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Is this correct?

Is this correct?
The law of karma means that if a person stops doing bad things and start doing good things ie being kind, generous, loving etc he will become happier and more peace ful.

Comments

  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran

    Maybe, maybe not ... but it's certainly worth a try.

    BunksBuddhadragonShoshin
  • If his/her heart's in it, yes. If s/he's only doing it to earn "karma points", then it won't work.

    Rowan1980
  • howhow Veteran Veteran

    @cook99

    The law of karma, means that your intent is a major contributor of the consequences that you are subject to.

    If ones intent manifests as greed, hate or delusion, then you will be subject to inertia of that greed, hate or delusion following you.

    If ones intent manifests as compassion, love or wisdom, then you will be subject to the inertia of that compassion, love or wisdom following you.

    Do you think that you would be happier and more peaceful being followed by suffering's cause or by walking the path towards suffering's cessation?

    Shoshin
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    edited November 2014

    @cook99 said:
    Is this correct?
    The law of karma means that if a person stops doing bad things and start doing good things ie being kind, generous, loving etc he will become happier and more peace ful.

    Yes.

    Oh, there's all sorts of technical hair splitting you can do, but in the end it boils down to what you said. I can't find anything wrong with your understanding at my end.

    lobster
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited November 2014

    I can.

    As @how explained, the Intention is a very important factor.

    What's your motivation? That's what you need to ask yourself.

    Are you being good/kind/generous/loving for the good of others, or for your own good?

  • @cook99 said:
    Is this correct?
    The law of karma means that if a person stops doing bad things and start doing good things ie being kind, generous, loving etc he will become happier and more peace ful.

    Yes.

    Even if the intent is selfish. Most of us as a generalisation need the good karma of Śīla (skilful behavour) more than the setbacks. Bad unskilful behavour is easy, it comes naturally for most of us.

    Eventually and this is quite advanced, we have to overcome the drawbacks of doing good, that tends to be a lot easier . . .

    I recommend sham 'being kind, generous, loving etc'. It leads in time to the real thing. Think of it as the benefits of diplomacy and courtesy over the alternatives . . .

    If you have a better feasible and appropriate plan, be glad to hear it <3

    JeffreyVastmindAllbuddhaBound
  • BuddhadragonBuddhadragon Ehipassiko & Carpe Diem Samsara Veteran

    Remember the Twin verses of the Dhammapada:
    "If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.
    If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him."
    Skillful actions, skillful results. Unskillful actions, unskillful results.
    A pear tree never bore an apple.

    VastmindKundoRowan1980
  • what is wrong with doing it to earn karma points?

    @Dakini said:
    If his/her heart's in it, yes. If s/he's only doing it to earn "karma points", then it won't work.

  • correct me if i am wrong, only arahants are free from greed, hate or delusion.

    @how said:
    cook99

    The law of karma, means that your intent is a major contributor of the consequences that you are subject to.

    If ones intent manifests as greed, hate or delusion, then you will be subject to inertia of that greed, hate or delusion following you.

    If ones intent manifests as compassion, love or wisdom, then you will be subject to the inertia of that compassion, love or wisdom following you.

    Do you think that you would be happier and more peaceful being followed by suffering's cause or by walking the path towards suffering's cessation?

    JeffreyAllbuddhaBound
  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    Karma is not a game or is it! Look at the bhavachakra...

    OK so it looks like a pretty good game-board layout, but where your avatar (for those who play monopoly - I like to be the old boot or the wheelbarrow) lands is entirely up to your doing (that's karma); really it is all up to you. You can only go so high before having to descend again; and you can only go so low before you can only rise up. Things go in cycles.

    Remain alert in this life and teach alertness to others and you may find a spot, lets say the centre, where the world of things and events revolve about you and yet you can in that spot be untouched by those things, or you can decide to have an experience and move on out toward the edge and experience the full force and momentum of living on the edge of a world that keeps on turning, with you as the driving force!

    I'm heading back to the centre. Where are you right now?

