"How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours." -- Wayne Dyer
We are all created equal in spirit but are not equal here on earth. Either this inequality has a cause, or it is purely accidental. No logical person would attribute this inequality to blind chance or pure accident. In fact, it would be illogical to do so. Each one of us is born into circumstances not of our choosing, or so we think. What then determines the intricate plot of this thing called life? Is everything the result of an invisible cause? In other words, is everything karma?
This apparent inequality seems to suggest that life is somehow unfair. Why should one person be a genius and another an idiot? Why should one person be born into the lap of luxury and another into abject poverty? Why should one person be born with altruistic qualities and another with criminal tendencies? Why are some blessed and others cursed from the moment they enter this sphere of life? What could possibly create such a diverse set of life circumstances?
The theory of Karma, the law of moral causation, comes from Buddhism, but this belief was prevalent in India before the Buddha came into being. Nevertheless, it was the Buddha who formulated this theory into a complete doctrine. According to Buddhism, this inequality among people is due not to heredity, environment, nature vs. nurture, but also to Karma. In other words, our own past action is the cause and our present expression is the effect. How could this life that you and I live be the effect of a cause? Is this effect solely based on this life alone? From the Buddhist perspective the answer would be no but it is a contributing factor.
Also, the theory of karma alludes to predestination, but if this were true then free will would be an absurdity. The only thing that is determined and fixed is gender, race, physicality, family and the dynamics we inherit from all these factors. Are these then not the seeds that reveal a particular path or destiny? However, what we choose to do with what karma has created for us is ultimately the goal.
Part of our growth is to understand our individual relationship to the cosmos, to understand how the universe affects us. Based on the principle that individual behavior mirrors universal patterns -- any act -- a thought, for example -- can have enormous impact. An examination of karma offers clues about our life purpose, showing us the deep imprint within our psyches and helping to guide us out of tendencies and thoughts that are no longer useful.
Karma, in the world of form, manifests as gain and loss, disgrace and praise, happiness and misery. Since the accumulated effect must somehow express itself through our experience we are often left feeling like a victim: "Why is this happening to me? What did I ever do to deserve this?" Rather than taking this stance, we need to remember that the law of karma is the teacher of individual responsibility. We learn through our reversal of fortunes that we are indeed the architects of our destinies. With our own self directed efforts there is every possibility for us to create new and favorable environments in the here and now. This is the beauty of the physical realm that we can undo, redeem and transform all causes into beneficial effects.
When the unexpected happens, when we meet up with difficulties, failures and misfortunes -- is this karma in action? Perhaps. But does it really matter whether it is or not? Should we not focus on our present life instead of blaming a past causation for our personal ills? By understanding karma, we have insight, and with insight come intention to make better choices in the present which will ultimately create favorable effects in the future. "As the blazing fire reduces wood to ashes, similarly, the fire of Self-knowledge reduces all Karma to ashes." -- Bhagavad Gita
"After a cycle of universal dissolution, the Supreme Being decides to recreate the cosmos so that we souls can experience worlds of shape and solidity. Very subtle atoms begin to combine, eventually generating a cosmic wind that blows heavier and heavier atoms together. Souls depending on their karma earned in previous world systems, spontaneously draw to themselves atoms that coalesce into an appropriate body." - The Prashasta Pada.
Furthermore, length of a being's stay in a Naraka is not eternal, though it is usually very long—measured in billions of years. A soul is born into a Naraka as a direct result of his or her previous karma (actions of body, speech and mind), and resides there for a finite length of time until his karma has achieved its full result. After his karma is used up, he may be reborn in one of the higher worlds as the result of an earlier karma that had not yet ripened.
That means working for others and not oursleves.
Maken others happy not oursleves
willing to work with the homeless and poor in the world, not for oursleves
Need to listen to our hearts and not with our minds...
Become a happier person by helping others..
It is like cause and effect..They all can be changed by us...Even it happen in a past life we can change our karma too...
But I think the Law of Codependant Origination is a better choice for the point that you are trying to make. If something appears in my life, then it is because the CONDITIONS necessary for it to occur arose in my life. Some of those conditions I have control over. Some of them I have the power to influence, but not control. The rest are neither within my power to influence, nor control.
