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Karma's Gonna Get You For That
AllbuddhaBound
Veteran
It is interesting to see how we in the West interpret karma to mean something similar to a vengeful God. We turned Buddhist teachings into fearful consequences. The emphasis is placed on punishment.
The interesting thing about karma is that it works both ways. Yes if you hurt others you will be hurt but by the same token if you use karma to guide you it can also benefit you. We see this all the time. A person with a good heart draws positive karma. A person who is generous is given much.
There is a place for the knowledge that karma is and can be quite difficult. It can mean that suffering may follow negative behaviors. But it also can mean that behaviors that are positive can also be followed by joy.
Maybe it is just me and I was thinking about it in the wrong way but I do find people tend to think the negative when they talk about karma.
The interesting thing about karma is that it works both ways. Yes if you hurt others you will be hurt but by the same token if you use karma to guide you it can also benefit you. We see this all the time. A person with a good heart draws positive karma. A person who is generous is given much.
There is a place for the knowledge that karma is and can be quite difficult. It can mean that suffering may follow negative behaviors. But it also can mean that behaviors that are positive can also be followed by joy.
Maybe it is just me and I was thinking about it in the wrong way but I do find people tend to think the negative when they talk about karma.
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Which is guess is an attempt at a witty buddhist parody of the militarist-christian slogan.
When I point out to them that their own 'misfortune' is also as a result of their own Karma, they can get quite indignant.....
Like, THEY don't 'deserve' it - just everyone else.....:rolleyes:
This is well worth reading............
"Karma doesn't explain anything " (plus "Karma" and "Karma and Growth")
http://www.unfetteredmind.com/articles/explain.php
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Let's say for the sake of argument that I'm 100% miserable 100% of the time in this life. I was born into dismal circumstances, I'm sick and suffering all the time, I'm mentally ill, I have nothing to eat, my family beats me, and I'm plagued with boils. How am I to interpret my circumstances now other than as a direct net result of previous bad karma? Surely such an existence wouldn't be the result of a net of good karma would it? I may in fact have accumulated positive karma, but it would apparently in this case have been vastly outweighed by the negative karma I'd accumulated. Otherwise why would I be 100% miserable 100% of the time?
On the other hand, if I'd been born into auspicious circumstances, had all I could want, been healthy, had a loving family around me, been good looking, and been a Mac user, would that not be the result of some net positive of karma from before?
Am I being too simplistic?? This is a tough subject.
It is a tough and confusing subject, and even otherwise good Teachers will sometimes just say, vastly paraphrased, "Karma is a complicated concept and few completely comprehend it, so let's just focus on something else." Actually, it's not that difficult to comprehend, it's just that some of the writers of our sutras still clung to the old definition of karma as determinism, and it only gradually evolved over time. Buddhists are reluctant to disagree with our honored ancestors.
For instance, one sutra, the Sutra of the Causes and Effects of Actions, has this to say about karma:
"Then the Buddha spoke to Ananda thus, “This question that you are asking--it is all on account of a previous existence, in which every one’s mind was not alike and equal. Therefore, in consequence, the retribution is of a thousand and a myriad separate and different minds.
Thus the person who in this world is handsome comes from a patient mind, and the ugly comes from amid anger; the needy come from meanness.
The high and noble comes from prayer and service, and the lowly and base comes from pride.
The great and tall person comes from honor and respect and the short-legged person comes on account of contempt.
The person who hinders the bright splendor of the Buddha is born black and thin; and the one who tastes the food of the fast is born deprived of food.
The person who is too sparing of fire and light is born infirm; the one in whose eyes fault always appears is born night-blind.
The person who slanders the Law is born dumb; and the person who does not want to hear the Law is born deaf.
Yes, this sutra puts words in the mouth of the Buddha that blames people being born black and thin as having worked against Buddhism in a past life. The monk who wrote this sutra didn't have a complete understanding of karma at all.
Buddhism didn't invent the concept of karma, and in one way was a direct answer to the definition of karma as determinism. Before Buddhism, there was no way to free oneself from karma. All one could do was accumulate merit to work up the evolutionary and social ladder when you are reborn.
Whether you believe karma is determinism and how rich your parents are is because you were charitable in a past life (and obviously your parents, also) or just a general law of cause and effect, karma says that to some extent, what you intend to do has consequences.
