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Simple Explanation of Karma?
thegoldeneternity
Veteran
It is my understanding that Karma is very often misunderstood, especially in the west. Would anyone be able to offer a simple explanation of Karma, intended for a western audience?
Thanks!
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'Karma' is actually quite a simple idea. It means 'action'.
The implication is willed, intentional , action.
This is often confused with karma-vipaka, which means the result or results of action.
Literally the 'fruit ' of action.
So, we sow karma by intentional actions. These actions have consequences. Those consequences are karma-vipaka.
Wholesome actions will result in karma-vipaka which we experience as positive.
Unwholesome actions will result in karma-vipaka which we experience as negative.
Neutral actions will result in neutral vipaka.
Many actions are a mixture of wholesome and unwholesome intentions, so the results of those actions is also mixed.
Most vipaka is mixed to some degree.
The Buddha strongly advised against trying to decide what in our present circumstances is due to positive or negative karma-vipaka, because the pattern woven by our actions is too complex.
The simplest explanation that I've found is simply, "Cause and effect" minus the built in belief in the West that the results are meted out as some type of divine retribution or reward.
I was pleasantly surprised by that explanation @Citta, that was very simply put, and I could not express it better - 'great praise' . Of course someone can pick holes in it, but on the whole: good
Aw shucks...blush smiley.
I don't stroke ego's often btw
Not sure about others but when I used to hear the word karma I thought it just related to physical actions. However, I believe the buddha was referring to all actions of body, speech and mind.
Here's my two cents.
For every action, there is an equal or opposite reaction.
Or, if you prefer, naturalistic cause and effect.
No divine intervention. No cosmic judge. Just actions and consequences.
All INTENTIONAL actions .
Keeping it simple! Bad actions have bad results. Good actions have good results. Therefore, only do good actions and don't do bad ones.
But of course, in order to properly follow the above, one first has to know what is actually good and bad action. That is where things like the precepts come into play.
I don't think you can stop there though. There is also good intention resulting in bad results and bad intention resulting in good results.
And yes, in my belief and understanding it includes thought. But not in a "if you have a bad thought something bad will happen to you" kind of way. If you know how to recognize your thoughts via training in meditation, you can see them as they come up and you know to let them go through and no more. But prior to training our brains some, we have a thought and then we share it, we write it down. It allows the "bad" karmic seed to take root and paves the way for acting on it. We can save ourselves from a lot of bad karma but not allowing bad thoughts to come to fruition and preventing action from coming from them.
Step on a rake and you're likely to get hit in the face with the handle.
Or punched by the gardener whose rake handle you've just snapped...
I don't like discussing Karma - it bites as I've said before..
Although karma may sound like a feminine name. Don't mess with karma!
This simile gives a great idea of what kamma is.
Dhp1
Thanks guys xxx
Thought precedes action as @pegembara points out. However sila and the precepts are part of the action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panca_sila
So do we have a distinction between our potential karma and the environmental circumstances? For example do last lifetime Buddhas enter a perfect lifetime by killing their mothers during childbirth, abandoning their families etc or do we also always have the 'karma of existence' to contend with in some way?
Maybe karma is not so simple?
No past buddhas don't kill their mothers!! Am I missing something here?
@Jeffrey - I suspect @lobster is referring to the fact that Gotama's mother died shortly after child birth and he (supposedly) abandoned his wife and child to find enlightenment.
Actually, it's simple but we make it complicated. We try to attach value judgments and divide actions into good and bad, present and future and past karma, etc. and then enter into endless debates as to how it might work and defend our version against the harsh reality of life.
@yagr has stated the "Unified Theory" as you will of karma. This is karma stripped of all the baggage we pile onto it. Actions have consequences. Do good actions only have good consequences, and bad actions only have bad consequences? Now you're piling baggage onto karma. Good consequences for whom? A man who runs into a burning building to save a child is performing a good action by any definition. But if the man burns to death for doing so without saving the child, then you either realize your understanding is wrong or try desperately to cling to a universe that doesn't exist by inventing past and future life karma, and so on.
So is it a strict cause and effect? If I kill someone, will I be killed in return? Will everyone who kills receive the same karma? Of course not. People do get away with murder. Some people kill and end up on death row and some people are treated as heroes. But living a violent life increases the chance you're going to end up on the receiving end of violence. Breaking the law increases the chance the authorities are going to notice and lock you up, etc. Our actions do set a direction to our lives.
