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Karma and child abuse
So much has happened in the past few weeks that I have had to think about karma and it's implications. As I have mentioned briefly before, I grew up abused. I have dealt with it for a number of years and am near the end of that journey in a formal way. My therapist said that I'm at the 80/20 mark with it being 80% dealt with.
Now this is where it is gettting sticky with me. If karma is the result of our past actions, how does this play into child abuse? What could one have done to have abuse start on them before they are even old enough to understand right and wrong? I could see it in Hitler's case, but if I got Hitler's "energy", I would be totally freaked about it. LOL! It would explain alot though.
With my father's passing, I've had to think of a lot of things that I hadn't really thought about in a few years. All that negativity is too draining and really takes life away. I had gotten to a point in life where I could say I felt something like comfortable and making headway on a lot of things. Then the accident happened.
So this might be more than just child abuse but that is a good starting point. When does karmic consequences truly happen? How do you tell if it's karmic consequences or just what life has dealt you?
Now this is where it is gettting sticky with me. If karma is the result of our past actions, how does this play into child abuse? What could one have done to have abuse start on them before they are even old enough to understand right and wrong? I could see it in Hitler's case, but if I got Hitler's "energy", I would be totally freaked about it. LOL! It would explain alot though.
With my father's passing, I've had to think of a lot of things that I hadn't really thought about in a few years. All that negativity is too draining and really takes life away. I had gotten to a point in life where I could say I felt something like comfortable and making headway on a lot of things. Then the accident happened.
So this might be more than just child abuse but that is a good starting point. When does karmic consequences truly happen? How do you tell if it's karmic consequences or just what life has dealt you?
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Comments
Why do you think they're different? The way I was taught is that karma ripens when the conditions are appropriate for them to ripen. That is something that might take many lifetimes. To understand how karmic ripening can happen to a child, flip it over. It was an adult who committed the abuse, right? What kind of karma do you think he created?
Karma is a difficult teaching to grasp. The Buddha taught that if you want to know your past lives, just look in the mirror. It's all right there. You right now are the compilation of past actions. Also know that we all carry all kinds of karma, from the very worst to the very best. We had to have a vast amount of positive karma (merit) just to be reborn as a human, particularly with a fortunate human rebirth, i.e., a life where we have the great fortune to hear the Dharma and practice it. That really should be the only thing that matters. All the rest is just phenomena. Everyone has mixed karma. It goes with the territory. But the important point, imho, is to take advantage of the fact that here we are with the opportunity - at long last! - to get off the wheel forever. What else matters?
Palzang
"Who knows what is bad? Who knows what is good?"
At one point or another, to one degree or another, shit hits the fan in everyone's life. I would never presume to state that 'my shit is worserer than your shit' because whatever it is, and in whatever form it appears, it's still a trial...
All I can tell you from personal experience is that it is futile to try to work out the whys and wherefores. It 'IS' just as it 'IS'.
The big thing is how we transform it. How we channel it. How we use it to make our life - and maybe those of others - better, not worse.
So, instead of being abusive and cruel to those around you, you have chosen a path which brings comfort, solace and relief to those who are suffering. If that isn't an example of how you personally have managed to "Turn your Karma around', I don't know what is.
relax, Jerry. You are absolutely, honestly and sincerely a wonderful, generous and compassionate human being. I'm proud to know you, and consider you friend.
Am I making any sense???
What's more important to remember is what federica said....you have chosen a different path and everyone around you will benefit from that. You truly are an amazing person and I feel so lucky to know you.
Kim
I know this is a tough issue. I get your point, Palzang. I am grateful for the chance to hear the Dharma and use it in my life. I don't know why the thought came to mind except I heard in too many AA meetings that "God has a reason for everything" and it was what started the questioning process. My father had a miserable life and it is due to his actions. I'm just trying to wrap my little mind around this and may have just done so.
Fede and Mama,
Of course I turned out wonderfully! LOL! I refused to be like him. Even though I do fight with some of his characteristics that I picked up, but I choose to be kind and compassionate. Thank you for the reminder.
