Calling all buddhists-can you help me understand Karma?

Question

I have a question regarding Karma, as it applies to buddhism. Refer to the following quote from Buddahnet.net:
"Karma is the law that every cause has an effect, i.e., our actions have results. This simple law explains a number of things: inequality in the world, why some are born handicapped and some gifted, why some live only a short life. Karma underlines the importance of all individuals being responsible for their past and present actions."
Is this quote saying that people are handicapped because of something bad they did in a past life? Or that they are born in a poor country because they deserve it?

Other insights and explanations of Karma welcome also.

Answer 1

That is essentially the case. Imagine your karma as a never changing amount. Say you start out your first life with a big pitcher full of karma. It is labeled "Positive". You have another pitcher labeled "Negative". Every time you do something negative, you have to pour some karma out of the positive pitcher into the negative one. If you die with your negative pitcher full, then you will not get the best of things in the next life.

I wouldn't say that they "deserve" bad things. I'd say it's more that you get what you pay for. If you pay with negative karma, you don't get much. It's like a boomerang. You put out all this negative energy, but it will all come right back to you. You are just balancing your pitchers of karma. You want to pour more negative back into the positive pitcher.

Answer 2

Karma is not reincarnation. But it helps to explain why some people are reincarnated as they are.

Think of the world as a giant lake. If I drop a pebble in, reipples will form. It will affect everything around the pebble. Just like that, every time you do something bad, let's say steal, negative emotions are expressed. You just pissed off the guy you stole from, now he's more inclined to yell at his co-workers. You have also worked up the guts to steal, meaning you have a better chance of doing it again. As the guy you stole from screams at a co-worker, the co-workers mood sours. He goes home, and, instead of working on his project for work, he watches TV. So his entire committee (pretend the guys and engineer on a committee to build a new power plant) is let down. Etc. Etc. So the bad things we do create a ripple effect, as well as the good ones (you give to poor, someone compliments you, everyone feels better and good things are more likely to happen from positive attitude). Everything you do affects the world. Now, you might do a million bad things and get away with it, but chances are, the more bad is in the world, the greater the probability something bad may happen to you. Look at the middle east. Palestine bombs Israel. Counter-attacks ensue. When you are reincarnated as something lower, that is the negative effect of your past life playing out. If you are reincarnated more fortunately, your past life was probably nice too. This part is less logic and more belief (the reincarnation).

The ultimate goal is to break the cycle of life and death through enlightenment. Then you are free and united with God.

k-goddess is incorrect in her assumption. Buddha said life is pain because we make it painful, but there is a way to remedy that. I'm sorry for her ignorance.

Answer 3

I'm sorry, I'm not Buddhist. I'm an Indopagan, but I hope this helps anyway:

It's not about "deserving" it, and it's not because they necessarily did something bad. Their actions in a previous lifetime have natural consequences, which have come to affect the world they were born into. When you drop a pebble into a pond, waves will spread out. Some of those waves will hit something and cause waves to emanate from that object, and on and on. Eventually ripples of some sort will return to the area where the water was first disturbed.

Karma has no concept of punishment or reward; it has no thought, intention, or face. It is just how things are.

Answer 4

Buddha also said that bad stuff happens and life is pain. So it maybe be karma or the fact that life just stinks. So Life Is Suffering.

I'm sorry Jedi that you yourself are an ignorant person. You should have studied a bit harder.

Free and united with God huh?

A creator god conceived to be eternal and omnipotent, is incompatible with the Buddha's teachings. He preached that initially each being was a product of ignorance and illusion and subject to suffering, karma and transmigration. He therefore urged his disciples to contemplate upon the Four Noble Truths, practice the Eightfold path, lead a virtuous life by performing good deeds and works towards their final liberation from all becoming and changing.

When one recognizes the fact that all existence is suffering, this brings about what we might call a turning about, in other words, seeing that life is full of suffering one begins to look for something more. This is why suffering is the First Noble Truth.

The Buddha's discovery of the solution to the problem of suffering began with the recognition that life is suffering. This is the first of the Four Noble Truths. If people examine their own experiences or look at the world around them, they will see that life is full of suffering. Suffering may be Physical or Mental

Answer 5

It is a concept most often misquoted and very misunderstood by many, including some Buddhists, let me try to ease your confusion and perhaps add some small insight to help you to understand this concept. Please forgive me if my explantion seems simplistic as I have no way of knowing your level of understanding.