Actions have consequences, not only for yourself, but for others. It's simple, but ignored by many.
Buddha explains how kamma is the cause of differences in the fortunes of people.
Yes, and supposedly the Buddha said people are born with dark skin because they slandered the Dharma in a past life, etc. You believe that? Says so, right in the sutras. People's biases have infected even the Dharma at times.
It's important to realize that back then, they had no knowledge of genetics or developmental psychology or how environment affects development. Past life karma seemed to explain a lot, combined with this ever-present desire for justice in the world. That birthmark? That is where you were stabbed in a past life. Were you born to a good family and grew up healthy because your parents could afford to feed you enough? You deserved it because of a good past life. You were born poor, were malnurished and grew up sickly? You're being punished for a bad past life. Not our fault or problem.
People were only people, then and now, searching for a little justice in a world of suffering.
The above quote is from the sutta, ie the pali canon which is the basis
of Buddhist teachings.
May I ask where your comment about dark-skin people came from?
http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha057.htm#k6
http://lamayeshe.com/index.php?sect=article&id=374
The Sutra of Causes and Effects
The thing is, @hermitwin, I believe we have a philosophical difference in how we view the sacred writings, and I don't think we'll get very far debating what Buddha said. If you believe that everything the Suttas claim Buddha said is true, but only for the Pali Canon, and also that Buddha could never be wrong or misunderstood, then that's what you believe. I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong, you or millions of other Buddhists. I'm only stating a different position, one that views the sutras as documents written by human, fallable monks, and the wisdom they contain must be tempered with an understanding of who wrote it and why and the limitations of knowledge in that age.
The problem with this is not whether or not the Buddha said it. It's that it doesn't make sense.
There are more poor people in the world now than the total population at the Buddha's time by far.
People are living longer than ever in the first world. Is that because we haven't been destroying life?
Is a long life always a good life? There are people living to ripe old age in prison. We all know people who lived long past the time when their quality of life had deteriorated.
Is being influential a sign of spiritual attainment? There are countless examples of influential people who were deviates of the worst kind.
While Karma teaches that all intent has consequences, not all consequences arise from intent.
The Pali canon is accepted by all the 3 schools of Buddhism ie Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana.
Ever wondered why ?
The problem is misleading people who is only beginning to inquire
about Buddhism with your own point of view.
Question your own opinions before questioning the Pali canon.
Why spend any time in thinking about karma?
Are you saying you never express an opinion here on this forum?
I don't see anything wrong with a learned person wanting to debate Buddhist issues.
But I would much rather they practice basic Buddhist principles skillfully, and then when they've got that down pat, move onto long, long arguments about what's in a language they can't even read.
That's certainly a good point. I respectfully reply that anyone who pops onto the board certainly knows how to google, and there are loads of traditional "this is what the sutras say" websites not to mention Wikipedia with that sort of basic info.
What does this forum have to give people that they can't find by a quick visit to Wiki, after googling "karma"? A diversity of opinion from real Buddhists of all stripes. About all we have to offer is our own opinion on whatever question is raised.
So thanks, but while I will always respect what the sutras say, I'll give my own understanding and assume people know that unless I quote the sutra, this is only my own particular understanding, take it or leave it.
How do we know, 100% without a doubt, that the sutras/suttas we are reading in English are direct, exactly translations of Sanskrit/Pali? It's rather impossible that they are, since many words in other languages do not exist in English. Even only looking at things from that angle, we pretty much have to admit that what we read now is not precisely what the Buddha taught. And just like the Bible (though seemingly to a lesser degree) even the monks who started to write things down and pass them along likely go some of their perceptions and ideas into things, because I doubt 100% of all monks were infallible in that regard. So I think like any religious text, it takes some reading between the lines and investigating yourself what seems to be the truth along with the help of a trained teacher is the best we can do. And we are STILL going to get different interpretations.
There is nothing wrong with debating Buddhist issues.
And I was not trying to throw cold water on the thread.
This is a question which I have been curious about
ever since I first heard about karma.
We are told that wholesome actions generate good
karma, and unwholesome actions generate bad karma,
or words to that effect. And then we are told that
one of the results of the karma we accumulate is
whether we suffer now, or in some future life,
or not.