And for Fede alone,
I'm a bit high strung. How did you figure it out? LOL! OH, and where did you get those groovy clothes. I would love to be able to get a dashiki (indian loose shirt) again. Those are so comfy!
We are spreading the progenitor's ashes on Tuesday and hopefully I can make it a closure kind of thing. Or something that I can move a little further ahead in this process.
Palzang
Interesting thought! Absolutely not! How did I know what happy was? By seeing other people happy. My homelife growing up was so freaking insane that I did not know what normal was and I don't even mean that in the sense of "there is no such thing as normal". I truly thought other people abused their kids and treated them like dirt. So when I saw people not treating their kids poorly, I was sure they were on good behavior because I was there. So, please be happy. It gives unhappy kids something to hold out for. That's about all I had to hold out for.
It's just that actions have consequences. Getting abused is not necessarily the consequence of any of the kids' actions, but it is the consequence of others' actions and abuse itself is an action that has yet further consequences, especially for the abused but also for the abuser.
let me be to the point with compassion
i have a problem with someone telling you are 80 percent of the way there.
YOU have control .. that in itself speaks volumes. healing can be foggy, being full of
hidden hurts and insightful moments.. . i have been there.
karma? ... i pondered that to.. im hearing from you there is still alil guilt.
perhaps knowing i was a child let me off the hook to a certain degree. my
feelings are / were...... i chose my parents for what ever reasons. i was abused for
years.. and i never have any regrets on the way my life was or is.
my mom could never understand why i would visit my stepfather when i was a
teen.. after the skeleton was out of the closet.
i had no anger. confusion yes.. but the process in seeing him was only helping
me to grow... yes i had therapy, and went through years of healing.
but listen.. you are not the same person as you were then.. dont you feel it
was a like a different life back then.?
remember impermance.
i pityed my dad.. his life was lies, compulsions, deception, drugin stupor.. unsensitive to
lifes hidden gems of compassion and wonders.
the dynamics of what he did veined off to teach my other siblings lessons as well
and my mother.
***im tryin here to tell my story with hopes that i can incorperate something you can fly with.
we are conditioned to think we must go through a therapy process and in time come
out some what ok. we hear on tv all the time we never fully recover..
heck with that!
that would stand true if we were "damaged and stayed in that conciousness"
but we attract wonderful karma and grow! we plant seeds and they blossom..
you are not the same kid, you are not the same guy you were 10 years ago,
2 years ago.. last week.. and even as you are reading this you are changing.
rise up and shine my dear..
go to bury those ashes with pride, with stamina, with faith, with insight,,
and most of all with compassion.. life is wonderful!!
so what we had some misfortune in the past.. enjoy your fruitful moments.
be excited for the future..
ok.. sorry if im sounding like im way out there.. im really standing beside you.
as are many.
again to answer karma.. ya i dont no.. maybe we did something in a past life.
i dont frigin no.. i dont care.. i dont put much thought into my 10 years ago
karma.. only i no it has lead to me where i am now.. i dont get attached to it.
i shine daily thats all i no.. and its parcially thanks to my stepfather..
also to add.. i had a disease that the doctors said there was no cure for.
ppppfffffffff...
dealing with the root of that disease was ( simply undigested thoughts of abuse )
so i digested them.. suffered for quite a few years.. grew.. and tossed out the
window "the medical conditioning that was implied upon me"
havent been sick in years!
i think we are far more capable of alot of things.
drop the small attachment you have with what you might have done to cas this
pain.. then the pain drops..
JERBEAR I CANT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.. ITS REAL REAL SIMPLE..
DONT LET ANYONE TELL YOU "ITS A DIFFICULT PROCESS"
IT CAN BE.. but ITS OUR CHOICE.
i hope you say your good byes to his body.. and have compassion when
you do so.. its part of the process.. and if you dont.
so be it.. its just his body.
but at the time for me.. it was helpful
I guess I never really question what is karma and what is life? How does one tell the difference? What does it matter? Whether karma or "life" - you still have to deal with it.
