Karma stands for an intricate web of conditionality. It does not mean that there is a judgmental meaning infused with causal relationships between actions and results. It means that if a domino is pushed it will fall, and it will cause other things to happen that could result in a complicated, (almost?) untraceable series of results (like a Rube Goldberg Machine). Because the field or three or more dimensional, there isn’t a “root cause” but rather an infinite web of conditions, any of which could be changed to affect different results. But not without [[omniscience]] :)
For me, seeing through the lens of karma serves as an impersonal reframing of how things are right now.
A: I’m extremely grateful for everything, I just don’t think I deserve what I have. Why me and why not all the others who work harder and need more? B: just because that’s the way it is right now. it’s not about you per se, it’s quite impersonal, but somehow causes and conditions have led to this situation for you and another situation for another and you would do whatever you could to help them, but you can’t completely switch lives with them. You can’t take on their karma completely, as we say in buddhism. but you can do whatever small interventions to make things a little easier for them
Readings on Karme
- Traleg Rinpoche: [[Karma - What It Is]] book
seeds or habitual tendencies
bakchak - karmic seeds implanted within the all-ground consciousness #language/tibetan
Habitual tendencies (Skt. vāsanā; Tib. བག་ཆགས་, bakchak, Wyl. bag chags) are karmic seeds implanted within the all-ground consciousness.
Alternative Translations
[[dharma translation]]
- habitual patterns
- habitual propensities
- habituations (Tulku Thondup)
- karmic propensities
- latency
- latent predisposition
- latent tendency
- traces (Tulku Thondup)
What is reborn?
Analogies for rebirth
The Blessed One replied, “O Great King, there are eight analogies for rebirth: (1) the analogy of students learning that which is recited by the teacher, (2) a lamp being lit from another lamp, (3) a reflection occurring because of a mirror, (4) an impression and image coming from a stamp, (5) fire coming from a magnifying glass, (6) a sprout arising from a seed, (7) the production of saliva when someone says the word ‘sour,’ and (8) the sound of an echo. O Great King, in these eight analogies, the fact that earlier things give rise to the later ones illustrates how nothing permanent transmigrates. The fact that later things arise from [F.153.a] earlier ones illustrates how transmigration and rebirth do not occur without a cause and that they are not of something extinguished and halted.
“Furthermore, O Great King, all of these analogies are things that come about when three conditions are gathered together. When there are teachers, students, and sense faculties, we have recitation and language learning. When there exist butter, wicks, and vessels, we have lamps. When there are bright skies, faces, and mirrors, we have reflections. When there are signets, lumps of clay, and human manual effort, we have impressions and images from stamps. When there are crystals, sunlight, grass, and wood, we get fire. When there are seeds, earth, and moisture, we get sprouts. When there is salt, a previous experience of drinking salty water, and when the word ‘sour’ is pronounced, people then begin to salivate. When someone speaks, when there is no other loud sound, and when there is a nearby mountain, then an echo will occur. These are all analogies showing how sentient beings’ rebirths are not made by external agents, but are produced through the causal conditions of actions and afflictive emotions. — 1.52
Intention
How can there be any negative intentions? Because we’re all seeking happiness, aren’t all our intentions pure and positive? #question/dharma ^a63921
Reflections
Ask: Where will this action lead me?
Karma: we are what we do/we are our habits.
Mixed karma
What about an action that involves both killing & protecting? Example: removing a wasp’s nest to protect children. The intention is to protect beings, but in doing so harm is caused to other beings.
It’s difficult to always create positive karma. Don’t be too tight, but don’t be careless. Find the middle way of view, meditation and action.
Gory details
- Negative karma—harm to others, negative intention to hurt others
- Positive karma—good intention, helping others. Result is happiness within samsara, cannot bring you beyond samsara.
- Unchangeable karma If you attain first [[jhana]] and die, then you are reborn in the realm of the first jhana and will not return to human or lower realms.
- Unfailing/unstained karma—requires bodhicitta and emptiness together. Brings you beyond samsara.
- [[alaya]] consciousness is the fundamental cause of [[ignorance]]
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[[eight consciousnesses|afflicted consciousness]]: acts as causal conditioning for attachment and aversion
What will happen with rebirths when/if there are no more human bodies to be born into? (extinction) Will enlightenment be that much harder to achieve?
“Monks, for anyone who says, ‘In whatever way a person makes kamma, that is how it is experienced,’ there is no living of the holy life, there is no opportunity for the right ending of stress. But for anyone who says, ‘When a person makes kamma to be felt in such & such a way, that is how its result is experienced,’ there is the living of the holy life, there is the opportunity for the right ending of stress.”4
You who practice, you should try to convey to your political leaders that fear is dangerous. Misunderstanding brings fear and anger and we ignorantly think of the gun and army as the only solution.
But if the practice deep dialogue, deep listening
On the continuity of karmic stream: [[death & dying]]
Questions
- is there a sense that we will encounter more beings in this life with whom we had karmic ties/debt/[[tendrel]] from previous lives? Are most people in our life repeat characters?
- What is karma and to what does it adhere? Define this for each of the [[tenet systems]].