Karma

[Dedicated]

It makes sense that what we do shapes us.

 

Technically karma translates to action. There is a second word I can't remember that together the two words refer to the phenomenon where we can suffer indirectly from our misdeeds and vice versa.

 

The best argument I read against karma was in a book called something like 'embraced by darkness' where a guy who used to follow a guru became a born again and he said that it is horrid to believe that a child suffers due to karma. 

 

Washed down, how we respond to situations can be character building.

[Maddie]

10 minutes ago, Dedicated said:

The best argument I read against karma was in a book called something like 'embraced by darkness' where a guy who used to follow a guru became a born again and he said that it is horrid to believe that a child suffers due to karma. 

 

I think it's only horrid to think a child suffers from karma if we think that the child is brand new and fresh being.

 

If we take a broader perspective picture then karma explains very well why people are born into such unequal circumstances.

 

Karma is simply cause and effect. If you spent a lot of your previous life being abusive to other people then it doesn't seem like a shock that you would be more likely to be born into a family that's abusive.

 

Conversely if you spent a lot of your life being kind and compassionate to other people it seems reasonable that you would be born into a family that's kind and compassionate.

[Dedicated]

I think we can appreciate the theory. But when it comes to kids we can cut them some slack. 

 

This leads me to think about ancestral Alchemy.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Dedicated
Good karma

[Maddie]

6 hours ago, Dedicated said:

I think we can appreciate the theory. But when it comes to kids we can cut them some slack. 

 

This leads me to think about ancestral Alchemy.

 

This is something I hear often. We don't like to think that what seems like a brand new being comes with "baggage" but its simple cause and effect (at least according to the Buddha's theory of karma and rebirth). 

 

I've used this analogy before. Let's says someone has poor short term memory like Dory from "Finding Nemo". Let's say our Dory steps off a cliff and is falling. Halfway down she forgets that she stepped off a cliff and is suddenly in an understandable panic. She might scream on her way down "this isn't fair! how did I end up here?!" but cause and effect does not care if she thinks its fair or not, it simply is, and she's falling because she stepped off a cliff whether she remembers doing it or not.

[Cobie]

 

On 22/11/2023 at 7:31 PM, Maddie said:

... The family I was born into was abusive. …

 

7 hours ago, Maddie said:

… If you spent a lot of your previous life being abusive to other people then it doesn't seem like a shock that you would be more likely to be born into a family that's abusive. …

 

So you think you were abusive in your previous life?

 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Cobie

[Maddie]

1 minute ago, Cobie said:

 

 

 

So you think you were abusive in your previous life?

 

 

 

If the law of karma is correct (and I think it probably is) then simply by logic I can not have been very kind to say the least in a past life.

 

I actually think I have a lot of my past life figured out, but it is not flattering. 

[Cobie]

 

2 minutes ago, Maddie said:

… I actually think I have a lot of my past life figured out …

 

With “figured out”, do you mean you remember it?

 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Cobie

[Maddie]

Just now, Cobie said:

 

 

With “figured out”, do you mean that you remember it?

 

 

 

Bit's and pieces maybe but mostly piecing clues together. 

[Cobie]

15 minutes ago, Maddie said:

If the law of karma is correct (and I think it probably is) then simply by logic I can not have been very kind to say the least in a past life.

Circular reasoning.

 

 

[Maddie]

3 minutes ago, Cobie said:

Circular reasoning.

 

 

 

It's defiantly a possibility, or it could be logical deduction of cause and effect. My science half of my brain also protests this lol. 

[Cobie]

 

On 22/11/2023 at 7:31 PM, Maddie said:

… I took over a good solid year of doing nothing but working on karma.

 

That was a smart move. I would not call it “karma”. But for you calling it karma works, so that’s great.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Cobie

[Cobie]

 

On 22/11/2023 at 11:25 PM, Maddie said:

… when you sit still and quiet the mind the Sankaras are given a chance to arise or at least we're able to become more aware of them when the other busyness of the mind is quiet. And then when they arise we observe them and then as we observe them without involvement they dissolve. …

Different terminology (Sankaras), but my experience is the same.  
 

 

[Maddie]

11 minutes ago, Cobie said:

 

 

That was a smart move. I would not call it “karma”. But for you calling it karma works, so that’s great.

 

 

 

5 minutes ago, Cobie said:

 

Different terminology (Sankaras), but my experience is the same.  
 

 

 

Yes and I think the key takeaway for this and in general is to not get so lost in the words that we talk past each other when it comes to meaning. 

