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A baby is born blind. Is this a result of karma?
jll
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A baby is born blind. Is this a result of karma?
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Baby grows to childhood, and gets an operation reversing the blindness. Is this a result of karma?
I guess that's sort of an answer to your question, though clearly I'm not being definitive. But, karma is one of those areas where I have not decided if or how. I remain open-minded.
I endorse this answer.
Hope that answers the question.
Next?
Over the years, I've come to respect Dalai Lama because he does not hesitate to say "I don't know" to some questions even though he is seen as the all-knowing-mighty figure from his people.
To actually find out why this baby has become blind in the womb and to pin it down to one or multiple sure factors would be virtually impossible. It could be that the parent was a consumer of harmful substances, if that WAS what caused the blindness, then it was the simple cause and effect of the mothers decision making which caused the disfunction, her karma effecting the baby.
It could be that it is something genetic, or that she came into contact with a contaminent of some sort during pregnancy, that would fall under a natural cause which is not karmic.
The fact is that we are not on a spiritual plane where we are able to understand all of the workings of karma, but also it is incredibly difficult to say "oh yes, this is exactly why that baby was born blind." So as it has already been suggested, who knows, I don't lol :dunce:
My opinion is that I don't know and won't know unless I have the data to illustrate why exatly this baby has been born blind, then I could formulate an opinion. It would be different in each case, from baby to baby.
My nephew was born with one blind eye, and what I understand it had to do with some infection during pregnancy. I personally blame the cat for that.
A mother can have the flue during pregnancy, she can eat something bad. Maybe she drinks alcohol or takes drugs.
I’m not a medic but I can think of a number of plausible reasons for a birth defect. And to get to the question: my answer is no. Karma is not one of these plausible answers.
The other sort is more global: it is within the nature of samsara that bad stuff happens e.g. tsunamis, volcanoes, babies being born blind... It is impossible to point to single actions or choices that lead to it. Rather it is part of the realm in which we live.
We can do little about the latter sort of karma. If you think about it, a vast majority of the world have lives with very little choice about where they live, or what they eat. But the former sort, that is where our choices make a difference.
I'm a parent to a disabled child: my son is autistic, and also has physical problems and a hearing problem. I could waste my life wondering why he's autistic (I've met many parents who do), or I could get on with the job of making sure he has the best life he can have, despite autism.
It is a pointless waste of energy trying to work out why a particular child was born blind. There are so many causes, both direct and samsaric. Far better to concentrate on stuff you can do. If it's your child, then like me, you concentrate on making sure your blind child has as good a life as he/she can. If it's not your child, but a neighbours, maybe you could offer to babysit sometime. Or maybe you simply help a charity like Action for Blind Children, or whatever the equivalent is in your country.
[Incidentally, my mother is blind, having lost her sight when I was in my teens. I don't fret about her karma either, as it doesn't actually help any
Did you know that a vast majority of congenital blindness in children, worldwide, is treatable and preventable? Vitamin A deficiency, congenital cataracts and River Blindness, caused by a parasite, are all common causes of blindness in the developing world, and there are many programs to help. It costs pennies to treat a child for congenital cataracts, and less to give vitamins to a poor child. But even if you have no money, programs such as spectacle recycling can help: basically you send your used spectacles out and they can be categorised according to prescription and given to poor people who need them. And if the lenses are no good, the frames can be recycled.
Personally, I'd spend a lot less time worrying about other people's karma, and a lot more thinking of ways you can exercise compassion and actually do something useful. Maybe people in Thailand do blame the karma of the parents or the child's former life for this kind of thing, but that doesn't mean its a useful exercise. I have noticed that everywhere, people do like to convince themselves stuff couldn't happen to them due to some moral superiority, or maybe it's to convince themselves of 'reasons' for bad stuff happening so they don't have to live in fear of random stuff 'just happening'. Fact is, as far as we're concerned, not being omniscient gods, stuff does just happen. But that's kind of the point of Buddhism: to learn to be free of suffering, not by stopping bad stuff happening, but by learning that the bad stuff is just a construction of our minds.
I can think of nothing more insulting than taking a completely unconjecturable hypothesis and laying it before someone as fact.
I'm with the "I don't know"s on here - and furthermore, I even think speculating in the first place is frankly, unskillful.
