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Does karma ALWAYS happen
vinlyn
Colorado...for now Veteran
I was having a discussion with a Thai Buddhist monk a week ago, and karma came up. I said that it seemed to me that karma did not necessarily occur if someone did something bad. And he said that karma ALWAYS occurs, but that we don't necessarily realize it or recognize it.
Thoughts?
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Comments
Just to clarify @vinlyn, I think you mean the results of karma always happen. Karma just means any "intentional action" undertaken so I don't think any of us could argue that this doesn't happen at present for us
Anyways, I have heard that only a Buddha can fully understand the workings of karma and its results. So I'm out on this one........
my guess is the monk is looking at the karma brain aggregate process on the subconscious and conscious level.we produce choice whichmay lead to action ,be it positive,neutral or negative.the result varies of those actions.to many conditions to speculate,imo
I don't think it's possible to test with like data if you are going to an idea of karma ripening in later lives.
If karma requires intention (which has always been my understanding) then true accidents shouldn't incur karma at least on the part of the offender, right? So say a person has a medical issue while driving ,and crashes into another car and injures the person. There was no intention so to me that means no karma incurred on the part of the driver. But if you decide to take it farther, you could determine that the medical issue was karma and thus the accident was karma, and that the person who was injured in the other car was "burning off" karma. I guess it depends how you look at it all. If karma is just a result of something that happens, then I suppose it really does happen all the time. The driver with the medical issue is still going to have to cope with the fact that they injured someone in an accident, intentional or not, for example.
Karma usually entails volitional action.
Yet, it also implies cause and effect.
Any action is the effect of a preceding action and the cause of a subsequent.
This is because that is.
Everything is interrelated.
After today's English lesson for 2 monks, now I need to research a bit about what we talked about in re karma. "Bun".
He is wrong but that is his karma ...
The pure in the Sufi tradition receive blessing/karma outside of the alleged normal cosmic judgement system. Buddhas too are allowed greater freedom if acting according to the Inner Imperative. Don't tell ye olde Thai monke, he might implode ...
The ideal perfection, called Baqa by Sufis, is termed 'Najat' in Islam, 'Nirvana' in Buddhism, 'Salvation' in Christianity, and 'Mukhti' in Hinduism. This is the highest condition attainable, and all ancient prophets and sages experienced it, and taught it to the world.
This is an interesting article about Thai Buddhism's view of karma: https://www.pressreader.com/thailand/bangkok-post/20081229/282535834238688
Also, when I was talking with the monk today about karma, the first thing he said -- and this is paraphrasing -- was that it was okay to contemplate (in a general sense) the concept of karma, but that trying to figure out specific karmic situations can only be done by a Buddha.
Interesting.
Pra Payutto, a very sensible and no-nonsense Thai monk, encourages us to limit the concept of karma and its workings to this lifetime.
He has mentioned somewhere that Thailand tends to have a more supernatural and superstitious vision of Karma.
But I can only presume, @vinlyn, that what the monk you talked to meant, is that it is impossible to fathom the effects of karma.
All of our actions do ripple out in aftershocks somehow, somewhere, like the butterfly effect.
We may not be aware of it, but everything we do has an effect and everything that happens to us has a cause.
...
Yes, exactly. The way I took his meaning is that there is nothing negative about contemplating (and discussing, as we do) karma as a concept, and trying to thus practice more positive actions; but never try to figure out is something that is happening to me a result of karma, and if it is, why?...because you will never figure that out.
This is what Pra Payutto says, @vinlyn.
We should strive to do skillful deeds simply because they lead to skillful results and help break the cycle of self-inflicted dukkha.
And never try to figure out why is this happening to me, since we will never really be able to know.
And as we well know, dukkha happens.
I would say yes....
"Viewed from the cosmic standpoint, living beings including humans and animals, are as phenomenal as material objects. Their existence is phenomenally relative, in other words, they exist because other things such as food, plants, water, etc., including the world and the sun exist. They are all subject to origination and cessation, like all other things of the world - including the world itself, which undergoes the process of integration and disintegration. The existence of the world with that of everything on it is sustained by this law...the karmic law of cause and effect !"
