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Buddhism and Karma
    #5365054 -

One aspect of Buddhism that has always tangled me up is the idea of re-birth, the non-self, and karma.  Specefically how can one persons karma carry over into "their" next life if after death we return to the source, or non-self only again to be reborn.  This is where I gut hung up because to me this indicates that some aspect of self is maintained in the non-self, which is contradictory to the term non-self.  I can get past this hangup by realizing that we are all one, the same potential interacting on the same plane.  Then dharma and karma becomes associated with genetics.  I'm fairly sure that this is the line of thinking I need to be headed in but I guess I have trouble making the leap of faith :tongue2:



This stuff really starts to blow my mind when I realize that this means all existence is, is karma(action).  The wheel never stops  :heart: :heart:


I'd love to hear what those of you who are more in touch with buddhism have to say. :mushroom2:


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I have considered such matters.

SIKE

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: Cherk]
    #5365894 -

certainly, just because you want to follow or believe in a certain path does not mean you have to believe everything. i've been following the way of the dharma for about a year now, but only the past 6 months have i been really, really serious about it. in that short period of time however, i have learned much more about myself, others, life, death and my surroundings then i have in my entire life prior to that.

i don't really believe that karma is some kind of energy-based material ranging from good or bad that carries into your next life. who is the judge on what karma is good and what karma is bad anyway? i see karma as a representation of cause and effect. heres an example...

say you start moderate cocaine use. after a few good partys, you use it much more often so your life is always in constant motion, a constant party. fast forward to a few months later and you have no friends and you're selling all your possessions so your body can get its fix. your downfall was constant use. constant use was your bad karma. or you could say that use of cocaine was your bad karma too. whatever your falling off the track was.

who says the next life has to be only when you die? bad karma [bad decisions] can always haunt your future. just think things out before you ever do them. and if you do do bad, always try your best to reverse it or heal it.

p.s. i like how you think :thumbup:

Edited by lysergicide (03/04/06 09:59 PM)

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: lysergicide]
    #5365945 -

The Buddha teaches that you mustn't take everything said to be true, you have to decide what the truth is for yourself, this especially applies to his words, take from them what you can, and leave what you can't.

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: lysergicide]
    #5366148 -

Thank you for your reply.  Like you it didn't make sense to me that karma is this energy thing where good and bad actions are stored only to be released back to us at a later life(or time, I never said that our karma doesn't act out in this lifetime, cause it certainly does)

Under my former understanding of what karma is, some aspect of self must be kept while going in and out of the non-self.  Under my old understanding this is true.

but that's not what karma is!  this is the fun part!  the only reason some aspect of self would have to be maintained in and out of the non-self is because I was operating under the wrong understanding of what karma is!  Karma literally means "action".  Karma literally is the chain of cause and effect.  And action is all that this existence is.  This existence, here and now, is the tao(or non-self or infinite potential energy) operating or manifesting on a finite plane in a dualistic universe (a universe of cause and effect).   

  I fell victim to the illusion that this life of mine was somehow not a transient thing.  Foolish me!  I failed to look at the big picture, we're all transient beings who forgot what it means to be transient!  Causing you to suffer is no different than causing myself to suffer. 

Karma is the wheel that doesn't stop spinning!!!! :heart: :heart:


--------------------
I have considered such matters.

SIKE

Edited by Smoker For Peace (03/04/06 11:55 PM)

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: ClammyJoe]
    #5366154 -

Bhood is a good dood.


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:orly:


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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: ClammyJoe]
    #5366159 -

Quote:
The Buddha teaches that you mustn't take everything said to be true, you have to decide what the truth is for yourself, this especially applies to his words, take from them what you can, and leave what you can't.


I have a hunch this buddha fella said that not because he says things that are untrue, but because it would be foolish for people to suffer over something being out of their grasp.


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I have considered such matters.

SIKE

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: Cherk]
    #5366165 -

Yeah, pretty much, which is good I guess. Its better that someone move on and get the teaching that they can apply to their lives and use, rather than get hung up on part of it they may never understand.

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: ClammyJoe]
    #5366171 -

TheMadConductor said:
Yeah, pretty much, which is good I guess. Its better that someone move on and get the teaching that they can apply to their lives and use, rather than get hung up on part of it they may never understand.


