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Does karma give you solace?

betaboybetaboy Veteran
edited June 2012 in Buddhism Basics
In the sense that no one can get away with anything?

Comments

  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
    You can get away with things in some ways. Like you can tell a lie or steal a candy bar. But the imprint on your mind cannot be cheated. So in that sense you cannot get away with anything.

    And remember karma has to do with how our awareness is fundamentally. ignorance -> karma -> name and form -> 6 consciousness -> sense organ -> contact -> craving -> becoming -> birth ---> death

    (think I got that somewhat right) So karma is part of the links that bind us to samsara. As our consciousness changes we get a better idea what karma means, I speculate.
  • PrairieGhostPrairieGhost Veteran
    edited June 2012
    betaboy
    Does karma give you solace?

    In the sense that no one can get away with anything?
    Not quite in that sense, no. It would be dark karma to gloat over the fallen.

    People suffering for their mistakes isn't a good thing in itself, it's better when people don't make mistakes.

    Karma gives me solace in the sense that through its workings, everyone will learn the way.

  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    Karma says that there is no such thing as an isolated intent. All of it touches everything else. It points at the folly of believing that we have ever been separated from anything.
    That is the solace it provides for me today.
  • Floating_AbuFloating_Abu Veteran
    All karma is also shared; yet, there is individual karma,
  • SabreSabre Veteran
    No. Because that would mean kamma is some sort of punishment or retalliation, which it isn't.
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    Yes in that it removes the need to "get revenge". And no in that it's not appropriate, or skillful, to wish harm to come to someone, even to what are called "evil" people.
  • PHennings12PHennings12
    No, people don't get away with anything because they do nothing. The idea of karma giving retribution onto you is just as much of an illusion as you doing things you think will cause the retribution.
  • PrometheusPrometheus
    In the sense of negative impressions causing a negative state of mind, and positive impressions causing a positive state of mind, yes; it is the entire basis of my meta-ethics and - at risk of sounding dramatic - my hope for humanity, because it means human nature is composed in such a way as to make individual happiness dependent on the happiness of others. This gives me great solace.

    But in the sense of a cosmic system of reward-and-punishment, where if you lie a bird drops feces on your head or something - no. This is base superstition that results in blaming everything bad that happens to someone on themselves, and therefore in moral inaction in addressing the real causes/perpetrators of suffering.
  • misecmisc1misecmisc1 I am a Hindu India Veteran
    law of karma is universal and inescapable. as you sow, so you reap. so law of karma suggests that we do not need to do any unskillful act against the unskillful act of others(as no one can get away with anything and we can save ourselves from results of unskillful actions) and we should do skillful acts for the well-being of both ourselves and others.
  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran
    In the sense that no one can get away with anything?

    Not really because it means I can't get away with anything either...
    :D
  • PrometheusPrometheus
    law of karma is universal and inescapable. as you sow, so you reap. so law of karma suggests that we do not need to do any unskillful act against the unskillful act of others(as no one can get away with anything and we can save ourselves from results of unskillful actions) and we should do skillful acts for the well-being of both ourselves and others.
    This is exactly what I was talking about... Karma, in this definition, is a license for moral inaction. Why bother with charity? Why bother feeding the hungry, helping the poor, assisting disaster-victims and crime-victims? All of this makes no sense if everything is just supposed to be left up to the universe.

    Which is why it really, really, matters whether or not this kind of karma is true. I hope your conscience compels you to look deeply into exactly why you believe what you do, because if you're wrong, then what you believe is morally reprehensible. Apologies if that sounds harsh, but it has to be said.

  • justsheajustshea Explorer
    Maybe karma is just a way to assuage our fear that justice exists nowhere in the multiverse...that all is chaos.
  • SattvaPaulSattvaPaul South Wales, UK Veteran
    edited June 2012
    I think one can say that karma is like a moral law built into the fabric of the universe, as gravity is another law. Karma is action and there is a close link between arising of the world and the actions of sentient beings. Imo it's a completely different view to the one that says we are thrown into a meaningless and chaotic universe.
  • PrometheusPrometheus
    I think one can say that karma is like a moral law built into the fabric of the universe, as gravity is another law. Karma is action and there is a close link between arising of the world and the actions of sentient beings. Imo it's a completely different view to the one that says we are thrown into a meaningless and chaotic universe.
    Except there's no reason at all to believe that the universe is like that. The universe exhibits nothing but indifference to suffering. And why shouldn't it? It's not a person with thoughts and feelings, it's just a place. And I think that if the universe is indifferent, then it's morally necessary to accept that it is indifferent, because otherwise we just sit on our thumbs and leave everything up to the universe... which does not and cannot care. It's up to us whether we make the world into a heaven or a hell, and it's time we take responsibility for that.
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