Who's Karma is it??

[disgracian]

Actually, I do know, but somehow you can't grasp that I can understand something and think it's ridiculous when it makes so much sense to you. For you "knowing" and believing"" here are the same. But I'll have a go.

Since we were talking about my understanding of karma, no, you don't know. You have repeatedly complained that I'm being too vague. We have established that you and I are talking about very different things when we refer to karma. It took four corrections before you stopped asking me to explain what kind of force it was. You give yourself far too much credit.

Clearly we can see that what we do in the past leads to experiences in our "new' lives. If I stub my toe, it is because I kicked a child in a past life, or if my daughter is raped and buried alive it is because she did the same as a warlord in a previous life. You can't escape your karma, right?

I do not believe in rebirth in the sense that my consciousness will daisy chain its way through mortal bodies, so I can't comment one way or another in that regard.

 

If, however, you are trying to assert that this sort of direct tit-for-tat always occurs then you would be leaping to conclusions, and demonstrating a tendency to bypass critical thought when you see the desired conclusion on the horizon. All that example shows is that, according to that story, the Buddha didn't escape his karma on that occasion. If you can find a passage that states this is a universal law that always applies then I'll be very interested to read it. What you have presented, however, falls well short of proving your point.

Ah, karma effects our future lives. From the same lecture: "For instance, when Maudgalyayana was beaten to death by bandits, the Buddha was able to tell that this event was the effect of something Maudgalyayana had done in a previous life when he had taken his aged parents to the forest and having beaten them to death, had then reported that they had been killed by bandits."

Some people believe it can. As I said before, I personally don't extend the principles of karma to future lives because I don't believe in the latter. I do not, however, disagree with the statement: "Reflecting on the Law of Karma, of action and reaction in the moral sphere encourages us to renounce unwholesome actions and cultivate wholesome actions." Negative people generally invite negativity back on themselves through their attitude.

It is true that in the lecture the author claims that karma is not fate or predestination, yet in the same lecture he uses examples that say it is exactly that. Orientalia does the same thing.

Sorry, where exactly does he do this? Could you contrast the offending passages perhaps?

So, why don't you tell me how karma can't be "fate" yet it determines the circumstances I find myself in in this life?

 

How's that for a start?

It's a pretty poor start. Why are you asking me to defend somebody else's definition of karma that you haven't competently shown and therefore I may not necessarily even agree with? Why don't you simply ask me what my views are on a particular aspect of it?

 

Cheers,

D.

[Moai]

It's a pretty poor start. Why are you asking me to defend somebody else's definition of karma that you haven't competently shown and therefore I may not necessarily even agree with? Why don't you simply ask me what my views are on a particular aspect of it?

 

Cheers,

D.

 

Well, there we go. It is my understanding that you are a Buddhist. Therefore I (perhaps wrongly) assumed that you adhere to Buddhist teachings. I gather from your last post, though, that you do not adhere to a strictly Buddhist interpretation of karma. As with all religions, the names of them really don't describe anything.

 

That's why there are thousands upon thousands of Christian sects, and thousands upon thousands of interpretations of karma.

 

What you posted previously is strikingly similar to what I have found on various Buddhist sites--I referenced two. I understand that you don't necessarily agree with them, which is totally cool (by definition) so feel free to ignore what I quoted. It is not incumbent upon you to defend that with which you disagree, certainly.

 

In my previous post I did provide an example of the contradictory nature of that definition of karma, i.e. it is about fate and destiny and yet it is claimed it isn't. If Buddha hit the fish over the head three times, and then had to endure a three-day headache that is specifically cause and effect. Not only that, no matter what he did--he had the headache even though he had achieved the state of a Buddha--he had to have that three-day headache. That is fate and predestination, is it not? Furthermore, if you cannot escape your karma, then there are certain experiences that you are doomed to undergo no matter what actions you yourself take--destiny.

 

All of this begs the question as to when the karmic wheel started, no? Did the first cellular life behave in such a way as to generate "good" karma, and then in order to progress new, more complex life forms had to evolve to provide vessels for these more enlightened spirits? Was there a groundswell of "good" karma that led homo habilis evolve into homo erectus, and on up into homo sapiens sapiens? Clearly there is no life form that is beyond human, or one would not achieve nirvana after a successful series of lives here as a human. Does that mean that humans do not evolve? Will the next form our species takes be more or less enlightened? Do living things have group karma too, or not? Do species die out when their position in the karmic wheel becomes unnecessary?

[disgracian]

Well, there we go. It is my understanding that you are a Buddhist. Therefore I (perhaps wrongly) assumed that you adhere to Buddhist teachings. I gather from your last post, though, that you do not adhere to a strictly Buddhist interpretation of karma.

Not strictly, no, owing mainly to my disbelief in reincarnation or rebirth as they are commonly presented. But it's fair to say I'm substantially influenced by Buddhist teachings. The closest notion I hold to rebirth is perhaps more related to matter itself rather than people. That is to say, when we die we are absorbed back into the earth, back into the cycle. What was me shall become nutrients in the soil, then become plantlife, then eaten by something else and so on and so on until I am completely diffused. I am the result of the same. In this sense we are all one.

That's why there are thousands upon thousands of Christian sects, and thousands upon thousands of interpretations of karma.

Yet at the same time, karma is basically the same across the board. At its most basic level, it is simply cause and effect. The variety is in how far one takes that notion and what mysticism (if any) they may tack to it. But at its core it's still very much the same thing.

In my previous post I did provide an example of the contradictory nature of that definition of karma, i.e. it is about fate and destiny and yet it is claimed it isn't.

Everything is contradictory if you pit one person's definition against another's. You'll really have to do a bit better than two random articles from the web. Maybe you could show me some contradictory Buddhist texts. I'd be impressed by that.

 

Cheers,

D.