I sometimes think to myself that - maybe karma is just a load of crap. Maybe our "actions" don't do anything one way or the other. I know bad people that still prosper. Their actions don't seem to affect them one way or the other. I've seen good people struggle and struggle and never get ahead and live a life of bad breaks.
But... I do think about lying on my deathbed - whether I've dealt with the karma of my actions in this life or not - and lying there thinking, "God!.... you were such an asshole!"
-bf
Two little 8 year old boys in another state were taken by 3 teenage boys to a wooded area next to the housing development that the 8 year olds lived in and they were sexually abused tortured and their genitals cut off and they were thrown in a ditch to die. This all happened when my youngest son Latt was 8, we lived in a housing development next to a wooded area.
I'm not really sure what happened to me that summer but I totally freaked out. Maybe it was because I had been abused as a child (nothing like these children) or my son was 8 and same living conditions I really don't know but I wouldn't let my poor son out of my sight. I was so angry at God. If there really was a god how could he allow something so horrible to happen to children. He was suppose to be a loving god. Children were innocents. What the hell was he thinking? I talked about it all the time. No one could answer my questions.....except to say......no one knows why things happen. The just do. Have faith in god and all will be well. I'm thinking........are you serious. I want answers not have blind faith........So I started reading Buddhist text like crazy looking for answers other than Christian blind faith answers. And I found it. I may not have liked the answer but it was an answer and that was Karma. I could be wrong on how I look at Karma but for me it was relief. If bad things happen to us it is due to Karma. If we did really bad things in a past life and we pay for that in this life by abuse or death at an early age then that bad Karma is cleaned for our next life. I read something to this affect many years ago. Did I understand it correctly? I don't know and if I didn't then just let me continue believing as I do now.........because it makes me feel better to know that bad things that happen to children are due to past Karma and their next life will be better and I can live with that. Maybe I don't like it but at least it is an answer instead of just having blind faith.
Hi Jerry,
I think that we may be misguided in who the karmic response is let loose upon. An abuser is the one who will "inherit" the Karmic consequences, it is not the child victim who has done anything to their own karma. It was perpetrated by the abuser, it was done to them.
Very often in this world, the Victim seems to be the one to be blamed...or at least understood to be somewhat "contributing" to the attack.
It seems that here a great many of our contributors are survivors-it would be interesting to see what percentage of buddhists are survivors in comparison to the non-buddhist community. I wonder...:-/
regards,
Xrayman
Dreadful story, although I have heard about this attack that you mentioned.
It's hard to say, but many times I feel ashamed about my sex-the kind of horrible, disgusting and humiliating things men have done to both men and women, boys and girls.
I feel that in a way, perhaps each of us (men) get given back a little every day-for me its living with a Survivor and helping her to heal. In another way, Ihave two beautiful children who I feel I need to protect so much more than what we were as children. perhaps that is the karmic consequence that i have inherited?
I think Jerry was talking about the karmic inheritance of the child, what the child must have done in a previous life to be the victim of abuse in this one.
It strikes me as a relief that the abuse I suffered as a child burnt off whatever negative karma I'd accumulated in that area and now that I didn't continue the cycle of abuse I have an even stronger sense of relief. I'm extremely aware of my negative actions in this life that were a lashing out or an acting out as a result of the abuse. But I didn't take it too far and hopefully I will be burning it off in this lifetime. I have no idea what karmic seeds may come to fruition in my future but now that I've walked along this path I know enough to allow whatever negativity occurs to simply occur, and leave it at that, comforted in the knowledge that if I don't lash out or succumb to it's residue I'll have come through another karmic burning up and am better for it.
