Hi Alex and all,
I’m getting the feeling that your inquiring mind is still unsatisfied, so let me have a go.
On the question of equality, I think we need to start by making a distinction between equality in fact and equality in principle. There are probably proper philosophical terms for these, but let’s go with this.
What do I mean by these?
Consider gravity. It is a fundamentally equal force in principle: any object of a certain mass exerts exactly the same gravitational pull.
Yet in fact the universe has a highly unequal distribution of gravity, from the emptiness of intergalactic space, to the intensity of a black hole.
So gravity is equal in principle and unequal in fact.
I would suggest that kamma is the same. The principle of kamma—do good, get good, do bad, get bad—applies equally to everyone, everywhere, all the time, so it is equal in principle.
But the specifics of how that play out vary tremendously, so it is unequal in fact.
This relates to the question of the imponderables. First thing is to acknowledge that the text as it stands is quite open; there is not much explanation for it, so we are left to inference.
Now, given that the Buddha frequently spoke about kamma and urged practitioners to understand it, it seems impossible that he meant that one shouldn’t try to understand kamma. More likely, what he meant was that shouldn’t try to understand every little detail.
Again, compare to gravity. It is easy enough to understand the principle: things fall down. Or more accurately: objects with mass exert an attractive force on each other. That’s good enough for you to know—don’t fall from high places! But if you want to work out all the details of the gravitational interactions of all objects in the universe, you’ll go mad.
This is, I think, a very real temptation in the realm of kamma. People are very apt to assume that such-&-such happened because of kamma. Then if that happened, then what about this? And how does that relate to so-&-so’s kamma? The questions never end, and they get further and further from any meaningful basis in experience.
So if you want to understand gravity, you need to know the principle of the thing, and that is good enough for any practical cases. Same thing with kamma: understand the principle, and then apply it when you need to make choices.
This hopefully helps with your question about whether karma and reincarnation depend on not questioning the four imponderables.
For a scientist to admit that they can’t know every detail about gravity doesn’t mean that they stop inquiring. On the contrary, they keep testing their understanding and apply it in new cases.
The same thing with kamma. The four imponderables are not about saying don’t inquire into rebirth; they are about saying that certain kinds of inquiry are not going to be useful. The Buddha never wanted to shut down inquiry, he wanted to guide inquiry in a way that would help let go of suffering. So do the inquiry that will yield actual results, i.e. by observing how kamma and result plays out in your own mind, not speculating about things you can never know of.
One further remark on the ethical implications of equality. Don’t confuse the kinds of equality we have been talking about with the more ethically charged notion of equality in human society.
Equality, whether of fact or of principle, in the case of kamma or gravity are simply descriptions of how the world is. Kamma itself is neither good nor bad, any more than gravity is. It’s just how the world works. But if you do bad kamma you’ll suffer, just as if you fall out of a tree, you’ll suffer.
However, when we talk of equality in society, we imbue it with an ethical judgement: equality is good, inequality is bad. (It’s not so simple, but that’s the basic idea.) Society should be more equal and we have an ethical obligation to make it more equal. That’s how many people think about equality, and I agree.
Equality in society doesn’t depend on people being actually equal, which is obviously not the case: everyone is different. It depends on the idea that everyone deserves equal treatment and equal opportunities. It’s about a fair go.
The problem is that the world is highly unequal, and getting more so, and those who benefit from this are the ones with power and money. So you need a strong pull in the other direction if you want to even get close to a fair go.
In modern democracies, for example, we are theoretically equal in the eyes of the law. In reality a rich man is going to hire a great lawyer, and the rest of us will end up with some schmuck.
If we want greater equality—which we should—then we have to actively stand up for the poor, the voiceless, and the disenfranchised.