[Mark Foote]

On 11/22/2023 at 2:25 PM, Maddie said:

 

This is exactly one of the methods I did to work on karma. What I found is that when you sit still and quiet the mind the Sankaras are given a chance to arise or at least we're able to become more aware of them when the other busyness of the mind is quiet. And then when they arise we observe them and then as we observe them without involvement they dissolve.
 

Here are the elements in mindfulness of the state of mind, at least the elements as Gautama presented them when he spoke of his way of living, "the intent concentration on inbreathing and outbreathing":
 

(One) makes up one’s mind:
 

Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe in. Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe out.
 

Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe in. Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe out.
 

Contemplating cessation I shall breathe in. Contemplating cessation I shall breathe out.
 

Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe in. Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe out.
 

(SN V 312, Pali Text Society Vol V p 275-276; tr. F. L. Woodward; masculine pronouns replaced, re-paragraphed)

 

 

My notes on the same:
 

When I reflect on impermanence, I generally think about death, but Gautama spoke more broadly about the impermanence of any notion of self, and about how grasping after any notion of self is identically suffering.
 

With regard to death, Gautama stated that those who correctly practice “mindfulness of death” apply his teachings “for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food”, or “for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out”.
 

Contemplation on impermanence in any form engenders a dispassion toward “the pleasant, the painful, and the neither-pleasant-nor-painful” of feeling, giving rise to the second element of Gautama’s “mindfulness of mental states”.
 

I take the “cessation” of the third element to be the cessation of volitive action, the action invoked by determinate thought. There are other cessations Gautama cited, each in connection with a particular state of concentration, but they only have significance in the larger context of the cessation of volitive action.
 

The “renunciation” of the fourth element I would say refers to the abandonment of any notion of “I am the doer, mine is the doer” with regard to action of speech, body, or mind.

 

(The Early Record)

 

 

That first element in mindfulness of the state of mind would perhaps be the observation of impermanence in the identification of self in any of the five groups, as you mentioned. 
 

Gautama suggests that the observation of impermanence seques to observation of dispassion, or equanimity with regard to the pleasant, painful, or neither pleasant nor painful of feeling.  That, in turn, allows the cessation of habit or volition in the action of the body in inhalation and exhalation, and the renunciation of the "latent conceits that 'I am the doer, mine is the doer', with regard to this consciousness-informed body".  

 

For Gautama, all of this took place in a state of concentration, meaning with "one-pointedness of mind".  Here's Gautama's description of the feeling of the first concentration, and some comments I have made:

 

Here’s Gautama’s analogy for the first state of concentration:
 

… just as a handy bathman or attendant might strew bath-powder in some copper basin and, gradually sprinkling water, knead it together so that the bath-ball gathered up the moisture, became enveloped in moisture and saturated both in and out, but did not ooze moisture; even so, (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease.
 

(AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg 18-19, see also MN III 92-93, PTS pg 132-134)
 

I’ve described a feeling I have at the place of awareness, in terms of Gautama’s analogy:
 

If I were kneading soap powder into a ball in a copper vessel, I would have one hand kneading soap and one hand on the vessel. The press of the hand kneading soap would find something of an opposite pressure from the hand holding the vessel, even if the bottom of the vessel were resting on the ground.
 

More particularly:
 

… the exercise becomes in part the distinction of the direction of turn that I’m feeling at the location of awareness… that distinction allows the appropriate counter from everything that surrounds the place of awareness.
 

I would say that gravity and handedness (I’m right-handed) is the source of my feeling of outward force at the location of awareness, and the activity of the muscles of posture in response to the stretch of ligaments is the source of the counter.

(Common Ground)

The easiest way to find necessity placing awareness in the movement of breath is right before falling asleep.

 

a p.s.--that "(one) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses" the entire body with positive feeling, absolutely necessary to allow a freedom in the placement of attention, at the same time that one firms one's grip in "laying hold of one-pointedness of mind".

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Mark Foote

[silent thunder]

On 11/23/2023 at 8:01 AM, steve said:

I once had an insight into karma that I'll share FWIW. It has become something that continuously informs my life. 

 

It was a very abrupt and spontaneous experience. During meditation one evening I began to see the connections that thread through my life, through the lives of my ancestors and acquaintances, extending into the past, into the future and connecting everything to the present; like fine strands of a spider's web touching and sensing every action and consequence, every thing and every one without exception. I could see how my life is precisely what it is at this moment because of everything that has transpired and that not one piece of the puzzle is, or could possibly be, out of place. There was a deep sense of perfection and gratitude in how it has all come together to make me who and what I am. While I was aware that any one piece, or even the whole, could easily be judged as good or bad, harmful or helpful; in that moment judgement seemed irrelevant. The shear complexity and magnitude of the vast number of interactions and connections became so overwhelming to my mind that I felt as if it were going to explode or break down. Just as I felt I could take no more it spontaneously released, like a safety valve releasing pressure before a rupture, and as the vision passed I was left feeling shaken and vulnerable but also somehow whole and absolutely fine.

