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What is the correlation between international adoption, karma, and rebirth?

ArtFishPeaceArtFishPeace
edited August 2011 in Buddhism Basics
I am new to understanding Buddhism and karma and rebirth. I was adopted from South Korea before I was born, and arrived in the USA when I was three months old. My question is how does karma work with rebirth since my ethnic and regional origin was from Korea? Would my past lives, including past Karmic influences, have been of Asian descent? Would this cause some kind of karmic discord because of cross-culture confusion?

Thank you for your help :)

Comments

  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    Not sure rebirth has anything to do with the color of your skin or the flag that flies over your birthplace. You could as easily been reborn as a fish or a butterfly as you were a Korean or an American.

    Just my take on it...

  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited August 2011
    how does karma work with rebirth since my ethnic and regional origin was from Korea? Would my past lives, including past Karmic influences, have been of Asian descent? Would this cause some kind of karmic discord because of cross-culture confusion?
    No. As Mountains said. Your karma isn't of any ethnic descent. But the fact that you were adopted into a (hopefully) loving family means you had some good karma stored up. : )

    Are you experiencing cross-cultural confusion? If so, would it help to check out your local Korean community? Did your adoptive parents encourage that? Research says this can happen to adoptees after a certain age, so it's normal. Don't let it worry you, but seek ways to learn about and immerse yourself in Korean culture, if it's an issue.

  • auraaura Veteran
    Rebirth is according to one's karmic issues.
    Your birth in South Korea was a reflection of those karmic issues...
    but your adoption across the ocean was a reflection of those karmic issues as well.

    Korea is a land which has been a battlefield for many generations.

    Where there are wars and battlefields, it is extremely common to see the destruction of war followed by subsequent rebirths on all sides in which the incoming entities have karmic issues and ties to either what was once the opposing side, or strong ties to both sides, of the former war zone. It is for the purpose of developing understanding and compassion across cultures, between misunderstood cultures, between former enemies, that one is reborn to either the opposite side, or with strong karmic ties to both sides.
    It is about healing and releasing the destruction and suffering of war and the tendency toward hatred and revenge. It is about building a world in which there is no more enemy, no "them" to hate.... but only all of "us" with strong ties of understanding and compassion among all.

    It is an honor to have karmic issues dealing with healing and releasing the destruction of war and promoting compassion and understanding across countries and ethnic and cultural division.
    The world is in very great need of healing and releasing the destruction of war.
  • robotrobot Veteran
    When I let my imagination run wild what I see is a Hell realm developing in the region of a war zone. Such as in many of the conflicts in Africa where generation after generation murder back and forth at ever younger ages. Children handling weapons that would terrify someone from a different background. Deepening misery for beings born to the region. It seems like a stretch to say that beings born to these regions have the purpose of developing understanding and compassion. More like spreading chaos and revenge. Think of the children born to Palestinian parents in the past generation or two. What percentage of them are healing from their experiences and those of their parents, I wonder? Better to have happy dreams I suppose. I used to think that I was Asian in a previous life. I also thought that my brother was a dog in his previous life. Now when those type of thoughts come to me I try to see them for the daydreams that they are. Not important.
  • auraaura Veteran
    Think of the children born to Palestinian parents in the past generation or two. What percentage of them are healing from their experiences and those of their parents, I wonder?
    It isn't a "happy dream" to witness that those who damned others to starvation and suffering very often are immediately reborn suffering that very starvation and suffering to which they had foolishly condemned others in their previous life. Karma teaches compassion and understanding, quite often the hard way, and quite often across lifetimes, as truly slow learners eventually experience and come to the understanding that by having harmed others, they had indeed condemned themselves for their next lifetime experience.
    Powerful Zionists who condemned Palestinians to a landless, waterless existence might have thought twice before doing that had they realized that in their next lifetime they would be reborn as powerless Palestinian children living that very landless, waterless existence...
    Yes, it is about learning, about healing.... but it's no "happy dream," not by a long shot...
    and those who are born with cross-cultural experience are indeed the single greatest hope for the development of cross-cultural healing and understanding on earth.
  • robotrobot Veteran
    @aura The dream I am talking about is the one you are having about healing and understanding as a result of Karmic retribution. War and other human caused calamities, are the result of ignorance. Perpetrators of crimes and evil acts against others if they are indeed reborn to be on the receiving end of the bad treatment, are unlikely to to find themselves in a position to practice and develop wisdom and compassion. Falling to a lower birth is a fall into deeper ignorance, from which place the Dharma is hard to find. At least that is what Shantideva says. If a Zionist who dies believing that he is going to heaven for carrying out Gods will is reborn as a Palestinian to a culture that might teach him that it is Gods will and he will be rewarded for slaying infidels, how is that progress? Of course this is a darker view. I'm only putting it out there because you have proposed your view as if it fact that samsara will evolve into nirvana. More likely to me healing and understanding will result from education and the increased communication available to young people these days.
  • auraaura Veteran
    edited September 2011
    @aura The dream I am talking about is the one you are having about healing and understanding as a result of Karmic retribution.
    Karma is not retribution.
    Karma is physics.... the energy one puts out into the universe, one eventually gets back from the universe.... in this lifetime or the next.
    Given sufficient lifetimes, entities do begin to notice and modify their behavior accordingly. It is an observable phenomenon across lifetimes.

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