This is personal opinion and probably doesn't have anything to do with the dharma, but I finally realised why it irks me that people talk so much about "burning off karma" here (though it's probably just an expression and I'm reading too much into it). I don't think karma is some entity flying around out there or living inside of us. It's "just" cause and effect... seeds coming into fruition. We don't "burn off" karma by enduring life circumstances, it's not by enduring abuse as a child that we transform/burn/stop karma, it's by stopping the cycle and not sowing seeds of abuse that we transform.
I think looking at negative/painful situations as karma burning up is just another way of comforting ourselves and seeking meaning in something that has no meaning unless we use it to tranform ourselves.
Enduring painful situations changes nothing unless it inspires us to choose differently and become more compassionate people, but of course we want there to be some meaning to it to make it easier to bear, that's very human.
We were abused because our parents were abused and because they couldn't bring themselves to stop or maybe even see that what they did was wrong. Nothing more meaningful than that.
Of course, my understanding of this may change in the future.
Sorry I second guessed the meaning of your post. I thought you were responding in part to Jerry's grappling with child abuse in this sense: I understood Jerry to mean that he was trying to come to terms with the idea that a child going through abuse could be experiencing the karmic fruit of previous life actions. When I read your post I thought you were saying that we were getting confused about who's karma was coming to fruition and so on. I thought you were confused that we were confused but it's just me that's confused.
Aquula,
I guess I'm a little confused by your post. lol! When you said "I got the impression that Xrayman knew that's what Jerbear was talking about, and reacted to that kind view.", what kind of view are you referring to? The possibility that a child comes into the world carrying karmic baggage from past lives? Because as far as I know that's a Buddhist understanding, is it not?
I honestly didn't think about the karmic consequences as a form of guilt. Thank you so much Colleen! Guilt is something I struggled with for so long r/t the abuse. I can kick this one square in the can now. I look at the abuse and healing myself as a battle. I now have the capacity to fight it.
XrayMan, thank you too! Knowing the contributor of the Y chromosome is the one that will get it is good to know. It's too bad that children have to endure their parents actions. When we spread his ashes tomorrow, I'm going to think about that. It will be great to know that he won't be able to hurt us anymore (my siblings and I).
[Enduring painful situations changes nothing unless it inspires us to choose differently and become more compassionate people, but of course we want there to be some meaning to it to make it easier to bear, that's very human.
We were abused because our parents were abused and because they couldn't bring themselves to stop or maybe even see that what they did was wrong. Nothing more meaningful than that.
There is a part of me that gets it that way, Aquula. It has been my life's drive to not be like my father even though there are things like him that driveth me nuts! I work on them as I do have a short temper at times. I may even look at this like a game (child like but humor me. I didn't really have a childhood) and see how I can specifically be kinder and compassionate to others. Sometimes it's tough to be compassionate as we all know.
ITD, whatever works for you! If that brings you peace fantastic.
Boo, what can I say. Love ya lots, sweetie!
/B]
hooray Jerry, you understood my post, Aquuala you also understood my point, and Boo you get it now-sometimes I am a little lateral in my thinking and my posts, for that I'm sorry but it has all been "got", now.
Best wishes to you all.
NOTE: I had a really normal childhood, nothing like almost all of you have had YIKES! but I feel for all of you. As one of you knows very well, I am learning to write GOOD articles that touch lives-you know, important shit. So you are all inspiring me to attend to more pressing issues to write about. In fact, my latest article is going to be about why the baby Boomers and the generation above them abused so many of us Generation X's-it seems that so many of us are 'wounded" by our childhoods-WHY? Why did this happen to US? We use psychological services more than any previous generations and we are seen as obstructionist, questioning and outspoken-mmm I wonder why?
sorry for my rant.
regards,
Richard
I don't think that abuse is happening more, I think it is recognized more. I honestly thought that the way my father "disciplined" me was normal until I was a teenager. I couldn't run away (not in me) and I had no where to go, so I took it.