Weirdly, when it comes to stuff like this, my mum has bat-like senses of perception
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00swg99
some attitudes have been innovative and enlightened, others have been archaic, patronising and frankly, better placed in the dark ages....
interesting.
It's an hour long, but it makes for a riveting programme.
Oh and as it's BBC - there is no advert interruptibility, so it really IS a full hour long!
/Victor
/Victor
Now we know about genetics and prenatal development and diseases and all the many variables that can cause problems.
Suppose the mother passed by a blind beggar every day during her pregnancy, and he scared her. People during Buddha's day and long after believed a mother's experience influenced what happened to the baby. Seems logical to me. Explain why this is harder to believe for some people than a theoritical past life where the other person maybe liked to sneak around and peep on women through windows, so the new baby is being punished.
1 the baby is innocent, his blindness is due to dna & environmental factor.
2 the baby did something in the past to 'deserve' the blindness.
the 1st possibility is politically correct and the present scientific
'evidence' seems to support it.
the 2nd possibility is highly offensive to many people.
however, if you believe in karma, and buddha undoubtedly taught about karma,
the the 1st possibility is totally untenable.
'Now we know about genetics and prenatal development and diseases and all the many variables that can cause problems. '
this is just the physical aspect.
if you reduce everything to just the physical aspect, then its all meaningless.
its just subatomic particles moving about.
When it comes to questions like this, people dance around both the real questions and the honest answers. The real question is, what did this baby do to deserve the suffering that comes with being born blind? You can talk in circles all you want, but for most Buddhists, karma is mistakingly seen as the universal law "you get what you deserve". We act certain ways, we get punished. We also get rewarded, but people tend to not have problems with the good things in their life.
So you're looking at a mother holding a baby. She wants to know why her baby was born blind, or deformed, or dead even. Was it something she did? Was it something the baby did in a previous life? Did she give birth to someone so depraved that his sins carried over to another lifetime? Throw away the sutras and theories and how you'd like the world to be. Look at that innocent baby with a clear mind.
Sometimes there is no answer beyond, it happens. It has nothing to do with karma as getting what we deserve. Babies don't "deserve" to be born blind. Sometimes things happen that have nothing to do with our decisions or if we are good or bad. We want it to be otherwise. It's a powerful illusion and one people might never let go of. But it's what a clear mind tells me.
if you really believed that, then you are really ignorant.
the whole purpose is trying to figure out why.
otherwise, ignorance is truly bliss.
Poverty is the result of stealing. Wealth is the result of giving. This law is shared among religions although they explain it differently.This kind of karma can be observed in everyday life if you pay attention.
So karma means the rich and powerful have earned their wealth? Sometimes. Sometimes it's hard work and talent. Usually it's being born to the right parents, and sometimes it's because the person is ruthless and skilled with taking money from other people. And that homeless begger deserves his poverty because of karma? Sometimes. Sometimes it's just he was born into poverty and didn't catch a break, or lost everything he had due to something nobody could have foreseen.
Stop and think about the real world before you try to cram justice into this mess. The Dharma is universal, true for all ages and true for all people, not just a few Buddhists. All those slaves in the past keeping the rich white family in wealth, what did those slaves do, to deserve their suffering? What bad karma caused them all to be born with dark skin and sold into slavery? What did the wealthy plantation owner do to deserve his riches? When the slave owner dies surrounded by loving family while the slaves toil in the fields, it's satisfying to think the man will get his punishment in the next life, but that means this horrible man must have been good in his own past life to be a master today. If people change that much from life to life, then karma means nothing.
Karma as justice, as "getting what we deserve" is fatally flawed when matched against the real world. If I'm richer than you, that doesn't mean I'm better than you, or that my karma is better than your karma, and it doesn't mean one of my previous lives managed to bank enough good karma for me to live on like some trust fund. It just means that I'm richer than you.
yes it does, if you know what buddha taught.
a person is wealthy bcos he has been generous in the past.
unless you are not talking about buddhism, you are simply confused
or dead wrong.
yes it does, if you know what buddha taught.
a person is wealthy bcos he has been generous in the past.
unless you are not talking about buddhism, you are simply confused
or dead wrong.
Remember that is not karma that make us better people.
Blessing.
Is better an angry deva that a benevolent dog?