In Which Thea and I Discuss "Karma"

Great Debates
41

Different posters have captured the meaning of Karma from different angles.

As someone said, the notion of “Karmic justice and retribution” is a Western (mis) interpretation, a hippie interpretation :slight_smile:

As flycow said, The laws of Karma in both Hinduism and Buddhism actually refer to the inherent nature within the universe. In general, goodness will lead to goodness and evil will beget evil. In other words, it is as redundant as saying: “If you do a good thing, there will be a good result”.

But, noname hit on a philosophical concept derived from the laws of Karma, the Karma-yoga or Karma-marga, which is touted in Hinduism as a path to salvation. Karma does approximately translate to action. Essentially, the Gita speaks of how actions can create desires which creates attachment causing misery etc. Deriving from the notion that the real doer is not you but the Supreme Being, The Gita advises Man* to offer all actions to God in order to escape the laws of Karma. By not looking at the results of the actions, and by performing one’s actions and duties without attachment and in the name of God, one can attain salvation. This is the Karma-marga. Yes, Krishna asked Arjuna to perform his actions without attachment, to perform his karma, not dharma.

Note that the “from action stems suffering” idea is a core component of Buddhist thought.

Diogenes spoke of how individuals with bad karma re-incarnate as dung beetles! Here we see an application of the laws of Karma to decide the quality of birth. Good actions will help you lead a better life in the next birth. Bad actions will lead to a poorer rebirth. But, the key point is that the cycle of birth and re-birth is implicitly assumed. That is, whether Man performs good or bad karma, he may still not attain salvation, i.e., escape the cycle of birth and death. Good karma may give him a good life but he will continue to be born again and again and again… Which is why the Gita preaches that Man shouldn’t get attached to his actions and urges him to perform actions without anticipating results. By following this stringent Karma-marga, s/he can attain salvation.

Finally, there are subtle differences amongst Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism (and may be other Eastern religions?) in how they understand “karma” … which makes the word even more complex.

*No gender bias implied

42

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by flycow *
**

Please leave the idea of reincarnation out of this, it only gets far more complicated. Before discussing reincarnation you would have to get clear on the puzzling question of WHO or WHAT exactly is supposed to get reincarnated, which leads us to the even more important question WHO lives in the first place.
.i think you are homing in on what is important about this question. the difference between a living body and a dead body is consciousness. consciousness is a symptom of the presence of the spirit,or soul. it is not that “i am this body,and i have a soul”, but rather that i am the soul,and i have (temporarily)this body.
the soul does not depend on the body for existence,the soul existed prior to this body,and will continue to exist after the demise of this body.“never was there a time when i did not exist,nor you,nor anyone else,nor in the future shall any of us cease to be” krishna tells arjuna in bhagavad gita.
the difference between the body and the soul,matter and spirit,is that matter,or material energy is temporary,but thespirit soul.you and i,are eternal. it is also described in the gita that the soul is eternal,full of knowledge,and full of bliss. so when the eternal blissful soul becomes trapped in the temporary situation of this existence,it is natural that eventually we will become frustrated in our attempts to be happy sooner or later,due to the temporary nature of that situation,and the realization that death is coming to the body with which we so strongly (and falsely )identify.
it is this acceptance of the body as the self which shows how strong the illusion of maya (that which is not) is controlling us. to become free from the illusion of identifying ourselves with the body,we have to return to our original identity.(eternal,spiritual). but the first thing we need to understand is whether we are this body or not.if we think we are just a combination of chemicals,then why would we care if our child dies?after all,its only chemicals,right? no, we can easily see that it is the living soul within the body we cherish,otherwise we would be happy to have a dead body for a child as much as a living one.karma is just the mechanism by which we play out this virtual reality existence of birth and death,which is un-natural for the eternal soul. “the sky,due to its subtle nature,does not mix with anything although it is all-pervading.similarly,the soul situated in brahman vision does not mix with the body,though situated in that body”-bhagavad gita.

43

I guess I believe in a kind of karma. I believe that you create your own existence. I do not believe there’s anything supernatural or cosmic-notebook-y about it.
Shit can happen, but how you deal with the shit, whether you give the shit to others, whether you fill your own thoughts with shit, those are the things that will determine the impact the next round of shit has upon you.
I guess I look at it more as you attract positive things towards you if you are positive and attract (or notice/dwell on more) negative things when you are negative. Doesn’t need anything supernatural, doesn’t need reincarnation, but does smack vaguely of karma.

