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.
karma and japan...
Seeker567
Explorer
So every bad action/emotion that is bestowed apon us is because of bad karma, in this life or previous, right? So all the people who are in japan, following the dharma even, get struck with a terrible tsunami. It doesnt make sense to me. Could someone please explain it?
0
Comments
And, by the way, many Japanese don't actually follow the dharma. Its much like many Americans claiming their Christian but know nothing about it.
Earthquakes are not related to karmic law.
Moral theocracies like the Tibetan feudal serfdom ended 50 years ago and the new ones, such as Iran, are moral disasters.
Best to let the world go & not be attached to it, as the Buddha encouraged us to do.
Best to learn the difference between a "moral crusader" vs "compassionate buddha".
I actually studied plate tectonics in university, back when it was still an unproven theory (but wasn't for much longer thereafter). It was one of the most exciting courses I'd ever taken. It's amazing to think that there was a time when plate tectonics wasn't scientifically accepted, a very long time. It seems so obvious...
Thanks again for the link, and for a good read.
^^ Not entirely true from what I heard from at least 2 buddhist monks. Sometimes things happen just because they happen, and not a result of karma. The example one of the monks gave was that if you are standing at the edge of a tall building and fall off and die, it isn't always a fact of karma, it could have been simply because you were standing at the edge of a building. Karma is vastly complex for an enlightened or unawakened mind to comprehend fully.
endless cycle of rebirth.
In the Japanese people's uncountable previous lives, they
must have done countless good and bad deeds.
Karma cant be used to explain a single event.
It may, or may not, have had an impact - but I doubt it was intentional.
in brown robes are genuine buddhist monks.
And just like some other person in another religion asking why bad things happen to people, the answers tend to be the same. (1) It's God (Karma), so it can't be totally comprehended by our limited understanding. (2) Bad things happen because the person (or society) did something bad to deserve it. (3) Not everything that happens in life is God (Karma) acting to punish or reward.
So our God of Judgement doesn't have a face and personality. An impersonal judge is still a judge, just not subject to emotions like anger or pity. And where does Karma come from? It just IS, like God. And why does it cause things the way it does? Because that's just the way it works.
This desire to match good and bad actions with justice in the world is so ingrained, I doubt we'll ever have a religion without some answer to the eternal question of "Why do bad things happen?"
Actions have consequences. That's not so hard to understand. Sometimes sh*t happens. That's not so hard to understand, either, is it? If a people live on an island that's part of the dynamic plate techtonic movement and subject to frequent earthquakes and tidal waves, then they're going to be facing these events over and over. That's karma. Guild and innocence and past lives and good or bad actions have nothing to do with it. If Buddha stood on the shore of Japan that day, he'd have been washed away. And if a nation builds nuclear plants next to a shoreline on an island with a history of earthquakes and huge tsunamis, then it doesn't take a psychic to know this action might have some terrible consequences in the future.
Karma. Nobody's bad actions in the past caused the deaths of thousands in the quake. Karma is not a God of Judgement. You can't sacrafice a virgin in a vulcano to Karma for special favors.
Gautama Buddha taught that only a Fully Awakened Buddha could know all the ins and outs of karma, and until then, it is one of the four imponderables ie leave that be
Namaste.
How cruel
to an extent leave it alone, its tooo complex for an unenlightened being to comprehend, but it isn't the buddha who can fully understand the ins and outs, if you are liberated or awoken fully, then I assume you will
First of all, Kamma is VOLITIONAL ACTION. so the concept that it is a -
"God of Judgement, called Karma. In a very real way, Karma as a divine judge, in our Buddhist theology, serves the same purpose as God the divine judge in other religions."
Is complete and utter balderdash, and spouting imagined rubbish like this on a Buddhist forum is both ill-conceived and frankly utterly ridiculous.
If you're going to speak of subjects of this kind, in a thread of this kind, at least have the foresight to do some factual research. This is nothing whatsoever to do with Buddhism, and is pure fantasy, and not very laudable at that. Jeesh.....
There is no person on the planet (Enlightened or not) who can explain the exact way karma (voluntary action) leads to karma-consequences.
So is there such a thing as group-karma? You tell me.
Does Karma-consequence have any part in people being struck by force of nature? Why not.
First explain how it works, then prove it, then speculate some more.
I don’t think Cinorjer deserved such harsh words.
There is an element in the law of Karma which puts it in the same category as theist religions.
The common ground is that we need more justice in our world than there actually is.
Either God or the law of Karma supply (the illusion of) such a profound justice which is "understood" and accepted by believers only.
We often say that Buddhism is more scientific than other religions. But then we also talk about the "imponderables". Science and imponderables are diametrically opposed. And, when we talk about imponderables, we begin to fall into the same trap that Christians find themselves in trying to explain when they say things like, "The Lord works in mysterious ways." Essentially, the Dhamma, the Bible, the Koran is a document (or, if you wish, group of documents) that state the beliefs of a group of people. None of the three documents is scientific. We have a general belief in Buddhism because many of its principles work for us. But, Christians say the same about Biblical principles, and Muslims say the same about Islamic principles. Faith is a wonderful thing, and we on this message board have faith in Buddhist principles. But, faith is still faith...not science.
Buddhist are encouraged to never accept something on the basis of that kind of faith.
Karma or coincident?
But, I'm sorry, no Buddhist source has ever satisfactorily explained this thinking to me.
or you can blame genes. which is a roll of a dice. but still you can see the cause/effect.
now abusive parents? well there a people who turn out pretty happy even with abusive parents. blessing or not a blessing? hm up to you.
poor family? i feel very luck that i was born in a poor family because i learned a lot about life and it's hardships. i really enjoy a good meal and really appreciate what i have, no matter how little it is.
so idk karma is cause/effect. but what you do with that cause/effect is up to you.
When you say, "In any case, the Buddha did say to test teachings according to your own reasoning. That's the beauty of it.", that sounds like what some would say is cherry picking or picking and choosing, and they condemn it.
Thoughts?
So we are asked to believe (yet we can never know) that every action has an effect in terms of moral causation. At the same time, not every situation is such an effect because there is natural causation as well.
There’s really not any conceivable observation that would support or undermine such a theory of moral causation.
I can already see the dead horse picture coming...
If you test the teachings & found that its ok to kill animals,
then what shd you do?