When Someone Tells You "You Have Bad Karma"

The person who wrote to us experienced a string of traffic accidents and wallet thefts, and visited a nearby temple for a purification rite. Afterward, they were told: "Your family karma is bad," and "An unattained spirit from an ancestor who died by suicide several generations ago is attached to you."

A friend of theirs who had been suffering persistent fevers and poor health consulted the same temple. They were told: "People in the year after an unlucky age easily fall seriously ill," "The spirit of a felled tree is cursing you," "An old doll has absorbed psychic energy and is draining your vitality," and "The road in front of your house is a spirit path," and were urged to buy expensive salt to sever the bad karma.

They asked us: Are accidents and illness really caused by spirits? Do we need to visit the family grave more often? And are explanations and sales pitches like these actually based on Buddhist teaching?

Spirits and such are just your imagination.

That is a spiritual scam.

Accidents and illness are never caused by spirits. You do not need to visit the grave more often out of fear of a curse, you do not need to buy expensive salt, and what you were told is not Buddhist teaching at all. Below, we explain why from the Buddha's own teaching, the true meaning of memorial services, Kōbō Daishi's explanation of how fear forms in the mind, and practical steps when you feel uneasy.

The claim that "an ancestor has become an unattained spirit attached to you" assumes that a fixed soul stays behind in this world after death and brings accidents or illness upon living family members. Yet Śākyamuni Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, never taught any such soul.

Buddhism does teach rebirth — that living beings die and take new life. However, rebirth does not mean that "my soul slips out of my body, floats around the house like a ghost, or hops intact into a new body." When a monk named Sāti once insisted that our sensing, thinking mind (consciousness) is an unchanging soul that moves intact into the next life after death, the Buddha rejected that idea outright.

To explain why, the Buddha compared our mind to fire. Fire burns as a "wood fire" while there is firewood, burns as a "grass fire" while there is grass, and goes out when its fuel is spent. Once the firewood burns out, no "ball of fire" stays floating in midair to haunt a house indefinitely. Our mind works the same way: it functions while a body and surrounding conditions are present, and ceases when those conditions end. Nowhere in Buddhism is there a detached soul that lingers in a house to cause accidents or theft for descendants.

If no soul-container remains, what happens to the results of our actions, and what does the Buddhist word innen ("causes and conditions") actually mean? The Buddha rejected both the extreme belief that an identical soul lasts forever after death to carry results along, and the opposite extreme that everything vanishes into nothing at death. Instead, he taught dependent origination — simply that earlier actions serve as conditions giving rise to subsequent outcomes.

In Buddhism, then, innen simply means the everyday principle that events happen when direct causes and surrounding conditions come together. Ideas like "bad karma accumulating in a house like grime" or "buying expensive salt to cut off bad karma" have nothing whatsoever to do with Buddhism.

"Unattained spirits," "spirit paths," "curses from the spirit of a felled tree," "psychic energy in an old doll," "falling seriously ill because of a post-calamity year." None of the phrases used at that temple come from Buddhist scriptures. Even when a place hangs up a temple signboard, some people mix popular superstitions and spiritual-scam scare tactics into what they say.

Why, then, do we hold memorial services and visit graves? In Buddhism, memorial practice means making offerings to the Three Treasures — the Buddha, the Dharma (teaching), and the Saṅgha (monastic community) — and directing the merit of that wholesome act toward the deceased (ekō, dedication of merit). It is never done to appease angry ancestors out of fear that "too few memorials brought on a curse," nor to drive away evil spirits.

There is therefore zero need to force yourself to visit the family grave more often in order to prevent accidents or illness. We visit a grave to remember someone fondly and express our gratitude. Going whenever you can and joining your hands with a calm heart is more than enough.

Above all, calling someone who has died an "unattained spirit" and blaming them for misfortune tramples on the dignity of the deceased and burdens grieving families and friends with groundless guilt. The person who wrote to us was deeply hurt when not only an ancestor, but even a junior colleague at work who had died by suicide, was labeled an "unattained spirit." Regardless of how someone passed away, a person dear to you will never curse you. Please do not be afraid.

Even when you understand intellectually that the sūtras teach no such thing, once someone tells you "a spirit is attached to you" or "you have bad karma," the eerie words tend to linger in your ears until anxiety swells. Why is our mind so easily shaken by talk of unseen spirits? Kōbō Daishi Kūkai, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, explained this mental mechanism clearly in his treatise Unjigi (The Meaning of the Syllable Hūṃ).

Kūkai used the term zōyaku ("superimposition") for our habit of assuming that events — which in reality arise simply from shifting conditions — contain a fixed, unchanging entity such as a soul or a curse. It is the mental habit of adding something onto reality in our heads that is not actually there. Imagining entities like an "unattained spirit," a "tree's spirit," "energy in a doll," or a "spirit path" behind coincidental accidents or illness and concluding that they are attacking you is precisely this superimposition.

Kūkai further illustrated how people terrify themselves with their own added assumptions through the parable of "a painter who paints a yakṣa (a fearsome demon)." A painter mixes pigments with his own hand, paints a terrifying demon, and the moment he finishes, looks at his own painting, panics in terror, and collapses on the spot. We do the exact same thing, Kūkai taught, when we sink into a phantom world drawn by our own mind and torment ourselves.

A spiritual scam is a business built on planting the sketch of this demon inside someone else's mind. Once someone feeds you phrases like "spirit path" or "bad karma," their words act as pigments that complete a frightening picture inside your head, until every small everyday mishap starts looking like a curse. You feel afraid not because a spirit actually exists, but because you are looking at a picture painted in your mind by another person's words. There was never any real entity there that requires expensive salt to erase.

*Note: In the rite known as the zōyaku goma (performed to pray for increased blessings and longevity), zōyaku means "increase." That is unrelated to zōyaku ("superimposition" — adding unwarranted assumptions) in the Unjigi.

Even so, a nagging thought may remain: "What if they guessed something right?" In practice, when someone combines details you mentioned first and answers drawn out in conversation with broad statements that fit almost anyone — "people often get sick after an unlucky age," "old dolls or cut garden trees bring trouble" — they can sound as though they saw right through you with psychic power. That something "sounded accurate" is no proof that spirits or curses exist.

For traffic accidents or theft, simply note any practical precautions you can take with driving or security going forward. There is no need to blame unavoidable bad luck on yourself or on your ancestors.

For fevers or physical illness, please see a medical doctor rather than relying on purifications or salt. When emotional stress weighs heavily, talk with someone you trust or a professional counseling service; and if you face pressure to buy costly items or rites, consult a public consumer protection center.

If unease still crosses your mind, remember the teaching of the Heart Sūtra. The Heart Sūtra teaches that through the wisdom of knowing there is no fixed entity to cling to, "the mind has no snagging obstruction; having no obstruction, there is no fear; far removed from upside-down delusions, one reaches peace." Rather than forcing yourself not to feel scared, seeing clearly that there was never any curse-entity out to harm you unravels fear from the root.

The Head Priest's Answer

"It's fine. Just as even poop washes away when you flush it, all things pass and change. Bad karma doesn't accumulate in a house, and spirits don't come and attach themselves to you. If you ever meet someone who says that kind of nonsense, just think of it as stepping in dog 💩 and forget about it."

Please walk away without hesitation from any temple that frightens people in order to demand money or sell things. At the same time, one bad experience does not mean you must fear every temple. Honest Buddhist temples never invoke curses or spirit afflictions to corner people. Please do not blame yourself, and do not blame the loved ones you have lost.

Truly, everything is all right.