 

Ever since then I have been more cognizant of my relationships, in particular my actions and how they affect other living things. The sheer complexity and scale of karma make it difficult for me to approach the subject intellectually and my current approach is similar to what Mark and stirling describe. Rather than trying to figure it out, I trust in the openness and clarity that are present when I am able to allow the discursive mind to rest and open to the immediacy of the present moment. This openness gives rise to actions that are sometimes unexpected or counter-intuitive but somehow appropriate for the situation.

 

This response is a lamp on a dark road at night.

Thank you for sharing mate.

[thelerner]

I don't know if there's any god or universal mechanism keeping track of our actions.  Often I doubt it, but What we sow, We reap is pretty common sense, usually.  To personally act as if karma matters is a good way to live.  Yet blaming karma for other people's misfortunes is imo a bad way. 

 

Thats a contradiction but it's what I got. 

 

  

[Maddie]

19 minutes ago, thelerner said:

I don't know if there's any god or universal mechanism keeping track of our actions. 

 

I think this is a common misconception about karma that it's made or kept somewhere outside of ourselves but according to the Buddha it's made and kept within our own minds.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Maddie

[Dedicated]

I am wanting to learn more about ancestral Alchemy which is similar. I was talking about it the other day, and the person I was consulting said they read in Dreams, Memories, Reflections by Jung that a time comes when an ancestral trauma comes ripe for healing. 

 

When it comes to comparative religion we must make room for mistranslations

[old3bob]

On 11/25/2023 at 3:23 PM, Maddie said:

 

I think this is a common misconception about karma that it's made or kept somewhere outside of ourselves but according to the Buddha it's made and kept within our own minds.

 

or how about within our own souls for meaning and our mind for storage.  (being the mind is like a computer)

[Sahaja]

When I think of karma I think of those phone wires on poles in some countries that are impossibly, crazily tangled in huge mazes of wires. The phones work but I can’t imagine how any utility employee could make sense of them to try to fix them let alone someone as lacking in skills as myself. I can only be grateful when they work and understanding when they don’t.  Knowing how precarious the whole thing is I just try to be careful not to pull on  the wires or bump the pole to make matters worse. Actually this metaphor may be more apt for dependent origination than karma though I think the two must be related somehow.

[Maddie]

3 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

or how about within our own souls for meaning and our mind for storage.  (being the mind is like a computer)

 

I suppose this would be a difference of understanding between Buddhism and something else because in Buddhism there is no soul it's just mind but I think the effect is the same.

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, Maddie said:

 

I suppose this would be a difference of understanding between Buddhism and something else because in Buddhism there is no soul it's just mind but I think the effect is the same.
 

Can you elaborate on your understanding of Buddhism as "just mind"?  Do you have a particular source for that?

 

[old3bob]

2 hours ago, Maddie said:

 

I suppose this would be a difference of understanding between Buddhism and something else because in Buddhism there is no soul it's just mind but I think the effect is the same.

 

Some Buddhists might ask themselves why there are countless Buddhist depictions of and saying about soul beings in the subtle realms?  Ime a soul is of a humanoid like light body,  not a computer like mind machine of programs.  Btw the common depictions of a golden Buddha imo amounts to an evolved golden soul body.   (as is known and can be found recounted in all true spiritual paths and their scriptures)

[Maddie]

5 minutes ago, old3bob said:

 

Some Buddhists might ask themselves why there are countless Buddhist depictions of and saying about soul beings in the subtle realms?  Ime a soul is of a humanoid like light body,  not a computer like mind machine of programs.  Btw the common depictions of a golden Buddha imo amounts to an evolved golden soul body.   (as is known and can be found recounted in all true spiritual paths and their scriptures)

 

I think if you're equating the mind with a computer you're probably confusing the Buddhist idea of mind with the Western idea of intellect.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Maddie

[Maddie]

36 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

Can you elaborate on your understanding of Buddhism as "just mind"?  Do you have a particular source for that?

 

 

What I mean by just mind is I feel like a lot of the attributes other traditions ascribed to soul or a spirit Buddhism ascribes to the mind. Just mind as opposed to a soul or a spirit.