No correction needed, soulsling.
[hijack] (Hey, I can if I want to, it’s my own damn thread!)
Waiting Room as in the Fugazi tune? Why is that?
Actually I pulled it from the Jesus Lizard song of the same name. Just done on a whim when I got online 4 yrs ago and needed a handle, but I guess it stuck.
[/hijack]
Thanks, soulsling. I’m less familiar with Hindu thought, but my understanding is that Buddhists regard karma, both positive and negative, somewhat dispassionately. After all, the ultimate goal is to be free of all karma by achieving nirvana.
Sometimes I feel like I’m already there, other times I’m sure there’s still a lot of work to be done…
Why would you say dispassionately? I’m curious…
When I said that Buddhists regard karma dispassionately, I meant that they see it as just another law of the universe, not as the purpose of personal existence. In general, I think that karma-literate Westerners see the goal of life as racking up the good karma while avoiding the bad. Buddhists, on the other hand, see the goal as getting free of all conditioned experience, including karma.
We Westerners tend to think of karma in terms of “what’s going to happen next.” So I might become fearful that I did something in a previous life that will cause me misery in this one. Or I might start to hope that I did something very good in a past life so I will win the lottery in this one. Or I might derive some kind of sadistic glee from knowing that my enemies will get their just desserts. As a result, I begin to do good things only because I want something back. (Obviously, not all Westerners think this way. Many, like Falcon, do good deeds for their own sake.)
In Buddhism—and probably Hinduism as well—karma is just an impersonal law, like gravity. It isn’t an issue of vengeance or reward, but of justice. My sense of Buddhist karma is that it’s a kind of “spiritual memory,” so that we remember where we are in the game of life, the same way we use gamepieces when we play Monopoly. In a previous life, I might have freed myself from any personal attachments to violence, but still have issues of, say, lust. When I am reborn into this life, karma ensures that issues of sex continue to arise in my life until I have worked them out, but keeps me relatively free from violence so I don’t have to repeat that work. If there were no karma, then each time I was reborn, I would have to figure out where my attachments are all over again. Karma makes this process more efficient.
I’m about three-quarters of the way through the Dhammapada right now, so if I find anything relevant to this discussion, I’ll let you know.
Ahhh, the Dhammapada is a good read. “There is no fire like greed, No crime like hatred, No sorrow like separation, No sickness like hunger of heart, And no joy like the joy of freedom…”
“In this world, hatred can never be stilled by hatred. Love alone can bring an end to hatred. This is the eternal law.”
I have the Ekanth Easwaran translation. Really like the commentary.
What goes around, comes around. I have generally found this to be true–sometimes it takes awhile, and sometimes you might not even know if someone gets theirs because you’re not talking to them anymore, etc. And I have observed that it usally zings in the way that the person zinged. For example, my sister-in-law’s husband cheated and left her for another woman. HIS sister was going around saying my SIL was not a good enough wife, that it was her fault, whatever. (even though they were friends). A few years later, his sister’s husband cheated big time and even left the country so he wouldn’t have to pay child support and completely left her in the lurch. (I wonder if she thought that was her fault because she wasn’t a “good enough wife”).
Just one example. She spread bad karma and got it back in spades. At least my ex BIL pays child support.
So be nice.
As with interpretations of Western religion, there’s a whole lotta wiggle room here.
There are certainly a substantial number of Buddhist sects who read karma as a system of points to rack up. There are also those who worship boddhisattvas as though they were saints one could petition for intercession. There have even been cases of murder and religious warfare between sects. I don’t think the label “Buddhist” means anything more than the label “Christian” - there are a lot of interpretations of what it means to be each.
And it’s not just a matter of being a “good” Buddhist vs. a “bad” Buddhist anymore than it is a matter of being a “good” Christian vs. a “bad” Christian – there are many debates about the “real” meaning of Buddhism and whether its variations are improvements or dilutions of the core Dharma.
IMHO, as I understand the Dharma, I think your interpretation of Karma is pretty close to what was originally intended.
(Oh, and a question: You said “It isn’t an issue of vengeance or reward, but of justice” – isn’t justice all about vengeance or reward?)
ren, I was using the term “Buddhist” only to distinguish it from “Hindu.” I didn’t mean to imply that Buddhism was monolithic.
In the traditional Judeo-Christian worldview, I think you are correct, because there is a personal God administering the justice. But in the case of karma, there are only impersonal consequences. If you hate, you become a hateful person, you attract hatred, and this hatred attaches itself to you until you do something about it.
I think of Judeo-Christian spiritual justice like this: I commit a crime, the cops come and get me, and the judge puts me in jail. Buddhist justice is more like: I eat a lot of junk food, so I throw up. There is a closer, more natural, less personal link between action and consequence in the Buddhist version. Maybe “balance” would have been a better word than “justice.”
And, of course, I should hasten to add that the Judeo-Christian tradition is not monolithic either. Libertarian, for example, insofar as I am able to understand his philosophy, holds views that are more compatible with Buddhist justice than traditional Christian justice, although he considers himself a Christian. I’m sure many other Christians are in a similar position.
Dumb Ox, something my grandfather said to me was funny at the time. He’s a conservative rabbi in Germany currently, and upon us discussing Buddhism on his last visit her one month ago, he laughed and finished with, “Buddhism is Judaism without the God, the dogma, and the faith. Leave the philosophy and logic, and you have the same basic principles”. Your last post made me think of this.
ren makes a good point though that except for the Dharma itself, no sect of Buddhism has the exact same point of views on Karma or justice. The philosophy and teachings go back only about 2500 years, It’s still developing.
But just as well, I still think everyone is in agreement that the basic idea of “what comes around goes around” is the basic and simplified explanation of karma.
I do think most westerners fail to see the complete reason for the the belief in Karma by certain eastern cultures, and that the idea is certainly not new, and has been around long before Buddhism, it’s taken on different meaning to different societies.
The relationship between Judaism and Buddhism is very interesting indeed. You (and your grandfather) might be interested in the book The Jew in the Lotus, if you haven’t already read it. It’s an account of a trip to Dharamsala made by a delegation of rabbis in 1990. The ostensible reason for the trip was to open a Jewish-Buddhist dialogue, given the history of genocide shared by European Jews and Tibetan Buddhists. It is a fascinating story. I think it is no coincidence that many of those responsible for bringing Buddhism to the U.S. are culturally Jewish.
I grew up Roman Catholic, so, to me, 2500 years ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at. Of course, from the Jewish perspective, all the rest of the world’s religions are still in diapers. Except the Hindus, of course.
And if you all haven’t seen it already, you’ll want to hie yourselves over to this thread, and take the belief systems test to see what religion you’re supposed to be.