestyles will catch up with us.  If we live a healthy life, eat and drink in moderation while exercising our bodies and minds, we are more likely to live a longer and happier life.  If we are friendly and helpful to other people, tell the truth and keep our promises, we are likely to find that most people will respond in kind.  If we are nasty and hateful, we will be shunned. 

More deeply, in a moral sense, we do always reap what we sow, because there are no external factors that can interfere with the outcome.  The Title of Lao Tzu's book tells it all, "Actions and their Retributions."  The Greeks had the idea, too, with the thought that the character of a person is destiny, conceived as a collection of habits.  In Buddhism, it is the idea of "Karma." What we can control over is our own actions and attitudes, for these are like seeds planted in the world, and they will bear fruit, whether bitter or sweet. Frauds, con-artists and murderers do not escape the consequences of their way of life, even though they may be missed by the law or escape the envy of their own kind. In this internal sense, we do always reap what we sow, and it is here that we bear the most responsibility.