44

It seems more obvious that it is simply “I am this body”. No soul necessary.

Incorrect. We are just a combination of chemicals, and the difference between being alive and being dead is whether or not those chemicals are undergoing certain chemical reactions. So I would not be just as happy to have a dead child as a living one, because the dead child is no longer undergoing the chemical reactions that maintain life.

Sure it does. The sky is just the Earth’s atmosphere, and the atmosphere mixes with all sorts of things. For instance, the bubbles in a carbonated soda are caused by dissolved carbon dioxide, which is a part of the atmosphere, and thus a part of the sky.

Or does the bhagavad gita mean something different by the word “sky”?

45

Although I’ve sometimes used the term in a joking sense, I’ve never believed in karma. Especially with the past lives angle. It would imply that a person somehow deserved every bad or unfortunate thing that happened to him, and I think that’s a terrible vision of life.

46

I think Goo pretty much nailed it.

IMHO (and that’s all any of these posts are in this thread, people’s opinions. Responding that something is “wrong” or “nonsense” or “fact”, especially when referring to something such as karma, is just silly) karma is just energy coming back to you.

A lot of people believe in the “self fulfilling prophecy” do they not? If you keep saying you cannot achieve something, chances are, you won’t. You’re putting out that kind of energy.

My idea of karma is very similiar. If you put out a lot of negative energy, you’re going to in turn, attract a lot of negative energy. By attracting a lot of negative energy, negative things are bound to happen to you.

Like everything in nature though, there is an opposite side to negative energy: positive energy. If you put out enough positive energy, you’ll attract a lot of positive energe and postive things are bound to happen to you.

My idea of karma has nothing to do with reincarnation. It’s basically, another way of saying “what goes around comes around.” There’s variations of this kind of thinking in many religions and cultures.

47

From my understanding, Karma normally follows a time period of “from one life to another,” i.e. the combination of what you accomplished in one life will help determine what you are to do in the next.
The concept of “karma” that’s immediate has a different term attached to it in my vocabulary. It’s called the Norse concept of “wyrd.” Dictionary.com defines it as the following:* Fate personified; one of the Three Weird Sisters.* I personally take this to be fate within the course of one’s own lifetime. Fate can sometimes be shifted by good and bad deeds, and other things that we aren’t in control of. Wyrd essentially exists in Viking age Norse belief as a way to balance things out.

48

Yes,that may be so. Now we are up against a real big one: What exactly is consciousness?

I can see that you are coming from the hindu view point of eternal soul.
I am a Zen-Buddhist and so I don’t agree with this at all.
What exactly is the relation between your thinking, your experience and that what you call soul? Again, if you want to profit from this question, don’t be hasty or superficial. Don’t answer with something you have read or heard. Find this connection, if it is there for your self. Anything else is cheapening your honesty.

Well, then we would have souls without bodies?

This is correct, but there is at least one more interpretation of this. What he says here can come out of deep meditation experience, where it becomes clear that time is an illusion. Everything has always existed. But this is not to be confused with what you normaly think of as eternity. In our everyday mind this experience can not be replicated and parroting what somebody else said about it doesn’t exactly help.

49

hi there flycow, in the interests of clarity,i would like to focus on the points you raised one at a time.i will persue the others later,when the first one has been resolved,if you dont mind,otherwise issues become mixed,and confusion and misunderstandings can occur.
i said that" the soul does not depend on the body for existence"
you asked;“well, then we would have souls without bodies?”
from that statement,it appears that you have misunderstood.WE do not" have" souls, we ARE souls.
there are not 3 things here-(my soul, my body, and me)
there are only two-( me and my body)
that"me", IS the soul.
“I” am not this body…“I” am the spirit soul,and the nature of the soul is that it is conscious. the body appears to be conscious when the soul is present within it, but as soon as the soul leaves,there is no consciousness within the body. am i being clear? i would like to know if you can accept this or not,and if not, i would like to know what your reasons are before going on to your other points.

50

Hi creosote kid
I think I do understand where you are coming from, but no, I don’t agree. This ‘I’ is not the soul (assuming there is such a thing) ‘I’ is a mental construct. It appears when consciousness touches the senses.

The idea of soul comes from the need to think that there is something everlasting, that there is something in us, that does not die. Basically it comes from the wish to perpetuate the ‘I’ into eternity and the need to soften the impact of loved ones dying.
I do not think that there is such a thing.

