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.
Does all life have Karma?
Hi,
I'm new to buddhism and I've been reading and listening to a lot of podcasts about it trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible. Today I was listening to Venerable Robina Courtin talk about Karma and emptiness and it made me start to have a lot of questions.
The first one is Does every living thing have Karma? And when they die do they all get reborn? Like plants for instances, do they get reborn when they die?
If plants have karma then what about bacteria and the cells that compose our bodies? If they have Karma then does that mean that our bodies are made up of trillions of life forms that each have their own Karma? If not then what are they? Are they really "alive" if they don't have Karma?
Robina talks about consciousness having no beginning because it must stem from a previous moment of consciousness and so on. If consciousness has no beginning then what about life? So that must mean that the life of plants has to come from somewhere and the same with the cells that compose of our bodies. If they don't have karma then their life must come from somewhere separate of that then never ending consciousness right?
I'm sorry for asking so many questions but I really like the ideas that buddhism puts forward, but everytime I learn more it makes me question more and more.
I'm new to buddhism and I've been reading and listening to a lot of podcasts about it trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible. Today I was listening to Venerable Robina Courtin talk about Karma and emptiness and it made me start to have a lot of questions.
The first one is Does every living thing have Karma? And when they die do they all get reborn? Like plants for instances, do they get reborn when they die?
If plants have karma then what about bacteria and the cells that compose our bodies? If they have Karma then does that mean that our bodies are made up of trillions of life forms that each have their own Karma? If not then what are they? Are they really "alive" if they don't have Karma?
Robina talks about consciousness having no beginning because it must stem from a previous moment of consciousness and so on. If consciousness has no beginning then what about life? So that must mean that the life of plants has to come from somewhere and the same with the cells that compose of our bodies. If they don't have karma then their life must come from somewhere separate of that then never ending consciousness right?
I'm sorry for asking so many questions but I really like the ideas that buddhism puts forward, but everytime I learn more it makes me question more and more.
0
Comments
Yes - and no.
Not as carbon-copy duplictes, no... but life is cyclical....
Plants aren't sentient beings, and don't have karma.
Plants have no karma. Our cells and bodies are aggregates and have no mind of their own. We have a mind of our own,...
Keeping things as simple as possible, without your mind, they wouldn't function.
It's your Mind - and INTENTION - that matters. Your voluntary actions (verbal, mental, physical) create Karma.
Did Robina mention plants? I doubt it.
Focus on you, your thoughts and how one thought does lead to another.
The one thing the Buddha taught was the difficulties we face in Life, and how to overcome them.
TheOrigin of Life is speculation.
nobody was there at the time, so it's something that isn't fruitful to your practice.
Right now, it doesn't really matter.
All it's doing is chewing your mind up and knotting it.
The important thing is to see how your words and actuions stem from a thought.
Change that thought - if needs be - and generate good words and actions.
There's your Karma.
Right there.
Keep questioning. Even if there are no answers, you'll still learn something....
Welcome!
He has said not to ponder over these too much and if pondered apon it will lead to insanity without gaining any progress in your practice. I don’t remember all of them but here are some as I remember:
1) The origin and the end of the world
2) The scope of a Buddha (What a Buddha can or cannot do)
3) The results of kamma
4) The scope of mental absorptions in meditation
here are my answers, but as with everything, question them yourself:)
Karma, as I understand it, is a very simple thing but to understand it you need to understand the idea of many to many causation that the Buddha discovered and analysed (This is called dependent origination but try to understand it as a principle before its common instantiation in the 12 Niddanyas).
Seen this Karma isnt a force or energy or substance it is simply the way casues and effects influence and are influenced by moral and mental decisions and, in differnt ways, intentions. "Moral casuation" is I think a good shorthand.
Does a mouse have karmic connections? I dont know, but I know that If I was cruel to a mouse that would have karmic consequences to me.
>>>If plants have karma then what about bacteria and the cells that compose our bodies?
If you see karma as something "majical" these kinds of questions wont be answered or silenced:)
>>Are they really "alive" if they don't have Karma?
There is no "they alive" there are just processes in systems... perhaps.
>>>...but everytime I learn more it makes me question more and more.
I imagine that is the same for all of us here!:)
Mat
Dear marbas
Perhaps what might help is asking yourself first why you practice Buddhism.
If it is joy, hope or suffering, then put aside those areas of Buddhism that are not yet clear to you now.
If it is appropriate, and if you practice, one day those answers may come forth on their own -- but not necessarily in the way you might imagine them to.
Thus, as the Buddha taught it is appropriate to practice. Sometimes the more we ask the more confused we can become if we are not yet clear on the fundamentals.
And what are the fundamentals? The Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, of which meditation is of course an important element.
Namaste, and best wishes,
Abu