Do you believe in karma? And why?

[Jamie01]

I would be totally lying if I looked out at the world and said “ yeah I believe in karma”. We could argue definitions all day but I can’t change what that word sort of means now in popular culture. Do I feel people get what they deserve in life? Not really.

Another similar concept is “orlog”, which maybe has more to do with fate. Maybe that’s closer to actual karma but that’s for smarter people to determine. Some peoples fate is total shit so I dunno.

It’s the self congratulatory way that hipsters have taken to using the term that is off putting. Everyone thinks they deserve what comes when it’s all good.

 

[newusername1]

Note that the passage you quote is about rebirth, and not reincarnation. Reincarnation implies a form of rebirth, but the opposite needn't be true. I have seen that process of moment to moment rebirth in myself and take it as true for myself (I can't pretend to know how it is for others, I assume it's similar but that's just an assumption), however I have never seen anything pointing towards reincarnation, in myself or otherwise.

Going back to karma, the thread's topic, it's similar: I have observed in myself how the previous mind moment conditions (but not determines) the next, this is actually quite intuitive in its most basic form. However I don't think there's a reason for me to think that good aspects of my life are a consequence of some virtuous acts in past incarnations of mine, and the negative ones consequences of bad actions. And even if that were the case, I don't see why that should change in any way my approach to them. I think their origin, be it past-incarnation karma, a witch's curse, God's punishment, a random event, or anything else, say nothing about what we should do about it now. At least it changes nothing for me if the root cause of issue X was that I once was an Inquisitor torturing heathens or some similar "evil" past life. The path to deal with it is the same, as I see it.

Yes, there are different interpretations of reincarnation or rebirth. In budhism it traditionally refers to rebirth after death, in most interpretations. But there are schools within budhism that make a distinction between the two concepts and focus on rebirth within this life. Even some of the traditional schools in india. But especially schools outside of india, because in india budhism was often closely tied to hinduism.

Reincarnation, rebirth and karma are all both religious as well as philosophical concepts.
I personally find the religious meanings less interesting, because i'm agnostic myself and also because i think religious beliefs probably evolve in a more random way. Religious believes can stem from translation errors, while in philosophy this is less likely because someone would probably point out that something doesn't make sense if you use this word rather than another.

 

[newusername1]

I would be totally lying if I looked out at the world and said “ yeah I believe in karma”. We could argue definitions all day but I can’t change what that word sort of means now in popular culture. Do I feel people get what they deserve in life? Not really.

Another similar concept is “orlog”, which maybe has more to do with fate. Maybe that’s closer to actual karma but that’s for smarter people to determine. Some peoples fate is total shit so I dunno.

It’s the self congratulatory way that hipsters have taken to using the term that is off putting. Everyone thinks they deserve what comes when it’s all good.

"Manifesting money"

 

[rkba]

"Manifesting money"

Yeah, that's called "fractional-reserve banking".

 

[EmeraldAtomiser]

Thought I'd thrown my tuppence into the ring regarding reincarnation.
I don't believe our soul, or whatever you'd like to call it, comes back in another being, but rather gets spread back out into creation, with bits here and there. Maybe more concentrated in certain entities, animal, plant or mineral, but no, I don't believe you, or me, was Napoleon or Cleopatra in a past life.

 

[Jamie01]

Personally I feel the evidence is overwhelming that some people can remember details from others who lived before them, in different countries etc…if it’s not reincarnation it still requires some kind of explanation that we don’t have at the moment.

 

[CosmicRiver]

The state of the word isn't at odds with karma. Each impulse and thought and action naturally causes another one and so on. In some instances we can clearly see the chain of processes as it unfolds. In a single lifetime i can see how much of my behaviors are consequences of past behaviors and how they will shape my future. In a single lifetime this can also be seen in the outside world.

If a person is evil and yet they don't go to jail or get punished as revenge, people assume they are immune to karma. But actually you can see right now the consequences of their karma. The world of oligarchs and people in power is marked by neverending conflict that reminds me of the asura realm. They are never satisfied and are at war to conquer higher planes like the Earth or space.

We think that an evil person living a luxury life is not what they deserve, but is a luxury life really a reward? what does a luxury life lead to? rebirth in lower realms, because merits are depleted and thirst for sensory pleasure is enhanced. This is true even in a single lifetime. All the realms (hells, hungry ghosts, humans, heavens and so on) can be real in a cosmological sense, but even if they are, they are most importantly a map of the mind. They're all accessible right now. And the most desirable world to live in, the highest "reward" for our actions, is not the most pleasurable but the most conductive to our liberation or awakening.
Upon death, who is more likely to cling to rebirth and not recognize their awakened nature?

There is a quote but i don't remember the author, it's something like "you can see death as demons tearing you apart or as angels freeing you from your boundaries". Putting religion aside, i think that "good people", the ones that don't willingly harm others, that see the world as an interconnected web and not as a battle camp or something to conquer, are most likely to see the angels. I think that the point of the quote was that angels and demons are one and the same, and the only difference is how big and stubborn our ego is.

edit: the quote is from Meister Eckhart, a christian philosopher from a movie quoting Meister Eckhart

 

[fink]

I would be totally lying if I looked out at the world and said “ yeah I believe in karma”. We could argue definitions all day but I can’t change what that word sort of means now in popular culture. Do I feel people get what they deserve in life? Not really.

Another similar concept is “orlog”, which maybe has more to do with fate. Maybe that’s closer to actual karma but that’s for smarter people to determine. Some peoples fate is total shit so I dunno.

It’s the self congratulatory way that hipsters have taken to using the term that is off putting. Everyone thinks they deserve what comes when it’s all good.

I hear you Jamie. It's hard to believe in a cosmic justice system when children starve in a warzone.

That is why Alan Watts' words brought me to my current understanding of karma. What I do to myself.

I think it's still possible to believe in our own 'karma' whilst having to accept that, bluntly, shit happens.

It then releases us from karmic law. When outrageous shit happens, it's part of a much deeper battle between guilt and innocence.

For someone to even have 'bad karma' they would have had to do some detriment to the rest of the universe. Something that the universe did not deserve.


The complexity becomes unmanageable for me on anything beyond the personal scale.