Karma and thoughts

music

Lets say a guy gets thoughts of murdering and torturing people every now and then. He doesn't act on these thoughts. Will he still incur some bad karma because of the very arising of such bad thoughts? These thoughts occur almost daily, and in his mind he imagines killing people. Will this produce bad karma or catharsis?

hermitwin

karma =intention.
i get thoughts about stopping all the war n poverty everyday.
do i get good karma?

footiam

If you are not happy with the thoughts, that probably is karma in action.
If you are happy with the thoughts, very soon the thoughts would turn to action. Then, wait for karma to take action.

David

Bad thoughts arise so call up healthy thoughts. If they are already acknowledged as bad something is being done right first off. Maybe a good idea to examine why these thoughts arise.

These thoughts are our Mara... Does no good to run away but if we invite them in and shine a light on them we may be that much closer to understanding their causes.

person

Karma can be divided into that of body, speech and mind. If they stay as only thoughts the karma they may produce will only be mental. An example for myself is I like heist movies and thinking about how to break into buildings though I don't ever do it. So the karma I generate is that I get worried about my things being stolen but it never physically does.

Zero

music said:

Lets say a guy gets thoughts of murdering and torturing people every now and then. He doesn't act on these thoughts.
Will he still incur some bad karma because of the very arising of such bad thoughts? These thoughts occur almost daily, and in his mind he imagines killing people. Will this produce bad karma or catharsis?

Sounds like the only person the guy is harming is himself.

Tosh

music said:

Lets say a guy gets thoughts of murdering and torturing people every now and then. He doesn't act on these thoughts. Will he still incur some bad karma because of the very arising of such bad thoughts? These thoughts occur almost daily, and in his mind he imagines killing people. Will this produce bad karma or catharsis?

Karma enters the picture when our feelings get involved, when there is some volition or intention from our side. How strong are the feelings produced in this hypothetical question?

Karma is also a cause for a result (not the result of something). I doubt anyone will really know what type of result this type of thinking will produce, apart from the obvious one - a rebirth (if you believe in that) - but it doesn't sound like happy thinking to me.

This hypothetical guy, is it you?

RebeccaS

Hmmm. I don't know.

I woke up feeling pretty murderous today because they're doing some kind of construction right above my apartment and it was early and LOUD.

Would I ever kill the poor construction workers, or even just chop off their hands to make them stop? No, of course not. I wouldn't even go upstairs and tell them to pack it in because they're just doing their job and they're doing it within legal times and sometimes you just gotta get shit done in the morning.

I did bang on the ceiling with a broom though.

So that probably has some bad karma

But I don't think I'll have bad karma for wanting to kill the guys who woke me from my (much needed) sleep.

They'll have bad karma for working so early though

I just don't think thoughts really carry any weight.

karasti

I guess it depends on how the thoughts affect the person. If a person thinks so often (obsessing) about anything, it has a negative impact on your mental health and affects your ability to relate to people properly. It just depends on the gravity, frequency, seriousness of the thoughts. I studied criminal psychology for a long time, and it lead to thoughts of "how could I commit the perfect crime, using what I know?" But it was just mental masturbation and very fleeting. I didn't spend hours, or even minutes of every day considering it, it didn't consume me, it didn't affect my ability to live a normal life. For some people such thoughts are so pervasive it affects their actual lives, and then it becomes a problem because when you are not relating to yourself and people around you properly, you ARE creating karma.

Zero

RebeccaS said:

I just don't think thoughts really carry any weight.

...and yet they seem to for the carrier at least.

If a precursor to action is thought then perhaps even though thought does not appear to have weight, its true weight it determined by the action it engenders.

RebeccaS

Zero said:

RebeccaS said:

I just don't think thoughts really carry any weight.

...and yet they seem to for the carrier at least.

If a precursor to action is thought then perhaps even though thought does not appear to have weight, its true weight it determined by the action it engenders.

Yeah, but like the OP said, he doesn't act on any of these thoughts. And we never HAVE to act on our thoughts if we don't want to so I'd still argue that they don't carry any weight.

fivebells

@music, is this coming up in your meditation?

Jeffrey

Thoughts are just thoughts. If in your heart of hearts you don't really want to harm anyone there won't be any lasting harm done. The thoughts are impermanent and will go away. But the basic sanity of the mind will always be there deep down.

driedleaf

It depends what happens after the thoughts occur. If the thoughts harm yourself or others then there is harmful karma present. If the thoughts do not harm yourself or others then this karma is nothing to worry about.