True that!  But it never hurts to go back and re-read some lessons to see if you can learn from them with your new understanding. 

As I learned today :wink: :heart:


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I have considered such matters.

SIKE

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: Cherk]
    #5366653 -

the karma/rebirth thing started befroe buddhism and is core in hinduism.
you find aspects of it in judaism etc. as well.

buddhism has an external religion with congregations and temples and hindu like rebirth dogma;
and an internal teaching besides with meditation, insight and abhidhamma which are useful to "trippers".

inner buddhism - accessed in southern buddhism as well as tibetan and zen buddhism has everything to do with mind and the process of contemplation and personal development.

Abhidhamma is southern however, and is not spoken in zen or tibetan schools which resort instead to the intuitive impression of
"the sound of one hand clapping" and or the "thousand petalled lotus"
or diamond voidness.

the core of abhidhamma and the rest is that the stream of consciousness is composed of a sequence of citta or mind moments.

these citta expressions are the actual lives we live.
we are a procession of masks lasting up to 3 seconds composed of mind moments that are usually less than 1/15th of a second.

you could say that karma links these lives.
in modern terms karma is association, associative thought, free association, memory etc.

the ancient metaphor of rebirth and karma still applies in abhidahmma, but the scale is different.

the wheel of life spins faster
and the connection between impressions and expressions is the stream to be reflective upon rather than trying to explain the origin of unfortunate births or particularly blessed wombs.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: Cherk]
    #5366896 -

Smoker For Peace said:
TheMadConductor said:
Yeah, pretty much, which is good I guess. Its better that someone move on and get the teaching that they can apply to their lives and use, rather than get hung up on part of it they may never understand.


True that!  But it never hurts to go back and re-read some lessons to see if you can learn from them with your new understanding. 

As I learned today :wink: :heart:


Hmmm, maybe I should go back and read over his words too... maybe I can be as fortunate as yourself.

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: Cherk]
    #5367477 -

1. Ignorance conditions Karma

2. Karma causes Consciousness

3. Consciousness causes Mind and Body

4. Mind and Body cause the Six Senses

5. The Six Senses cause Contact

6. Contact causes Feeling

7. Feeling causes Craving

8. Craving causes Clinging

9. Clinging causes Becoming

10. Becoming causes Birth

11. Birth causes---

12. Aging sickness and death.

And so we spin on this wheel endlessly, never recognising our real nature, whether we die into this source or not, we continually remain ignorant of that. Like when we fall alseep, there is a moment before our dreams where the nature of mind is easiest to recognize, but most beings remain ignorant of that and are falling unconcious. In the same way we fail to recognise our nature at death, and so due to this ignorance, we are swept along by our karma, like a feather in the wind, blown from one state of existence to the next.

There is no "self", that reincarnates, as the whole idea of a "self" ,"soul" or "i" is based upon ignorance. It's a label we create, that when examined, has no real essence or substance, but is just a concept that we fixate and perpetuate in an attempt to confirm our own independent existence. But when we examine carefully, we discover that really we only exist in dependance upon causes and conditions that arise out of emptiness.

If you want to know more about this, study up on the twelve links of depenent originiation, the five skhandas, emptiness and maybe read the "Tibetan book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche.

Edited by Sinbad (03/05/06 02:29 PM)

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: Sinbad]
    #5367656 -

In the Tibetan tradition of Vajrayana (Diamond vehicle) buddhism, after a person dies, if there is still a trace of self, when faced with the visions, both horrific and divine, of the bardo (period between death and rebirth) they will feel an uncomfortable emptiness, and in that, they want to return to a state of familiarity according to there karma, therefore being reborn into a similar existance.  If that being is enlightened, there will be no self to react to the visions (as outlined in the 3 skhandas of like, dislike, and ignore, or passion, aggression, and ignorance), and that being will be completely liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth--samsara. 

But that applies on a moment to moment basis as well.  A person can not instantly change who they are, because their past action dictates much of there present reaction.  That is why meditation masters can often seem like a completely different person from one moment to the next.  They are not caught up in the habitual cycle of karma.  They act in accordance with the moment.  To break free of habitual patterning takes practice--meditation or Vipashyana (shi) and, Samadhi (kan) or Shikan.  In Soto Zen, the main practice is that of Shikan-taza or just sitting with no technique, no breath, no mind, no form, no emptiness, no body, etc.  Check out the maha-prajnaparamita heart sutra here for more on true emptiness. 