One thing I don't agree with is that corporal punishment is abuse. If a parent has tried everything else they can think of, a good swat on the bottom never hurt someone for more than 15 minutes. LOL! You all may disagree with me. Since I'm not rearing children, I'm sure my insights are thoughtful and not trying to do it while hearing "MOMMY, MOMMY!!!! DADDY DADDY!!!!! I WANT _______. (parent says no) "WHYYYYYYY!!!!" (child throws temper tantrum on floor in the middle of store). Parent should leave the loved one on the floor until they realize they just might be left there. It worked for my mother.
It's the humiliation, fear, degradation, the emotional hurt that people grow up with and find themselves having to deal with in adulthood, and I can promise you that there are *many* who were "only" spanked that grow up with the same emotional trauma to deal with as those who were more severely abused, physically, emotionally, mentally, or sexually, and those who grew up in homes with addicts or in neglect. And they are told by society that they shouldn't feel that way because it wasn't serious enough. Where's the compassion in that?
(I hope this didn't come across as harsh, it was not my intention.)
It didn't come across hard. Most survivors I've talked to have had similar situations as mine. I have not run across someone who said they were abused because they received a spanking once in a while. Granted, I agree that it is wrong to spank a child when frustrated or angry. I'm sure some one might think that but I've heard many people say that there parents spanked them from time to time and some said they didn't like it. They also said they wouldn't do it to their children. My partner told me that his parents would whack them with a paddle. They were told why they were being paddled and what was expected of them. I thought this the most sane approach to corporal punishment I've ever heard. To hit a child because you're angry or frustrated with the child isn't in the child's best interest and wrong. To let children run the house because you're afraid of being accused of "abuse" is just as wrong.
I ask this sincerely because I want to know. What do you consider effective discipline for children? I would like to know because all I've ever known personally was getting a beating. It always helps me to learn more. (And it is good karma for you, too!)
Different consequences for different ages, for instance, redirecting attention works well for very young children, but not so well for teenagers. The consequences have to be consistent, predictable, and logical. Not getting icecream on Saturday because you didn't do your homework Wednesday doesn't make sense, but not watching tv Wednesday night because your mom or dad is helping you finish the homework you didn't do earlier does. Points systems where you earn priviledges by good behaviour work well for some kids. Reframing the way you think and present things so that instead of removing priviledges for bad behaviour, you earn them by good behaviour. Things like that.
Punishment, perhaps especially physical, always has an element of vindictiveness in it, and is about asserting power rather than showing what the right way of acting would be. And physical punishment can't be a logical consequence for whatever the behaviour in question is and that takes much of the learning out of it. Punishment teaches *fear* and anger and it teaches you to lie to avoid getting caught. It teaches you to act out of fear of punishment rather than wanting to do what's right.
I'd really like for them to know about hand me down clothes and homemade ice cream and leftover meat loaf sandwiches. I really would.
I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated.
I hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car.
And I really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you are sixteen.
It will be good if at least one time you can see puppies born and your old dog put to sleep.
I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in.
I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother/sister. And it's all right if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he's scared, I hope you let him.
When you want to see a movie and your little brother/sister wants to tag along, I hope you'll let him/her.
I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.
On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don't ask your driver to drop you two blocks away so you won't be seen riding with someone as uncool as your Mom.
If you want a slingshot, I hope your Dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying one.
I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books.
When you learn to use computers, I hope you also learn to add and subtract in your head.
I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush on a boy\girl, and when you talk back to your mother that you learn what ivory soap tastes like.
May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole.
I don't care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don't like it.
I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your Grandma/Grandpa and go fishing with your Uncle.
May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.
I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor's window and that she hugs you and kisses you at Hannukah/Christmas time when you give her a plaster mold of your hand.
These things I wish for you – tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me, it's the only way to appreciate life.
By Paul Harvey
im gona copy and paste that..
; )
I can relate and I also saved it to my computer.
Adiana:thumbsup:
I see your point. Please realize that "punishment" is rather a loaded word for me and what some would think as horrible I would have considered a treat growing up. I don't have kids and don't ever plan on adopting so my opinion on child care isn't based on experience. One must raise their children in the way they see fit. They also can hope their kids don't talk about them on the analyst's couch 20 years later.