The problem is two-fold. Humans---by nature---are "meaning making" machines. In that we have an innate need to understand WHY something happens, and WHAT that occurence means. So for many people Codependant arising---and its implications----while rationally indisputabe, is emotionally unsatisfying.
Also, in Judeo-Christian societies there is a long tradition in terms of seeing life adversity in moral terms. As either a punishement meted out by an angry God (Old Testament)...a test handed out by a capricious God (paradox of Job, the test of Abraham)....or just a sign of God's general disfavor (Calvinism).
The Buddha was silent on these issues for a reason....they are a distraction from dealing with the cause of human suffering. Which finds its root in the misperception of Reality....and our unwillingness to accept Reality for what it is, in the moment.
If there is unwanted adversity in our lives...then our attention needs to be directed to the conditions (in the moment) that created it.
Every ghost enters earth eating lifes, being eaten and interacting with lifes producing karma by reincarnating predestined as that specie balancing the karma within its specie. It incarnates as the next specie and reaps the karma of the first while sowing karma on others via interactions and continues the process through every earthen specie.
As man karma is balance on earthen species and sown for the next plane by interacting with angels. During the last earthen incarnation man metamorphose [born again] growing into eternal beings [angels] preparing to evolve to there. It's like a tadpole's tail began shortening and legs growing at a predetermine time, so does a man began changing at a predetermined time evolving into angels.
Hindus call the time man in mass metamorphose "Kali-Yuga," a time such as we are in with every conceivable act of man are being done openly leading to the time earth purges itself of all the acts by man to it to rejuvenate itself until looking like a new earth and sky. That's the cycle of existence and nothing the entities control, we do as we do following our destinies.
That's where the rubber hits the road!
If I eat spoiled food....my getting food poisoning is the result of Karma. My illness is the predictable effect of eating tainted food.
If I am rude to people, their animosity is the result of Karma. Their hosility is the predictable result of my disrespect.
If I steal from people, my going to prison is the result of Karma. My incarceration being the predictable result of my criminal behavior.
The only reason why it can be seen as an explanation for adversity in a given life, is that Buddhism teaches that Karma does extend from one life to another in the cycle of re-birth.
But it is not some sort of "moral agent" that punishes people in subsequent lives, for things they did in a prior one.
The best way to understand how (in the Buddhist tradition) how it applies from one life to another, lay in the answer one master gave to his student...
"If nothing is permanent, and everything changes....what is it that re-born from one life to anohter?"
"Your neuroses."
PTSD.
If two or more persons are involved, depending on each individual emotional reaction, mental impression is also formed.
www.happierthanabillionaire.com
The Buddha was not concerned with re-birth and directed his followers to leave the subject alone.
In Tibetan Buddhism, reincarnation is entertained but one must first understand that all existence is equally nothing more than a dream.
I guess the 'karma' that I most rebel against is the idea that if I am a slave being beaten by a slavemaster that all of this is "Justice" because I did something in another "life" to deserve this punishment and the Slavemaster did something in a previous life that is rewarding him with riches and power.
I don't buy it.
Because that is the primary pit fall of seeing Karma as some sort of moral agent.
It can make one HIGHLY indifferent to the suffering of other people. Because any injustice or bad behavior you see around you can written off to Karma. Either people atoning for bad actions in previous lives.....or people committing bad actions for which they WILL later be compelled to atone for.
My "materialist karma" way of thinking is more of just the laws of probability than a pure "what goes around comes around, if you do good it will come back to you" kind of thinking, though.
Given the self-evident proposition that humans generally respond favorably to rewards and unfavorably to losses, by being a good person to others you increase the probability that good things will flow back to you in your life.
This "materialist karma" doesn't mean that by doing good things you should expect a 1:1 return on your "moral investment", however; that would actually only tend to increase one's cynicism upon the inevitable realization that positive actions aren't frequently returned on a 1:1 basis. It simply means that, much like the long view stock investment philosophy, over time you will generally receive a positive return on your positive action.
If I stop and help a begger beside the road,and other people see this and are moved to be compassionate also and themselves do good. Or the begger himself becomes a force of good. Who will say " His ( my ) heart wasn't right so all his good comes to bad " ?? What 'god' or 'force' sorts out all the good and bad and sends rewards or punnishment ?