Alan Watts “The Way of Zen”

The active principle of the Round is known as karma or “conditioned action,” action, that is, arising from a motive and seeking a result - the type of action which always requires the necessity for further action. Man is involved in karma when he interferes with the world in such a way that he is compelled to go on interfering, when the solution of a problem creates still more problems to be solved, when the control of one thing creates the need to control several others. Karma is thus the fate of everyone who “tries to be God.” He lays a trap for the world in which he himself gets caught.