Very good point, a survivor myself, I have looked this at these issuses thouroughly. Esspecially in the case of a child, the child in most cases take on the mistakenly the karma of the abuser. The perception of the child is that they have done something wrong, and create thier reality accordingly. The karma that led to the act is IMO derieved from the karma of the abuser.
In the case of my abuse, I was already silenced by my parents, and a perpetrator took advantage of that conditioning.
All the events that have occured needed to occur in order for me to have the willingness to cultivate my current practice. I am but a continuation of my ancestry's lineage, and as such it my responsibility to heal those injuries and suffering that that my ancestors could not. As I heal my suffering, I am witness to others that liberation is possible.
I don't know who gave me this, but I've been refferencing it alot lately:
When people start to meditate or to work with any kind of spiritual discipline, they often think that somehow they're going to improve, which is a sort of subtle aggression against who they really are. It's a bit like saying, "If I jog, I'll be a much better person." "If I could only get a nicer house, I'd be a better person." "If I could meditate and calm down, I'd be a better person"...
But loving-kindness - maitri - toward ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to change ourselves. Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That's the ground, that's what we study, that's what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.
Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness
Be kind to yourself-
In Gassho
Steve
I think it's actually more correct to say that the abuser and the one abused share the karma. That's the way it works. It's almost like a dance, you might say. In one life, one is the abuser and the other the abused, and in the next life, vice versa. Maybe not that exacting, but that's the general drift, at least as I've been taught.
Did you see Little Buddha? At the beginning is the story about the priest about to cut the goat's throat for a sacrifice when the goat starts laughing. The priest can't understand why the goat would be so happy when it is about to die (not to mention being able to laugh and talk!). The goat explains that 500 lifetimes ago he was a priest who sacrificed goats, so for 499 lifetimes his karma was to be the sacrificial goat. Since this was the 500th time, it meant he would at last be free from this karma. Then he began to weep. When the priest asked what was wrong now, the goat replied that he was weeping for the priest who now faced 500 lifetimes of being the sacrificial goat. This so shocked and upset the priest that he immediately renounced the killing of animals for sacrifice and vowed to make amends as best he could. The point of the story is that if you kill someone (or something), you will in turn suffer being killed 500 times. Now, I don't know if the math works out that way or not, but the moral of the story is that, as it says in the Bible, "as ye give, so shall ye receive."
It's the same with child abuse or anything else. Although the child never did anything to anybody in this life, it's obvious that in a past life he must have done something to create these causes. As my teacher puts it, there are no victims in Buddhism. That doesn't mean it's a blame game. The whole point of the teaching is to put a stop to the endless cycle of karma by making other choices instead. So karma, as you correctly point out, when properly understood, is an opportunity, not a reason to feel bad about yourself or guilty.
Palzang
I was watching a movie the other day, I think it was the English version of "Shall We Dance" and Susan Sarandon plays the wife. She says that people get married so that they will have a witness to their lives. I thought about that and realized that we have a witness whether we're married or not. We have karma with us every step of the way.
I imagine I'm thinking of karma in a bit of a wrong sense since I'm thinking of it as outside of myself, a law that watches over me. I should probably think of it a bit differently.
Aquula, I know you said that it bothers you when we talk about "burning up" our negative karma so is there a better way to put it? The goat in Palzang's story was happy about being sacrificed for the 500th time because his negative karma in that respect was being worked through, or burnt up.
To all, what would be the right expression for this?
Palzang
Say someone is born into a family of alcoholics. That's not a good way of growing up and they end up with a lot of questions as adults. They want to know why they had to be born into a family like that, why they had go through all that, why bad things happened to *them* (which is the wrong question to begin with... not "why me?" - it should be "why them?" "why are they this way?") and maybe they read about karma and think that it must be because of something they did in an earlier life and start feeling that now they've grown up like that, they've burned up some karma.