"But the real significance of the law of cause and effect, however, lies in the second aspect, i.e. as the impersonal law of morality or moral causation.It is this aspect of the Law of KARMA which plays a dominant role in Buddhist ethical teachings."
"Viewed in terms of cause and effect, our present life is the result of our previous existence , and our future, will be the result of our present.
We are actually the sum total of our past thought, speech and action. What we will be in the future, will be the result of our present thought, speech and action.
Our present lives are conditioned by the past actions and our future will be conditioned by the present actions. In other words, we are constantly being moulded bY our KARMA !"
From this booklet I was given many moons ago and have since had photocopied many times...
Nutshell ...The self is the ship ( or raft in this case) and karma is the rudder ... ( So it would seem)
In the Jataka is stated:
That's why it is so important to develop Right View, in order to discern the importance of performing skillful actions.
Lama Surya Das (in one of his Trilogy books) quotes thusly:
"Karma means you don't get away with anything.
And it ALL counts".
He did elaborate on Intention, though, which I think is the fulcrum whereupon Karma sits....
That is a very interesting post! Could the same action garner the same karma if in one instance it was done through intent, and in another instance it was a total accident?
It seems to me like there could be room in physics to allow for this sort of universal omnipotent karma in that apparent randomness at a subtle level could really be a hidden variable that doesn't show itself when observed isolated from sentient beings.
That being said karma in that sense isn't very useful in determining outcomes.
Dear Friends,
Recognizable cause and effect should not be confused with spurious pattern recgnition (we are hard wired to find patterns).
The Buddhist ethical behavour is proactive and irrespective of consequences. I feel @Dakini makes a good point. Most of us are not on a path of spiritual merit accumulation. We are shedding our bad points.
Be kind.
Why?
It is the right thing.
Perhaps unrelated to the topic of karma I wrote this quotation down I probably found on Facebook. I'm not sure if Suzuki Roshi really said it but it is interesting.
The Buddha said something to the effect that "Karma works in mysterious ways". Actually, he called it an "imponderable". So, it can work within the same lifetime as when someone commits a transgression, or it could work in later lifetimes. Possibly, a person's compassionate acts could mitigate the weight of negative actions. It's too complex to figure out.
jeffrey,what poped in my head is no reason-ing .this does connect with karma or action,imo.we may needlessly suffer without thought,for better choice and action.hm..could brain affliction be self created?as the buddha the second arrow our brain.
i ment to say,as the buddha pointed out the second arrow of affiction--our brain.sorry type to fast
Yeah I think that's a legitimate reasoning @paulyso. Surely the second arrow affects the amount of suffering in the world. And I have read about the second arrow some time previously so I know what you are talking about.
But I think my quote by Suzuki basically it is a student kind of saying 'poor us humans' and 'why do us poor humans have to suffer?'... like in a cosmic sense like why is there suffering in the universe. And Suzuki's answer is 'no reason'. I wrote that down because for me it was like a letting go of the suffering that there is suffering. In the universe.
jeffrey,i once saw a car bumper sticker that said think cosmically,act locally. maybe ill guess suzuki point.don't worry big stuff,work on small stuff.and you letting go of the suffering that there is suffering is awesome.
The notion of incurring or garnering karma is as flawed to me as that of suffering retribution as karma. Okay, karma is ineffable - but on a very basic level karma is action taken that is influenced or caused by the personal, biological and evolutionary existential soup we float in. Did you want crackers with that? I don't think I'm racking up karma on a cosmic karma meter. I am simply living my karma, not yours - sometimes skillfully, most times not. I think I'd prefer croutons with the soup, please. And changing our karma simply means having the awareness that some actions are conditioned and can be changed, albeit with great effort and difficulty. Instant karma is easy - do good things for no good reason. My personal karma will not always happen because I will die but the concept of karma will always be elusively, inexplicably valid.
iron rabbit,i am a believer of instant karma .doing something nice ,generios from the heart,one recieves the light of the eyes and smile. generosity ,or gift giving is instant karma at work,imo.
that is why the buddha,in my opinion,skillfully chose to be a beggar for other people to rippen the heart of generosity and goodwill.