From the link I gave #5
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Karma is cause/effect, and we can compartmentalize it to see how "our" karma (unskillful) plants the seeds for future unwholesome states and also how that same karma (skillful) plants the seeds for awakening.
More than this though, karma is shared. If we abuse a child, does it not affect them negatively also? Everything that we are is an accumulation of sights, sounds, tastes, sensations, smells and thoughts. Except for those thoughts, all else comes from the "outside world", which includes the speech and actions of others. This is why it is especially important to guard our speech and actions; it is not only toward our own awakening, but to the wholesome conditions of others.
And I think most of this thread reflects that thinking. I'm sorry all this nauseates you, but thank you for sharing.
_/\_
"Why do bad things happen to good people, and why do good things happen to bad people?"
An intellectual discussion of the duality of good and bad doesn't cut it. Where is the justice in the world? As much as we'd like to believe that the rich and powerful and heartless who made their fortune on the pain and suffering of others is somehow going to get their punishment...they're likely to die happy in their soft beds with their loving family around, surrounded by their wealth. And the holy man who gives everything to those even more poor might be one of those the rich man crushed for spite.
Because Buddhism has no God to deliver judgement, and we have no eternal afterlife where people get their punishment and rewards, we have karma. So maybe not in this life, but certain when they're reborn, all that evil is going to smack that terrible man in the face. Not because someone is judging him, but because bad actions have to lead to bad consquences. Sooner or later. Any time now.
The human nature insists on justice, even if we have to twist our minds into knots to fit it into our teachings. All religions have some sort of answer, even if it's just God's will and a mystery. Every single religion has a faulty answer. We have karma.
We want justice; this is Tanha. Justice is a human conceit; that we are all here only temporarily and all die is natural justice or house-keeping (Impermanence) anyway... the great equalizer. Thinking that someone is going to get away with their misdeeds, our Aversion, leads to our Dukkha; attributing that they will pay for them after they die sometime in another life is Delusion.
We are not the aggregates, not any single one of the aggregates, neither within or outside of the body. There is no "I", and yet we find reasons that a post-mortem rebirth should somehow still be "me", be "my future life". This appeals to us, and so it is not the correct view because rebirth is to be appalled. It was in the Buddha's time because the view we have today is not the same view that the Buddha taught.
When we are "born", those conditions came about because of all. While we live, imagining a separate self, there is "our" karma and "all-else" karma, where our karma is a large factor of how our life turns out, and through skillful karma we are able to escape specifically the suffering born of mind which arises through Ignorance. In truth these work seamlessly together, because they are still just that "all" karma that we in our duality have separated.
There is no self and no other. Neither "I" nor "you" truly exist as separate entities, nor are we one of the aggregates. The consciousness that has arisen persists in conditioning new consciousness, the flame of one candle lighting another before it blows out.
This is all, and despite everything, there is great peace in this knowledge. Holding onto a doctrine of self is what keeps us in pain, in torment; and it is the perception now that there is no self that torments us on a deep enough level to keep us from facing it and letting it be. We must abandon self-view; we must abandon this subtle thirst that brings about re-becoming.
Namaste
I see the law of karma as simply meaning "our actions have their consequences"; and precisely how this law plays out (in this lifetime and other lifetimes) will remain a mystery to everyone, except a Buddha, I'm told. We can make wild guesses and speculate all we want, and in the end it will turn out to be a waste of time. According to one of the suttas the Buddha said that the precise working out of the results of kamma, is unconjecturable (acinteyya), that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness and vexation to anyone who conjectured about it. I don't think we will really go 'mad' by speculating; but these strong words were perhaps intended to deter people from speculating.
Ok, let me stop speculating too ...
They may die in soft beds surrounded by family and wealth, but chances are the family will be either indifferent or indeed resentful of them, and all their accrued wealth won't have given them any inner peace.
Right, but the idea of 'net positive' or 'net negative' influencing one's circumstances in *this* lifetime also have to hold true, otherwise it must be false, right?
If my karmic bank account just prior to this birth held a huge positive balance, would not my circumstances in this life stand a better chance of being positive? Conversely, if I had a large negative balance coming in this time, would not my circumstances likely be pretty awful this time around? Not that I wouldn't still be able to produce new negative if I were all cushy, or be able to produce new positive if I were miserable, but I have to think the overall balance coming in at the beginning of this rebirth is influenced by the score card at birth.
Seems reasonable. Some seeds take longer to ripen than others.