Hope this helps.

:heart:Peace:heart:

:hippie:

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: Quoiyaien]
    #5367781 -

Quoiyaien said:
...But that applies on a moment to moment basis as well.  A person can not instantly change who they are, because their past action dictates much of there present reaction.  That is why meditation masters can often seem like a completely different person from one moment to the next.  They are not caught up in the habitual cycle of karma.  They act in accordance with the moment.  To break free of habitual patterning takes practice--meditation or Vipashyana (shi) and, Samadhi (kan) or Shikan.  In Soto Zen, the main practice is that of Shikan-taza or just sitting with no technique, no breath, no mind, no form, no emptiness, no body, etc.  Check out the maha-prajnaparamita heart sutra here for more on true emptiness. 

Hope this helps.

:heart:Peace:heart:

:hippie:


yes, Quoiyaien, can you say that
meditation affects the operation of karma (or association)
permitting a more open eyed approach.
I think karma still exists in your meditation teacher, but it has less of an insidious control.




Sinbad said:
1.      Ignorance conditions Karma

2.      Karma causes Consciousness

3.      Consciousness causes Mind and Body

4.      Mind and Body cause the Six Senses

5.      The Six Senses cause Contact

6.      Contact causes Feeling

7.      Feeling causes Craving

8.      Craving causes Clinging

9.      Clinging causes Becoming

10.    Becoming causes Birth

11.    Birth causes---

12.    Aging sickness and death.



yes, Sinbad,
this is the idea that was inherited/evolved from hinduism, no harm in considering it except when the leap of faith is too galling.
this and the elaborate idea of bardos are fascinating.

but

abhidhamma, mind moments and meditation are things you can watch in action without any investment of "faith", and in the context of psychology and associative thought, the role of karma can be translated into a very functional part of life.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: redgreenvines]
    #5367929 -

redgreenvines said:
yes, Quoiyaien, can you say that
meditation affects the operation of karma (or association)
permitting a more open eyed approach.
I think karma still exists in your meditation teacher, but it has less of an insidious control.




I totally agree with what you are saying. What I am refering to is the fact that the teacher can constantly recognize unfolding karmic action, and in that, act with a fresh mind in whatever way best suits the situation at hand.  Perhaps the karma affecting my teacher is like that of me when I go to pick up a pencil to write.  Through past action, I have discovered that using my right hand allows me to write much cleaner, and therefore my karma makes it an automatic action to pick up the pencil with my right hand.  As in, why bother with this process of trial and error over and over again simply to get to an already established result?  Though of course this is all speculation on my teachers mind, for if I truly knew it, I would be a teacher.

:heart:Peace:heart:

:hippie:

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: redgreenvines]
    #5368159 -

redgreenvines said:
yes, Sinbad,
this is the idea that was inherited/evolved from hinduism, no harm in considering it except when the leap of faith is too galling.
this and the elaborate idea of bardos are fascinating.

but

abhidhamma, mind moments and meditation are things you can watch in action without any investment of "faith", and in the context of psychology and associative thought, the role of karma can be translated into a very functional part of life.


I disagree. To begin with, the twelve links of dependent origination is the defining doctrine which separates Buddhism distinctly from Hindusim, as it directly asserts that there is no peremenant self-existing soul and indirectly asserts that phenomena do no arise from a Godlike creator being. When considering the twelve links carefully, one can see that it not only applies in its more obvious outer sense, but also it applies in at a more inner, fundmental level within the individual. These twelve links are occuring moment by moment as well as life after life. So, as you can see no leap of faith is required, just an open mind that is able to observe things as they are.


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Edited by Sinbad (03/06/06 01:13 PM)

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Re: Buddhism and Karma [Re: Sinbad]
    #5369864 -

well spoken, sinbad
it is transformed a great deal.
dependnt origination is all about karma.
before this was that
and before the buddhists,
the hindus said practically the same thing
with less of the buddhist flavor.

dependent origination is about not being original, it is derived.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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