What is the law of karma?
In Buddhism, the law of karma describes how causes and effects interact in our world. The point of understanding how karma works is to see the nature of things as they are, beyond any kind of delusion or wishful thinking.
What does the law of karma have to do with the current economic crisis? Maybe our national economic policy could use a good healthy dose of seeing "things as they are."
In our individual meditation practice, there is no magic bullet, no fantasy transformation, no gimmicks -- we have to work through our karma, brick by brick -- it is manual labor.
With meditation practice, we can see how our mind works -- what creates positive karma (compassion and wisdom), and what creates negative karma (aggression, attachment and ignorance). That is how we get clarity about how certain causes create certain conditions -- how did we get where we are and what we can do about it.
With the same approach, with real scrutiny, perhaps our current debt ceiling crisis can be seen to be nothing other than our national money karma coming to fruition. There are some basic principles at work here, immune from any kind of fancy talk or manipulation. Certain basic causes and conditions have created the current situation:
1. We have borrowed too much money.
Just as many of us have done as individuals, as a nation we have simply borrowed too much money, and now our creditors are knocking at the door. I don't think you need an advanced degree in economics to figure this out. Sometimes common sense is more valuable than intricate theories. It's time to pay some of this debt down, just as we would (and as some of us have) if this were our individual problem only.
2. We have been too greedy.
As a nation (and many of us as individuals) we have been willing to sacrifice long-term prosperity for short-term gain, over and over again. Many of us are addicted to a hyper-extended materialistic lifestyle (certainly by global standards) and have been willing to go deeply into debt to maintain it. Additionally, a tiny percentage of extremely wealthy people are now in a position to manipulate our entire economy to further their own self-centered, limited agenda, which they are now doing on a global level. Gordon Gekko said "greed is good," but now we will get to see if that will be his "final answer."
3. Our national political arena has become overrun with personalized agendas and bad manners.
We seem to have a chasmic divide amongst our so-called "leadership." Creative friction can sometimes be very effective in flushing out different points of view and perhaps reaching a higher fusion. But we seem to have gone well beyond that kind of creative friction in our national politics to the level of some kind of permanently feuding mentality.
Like the Hatfields and the McCoys, we now see our two "parties" immersed in an ongoing tit for tat, with nobody being very clear about the origin or the point of it all. There seems to be a crescendo of personalized agendas in the public sector. Temporal leaders, just like good spiritual teachers, could be invited to check their ego at the door. Wouldn't that be refreshing?
The solution? We need bigger vision.
Let's think about what would be good for ourselves and others. Are these really two completely different things? Perhaps we bring out the best in each of us and are also happier individuals when we have a feeling of contributing to a common cause beyond self-aggrandizement. If we are arguing about what would be the best outcome for the larger good, that could be a healthy argument to have. If we're going to keep playing the "me, me, me" game, we might be spinning on this particular wheel of karma forever --- like a giant Ferris Wheel with all of us on it.
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This was a very thought-provoking read. I'm glad to know that there are others out there who think of current events on more than a dollars-and-cents level. I'd be interested to know what you (or any of the more knowledgeable followers of Buddhism) think of karma in relation to the priorities of our government. So much of our collective revenue is spent on war machinery, even as cuts are made to things such as health care and education, things which serve humanity, and I can't help but believe this fact has also contributed to our current situation.
I do believe that everything is connected. Not that it makes sense, or is just, but it is all connected.
'Rebirth' then becomes a moment-to-moment thing, of not being caught in the grasping going on in society. This is using self-awareness to avoid 'reincarnating' who we were into the next moment. It is to step outside the problem of action in vicious circles--as you outline in your article.
When one speaks of "karma" it is usually in one of two settings:
1. The effect that is the result of a particular choice by a person or group of people. I chose to steal, and its karma that I find myself mired in a life of suffering, dishonesty, stress, and embroilment with other criminals and the justice system.
or....
2. The pattern of conditioning (biological, tempermental, experiential) that creates a tendency in a person to behave in a certain fashion...or make certain choices. For example growing up in a dysfunctional family where there is addiction, can create karma such that I am more prone to become an addict...or to seek relationships with addicts or other people with compulsive behavior.
Growing up in a "bad" neighborhood can create karma such that I am more likely to engage in crime, drug abuse, and other forms of anti-social behavior....as well as the karma that follows the decisions to engage in these behaviors. Which is what creates the "cycle" that people speak of as being so difficult to escape.
