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"Don't blindly believe what I say. Don't believe me because others convince you of my words. Don't believe anything you see, read, or hear from others, whether of authority, religious teachers or texts. Don't rely on logic alone, nor speculation. Don't infer or be deceived by appearances." "Do not give up your authority and follow blindly the will of others. This way will lead to only delusion." "Find out for yourself what is truth, what is real. Discover that there are virtuous things and there are non-virtuous things. Once you have discovered for yourself give up the bad and embrace the good."
- The Buddha
I remember how impressed I was by that in my days of 'searching' after all the 'believe what I say' stuff of the other religions.
However, I have tried and am convinced that karma makes no logical sense. I would like to rely on other than logic alone here, but that is all we have with an unprovable. I would like to suggest to the Dalai Lama that Karma would only work if it was a thinking entity able to independently distinguish between good and bad deeds and what the individual believed was good and bad deeds.
If so, Buddhist theory fails. Even in the deity - heavy Mahayana, Karma is presented as a natural law rather than a god.
Yes. A friend of mine, a bitter ex-Catholic, said something to me about "Karma is proof that..." and I had to say, karma is a belief, just like people believe in Jesus or the Tooth Fairy (as he so cheerfully says). Just another form of arrogance.
Karma, like afterlife judgment, makes emotional sense, that things even up in the end. I wish it were so. I don't believe it is.
"Don't blindly believe what I say. Don't believe me because others convince you of my words. Don't believe anything you see, read, or hear from others, whether of authority, religious teachers or texts. Don't rely on logic alone, nor speculation. Don't infer or be deceived by appearances." "Do not give up your authority and follow blindly the will of others. This way will lead to only delusion." "Find out for yourself what is truth, what is real. Discover that there are virtuous things and there are non-virtuous things. Once you have discovered for yourself give up the bad and embrace the good."
- The Buddha
I remember how impressed I was by that in my days of 'searching' after all the 'believe what I say' stuff of the other religions.
However, I have tried and am convinced that karma makes no logical sense. I would like to rely on other than logic alone here, but that is all we have with an unprovable. I would like to suggest to the Dalai Lama that Karma would only work if it was a thinking entity able to independently distinguish between good and bad deeds and what the individual believed was good and bad deeds.
If so, Buddhist theory fails. Even in the deity - heavy Mahayana, Karma is presented as a natural law rather than a god.
This rejection of God was deliberate by Gautama because he didn't trust any permanent entity. He made karma an impersonal law so that once its requirements were met, Nirvana would be achieved . . . the need of personal existence would be ended permanently.
This rejection of God was deliberate by Gautama because he didn't trust any permanent entity. He made karma an impersonal law so that once its requirements were met, Nirvana would be achieved . . . the need of personal existence would be ended permanently.
I may be wrong, but I have a theory that this rejection of gods was a deliberate political ploy by the Ksatrya caste to undermine the gods-given divide supreme authority of the brahmins. And for all I know it was thought up by a committee and Budddha was just a suitable invented 'discoverer' of the truth of the three jewels.
From what I have seen in the Theravada countries at any rate, people only pay lip -service to the ideal of extinction. What they would really like is another life -but better. Merit is made to get a better life next time round, not to achieve extinction.
I would like to suggest to the Dalai Lama that Karma would only work if it was a thinking entity able to independently distinguish between good and bad deeds and what the individual believed was good and bad deeds.
Deeds are deeds. What does belief have to do with anything?
Karma is just the realization that our actions have a part in shaping the world. If you go around picking fights and talking smack to people, you're actively making the world a more violent, hateful place. Likewise, if you help old ladies cross the street and feed the poor, you're making it a kinder, gentler world. That world that you're helping to create is the one where you'll be spending the rest of this life, and probably your future lives as well, if you have any. That's all karma is.
Deeds are deeds. What does belief have to do with anything?
Karma is just the realization that our actions have a part in shaping the world. If you go around picking fights and talking smack to people, you're actively making the world a more violent, hateful place. Likewise, if you help old ladies cross the street and feed the poor, you're making it a kinder, gentler world. That world that you're helping to create is the one where you'll be spending the rest of this life, and probably your future lives as well, if you have any. That's all karma is.
Not in Buddhism. It is a natural rather magical entity which will record your good deeds and bad deeds of which donating to those entitled by some divine virtue of receiving earthly worship is one of the most effective good- karma acts. It raises the question of who decides that these are good deeds or bad.
Donating food or money to the Sangha does nothing to shape the world. It is purely a religious act of devotion which is nevertheless the surest way of piling up good deeds and countering bad ones.
Thus karma looks likes like some kind of celestial measuring - scale and I wonder on what basis it knows what you did good or bad.
The conclusion I came to is that it must be based on your knowledge that you are doing a good deed or a bad. Thus the piling up of merit or demerit depends entirely on whether the individual believes it to be good or bad since Karma is not intelligent and cannot decide.
That is the way I have reasoned it out so far.
Your idea of Karma is more in line with what I see as the general welfare of man and the environment, but it is nothing to do with Buddhist doctrine.
Karma comes from your mind. It is everything you, think, say, or do.
Your karma is accumulated from all of your past re-births , as well as
this life. The idea of karma makes sense in many ways, but there is some misunderstanding about what karma is. Some people think that karma means fate or predestination. If somebody is hit by a car or loses a lot of money in business, they say, "Well, tough luck, that is their karma." That is not the Buddhist idea of karma. In fact, that is more the idea of God's will - something that we do not understand or have any control over.
In Buddhism, karma refers to impulses. Based on previous actions we have done, impulses arise in us to act in certain ways now. Karma refers to the impulse that comes into someone's mind to invest in a stock the day before it crashes or before it rises in value. Or, someone may have the impulse to cross the street at just the moment when he or she will be hit by a car, not five minutes earlier or five minutes later. The arising of the impulse at just that moment is the result of some previous action or actions the person did. In a previous life, for example, the person might have tortured or killed someone. Such destructive behavior results in the perpetrator experiencing a shortened lifespan as well, usually in another lifetime. Thus, the impulse to cross the street arose at just the moment to be hit by a car.
A person may have the impulse to shout at or hurt someone else. The impulse comes from habits built up by previous similar behavior. Yelling or hurting others builds up a potential, tendency and habit for this type of behavior, so that in the future, we easily do it again. Shouting with anger builds up even more of a potential, tendency and habit to make an angry scene again.
Smoking a cigarette is another example. Smoking one cigarette acts as a potential for smoking another. It also builds up a tendency and habit to smoke. Consequently, when the circumstances are right - either in this life when someone offers us a cigarette or in a future lifetime when, as a child, we see people smoking - the impulse comes to our minds to smoke and we do it. Karma explains where that impulse to smoke comes from. Smoking creates not only the mental impulse to repeat the action, but also influences the physical impulses within the body, for example, to get cancer from smoking. The idea of karma makes a lot of sense, for it explains where our impulses come from.
"If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change," -His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
I like it when a holy man talks like this.
I wish all religions would teach this about their own beliefs.
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Everything...you think, say ,or do.