The term Karma is a noun, coming from Sanskrit unedited and untranslated it simply means Action.

It is used in conjunction with the Buddhist term Rebirth but is often misunderstood as the sole reason for Rebirth, this is not the case. Rebirth is because an individual has not evolved sufficiently to move beyond the Cycle of Life. If a Rebirth is necessary then Karma will have some effect on the next Life of the individual including their physical looks and gender as well as other things such as understanding, insight, ideas, perceptions and a few others.

Karma is the term Buddhists use to explain the concept of Action and Consequence. Action to Buddhists includes but is not limited to thoughts, words and deeds and is understood to mean that All Acion including Non Action no matter how insignificant has consequence, either in a Positive, Negative or Neutral sense and also that these consequences can be far reaching and have major effects both to ourselves and others and even to innocents. As well, these Consequences are determined not by the Action itself but by the combination of the Action with the Intention, it is understood that it is the intention which is the determining factor on whether the Consequence is Positive, Negative or Neutral and how profound are the effects in terms of flow on consequence and subsequent effects.

Karma can and does have flow on effects on subsequent Rebirth. Buddhists believe that a Rebirth becomes necessary if there is any Negative unresolved Karma on the event of Death of an individual. We are taught in the Dharma that on Death our physical and mental Parts including our consciousness and other Parts are dissolved with our body, on Rebirth these Parts are reformed in different measure due to the flow on effects of that unresolved Karma. There are other factors however which determine our circumstances in our new Life, such as the Karma of the new family members, as well as their intentions surrounding the birth, but in the whole it is our own Karmic effects which are the overall factor. Being born into a poor country is only a relative perception and is not a factor at all, this is a western notion and is an incorrect one. Being born handicapped could be due to Karma as our physical bodies are one Part which is reformed due to Karmic effects, but again this is a western notion as physical beauty or deformity is again relative to perception. Karma only determines whether a person will suffer more or less than in their present life, after all a poor person may still be a happy person.

The notion that Karma from our past lives being something we can do nothing about is again a western notion and is a fatalistic one and is often misunderstood. Our circumstances on Rebirth are only perceptions and it is our intentions and our Actions which can and will effect our future. This is why it is the Buddhist view that our future happiness is in our own hands, as it is our own Positive Actions which will produce positive Consequence both for ourselves and for those with which we interact. There is nothing we can do to affect our past but we can and do have a direct effect on our future.

Karma is a noun, it is not some esoteric deliverer of justice. Buddhists never refer to another's circumstances by saying "It was Karma", Karma does not cause anything to happen or not, rather it is the intention behind Action which causes Consequences for ourselves and others. Consequences of Action are due to the poor decision in making the Action not whether the decision to act was bad or not. It is the intention not the action which determines consequence. Goodness or badness are relative terms their proportions being determined by the observer the terms are therefore irrelevent. Nobody deserves to suffer, rather it was their own past Actions which led to the present Consequences, so saying it is their own intentions to perform present Action which will determine their future happiness.

The fact of a Rebirth means that the individual has not escaped the Cycle of Life yet and even the best Rebirth is still Rebirth and not escape from the Cycle, it should be the goal to attain no Rebirth at all, to do this we must resolve all Negative Karma and purposefully Act to promote all positive Karma and Merit. In this way we do not become subject to Rebirth at all, in the same way we are helping to spread positive Consequence for others to enjoy happiness.

I hope that this small insight helps you to understand this very difficult and often confusing concept..

Peace from a Buddhist...

Answer 6

According to Buddhism every thing has a reason for it.That's one of the greatest things in Buddhism.
Answer to your question according to Buddhism I know can be explained in 5 Niyama dharma (theories).
Karma is one of those 5.(Uthu,Bheeja,Dharma,Karma,Chitta)

Buddhism do not say that every thing in universe happens only due to Karma.
Karma is a one big reason of a persons destiny.

Answer 7

go here

http://www.11meditation.co.nr

it is from Theravada Buddhist religion in Thailand.
There are a basic knowledge of karma and some examples from the stories of KotamaBuddha himself.

Answer 8

Please get this books and read them, and will have all the aswers.

http://www.webcom.com/ara/col/books/KR/cb/

http://www.asitis.com/