It seems to be taken for granted on these boards that ‘karma’ means something like - If you do something bad then something bad will happen to you to balance things out.
But some reading I did into Buddhism many years ago suggest that this is not what Karma is about. From the little I remember Karma is about not harming your enemies and not feeling envious of the advantage of others. I admit that this is a very generalised view of it’s meaning, but like I said it was years ago.
Hopefully there are some Buddhist dopers. What is Karma?
Apu: I have come to make amends, sir. At first, I blamed you for squealing, but then I realized, it was I who wronged you. So I have come to work off my debt. I am at your service. Homer: You’re…selling what, now? Apu: I am selling only the concept of karmic realignment. Homer: You can’t sell that! Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos. [slams the door] Apu: He’s got me there.
This goes a long way to proving my theory that there is a Simpsons quote for any occasion.
The concept of karma actually originates in Hinduism, not Buddhism and you’re right, it’s not “what goes around, comes around.”
The concept of karma is pretty complex but in short…every action you take has a reaction and every action you take is based out of conscious or subconscious desire. The sum total of your actions at the end of your lifetime is your karma. This “karma” affects things that happen in your next life. Hindus believe that over your lifetimes you cleanse your karma to return to the divine.
Essentially, karma is an understanding that you, through free will, control your life and what it amounts to. I hope this very brief definition helps.
The concept of karma comes originally from Hinduism. The idea is that a soul is reincarnated millions and millions of times, starting with an amoeba and gradually working its way up through the animal kingdom. While being reincarnated in animals, the soul progresses automatically from one lifetime to the next. Once it reaches the human level, however, the “free pass” portion of the ride is over – because human beings have intelligence and free will, and are capable of discerning the difference between good and evil. Once in human form, the soul become subject to dharma (the law), which is about the rules to which every human being is subject (thou shall not kill, etc.), as well as those specific to one’s social situation (caste). After that, “if you do your dharma, you get good karma” (as I used to tell the kids in intro to religion). Do your dharma, you continue to progress – behave sinfully/selfishly/evilly, you will be regressed back down the caste system or even, perhaps, back to animal level. Ultimately, the soul reaches the point where the human being in which it is housed is ready to seek enlightenment – the ultimate goal is to be removed from the cycle of reincarnation by achieving mukti/mokshi (enlightenment).
This is obviously a grossly oversimplified explanation of the concept.
Short answer – “karma” is shorthand for “you get what you deserve” – a subtext that is discernable in what I said above, if also a distortion of it.
By the way, the path to cleansing your karma is laid out by Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita, to curtail desire for the eventual outcome of your actions and focus on the action itself.
The Bhagavad-Gita, more than any other Hindu text IMHO, lays out the philosophy behind Hinduism so it remains the best source for a beginning outline of the religion.
It was my understanding that the concept of dharma was tied into the whole caste system, that through reincarnation (based of course on karma) you were reborn into the proper caste to punish or reward you and were meant to live according to that caste. Thus, while the dharma of a brahmen may require them to never kill, the dharma of somebody born into the warrior caste requires them to kill oponents in battle, not refuse challenges, and in other ways behave just like Arjuna and Udishtira.
I took an Indian Philosophy class when I was in college.
Karma has always been my “default” religion ever since. Mainly because it seems to work.
Whatever you do comes back twicefold.
I am not, by any means, into crystals and auras, etc.
But I have found that on a basic, simple level…if I am kind or helpful to someone, somehow good things happen to me. If I am intentionallly mean-spirited to someone, that comes back to bite me in the ass.
To be honest, I think it has more to do with your outlook on life than it does with any voodoo, cosmic happenstance.
If you try to be a good person, you become one. And good people have good things happen to them.
Laugh if you will, but it has helped me live a charmed life, and I have been doing it for decades now.
There is a childrens/teenagers book called “The Iron Ring” by Lloyd Alexander that follows a young prince on an adventure that really is a series of lessons in this philosophy.
It was a fun book to read to my kids, and I learned at the same time.
The most generalised & wishy-washy definition I can give is that karma means that the world & the events in it sum up to what “they started as”. To make a spatial metaphor, if you veer 3 steps to the left, you’ll have to eventually veer 3 steps back to the right. Don’t question me on the mechanics or what "eventually’ means. The concept has a certain fundamental appeal to it, even if empirical analysis leaves one dubious. One objection that is brought up by (mostly) Westerners to whom I describe karma, is that ups & downs are simply statistical certainties. Well, in defense, I say that karmic accounting is the origin of the phenomena, not a post-hoc explanation layered on top. Also, karma does not apply sonly to human behaviour. Karma is supposedly the basic constraint/operator of all events in the world. The bounding of karmic applicability to only a subset of events(human social behaviour), as I understand it, is a result of anthropocentric revisionism brought on by the influence of other ideologies and folk-interpretations.
A couple of months ago I heard a Buddhist (priest? monk? not sure what the correct title is…) on the radio talking about how the tsunami disaster could be understood within the framework of the Buddhist religion, since so many of the victims were Buddhists. I don’t remember his argument exactly but from what I do remember he was basically sying this: He was suggesting that in a large-scale disaster such as this, in which many people die in the same fashion, it is clear that karma is not playing a role because there is no way that everyone could have the same karma and thus be deserving of the same fate. Is this a generally held belief about karma in buddhism (or hinduism, for that matter), that there are cases in which karma is superceded by other, external events? Are there other examples of cases in which karma is not the main driving force in determining someone’s fate? Not sure if anyone knows anything about this…
Karma does not result in a simple quid pro quo. That does not stand up to observation - there are endless examples of people who treated others wretchedly their whole lives and never “got their comeuppance”. Even if you buy into reincarnation, your personality obviously doesn’t travel into the next life. There’s never been a case where someone could remember things from a previous life that could not have been known except through reincarnation.
The idea, rather, is that doing immoral things damages you in the here and now. That damage may take time to be manifested, and you may not realize you’ve damaged yourself, but your not realizing that you’ve been damaged by your past actions indicates debasement in itself. Simpleminded people of all religions love to tell versions of the “boy helps little old lady, then finds the $50 he needs to pay for his mother’s operation”, but that’s all they are - stories.
This will sound silly, but my best understanding of Karma comes from thinking about peeing in a pool. As a child, you think nothing of it. Once you’ve been lectured on it enough, or have thought about it, you start feeling guilty if there are other swimmers around. Finally, you have a moment of enlightenment and realize that you don’t want to swim in your own pee either.
As another example, if I am mean to someone, he’s likely to vent or be mean to someone else who will then spread it to others, etc. That makes my world just a little bit worse. However, every time I smile or do something nice, I can start a chain reaction in the opposite direction, which will make my world a little better.
In the end, it’s realizing that what I think of as “me” is just a small part in a hugely connected system. Parts of me used to be an apple or a cheesesteak. Parts of me will become grass and trees and maybe other people. The only goal that really makes sense in the long run is to try to improve the happiness/goodness of the whole system. Otherwise, I’m just peeing in my own pool.
kar·ma ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kärm)
n. 1. Hinduism & Buddhism. The total effect of a person’s actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person’s existence, regarded as determining the person’s destiny.
2. Fate; destiny.
3. Informal. A distinctive aura, atmosphere, or feeling: There’s bad karma around the house today.
If you have karma and don’t know it, you don’t know.
If you don’t have karma, you don’t know.
If you know you have karma, you have karma and don’t have to ask!