To say that it is not a body that has a soul, but a soul that has a body simply reverses the priorities and that is all very well, but does not really clarify matters.

The question is: How does this soul show? What is the relationship between this precious ‘I’ and that soul? If you say that “I” is the soul, that your everyday consciousness is soul, then you say that soul changes. Your consciousness now is not what it was when you were 3 years old, and it will be different again when you are 10 years older. Which part is supposed to be eternal? What happens to consciousness when you die?
Will there be consciousness without a body?
I don’t think so.
But I don’t know.

BTW, may I delight you with a little Zen anecdote?

A student asked the famous Japanese Zen-Teacher Hakuin:
What happens when we die?
Hakuin sais: I don’t know.
The student: But you are a famous Zen-Master.
Hakuin said: Yes. But not a dead one.

The point is, that what ever happens is irrelevant to your life right now. Speculating about it gets you nowhere and disperses your prescious asking-energy. Don’t waste it on questions that have no meaning. Look deeper: Why do you want an everlasting soul to exist?

Another anecdote pertaining to Karma, to get back to the real topic of this thread:

The Sufi teacher Nasrudin went to a bath house with a guest.
N. was always a little ragged, so the attendant of the bath house didn’t respect him. He got an old towel , no oils, forget the massage, you get the picture.
When they left, he gave the attendant a gold coin.
Next day they went back to the same bath house.
Yeeeha, it was all there now, new towel, scented oils, first class massage, sherbet.
When Nasrudin and his friend left, the attendant bowed low, holding out his hand, no doubt expecting his just rewards for todays special treatment.
Nasrudin swiftly moved to the attendants back, gave him a solid kick in the pants and shouted: And that’s for yesterday.

I found this to be true in my life very often.

51

hi flycow,you say that “I,” is a mental construct.It appears when consciousness touches the senses.
i do not agree, that “I”, IS the consciousness,
ego, or the sense of “i am” is real,
false ego,or “i am this body” is illusion.
a great teacher once said that “false ego is the sum total of all our misconceptions”, and these misconceptions begin from the acceptance of the temporary material body as the self.
you gave the nice story of the zen teacher,who would not speculate on what he did not know,but you speculate yourself,when you say that" the idea of the soul comes from the need to think that there is something everlasting"you do not know what the soul is,indeed you deny its existence,so how then do you know of “the need to think that there is something everlasting” when you,apparently do not feel that need?
you seem to think that i am saying the soul changes when the body gets older,but i do not.
the nature of eternal is that it does not change,the nature of temporary is that it is always changing.the body is always changing,but the soul is always the same. dont you feel like the same person you were when you were 3or 5 or10?
your body has changed,but you are the same conscious person.
it is not complicated,why not accept this for your own benefit?
are you afraid of existing eternally?

52

Actually, I do not believe that I am the “same” person that I was when I was 3, or 13, or even 33.

There is a continuity of form – I’m obviously the same person in a legal sense.

But I, today, hold views that my younger self could not have, and I reject many of the views I once valued. In some ways, I’ve grown. In others, perhaps dwindled. In any case, while “The child is father to the man,” and while I could not be who I am today without going through the phases of my life, I do not believe that I “am” the “same” “person” I once was.

I also believe that the sense of self, and the sense of consciousness, are far more complex than the creosote kid seems to suggest…

(In Socratic terms: if you have a major stroke and lose your ability to speak, are you still conscious? If you lose your ability to comprehend space/place/dimension? If you lose your ability to react to another person as a person? If you lose all memory save for the events of the past 20 seconds? What, exactly, is “consciousness” and what is mere “animal” sensory processing?)

Trinopus

53

But I think the main point the creosote kid is trying to make is that the mind/consciousness is separate from the physical body. I can lose my arms, my legs, most everything except my vital organs, and I will be more or less the same person. I’ll be physically capable of less, but regardless, I can hold the same kind of conversation over the phone that I was previously able to. I’d still be just as “conscious” as I was before.

54

Sorry, Creosote, no.

You are NOT the same person you were 10 years ago, 1 year ago, last month, last week, yesterday, an hour ago, last minute, last second.
There is no abiding self.

This is one of the fundamental truths of Buddhism: Impermanence. Nothing stays the same for any length of time. (and of course, as so often, this is confirmed by physics, psychology and neurology)

The contents of your mind change constantly, the cells in your body change constantly, your personality changes constantly.
Where do you find a permanent self here?

