Do you believe in karma?

:shrug:

:P

no, no you don't. :P

Not just yes...

But HELL YES!

:woohoo:

Karma is an accumulation of energy (or formations, as the Buddhists call them) related to function. Too much lust, anger, laziness, resulting in an increase in those very things. It's about tendencies, and at worst, the point at which one is unable to resist a tendency.

Spiritual growth involves effort against tendencies and instincts gone self-fulfilling.

That seems to be the popular definition, anyway.

I didn't read up enough on Buddhism, obviously.

I'm a big fan of balance, though.

If you do good things good things will happen to you.

I was at the Boulder ParkNride this morning shipping back to Denver after seeing Jason. There was an obviously broke person walking around with a sign that said that he needed spare change to get to Denver. So I gave him four bus tokens. He was not only grateful and I enjoyed seeing his face light up. I know that it will come back to me someday. :-)

You'll find formations coming up when you begin. This is the discomfort some mention when beginning meditation, and it simply means "it's working". You must sit through it, in order to surpass it.

If your formations involve socially-judged behaviour such as anger or greed, you will be judged (the very act of judgement is also a formation, if untempered by equal amounts of compassion). If your formations involve loss of control or self-justification which damage others, social judgement and ego demands the return of damage. One wise man said "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind", so detailing that ego demands are the actual core of the development of greater formations. Again, judgement must be balanced by compassion. Growth must be contrary to ego demands.

Asian cultures are well aware of these things.

formations. This is a valuable trait to develop.

In physics as spiritually now always an easy thing to do...

Karma is the law of moral causation. The theory of Karma is a fundamental doctrine in Buddhism. This belief was prevalent in India before the advent of the Buddha. Nevertheless, it was the Buddha who explained and formulated this doctrine in the complete form in which we have it today.

What is the cause of the inequality that exists among mankind?
Why should one person be brought up in the lap of luxury, endowed with fine mental, moral and physical qualities, and another in absolute poverty, steeped in misery?
Why should one person be a mental prodigy, and another an idiot?
Why should one person be born with saintly characteristics and another with criminal tendencies?
Why should some be linguistic, artistic, mathematically inclined, or musical from the very cradle?
Why should others be congenitally blind, deaf, or deformed?|
Why should some be blessed, and others cursed from their births?

Either this inequality of mankind has a cause, or it is purely accidental. No sensible person would think of attributing this unevenness, this inequality, and this diversity to blind chance or pure accident.

In this world nothing happens to a person that he does not for some reason or other deserve. Usually, men of ordinary intellect cannot comprehend the actual reason or reasons. The definite invisible cause or causes of the visible effect is not necessarily confined to the present life, they may be traced to a proximate or remote past birth.

According to Buddhism, this inequality is due not only to heredity, environment, "nature and nurture", but also to Karma. In other words, it is the result of our own past actions and our own present doings. We ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. We create our own Heaven. We create our own Hell. We are the architects of our own fate.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/more-at-link

THEN I'll believe in Karma. So far it seems that the rich and corrupt just keep getting away with stuff over and over and over again, while causing great harm to the rest of humanity and the planet. I'd love to believe in karma, but so far I have little proof that it exists. :-(

is exactly why I don't believe in it. (As I understand it, anyway... admittedly my understanding may be flawed...)

Maybe if you believe in an afterlife, you can believe in karma.
But from what I've seen of the world and the way the rich and nasty seem to go on without any problems, or conscience for that matter, then no, it doesn't exist.

Crap happens to the nicest people and the horrible ones go serenely on their way.

The key here being, "if allowed".

Those who want to rule the world, versus those who just want to live in it, as one teacher said.

Bush is still a drunken cokehead whose own wife can't stand him, and Cheney is a foul-tempered control freak who needs a permanent defibrillator just to keep what's left of his ticker working. Both are hated by Americans and the rest of the world.

Sure, they've accumulated vast amounts of wealth and power, but at what cost? Their personal lives suck.

In my view "karma" or whatever it is comes back to different people in different ways.

Do you think Bush and Cheney are really happy people? I don't. And I don't envy them in the slightest, even though they've literally gotten away with murder.

as we've seen for the last eight years. The Maharishi stated that a country is responsible for its rulers, and for their actions.

Sometimes assholes, being offended by those calling them out, act like assholes. That is karma. Actions along predictable lines. I have seen the fearful in positions to do harm, causing harm out of self-interest, versus taking even the first look at themselves. This is also karma. Anger swells. Self-defence kicks in (as THEY would call it self-defense). It is the ego, defending the ego, demanding that it always be superior and in so doing, causing harm to self and others. These are formations, and are endlessly self-justified in this country.

And in the end, it's what the fighting's all about.

and I hope its true what they say about the KARMA bus.....
but I mean it going both ways.....

:hi:


lost

Thom's rule of history: "The bullies usually win."

:(

bad shit strikes at random too, and hits good people as well as bad.

But nobody thinks they're bad, so that means bad shit always strikes good people. :P

and shortcomings in the years to come.

I believe the universe is held together by forces we don't entirely understand, even with arguments over expansion and dark matter and all, so I guess we're all cosmically connected and made of the same stuff as stars.

But as far as human behavior, or the next life's spiritual lesson. Fuck no. There is, of course serendipity.

Once someone shows me a belief system that doesn't shit on women in one form or the other I'll give 'em a second look.

Witness the classic Patriarchal religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Even the Tao says a woman's place in in the home.

Buddha had to think deeply before "allowing" women monks. What kind of enlightenment is that? Oops I forgot enlightenment?

Don't get me started on the Bhagavad Gita

Equal rights has become a popular topic, as it rightly should.

:evilgrin: know what I mean?

:D

Judge not, lest you be judged. Let they who are without sin, cast the first stone.

Things like that just don't factor in this "culture".

Complex behaviors derived from long adaptational "experiments".

Schadenfreude (IPA: <ˈʃaːdənˌfʁɔʏ̯də> Audio (German) (help·info)) is pleasure taken from observing the misery of another. The word referring to this emotion has been borrowed from German by the English language<1> and is sometimes also used as a loanword by other languages.

Philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno defined schadenfreude as “largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another which is cognized as trivial and/or appropriate.”<2>

more at link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude

the common understanding - yes. The dictionary definition doesn't imply that the misfortune or suffering of others is enjoyed because it is deserved, just that one is enjoying the suffering of others. I think most see it as taking delight in seeing DESERVED suffering (the second definition in your example: "cognized as... appropriate"). So, in that understanding - yes.

In the context of "karma" what goes around comes around, so the enjoyment of seeing things make that circle.