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Does suffering on earth give or take bad karma?
Does suffering on earth give or take bad karma? Thanks.
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Peace!
Spiny
Peace!
Seeing karma as a punishment and reward system works only if you don't ask questions like you are doing. In your example, karma would be the result of what you choose to do about the suffering. Karma works by cause and effect. Choosing to do nothing is still a choice and brings consequences. As long as you have free will and the ability to make choices, you generate karma.
So, the suffering doesn't give or take bad karma. Your reactions to the suffering cause the good or bad karma.
Spiny
Spiny
The Catholic church also tried the "suffering is good for you" approach during the long dark ages.
The teaching is clear. Suffering is neither good nor bad. Suffering exists. That's the first Noble Truth. It's what you do about the suffering that matters.
We are not helpless karma puppets, we can be aware of body and mind. Sustained mindful awareness transmutes habit energy of body and mind. like sunshine. It doesn't happen in a flash but slowly. Someone described this turning of habit energy through mindfulness as "turning a ship", because of the careful wide circle required for its mass. When our habits of body and mind are transmuted, we don't likely act out in a way that brings the blow-back of blind consumption. We still have the damage already done though. After practising for some time my behaviour is far more skillful than it used to be, but old habits die hard, and as they say " Defilements are endless, I vow to eliminate them all"
This is how karma was taught to me. ... at any rate.
A few things on karma, it should be situated in the context of the wider buddhist understanding of the natural laws of causality. Karma is one particular instance of the natural casual laws that operate throughout the universe where in buddhism things and events come into being purely as a result of the combination of causes and conditions.
However, what makes karma unique is that it involves intentional action, an agent. The natural casual processes operating in the world cannot be termed karmic if there is no agent involved. So in order for a casual process to be karmic, it must involve an individual whose intention would lead to a particular action.
Actions which produce suffering and pain are generally considered negative or non-virtuous actions. Actions that lead to positive and desirable consequences, such as experiences of joy and happiness, are considered to be positive or virtuous actions. There is a third category of actions which leads to expereiences of equanimity, or neutral feelings and experiences, these are neither virtuous or non-virtuous.
In terms of the actual nature of karmic actions themselves, there are two principal types: mental acts-actions that are not neccessarily manifested through physical action - and physical acts, which include both bodily and verbal acts. From the point of view of the medium of expression of an action, you can distinguish actions of the mind, of speech, and of the body. To add, in the scriptures you can find discussions about karmic actions which are completeley virtuous, completeley non-virtuous, and those which are a mixture of the two. Probably most of the actions that we undertake and probably a mixture of the two.
If you break down a single karmic action, you can can see that there are several stages within the event. There is a beginning, which is the stage of the motivation or intention; there is actual execution of the act; and then there is the culmination or completion of the act. The intensity and force of a karmic action vary according to the way each of these stages is carried out.
So take the example of a negative action. If, at the stage of motivation the person has a very strong negative emotion like anger, and then acts on impulse and carries out the action, but immediately afterwards feels deep regret for the action he has committed, all three stages would not be completeley fulfilled. Consequently, the action would be less powerful compared to an instance where the person had acted out all stages completely with a strong motivation, actual execution, and a sense of taking pleasure or satisification from the act committed. Similarly, there could be cases where the individual may have a very weak motivation but circumstances force him or her to actually commit the act. In this case, although a negative act has been committed it would be less powerful than in the first example, because a strong motivating force was not present. So depending on the strength of the motivation of the actual act, and of the cmpletion, the karma produced will have corresponding degrees of intensity.
The scriptures speak of 4 types of karma: karma which is accumulated but not carried out, karma which is carried out but not accumulated, karma which is both carried out and accumulated, and karma where there is an absence of both accumulation and the actual execution of the act. It is important to understand the significant of this point, and to appreciate that since there are different stages to every act, karmic actions themselves are composite, and their quality can be characterized as the cumulative result of each of their composing factors. Once you appreciate this, then whenever you have the opportunity to engage in a positive action as a buddhist, it is important to ensure that the initial stage, your motivation is very strong and that you have a strong intention to engage in the act. When actually carrying out the act, you should ensure that you have given it your best, and you have put all of your effort into making the action successful. Once the action is performed, it is important to ensure that you dedicate the positive karma that you have thereby created towards the weel-being of all beings as well as your own attainment of enlightenment. If you can reinforce that dedication with an understanding of the ultimate nature of reality, then it would be even more powerful.
Even though there are many types of negative actions, they can be summarized into 10 negative or 10 non-virtuous actions. There are 3 actions of the body, 4 of speech, and 3 of the mind. The 3 bodily actions are killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct; the 4 negative actions of speech are lying, engaging in divisive speech, using harsh words, and engaging in senseless gosspip; and the 3 negative mental actions are covetousness, harboring harmful thoughts and intentions, and hlding wrong views.
When you look at the evolution of the physical universe at large, we cannot say that the natural proccesses of cause and effect are a product of karma. The processes of cause and effect in the natural world takes place regardless of karma. Nevertheless, karma would have a role to play in determining the form that the process takes, or the direction in which it leads. So at what point in the casual process does karma come into the picture? If you refer to your own personal experience it may be easier to understand. Experience may show that for example actions that you do in the morning will have a continuing effect even in the evening. It will have had an impact upon our emotion and our sense of being so even though it was committed in the morning as an event that is finished, its effects still lingers on in our mind. The same principle operates with karma and its effects, even in the case of long-term karmic effects. According to buddhism the impact of karma can be felt over successive lifetimes as well as our present life.