But that's all pointless (and I've asked myself questions like that *so* many times (my parents don't drink and never have, just so no one gets the wrong idea)) and it's wrong, because the karma isn't burned up or worked through *then*, it's when you choose not to drink, when you choose new behaviours and choose not to perpetuate the cycle that the karma is "burned up".
I'm sure I'm still not making any sense with any of this. I can't think of a good way of clarifying what I mean (which probably just means that the thought isn't developed enough for me to talk about it).
Palzang
Both of my parents are alcoholics so I assume I was an alcoholic or drug addicted parent at some point in the past because being born to alcoholics would be a logical result. It's the life I created for myself by my actions at some point in the past. So simply experiencing the life of a child of alcoholics is all the result there is of that particular karma. I don't think my subsequent behaviour has anything to do with that karma. I think any subsequent behaviour will only have to do with future karma because I'm planting seeds with my behaviour for the future. The past karma is already resolved, burnt up, worked through, whatever term is right, (but you get my meaning) simply by having been born to alcoholic parents. Whether I choose to break the cycle or not has no effect on the resolution of that past karma because it's already been resolved.
Obviously it's more complex than that but you get my gist. I experience the results of my past karma through the circumstances I find myself in. Experiencing those results resolves the past karma. My actions determine my future karma, they don't contribute to the resolution of the past karma.
If I was miserly in a past life I will experience poverty in a future life, right? If I decide to behave generously in that future life it's because I made a choice, it's not the result of that past karma nor does it have anything to do with resolving that past karma. It has to do with the planting of future karmic seeds which will blossom into wealth when the right conditions come together.
Am I understanding this right or am I way off?
Wait...I think I just got what you were saying, Aquula. Are you talking about making karma meaningful in one's life? As in, it doesn't matter so much where the karma comes from but what you do with it that makes it meaningful and transformative? Is that what you're saying? If it is, I totally get it. Yes, that's really the bottom line, isn't it? I think what I missed was your point that it's not enough just to burn the karma off but what you do with the experience that makes it meaningful. Yes, completely. That's the goal as Palzang was saying, the way to get off the endless cycle of rebirth. I hope I've understood you better and not gone off in the wrong direction.
I think you're understanding it very well, Brigid. I mean, the whole point of the Buddha's teaching is to help us stop suffering, not trying to assign blame for why we're suffering.
Palzang
Most of us know that the Jesus message is called "gospel" or "good news". As students of the Dharma, I think that we should also be stressing the "good news" aspect.
Old Omar the Carpet-Maker, in FitzGerald's translation, says: No quatrain in the Rubaiyat could better describe my own path. Perhaps I was patterned to it by hearing the verses recited over and over again at home as a child. And I experienced, over and again, the same disappointment as Khayyam. And not just from 'spiritual' teachers but from my mentors in psychology, philosophy, art or wherever: I never found a new door.
And then I heard the First Noble Truth! Perhaps I had been told it before. I imagine I must have been but I had never heard it before. It is a personal moment that sticks in my memory like the evening Kennedy died.
I imagine that each of us has the same sort of experience: that moment when something makes sense, like that piece of the engine, long sought in the muck and oil, fits into place and, suddenly, the machine begins to work.
It was a bhikku of the Burmese Forest Tradition. He was teaching meditation at our local leisure centre. We met in the cafetaria after it had (allegedly) closed. Our 30 minutes of silence would often be interrupted by the tannoy or people trying to get in for a drink. At our first meeting, bhante John said: "The First Noble Truth tells us that life is unsatisfactory". And that was it.
I often wonder if I have realised anything as clearly before or since, although the Third Truth, the truth of a way out (Nirodha), now seems to me to be the Gospel of the Dharma.
(Note: With appropriate acknowledgment to this group of extraordinary e-friends, I hope to expand this off-the-cuff response into a blog entry. I am really having interesting trouble blogging!)
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Palzang
No sh*t, Sherlock.
-bf
Palzang