I would like to quote a couplet by famed Zen Master Dogen(13th century):
That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion.
That the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is called enlightenment.

The affirmation of a permanent self, a permanent soul, that’s the first part of this couplet.
Experiencing yourself as the waterfall, as the flower, as the computer keyboard, as the shit in the hole, that is the liberation, the redemption if you will.
This experience is strangely joyful and ever changing forever fresh.

Sorry, I got no use for permanent self or soul.

May I return your invitation, creosote?
Why not accept impermanence for your own benefit (and that of all beings)?
Are you afraid of loosing the delusion of a permanent self?

Thank you, trinopus, I feel you are asking helpful questions. This is very much my line of thinking too.
May I reamrk that I am not so clear about the opposition of consciousness and ‘mere’“animal” sensory processing (Why mere?) Is a dog conscious? A rat? A bee? I don’t know. Consciousness reamains a mystery.

55

All I know is that I’m pissed off that your karma just ran over my dogma.
[sub]c’mon - someone had to…[/sub]

56

Drive your own car,ma.
And walk your own dog!

Yeah, I know, someone just has to, each time. (It’s Karma(ouch))

57

Consciousness, I think, is pretty much limited to the mammals, and comes from the dual-brain architecture of “reptilian” hindbrain and mammalian cerebrum. Carl Sagan referred to the hindbrain in “The Dragons of Eden.”

I’m all but certain that dogs are conscious.

(Cows, on the other hoof, I ain’t so sure about!)

Trinopus

58

hi again flycow,oh yes i am the same person i was last week,last nite etc,and so are you.dakravel has got the idea.
you say that one of the fundamental truths of buddhism is impermanence,that nothing stays the same for any length of time,
how about buddhism?if that does not stay the same for any length of time,then it cannot be saying the same thing forever,so therefor it cannot be true.
or if it does stay the same,then it just proved what it fund
amentally claims cant happen. your logic is contradictary. you also say;"the contents of your mind change constantly,the cells in your body change constantly,your personality changes constantly.where do you find a permanent self here"? note what you said:"YOUR mind" :"YOUR body" :"YOUR personality" that "YOU",is the soul. I am not this body, I am not this mind, I HAVE a mind, I HAVE a body, but the possessor of these things, ME, the conscious living entity,the spirit soul, is the permanent self who experiences these external changes of the body and mind,but throughout all the changes, the soul is continuously existing as the same identity. if you dont mind me saying so,i think you are actually misunderstanding the buddhist teachers you seem to profess to follow; you quoted zen master dogan—
“that the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion.that the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is called enlightenment”
the point master dogan makes here is that vast learning of various (10,000) subjects without knowing what is “the self” is a waste of time,but vast learning which leads to knowledge of “the self”, he calls “enlightenment”,—the central most important factor in his couplet is “the self.”
it appears that he not only accepts the existence of the self, but places knowledge of it, in the highest category of realization.
(it is interesting that he referred to the “self”,and not to the body or the mind.) he did not mention experiencing your self as a waterfall, or anything else,that was your invention.
i find master dogan`s words pointing exactly to what i have been trying to explain to you–the importance of the soul/self,but you seem determined to avoid accepting what both of us are saying.
to wake someone up when they are in a deep sleep is difficult,but it can be done.
to wake someone who is pretending to be asleep, is impossible.

59

Creosote, you are welcome to believe whatever you want to.

I think I exploded(sic) these ideas years ago.

I am merely writing in this thread to learn more about how sb like you defends their view point, which to me is simply preposterous.
I have not the slightest inclination to convert you to my view.
Please just keep on believing what you want to with all your power and attention. If you are not willing to use your enquiring mind, that is fine with me.
And yes, your final words are quite correct, though I know lots of ways of doing exactly this, but they are not very kind and not really helpful in the long run. So I will let you sleep. CHRRR CHRRRR zzzzz

All the best to you

And thank you, trinopus
Can you direct me to some source I could read?

60

hi flycow,
i wasnt defending my viewpoint,i was simply trying to engage in the discussion. i did not think you were trying to convert me to your point of view either.im sorry if exposing the flaws in your position caused any offence–i only criticise the philosophical assertions in your arguement,not yourself.
if i caused you any disturbance,please accept my appology,it was not my intention.good luck and success with whichever path you choose…be happy.