@paulyso you bring an interesting point. For me My own fears have caused negative actions and consequences. I made my own fears a reality by constantly imagining them, and then acted accordingly, living my worst case scenario. Our fears manifest by the means of fear itself. Someone else wiser than me said something similar i think
There is nothing fatalistic about karma imo. I interpret karma from past lives as a sort of generational/ancestral pain and trauma. Anything and everything is incurred by our minds. By imagining our fears we create them. By pondering bad karma we attract it.
...By pondering bad karma we attract it.
So why are you pondering it?
@vinlyn I have to understand something in order to overcome it. I do ponder too much. But I always learn something in the end. I am used to bad karma. It's always remedied out after several unsucesful attempts. Then could it become good karma?
eggsavior,i know what you mean about self created worries and fears that our thinking brain produce sometimes. hmm,drop the worry thinking,might help us .i just breathe and try to calm the whole body.lately not clinging to thoughts,have lessen the worrying thinking.
Second-arrow effect is the karma aspect variable we have some control about.
There is random dukkha from outer sources -from the infinitesimal interplay of unknown causes and effects acting up on us- and self-inflicted dukkha from the bad choices we make due to wrong view.
There is no fatalism about karma, if we simply learn to accept that suffering has no reason, or that we will never be able to figure out whys and wherefores.
Suffering simply happens.
The point is not to keep adding to it by the subjective scripts we superimpose to dukkha as it takes place in our life, mainly through clinging, overthinking and wishing things were different from what they are.
Exactly so @DhammaDragon.
Don't keep hitting your head because you got hit on the head ... Simple and obvious advice. Easily said ...
@paulyso haz plan but no spell checker:
Bravo @paulyso - well said.
"We are actually the sum total of our past thought, speech and action. What we will be in the future, will be the result of our present thought, speech and action."
In other words NOW is the time to give the self a PRESENT for the Future....
Yes, @paulyso: something's wrong with your spelling system, lol...
sorry lobster and damma dragon,my spelling is horrible,i am happy the moderator have been kind to overlook it. my browser is limited.cant produce capitals,paragraphs,or what not.
I have just learned to use my silly tablet keyboard, which has all the signs in the wrong keys, and no emojis....
I would agree with the monk because it's said that karma can ripen immediately, later in this life, in the next life, or in some lifetime after that. If it's the type that will ripen in the next life, then we certainly won't recognize it in this life, because it hasn't happened yet.
I think this best explains karma.
@paulyso yes it is good to be grounded. @lobster has reminded me of this in my recent threads on pure land. Personally my mind needs direction. Basic breath meditation helped me realize the Buddhist basics. Now that I am slowly refining my practice I am becoming more and more interested in the vast Dharma knowledge. I believe that my pure land practice helps me access this Dharma knowledge while keeping my mind from straying.
How amazing is it that the different Buddhist paths can helps us all achieve the same goals? The Dharmakaya manifests in so many wondrous ways.
http://www.buddhasutra.com/files/visualization_sutra.htm
techie,that made me chuckle.sometimes i laugh at myself.sometimes lucky , sometimes not.
eggsavior,that is awesome you chose pureland buddhism.i agree many buddha dharma door.
...Or rather, dukkha...
When we realize that karma is action, that what we call karma is the effects of all our actions (words, deeds, etc), that we are always making causes, this creating karma (good and bad), we must agree with the monk: "There is always karma."
Peace to all.
There is always karma. Exactly so. What we do will effect us.
I very much liked @IronRabbit contribution.
Speaking as a flawed individual that does not buy the Dzogchen or Taoist model of 'the flawed perfection', I ceaselessly attempt to polish a stone into a mirror. You might say my karma does not require success only wasted effort ... Tee hee!
https://www.mountaincloud.org/message-from-henry-most-foolish-person/