  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran

    @cook99 said:
    Is this correct?
    The law of karma means that if a person stops doing bad things and start doing good things ie being kind, generous, loving etc he will become happier and more peace ful.

    For your eyes only @cook99 :)

    Bunks
  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    MY Very considered response:

    Bollocks!

    Sorry if the language offends but sometimes meaning is conveyed in words - refer to my previous response, and see that you cannot make less suffering for others. Really, I am so upset by the way people think that buddhism offers a complete end to suffering, because it can't, the world is not full of buddhists! It is full of islamists, christians, judaists, scientologists, atheists, etc etc etc. And all live together in a big hodgepodge!

    The majority of people on this site are not monastics and that video was not for me or other people who live in the world of non-monastics; we are lay people and this is another realm of being- it's called the middle human realm in the bhavachakra - crowding in near the centre is my guess for warmth and comfort.

    I would love to get up at dawn, ding a bell and watch the sun come up and then do my monastic chores ding a bell and watch the sun go down, but I'm not living that life am I? And I guess neither are you so what is your karma - what are you really doing?

    When you have a piss in the toilet, which bubble should not be there, can you decide, I have a real pronlem because I become fascinated with a particular bubble, but cannot understand why that particular big bubble appeared - you created and shaped those little bubbles, by the way you stood, what you had drunk and eaten ( the more protein in your diet creates more bubbles! its a fact), but it doesn't matter because all those wonderful bubbles you just created just got flushed away! Bubble appeared and disappeared - life and death!

    The buddha did not say life is about suffering, he said there is suffering, and there is an antidote - forget karma - go back to the 4 noble truths, when you understand that properly then present a view of karma,

    FMEO

    FYEO:

    silverKundo
  • @anataman said:
    MY Very considered response

    I think you left out just one thing.
    You need to tell him a way to reach you when he understands the 4 noble truths properly so he can see if he got it right.

  • BuddhadragonBuddhadragon Ehipassiko & Carpe Diem Samsara Veteran

    @cook99 said:
    correct me if i am wrong, only arahants are free from greed, hate or delusion.

    Actually, it's something we can all look up to.
    Perhaps not be completely free, but strive in every action to have a little less of each one.
    Otherwise, what would be the point of treading the path?

    howShoshinKundoDavid
  • if you look at the background of monks esp those from the west,
    they were doing various things before becoming a monk. and more importantly
    they didnt know they will become a monk.

    so bollocks , maybe you will be a monk this time, next year.

    ajahn Brahm, 1st class hons in physics, Cambridge, teacher.
    Ajahn summano, successful entrepreneur, divorcee, chicago.
    Ajahn Pabhakaro, former us soldier, suffered from PTSD.
    Ajahn sripanno, student oxford univ.

    @anataman said:
    MY Very considered response:

    Bollocks!

    Sorry if the language offends but sometimes meaning is conveyed in words - refer to my previous response, and see that you cannot make less suffering for others. Really, I am so upset by the way people think that buddhism offers a complete end to suffering, because it can't, the world is not full of buddhists! It is full of islamists, christians, judaists, scientologists, atheists, etc etc etc. And all live together in a big hodgepodge!

    The majority of people on this site are not monastics and that video was not for me or other people who live in the world of non-monastics; we are lay people and this is another realm of being- it's called the middle human realm in the bhavachakra - crowding in near the centre is my guess for warmth and comfort.

    I would love to get up at dawn, ding a bell and watch the sun come up and then do my monastic chores ding a bell and watch the sun go down, but I'm not living that life am I? And I guess neither are you so what is your karma - what are you really doing?

    When you have a piss in the toilet, which bubble should not be there, can you decide, I have a real pronlem because I become fascinated with a particular bubble, but cannot understand why that particular big bubble appeared - you created and shaped those little bubbles, by the way you stood, what you had drunk and eaten ( the more protein in your diet creates more bubbles! its a fact), but it doesn't matter because all those wonderful bubbles you just created just got flushed away! Bubble appeared and disappeared - life and death!

