Paying it forward at Karma Kitchen
After the Republicans withdrew their health care bill last week, social media mocked President Trump. On Facebook, someone gleefully commented: “That’s karma.”
Karma reflects the sum of your actions, in your existences past and present, which in turn determines your future. Yet in pop culture, karma has become an insult tinged with the German word schadenfreude — delight in the misfortune of others. In this view, there’s a sense of bitterness, a focus on how misdeeds will return to punish you. In a country so divided, I understand that reaction — I too rejoiced when the Affordable Care Act remained in place — but I started thinking about how one’s actions can affect the future in a brighter way.
It seemed the perfect opportunity to visit Karma Kitchen in Berkeley, founded a decade ago by volunteers to spread the spirit of generosity. Diners, who aren’t charged a cent, are told, “Your meal was a gift from someone who came before you. To keep the chain of gifts alive, we invite you to pay it forward to those who dine after you.”
Since its inception, Karma Kitchen spin-offs have appeared around the world, from Washington, D.C., to Dubai. In Berkeley, it’s held at Taste of the Himalayas on the last Sunday of the month, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. I invited two families who are also grappling with how to teach our young children about kindness and activism.
After warmly greeting us, the host seated us at a corner table. Almost immediately, another guest strolled in with a bag of exquisite, handcrafted stuffed animals and offered them to us.
My friend’s 8-year-old daughter cuddled a beautiful quilted rabbit. “I love this place!” she said. She read aloud from a deck of cards, which offered suggestions such as “Write a thank you note to a teacher who inspired you” and “Give away something important to you.”
The dishes were served family style: a creamy tofu saag, vegetable korma in coconut gravy, allo matara green peas and potatoes cooked in tomato, basmati rice, dal soup, crispy butter naan, milky chai, and tart and sweet mango lassis. Dessert included rice pudding, vegan tofu lime pie, a vegan chocolate mousse cake and mango or vanilla ice cream.
We ate the delicious meal with gusto, mindful not to waste food, as can happen at a buffet when you want to “get your money’s worth” and your eyes outmatch your appetite. The volunteer server — thank you, Divya! — was cheerful, solicitous and patient with us as we corralled our boisterous boys.
The restaurant, the air scented with spices, grew crowded with other blissful diners. I felt cared for, taken care of and inspired, too. The check arrived — “Your bill total: $0.00” — and noted that each mealtime takes 100 volunteer hours and $650 in food costs to pull off, and that collective trust and support is necessary to perpetuate the cycle of generosity. Sometimes organizers make cost; sometimes they don’t.
A study of how people behave when told to “pay what you want” (in which you pay for yourself) compared with “pay it forward” suggest that we’re more generous when paying on behalf of someone else. Field experiments were conducted at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco and at a gourmet coffee vendor.
“People may feel pressured to follow the behaviors of others in an effort to behave appropriately,” wrote the researchers from UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. “People like to be seen as generous by others and by themselves. They also want to save their money.”
Researchers also ran a pilot experiment at the restaurant, in which customers either received a card that said, “Someone who came here earlier paid for your meal as a gift” or “Now you have a chance to pay for the meal as a gift for someone who will come later.”
On that day, customers paid more when the card emphasized giving, $20.42, compared with when it highlighted receiving, $11.09. I hadn’t yet read the study when we paid; by the middle of the meal, before getting our check, we’d already decided what we’d pay. Each family donated $40; for our table of eight, we paid $120.
“It feels good,” my friend, a father, said afterward. “It feels like we went to church — without going to church.”
“The volunteers gave up their Sunday morning to make sure we enjoyed ourselves,” another friend, a mother of two, explained to her kids. “How does that make you feel?”
I asked the same of my twins, but couldn’t tell if they understood. “Does it make you want to be nice to other people? What are some good deeds you could do?”
They stared blankly at me. Finally, Gege said, “We love each other. That’s why we are friends.” He grabbed his friend’s hand and off they went, the kind of love, the kind of karma that also goes round and round.
“It feels like we went to church — without going to church.” A father after dining at Karma Kitchen