Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Effective vs ineffective karma?
OK so my question goes like this. Lets say I put time and effort into a site that has some really good stuff to help others better their lives. Now if no body actually benefits from what I wrote do I still get good karma? If I do get good karma how much karma do I get? Meaning would it be effective karma to help me in the future?
Thus the question effective karma versus ineffective karma?
Thanks.
Thus the question effective karma versus ineffective karma?
Thanks.
0
Comments
Really good question though, I'd love to hear what people think on this, because I don't really have a clue.
It is my understanding that it is the intention that counts.
It starts there and ends there.
If your intention is good, you might get the good Karma for it!
As a Buddhist I might look favourably on Karma that leads to the extinguishment of suffering and unfavourably on Karma that leads to the creation of suffering.
Labeling karma as effective or ineffective lacks a workable frame of reference for me..
Good intention in Buddhism is only that which is considered skillful (in harmony with reality, toward liberation). So if Buddhism would say it's unskillful intention, then it's unskillful and leads to bad karma. So it's not necessarily your idea of what "good" is... people will act on what they think is good, but their ideas of good differ. The road to liberation is paved with skillful intentions and a lack of unskillful intentions, as defined/explained by Buddhism.
We take the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as our guide to what good intention means.
Some people think you either acquire good karma or bad karma (like karma is something stored up rather than part of what you are), but a better explanation is you sow unskillful/harmful tendencies or skillful/beneficial tendencies, leading toward an elimination of both good and bad karma (the ceasing of karma-creating, of "I"-making).
But I guess I would differentiate between intentions that are actually good, as compared to those that are seemingly good (but really aren't).
And though no one seems to be mentioning this, "old world" Buddhists often do sort of see karma as some type of "cosmic score card", while Western Buddhists see it more as simple cause and effect and within one's own mind.
http://www.beyondthenet.net/dhamma/nibbanaExp.htm
And as your link puts it: "The Arahant still reaps the results of the kammas performed by him before enlightenment, but these do not disturb his mind."
Our thoughts are our karma. Our likes and dislikes. There are hundreds of likes and dislikes, a thousand opinions, ten thousand concepts about how things are that have been conditioned by previous experience.
All these likes and dislikes drive us from action to action, creating more karma, more causes for future results.
There is little you can do about what arises in the mind. What arises is karmically conditioned by what has gone before.
The sooner we notice the arising of thoughts and moods and realize they are just karmic fruits of the past the easier it is to let go.
In the course of life certain things are karmically given, one of which is that with every object of mind there arises karmically conditioned feelings of attraction or repulsion or, at times, indifference. Out of this liking and disliking comes craving, which forges the grasping that conditions the next link in the karmic chain. It is the clear recognition of the feeling of liking and disliking, without reaction, that cuts the karmic chain. Gradually we get so that we can watch liking and disliking with clarity. This clear seeing may be experienced as pleasant although the object noticed is unpleasant. When awareness is strong, grasping is weak. When grasping is weakened, volition toward unwholesome actions has less intensity.
Developing awareness means not only knowing that we're involved in a certain action, but also recognizing the intention which that action is a response to. But such motivations are not something to ponder. We either see it in the moment or we don't. It is not 20/20 hindsight or the analytical mind that uncovers the karmic root of the moment. We just watch our mind.
from A Gradual Awakening by Stephen Levine
SeaOfTranquility I don't like this idea that I have to watch my mind or thoughts. As if I am not a part of my mind. People say all the time you are not your thoughts but this is misleading. I think this is a bad statement for newbie's like me and most people here probably.
The reason why is that since I am identified with my mind and thoughts I become my mind to a degree. Maybe you or a Buddha or someone that meditates all the time feel as though they are not their thoughts. But for a vast majority of society we are intertwined with our mind and thoughts to a large degree. Your identification becomes your clothing at almost the core level.
If you get in a car and drive a car. You are a driver. If you crash that car then you are responsible for it.
This idea of watching your thoughts implies that you are not connected with your thoughts. But we are to some degree and sometimes we are really identified with your thoughts. So that is not a the best representation. I think it would be better to say become aware of your thoughts. That shows that one may be connected with their mind but just needs to awaken the mind first and then consciousness and then letting go can really begin and so can one start saying that that time that they are watching their thoughts.
This idea of we are not our thoughts may make newbie's shy away since that seems like we may not have to take on responsibly for our thoughts. Or even give a first impression of a bad self image. Thoughts seem as tools more or less. Or even our clothing.
Now if one is really advanced in meditation one can say, "now you have to start watching your thoughts," and that would make more scene.
Obviously the words watch and aware are a little bit different. It would be OK if we said: "When you become aware of your thoughts you should over time moving from just being aware of them to eventually watching them." That would make a lot more sense to me.
Peace and light!
As for karma, it is just cause-effect. You don't necessarily know the outcome of what you do, but if you only act skillfully as stated by the buddha, only "good" karma comes out of it. For you or others. As I see it, who harvest the bad fruit is not important - most often oneself will take part in it though.
I think that to the buddha, only actions stopping suffering counts - that is, to teach the dharma. That creates no karmic reaction because it stops suffering, dukkha.
Imagine you give a homeless person $ 1 - he will be happy. People think of you as a good person. The homeless will maybe help you another day. A good fruit is harvested.
Give him nothing, like most people, and nothing will happen.
Give him $ 100 and he will be very happy or insulted, some will think you brag or that you are very generous.
This is the way of the laity. On further account though, giving him anything material just creates suffering, as he will find himself without money again (and maybe dreaming about the money he just had been given, making it even worse!)
Therefore, I think, the buddha offers the dharma and nothing else, because only the dharma does not create suffering.
I've heard it said, and read it, so many times that we can mistake the practice of meditation for eradicating thoughts altogether. Some people actually try to do this! We fight against the nature of mind if we do that. That's nothing but a world of frustration.
To act skillfully - that is according to buddha's teachings - is going to produce good vipaka. Good fruit. Or as many wrongly say "good karma".
Somewhere Buddha says that to act intentionally is key to acting for good or ill - that is intention. I understand it as the required intention i law - in order to be punishable, the accused must have committed the crime intentionally (subjective part) and actually done something prohibited (objective part).
An example source:
Conditions In Violating Precepts
Five conditions of panatipata (Killing)
1. The being must be alive.
2. There must be the knowledge that it is a live being.
3. There must be an intention to cause death.
4. An act must be done to cause death.
5. There must be death, as the result of the said act.
If all the said five conditions are fulfilled, the first precept is violated.
Also, from the same source:
"To determine whether an action is good or evil, right or wrong, Buddhist ethics takes into account three components involved in a karmic action. The first is the intention that motivates the action, the second is the effect the doer experiences consequent to the action, and the third is the effect that others experience as a result of that action. If the intention is good, rooted in positive mental qualities such as love, compassion, and wisdom, if the result to the doer is wholesome (for instance, it helps him or her to become more compassionate and unselfish), and if those to whom the action is directed also experience a positive result
thereof, then that action is good, wholesome, or skillful (kusala). If, on the other hand, the action is rooted in negative mental qualities such as hatred and selfishness, if the outcome experienced by the doer is negative and unpleasant, and if the recipients of the action also experience undesirable effects from the action or become more hateful and selfish, then that action is unwholesome or unskillful (akusala). "
Hope this clears some things up
I must generally be either confusing or wrong. Glad you understood what I said!