Karma

[Sky Dancer]

I'm starting this thread because a poster indicated that she was interested in discussing the meaning of karma.

To a Buddhist. karma means, "cause and effect". It has nothing to do with pre-determination, destiny, or punishment and reward.

 

[Mr. H.]

If you snatch enough purses, you learn a few things about Mace.

-Earl Hickey

 

[Wiseacre]

What goes around comes around, in this life or the next. Doesn't that about sum it up?

 

[FactFinder]

I'm starting this thread because a poster indicated that she was interested in discussing the meaning of karma.

To a Buddhist. karma means, "cause and effect". It has nothing to do with pre-determination, destiny, or punishment and reward.

That is a very limited view of Buddhism. Buddhism does deal with destiny, pre determination, punishment & reward. Cause & effect is all about punishment and reward. As for predetermination I would predict you are in danger of coming back as a mole.

 

[Wiseacre]

I'm starting this thread because a poster indicated that she was interested in discussing the meaning of karma.

To a Buddhist. karma means, "cause and effect". It has nothing to do with pre-determination, destiny, or punishment and reward.

That is a very limited view of Buddhism. Buddhism does deal with destiny, pre determination, punishment & reward. Cause & effect is all about punishment and reward. As for predetermination I would predict you are in danger of coming back as a mole.

I'm coming back as a left leaning wingnut. I've been bad, very, very bad.

 

[FactFinder]

I'm starting this thread because a poster indicated that she was interested in discussing the meaning of karma.

To a Buddhist. karma means, "cause and effect". It has nothing to do with pre-determination, destiny, or punishment and reward.

That is a very limited view of Buddhism. Buddhism does deal with destiny, pre determination, punishment & reward. Cause & effect is all about punishment and reward. As for predetermination I would predict you are in danger of coming back as a mole.

I'm coming back as a left leaning wingnut. I've been bad, very, very bad.

Well deserved

 

[Amelia]

I'm coming back as a left leaning wingnut. I've been bad, very, very bad.

 

[alan1]

If you snatch enough purses, you learn a few things about Mace.

-Earl Hickey

If you purse enough snatches you learn something about prostitution.
~ MountainMan

 

[BDBoop]

What goes around comes around, in this life or the next. Doesn't that about sum it up?

It does.

 

[Dragon]

I'm coming back as a left leaning wingnut. I've been bad, very, very bad.

That's a reward, a promotion to a higher state of enlightenment.

In saying "Buddhism," one must distinguish between the teachings of the Buddha and the practice of Buddhism as a living religion. What the OP said was true about the Buddha's teachings, but not about Buddhism as it is commonly practiced.

The Buddha was an atheist. He did not believe in transmigration of souls or reincarnation. His concept of karma was impersonal and had nothing to do with justice; an act had reverberations down through time, but did not necessarily come back upon the person performing it. To him, the individual self was an illusion, and enlightenment consisted of overcoming that illusion by overcoming desire. He achieved through his meditations (or somehow anyway) a state of enlightenment in which he knew himself to be one with all the universe -- a poor way of putting it, but language is not designed for this purpose. His system of spiritual knowledge and awareness was completely psychological and not theistic at all. He was bitterly opposed by the Indian priests (who followed a Vedic religion but probably shouldn't at this point be called Hindu) because he rejected the gods, religious rituals, sacrifices, and the whole portfolio of belief and practice that gave the priests their power in society.

However, as Buddhism spread after the Buddha's death, it gained many followers who were neither as enlightened as he was nor as intelligent nor as well educated. (There are advantages to being a prince.) Gods, souls, and personal karma were accepted back into various forms of Buddhism, always with the explanation that these were lesser realities that helped the aspirant along the path until he/she could achieve true desireless enlightenment, whereupon they were all to be abandoned. In practice, Buddhism has become a religion, something the Buddha himself would not have wanted most likely.

 

[Si modo]

I view karma as an equilibrium. Any external influences by an individual just cause the equilibrium to react to that new influence and seek an altered equilibrium and that reaction to the new input may not be what an individual imagined.

Le Chatlier applies to the spiritual ether as well.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLrTPrp-fW8]70s Mother Nature *Chiffon* Margarine Commercial - YouTube[/ame]

 

[syrenn]

Karma is also and enormous cop out in not taking any responsibility for anything your in life. It is also a way to rationalize your way out of anything and everything without assigning blame or fault.

It is your karma to steal, their karma to be stolen from
It is your karma to be mean, their karma to suffer
it is your karma to be crippled, their karma to take care of you
It is your karma to be miserable, their karma to be happy
Its not your fault, its karma.
You are not responsible, its karma
If it good, its karma
if it is bad, its karma.

 

[elvis]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXF9A3oWnho]"INSTANT KARMA" John Lennon - YouTube[/ame]

 

[BDBoop]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOrnUquxtwA]Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around...Comes Around - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Sky Dancer]

I'm starting this thread because a poster indicated that she was interested in discussing the meaning of karma.

