I’ve read this, but would like to hear more.
MEGO factor of 1.07. Someone else’s eyes will glaze over at a rate of 1.07. You know, Ashtar seems to exude a certain tabac aura. Maybe you’re in for more Karma than the rest of us.
What goes around, comes around. What comes around the mountain will be drivin’ six white horses. When she comes.
Hmm. I’m not sure what could be added that isn’t covered in the article you linked to. The essential principal is pretty simple: Do good things and good things will happen to you. Do bad things and bad things will happen to you. The article explains “good” and “bad” in terms of Buddhism, but the word “karma” is certainly used a lot outside of Buddhist contexts.
Well, I’ve been told that Karma meant that good things will happen in your next life, and that there was another word for good things which happen in your current life, but couldn’t find anything to that nature.
Is that true?
I’ve been keeping my distance from this thread, because I don’t have any “cites”, but I thought I might chime in. I think that the concept of Karma is much the same as that of religion in general. A “spiritual” guide to life, based on doing good and avoiding wrong. I see nothing wrong with that, but I see it as a belief system that keeps people honest, fair and good-natured.
Karma is an unprovable phenomenon, but for those that believe in it, quality of life seems to improve for them and those around them. How can that be bad? FTR, I believe in Karma.
As defined more simply by 3 different Buddhist glossaries:
http://dharma.ncf.ca/faqs/glossary.html
karma (Pali kamma) Literally, “action.” Often translated “cause and effect.”
http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Clubs/buddhism/glossary.html
Karma
Volition, volitional or intentional activity. Karma is always followed by its fruit, Vipaka. Karma and Vipaka are oftentimes referred to as the law of causality, a cardinal concern in the Teaching of the Buddha.
http://www.theflow.org/tonglen/glossary.htm
The impact of your past imprinting on your present and your future."
The last definition sits best with my understanding of my teacher’s teaching. Karma is all the events that make up you - your past experiences, parents, genetics, your actions in past lives, and so on - anything causing you to be what you are.
Osakadave
FWIW I had a different understanding, without cites:
We travel through time in a cycle, dipping into incarnations in the illusory physical world, i.e. “lives”. During each life we are given lessons in the form of karma. Each life lasts long enough to give us a set of these lessons, and then we appear to die and leave that incarnation, rejoining briefly the One, only to be incarnated again into another life to be given more karma.
If we follow the Eightfold Path (right thought, right action, etc etc), we will learn all the lessons we need to forever, and will need no more karma, no more incarnations - we will join the One forever, a state called “nirvana”.
Ah, if anybody thinks this is goofy, you should get me to explain Christianity. I’m also big fun at weddings and funerals.
As a sidecar to this, I was at one point told that the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things one does, karma-wise, were originally caste-based. That is to say, if you were born to be a soldier, and you did what soldiers were supposed to do, this would be ‘good’ karma. If you tried to do what other castes were supposed to do, you would be working out-of sync with what you were born to do, and thus it would be ‘bad’ karma. Can anyone support or refute this? If it is so, it sounds like a very good method of religious social control (ie- don’t try to act / move outside your class.)
Unfortunately karma can be used to justify inhumanity. “Oops i’m stamping on your head!. Must be your bad karma!”. “You’re a woman, you suffer! Bad karma!”. “Peasant? Too bad! Thats your karma.”.
There is a kind of resignation towards suffering that sees it as necessary. It is very dodgy from an ethical point of view.
Would a Buddhist describe genocide, torture etc. as bad karma? Even if the victims were outstanding, compassionate human beings? Theres just no evidence to support the theory that those who suffer more have performed worse actions in the past.
That sounds more like the Bhagavad-gita than the Tripitaka (ie. Hinduism rather than Buddhism), and I think the term used is ‘dhamma’ rather than ‘karma’. But I’m not certain.
One thing that you have to bear in mind when studying the concept of karma is that Buddhism is a very diverse tradition. Some branches have accepted influence from outside the dhamma, others have perhaps abandoned the more esoteric parts of the Teaching. And therefore there is considerable disagreement on the interpretation of some terms and doctrines, such as the doctrine of Anatman/Anatta. The upshot is that some Buddhists will tell you that the Goal is to escape from a cycle of reincarnation-with-poetic-justice, while others will tell you that reincarnation is a superstition, and that the goal is to prevent the karma of one’s actions from inflicting dukkha on other people in future lives.
I suggest that you consult some sort of comparative overview of the diversity of Buddhism, such as Christmas Humphreys’ Buddhism, an introduction and guide (Penguin, ISBN 0-14-013483-2).
Regards,
Agback
Definitely. Torture and genocide are bad actions. (“Karma” = “action”.) They arise out of bad causes and give rise to bad effects. Buddhists should be unanimous in comdemning them.
If you mean “Would a Buddhist consider genocide and torture to be just retribution for the past sins of the victims?” the answer is a complicated sort of ‘no’, or at least ‘not without error’.
Some self-described Buddhists seem to believe that a person can only become the victim of, for example, genocide or torture if he or she has committed an unregulated act (‘sin’) in a former incarnation. But this is analogous to some Catholics believing that they are free to commit venial sins because they can expunge them by a formal confession. That is, it is a popular superstition in conflict with official doctrine.
A more orthodox position might be something more like this: “Torture and genocide are bad actions arising from bad intentions, and they cause suffering to their victims. Upon becoming the victim of, for example, torture, one has the choice of how to react. If one becomes bitter and hateful, one will increase one’s own mental suffering, and moreover one will become inclined to perform bad actions of one’s own arising from bad intentions and bad attitudes such as hatred and vengefulness. Unchecked, these bad actions will inflame the hatred of the sinners and injure third parties, causing a perpetual cycle of malice, sin, and suffering. It is better to cultivate loving kindness, forgiveness, and forbearance, even towards any who have wronged one. Then performing good actions from good intentions, well-informed and mindful, one can extinguish the consequences of past karma.”
Regards,
Agback
Through various teachings I have had in my lifetime, here’s what I understand Karma to be.
Everyone has the ability to emit positive or negative energy. The energy each person emits stays within their personal space. The more negative energy you emit, the more negative energy you will experience. Similarly, the more positive energy you emit, the more positive energy you will experience. Life’s episodes have to pass through your personal space before they become part of your personal experiences. Your personal space will filter positive and negative episodes in a manner dictated by the levels of positive and negative energies in your personal space. Given enough positive energy in your personal space, some negative episodes can actually be transformed into positive personal experiences.
Emitting positive energies can only be accomplished by mindless good deeds. If good deeds are performed for the sake of creating positive energy, and not for the pure reason that they are good, then no positive energy becomes of those deeds. In fact, negative energy is produced by actions that are performed with the idea of gaining positive energy.
OMMMMMMMMMM
OMMMMMMMMMM
OMMMMMMMMMM