    The buddha did not say life is about suffering, he said there is suffering, and there is an antidote - forget karma - go back to the 4 noble truths, when you understand that properly then present a view of karma,

    FMEO

    FYEO:

    Shoshin
  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran
    edited November 2014

    @cook99 said:

    Reply to @anataman

    so bollocks , maybe you will be a monk this time, next year.

    Love it, I cracked up when I saw this..... :D:D

  • namarupanamarupa Veteran
    edited November 2014

    @cook99 said:
    Is this correct?
    The law of karma means that if a person stops doing bad things and start doing good things ie being kind, generous, loving etc he will become happier and more peace ful.

    I slightly agree. It's true, but we have to be careful how we act when we are being kind generous and loving, because it may not always work out the way that it should. Sometimes non-action is better.

  • SarahTSarahT Time ... space ... joy South Coast, UK Veteran

    @federica said:
    Are you being good/kind/generous/loving for the good of others, or for your own good?

    Do the two have to be mutually exclusive? I always aim for win win!

    silver
  • The arahants were supposed to be free from defilements, according to the sutras. I suspect a bit of "our honored forefathers" worship had crept in by the time these were written down. They certainly don't paint a picture of behaving any different than normal people. Except for Ananda, who was supposedly the only one of the bunch that wasn't declared to be an arahant until after Buddha's death.

    One of our problems is that we almost have two Buddhisms that even monks have argued over for a thousand years. We have the Buddhism of the enlightened elite and small group of (male) monks capable of being enlightened and the rest of us are doomed to be reincarnated again and again, and the Buddhism where everyone is already enlightened and they don't know it, and anyone can be a Buddha.

    Two different parts of the same elephant.

  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran

    @Cinorjer said:
    Two different parts of the same elephant.

    But are there any Buddhist traditions which claim that enlightenment is easy?

  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
    That's the one I'm going to join.
  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran
    edited November 2014

    Double post, oops.

  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran

    Maybe we should make one up. :p

    "Easyana" ?

    SarahT
  • Easyana meditation 101,

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    @SarahT said:
    Do the two have to be mutually exclusive? I always aim for win win!

    >

    No, not at all... but one has to take care to take the Middle Way... too much "Jeesh I feel so good!" and the Ego is trippin'....

    "Too much "I am doing this entirely for 'you' not 'me'..." smacks of self-sacrificing martyrdom.... which is also an aspect of Ego.

    Certainly we deserve to acknowledge our own beneficence, but it's a fine balance.
    Some I know, have it just right.... ;)

    SarahT
  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    Easyana - I like it; but The Middle way is Mahayana, the great vehicle...

    And I'm here to promulgate it - because once you've got it, well you've got it!

    And like a famous Western philosopher once said: 'when your right, your right!

    Good night!

  • @SpinyNorman said:
    But are there any Buddhist traditions which claim that enlightenment is easy?

    I started to answer this twice and erased my remarks both times to start over. An old Zen Master is looking over my shoulder right now, telling me, "If you say it's easy I will hit you thirty times. If you say it's hard I will hit you thirty times. What are you going to say now, smart guy?"

    There is a school of Buddhism that says it's not hard. That's not the same as saying it's easy. And if that Zen Master doesn't stop looking over my shoulder I'll take his stick and give him thirty-one blows!

    Do you understand?

    SarahT
  • Some traditions such as my own say that it is so obvious and simple that it is unbelievably hard!

    CinorjerBuddhadragon
  • do you agree with richard gere?

  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran
    edited November 2014

    @Cinorjer said:

    I wonder how much of this is to do with presentation. It's psychologically more appealing when something is presented as being accessible and not incredibly difficult to achieve.

  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
    I seem to recall a line from @SpinyNorman a few months ago that hit home.

    Something like "Nobody said simple was easy"
    Cinorjer
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    Simple doesn't mean 'easy'.

    Often the most difficult things to accomplish, are extremely simple in their concept.
    I think we have a 'block' in that humans believe the apparently insurmountable also needs to be difficult.

    It would be nice to be able to wash that belief out of our brains....

  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran

    What that's old joke about how to get to Carnegie Hall?

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    I dunno.... before my time. :wink:

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