Wouldn't you just want to do "wholesome actions"
anyway? Even if you had never heard of karma?
Does it make it harder to keep attention on the
present moment, if we worry about future lives?
Or past lives?
I think... just do your best, in the present moment.
The consequences don't always come in this life. So a generous person might not become rich until another life and the opposite as well.
rather like what @radagast says. Maybe it is my karma . . .
You bet your lifetimes I would.
The controversial dervish Bodhi Ibn Arabi postulated that the future calls into being the past.
In other words, you lucky people, your future Buddha self is the karmic basis of your present potential.
http://yinyana.tumblr.com/post/20346251291/attune-and-resonate
Now that's what I calls Karma . . .
ʘ‿ʘ
Causes, effects, and actions all happening simultaneously. The only way out is to abandon the cause.
Why is it when I look at karma I become like a blind man walking through a field of rakes.
Because I think - thwack!
Hitchhikers, beware!
I think the problem here is putting "simple" and "karma" in the same sentence!
Kamma may sound simple but it definitely isn't.
Best to practise the N8FP which is the kamma that leads to the end of kamma and of suffering itself.
http://www.suanmokkh.org/archive/arts/message/kamma1.htm
Kamma/karma IS simple. The working out of karma -vipaka isn't.
I don't see what is so difficult.
Therefore, do good and not evil.
I think so. But at the same time, you have to be aware of what really is wholesome and unwholesome to begin with. A lot of time when we do unwholesome action, we aren't even aware of the fact that we are doing a unwholesome action. Sometimes we even mistake an unwholesome action for a neutral one, or even a wholesome one. If one thinks an unwholesome action is not unwholesome, then of course there's no reason to stop doing it.
And there's the rub.
When hot for clear cut examples of the wholesome or unwholesome we frequently receive a dusty answer hedged about with qualifiers.
Exactly @seeker242. That is where it becomes complex though. If you ask a fundamentalist Christian what they REALLY believe is wholesome you are likely to get a very different response on many topics than if you ask a Buddhist, or anyone else. It's easy to say "well, one has to be truly honest about what they believe is right." which is true, however, it seems a lot of members of the general public aren't operating at a place of true honesty, out of reality and the truth. So to them, what they say is what they truly think/believe even if it is based on unreality. If they don't realize that, how can they think that what they believe might not have a basis in wholesomeness?
It doesn't even take dishonesty to be unaware that one is acting in an 'unwholesome' way.
It just takes lack of awareness.
Yes, thank you. That is a much better word, much closer to what I intended. Dishonesty lends itself to deceit and that wasn't really what I had in mind.
Buddhism is aligned with good karma/no karma. The world is not aligned with Buddhism, that's why karma is difficult to understand.
For some reason I was unable to quote this by hitting the 'quote' icon under robot's post.
None of what follows fails to make sense to me. Admittedly, that may be because I fail to understand it properly. Perhaps much more important than the question, "Does yagr have it right?" is, "If yagr, with his puny human brain, can come up with an explanation, how many more explanations are possible?"
Some world's populations are waxing; some are waning.
Long is relative. Long compared to life before refrigerators, vaccines, etc.? Sure. Long compared to a life on a world without cancer, war, etc.? Not so much. I don't consider time linear...perhaps my placement at this point in time and space was not at random.
Life is always good.
Not really important but it is much fewer than you might think. My wife spent twenty-four years in prison with a varying life without parole number at ten to twelve percent of the inmate population of 800-1400 inmates. During that twenty-four years, no inmate ever reached seventy years old.
As for quality of life - that is a choice; one that we only have if we're alive.
The Peter Principle at work in spiritual matters...
@yagr
I would like to discuss your post but the method for dissecting it line by line is still beyond me.
The Peter Principal sounds awesome tho because that's my name.
@robot
To go line by line one simply puts a '[' followed by 'quote' and then ']'. To close the quote you do the same thing except insert a '/' before the word 'quote'.
As for the Peter Principle, it simply states that a person will be promoted to their level of incompetence. So, in keeping with your thought, a person may have reached some level of spiritual attainment, and in doing so bought themselves a one way rebirthing to a life as an influential person. Then their spiritual attainment runs into the axiom, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." It certainly doesn't apply to all influential people, but it does occur often.
>
Not sure I agree with those ideas.