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Question about Karma
I'm having a hard time buying the idea of karma. Although I like the idea of it (you reap what you so etc.) I don't see how you can possibly prove it actually exists, since after all we don't remember our past lives and what we've done. Would anyone like to offer any insight into this?
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Comments
Kamma/karma means action. What we do. A critical part of the teachings is when the Gotama Buddha said emphatically, "Monks, intention, I say, is kamma." Vipāka, on the other hand, is the fruition of kamma. Kamma-vipāka is the law of causality.
ANYWAY. The suttas teach that those who are experienced with the jhanas (the deep meditative states where mental chatter has been swept away) can eventually come to recall their past lives. However, the only way to do this properly is to stop being caught up in the idea of it, and approaching it dispassionately. Personally, I do not feel concerned with whether there I have lived before or not. My certainty in the Dhamma makes me convinced that there is samsara, but the present is my concern.
Mtns
But this option does not negate the teaching of karma. For example, if I rob a bank today, I can end up in 'hell', that is, fear, worry and then imprisonment, tomorrow.
Karma is a moral teaching and the words the Buddha used are in spiritual language. Their interpretation depends on the reader.
There are suttas where fully enlightened beings who were masters of jhana did not declare they saw any kind of past life.
There are also suttas that describe a 'past life' as merely when one regarded oneself to be a 'self'.
For example, it is common for a person with some degree of enlightenment to not regard themself as a 'self'. But when they think back to the past, like when they were once a sports champion or something, they regard themselves as a 'self' very strongly in the past.
So in the suttas, the Buddha said when we reflect back on our past dwellings, back then as well as now, there was merely form, merely feeling, merely perception, merely mental formations, merely consciousness.
Although in the past we regarded life as a 'self' this was just ignorance.
Even though I felt so good when I kissed a girl for the first time, this happy "me" was just ignorance.
So there is no proof of past lives and those who attain jhanas do not literally see a past life.
But karma holds. The state of the mind in the future follows the karma performed now and in the past (unless that karma is resolved by right practise).
We all have habitual tendencies. For example some one who came from an abusive childhood is likely to repeat the same pattern of behaviour and repeat the cycle(s). What Dr. Weiss contends is that these habitual tendencies have their roots that go even before our chilhoods into previous lives.
That's my take.
Kamma-vipaka is intentional action and its results. Eg. You make a donation to support a child in Africa. He grows up successful and can support his community. Result less poverty, crime, terrorism and piracy.
Our actions skilful or not can have rippling effects far beyond anything that one can imagine or foresee.
I like the way you put it the best, and I think I've always sort of believed that in a way.
I'm a qualified hypnotherapist myself and I would never consider that 'past life regression' is in any way reliable, nor would I offer it to clients. We all have a vast store of memories not only of our present life back to babyhood but of many things that we've forgotten about such as books, films, the media, and so on. These memories can surface during hypnosis and form imaginary 'past lives'. It's called cryptomnesia.
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Near-Death Experiences: Evidence of Afterlife, Says Radiation Oncologist
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/717604