To a Buddhist. karma means, "cause and effect". It has nothing to do with pre-determination, destiny, or punishment and reward.

That is a very limited view of Buddhism. Buddhism does deal with destiny, pre determination, punishment & reward. Cause & effect is all about punishment and reward. As for predetermination I would predict you are in danger of coming back as a mole.

I disagree based on the teachings I've recieived about karma from various lamas in the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.

Karma is not about judgement, sin or punishment and reward. It's simply cause and effect. I have the karma to have been born a human with an interest in spiritual development. That karma allows me to take whatever happens to me in my life and put it in some perspective that allows spiritual growth.

Since I have the karma to have a human body, I am born with a consciousness capable of reflecting on my own impending death. I have the karma to age, to get sick, and to eventually die.

There is no judgment in there about any of that. It is what it is. I've had the karma to have endured certain hardships in life and the karma to have been able to use them to open my heart and grow.

Pre-determination is the idea that everything that happens to you in life is pre-ordained. Karma isn't destiny or pre-determination. Karma is much more chaotic in how it is expressed.

I may have the karma to get in a car accident, but I may also have the karma to survive that accident and to use the trauma to grow. I kniow a man who was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident. He has completely used that experience to change his life for the better. To hear him talk, his words, his accident was a great blessing. He developed other skills and interests other than athletics that have made his life more meaningful. He says he is happier now than he was before the accident. That is an example of karm. He had the karma to be in a bad car accident with life changing injuries and he had the karma to use that experience to benefit himself and others.

Karma is always mixed because human beings have mixed motivation. Karma is not an excuse. I had the karma to be born to my parents. My parents both had mental illness, that fact led to my lifelong interest in working on my own inner life and the inner life of others.

It is not a punishment that my parents were mentally ill. It is how my life expressed itself with what I came in with. I had a tendency to be introspective from the time I was a tiny child. I had the karma to think I should care for my parents, not that they should care for me.

Jarvis Masters had the karma to be born to a crack addict and to a violent father. He had the karma as a very young child to sleep on urine and feces stained mattresses with no parent home for days and to find food in garbage bins. He was severely abused. He had the karma to spend his growing up years in a series of foster homes and to become an angry and mean young man who joined a gang. He had the karma to take up a life of crime and to be imprisoned for it. He had the karma to be accused, tried and convicted of a murder he did not commit, and he had the karma to be given the death penalty.

Jarvis had the karma to take up Buddhist meditation, which he admits, he never would have done without the death penalty sentence. He's had the karma to open his mind and heart and the karma to learn to write stories that inspire young people to drop out of gangs and leave crime behind. He still may be executed, but even so, he will die a free man in his heart. He had the karma to help a woman I knew well who was dying of MS. She was able to complete a children's book for her family before she died. This wonderful woman, had the karma to have MS, but also to have a loving husband and family, to have great medical care, to have a sunny disposition inspite of her extreme disabilities and the karma to make friends with all her caretakers, doctors and social workers. I had the karma to be the one to write the letters for her to Jarvis and to be the one who read Jarvis's letters to her and to read Jarvis' book to her. I had that kind of good karma, to know them both, to see one living with bars on her bed unable to move and one living with bars on his windows and to see them both transcend their circumstances.

These are just examples.

Everyone sees karma differently depending on your life experience. Some people may see karma in Judeo-Christian terms as crime or sin, and punishment or retribution.

Buddhists who have recieved teachings on emptiness and karma see the topic of karma differently from Buddhists who haven't recieived those teachings.

 

[alan1]

According to M. Scott Peck, we all grew up with mentally ill parents.
Imagine that, a psychologist that spends his entire life dealing with mentally ill people thinking that all people are mentally ill.

 

[The Infidel]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN9mFiWEgS8]Heroes Parody - My Name is Earl.... I mean Sylar - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Sunshine]

Karma is not absolute. It is not 100%. There IS a certain randomness in the universe. Good things happen to people who do bad things; and bad things happen to people who do good things.

No one escapes life. Karma or no karma. As Hemingway said: The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

 

[Sunshine]

According to M. Scott Peck, we all grew up with mentally ill parents.
Imagine that, a psychologist that spends his entire life dealing with mentally ill people thinking that all people are mentally ill.

He didn't say all people. He said all parents. Not all people are parents.

But there IS a point there. Kids drive you crazy.

 

[Sky Dancer]

According to M. Scott Peck, we all grew up with mentally ill parents.
Imagine that, a psychologist that spends his entire life dealing with mentally ill people thinking that all people are mentally ill.

M Scott Peck was a brilliant psychologist. I almost moved to Kentucky to study with him.

One of the most wonderful books he wrote was about what he called, "ordinary evil". Those are the efforts that some people make to break the spirit of others.

He also wrote a book about how to develop a feeling of community among people. He said it occurs when we each share our "brokenness". That means the places where our hearts have been broken and we have found a way to get up again.

Peck had a very expansive view of what mental illness is. You may want to study that a little more to understand him better.

He was a gifted individual who helped many, many people live happier lives.