Some get stuck and offer the false solution that, because of the above statement, the world isn't solid--it is 'maya'. Nope, 'thing, thing, no barrier'. The world is really real, the maya is the belief that I can act in it as an undetermined agent WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES. Maya is a relativity, things influence other things, mutual co-arising = pratitya. If I eat to keep from dying of hunger, I stay alive to hunger some more. This is the maya-karma problem. Otherwise eating to survive would seemingly bring the punishment, karma, of starvation at a later date ;)
It is necessary to realize that there is no contest between ego and experience (grasping), thus one is not held back by wrong deeds. It is only necessary to mend the split and to live out and become one’s hated or dark nature, the Borderline p.d. self that society disapproves of. To be awakened is to merge with the deathless, enlightened mind, which doesn’t judge, and doesn’t put us at war with our ‘bad’ part. The ego is replaced by the ego-Self, while alive.
So *that* is what I can blame when I don't properly manage my finances?
Maybe I can blame *karma* for getting a speeding ticket.
Maybe I can blame *karma* for my high blood pressure.
Maybe I can blame *karma* for the bank foreclosing on my house.
If only I knew to blame Karma so many decades ago...
I was being sarcastic.
cigi said:
"If you try to do good things in your life, I have found for myself, that less bad comes down on top of my head. So try to avoid lying, cheating, stealing, excesses of any kind, and you know life can be less problematic."
Yes, if you don't lie, cheat, and steal, your life will be less problematic. But that's not karma. Liars get caught lying. Cheaters get caught cheating. Thieves (not stealers?) get caught stealing. People don't like being lied to, stolen from, or cheated, so they aren't going to respond kindly when they find what you did. That's just human nature.
If you kick a dog, it's going to bite you. If you don't kick dogs, you are less likely to be bitten by dogs. That's not karma, that's cause and effect.
Like I said, I didn't miss the point.
but thanks for your comment
; )
The speeding ticket is the effect, the cause is you were driving above the speed limit. Pure karma.
Your high blood pressure is the effect - the cause may be unhealthy lifestyle, lack of exercise, lack of training the mind, or - in the rare congenital case - the body you were born into based on previous cycles. Pure karma.
The bank foreclosure is the effect and the cause is that you did not pay your mortgage. There may be a million reasons you can use to rationalize why you did not pay it, but you owed the bank money, you didn't pay, and that is why they foreclosed. Pure karma.
Yes, if you knew decades ago then perhaps you would have caused a healthier lifestyle, behaviors that would bring about positive not negative results. But the good news is that it is never to late to create positive causes - karma doesn't begin and end anywhere.
- Yes... And everyday good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. And, unfortunately, good things happen to bad people. Welcome to Life101.
"Karma doesn't explain many of life's mysteries."
Karma doesn't "explain" any of life's mysteries. Karma has nothing to do with "explaining" mysteries. It is simply a principle which says that due to past causes and conditions (99.999% of which are out of our control) specific events unfold in this moment. Nothing more. No need to make it more either.
"It's unfair to be the recipient other peoples bad behavior."
- Like my wise old Gran always told me, "Life's unfair, but it beats the alternative."
"I can choose to fall with the fallen world or I can choose to stand with my dignity"
- What does this even mean?
The sad thing is, in my opinion, one can live by the eightfold path and still be victimized by the actions, or inactions, of others.
In wrong doing and ignorance against nature then we sometime suffer collectively.
Values of "common good/cause" are actually despised, reviled, and strategically undermined by Right-Wing media, money, institutions, leaders, and dogma. "Ignorance" is their mother's-milk. Their fuel. Their weapon. And it is Legion.
"Aggression, attachment and ignorance" is the perfect definition of right-wing "values", ideology, and political policy.
This is the karma that has been the overwhelming accruing force of the last 30 years in America, and here we are.
Democrats are guilty of embracing (and/or not fighting) the false right-wing economic religion as well. But that is why "party" is irrelevant. It's about ideology.
It just so happens that the modern Republican Party as a whole, is the personification of "aggression (martial/social/economic), attachment (greed/power) and ignorance (the foundation of their power)". Such is the stated ideological platform and values of the party.
The Democrats at least have a platform and value system of compassion. Its just been largely abandoned the last 3 decades.
But make no mistake, the "bad karma" of this country will continue as long as we do not defeat/exile the cancer of right-wing ideology from our society. In practical terms, this means destroying the Republican Party, and forcing the Democrats to once again live up to their historic values.