Karma Calculation

[Mak_Tin_Si]

As requested from the moderator of TaoBum, I have moved to this forum : http://www.daoismworld.com right now.

 

So if you want to talk to me or ask me anything about Taoism, please feel free to go over to this forum and enjoy the new forum. New members for discussion are also welcomed.

 

http://www.daoismworld.com

 

Mak Tin Si

Edited January 8, 2009 by Mak_Tin_Si

[Mak_Tin_Si]

As requested from the moderator of TaoBum, I have moved to this forum : http://www.daoismworld.com right now.

 

So if you want to talk to me or ask me anything about Taoism, please feel free to go over to this forum and enjoy the new forum. New members for discussion are also welcomed.

 

http://www.daoismworld.com

 

Mak Tin Si

Edited January 8, 2009 by Mak_Tin_Si

[Anabhogya-Carya]

Many people asked me the same question all the time - "who set what is good and bad in nature, if my culture say that killing people is good, is that good deed?"

 

This really makes me nervous sometimes. People start to set their or good and bad? No. That is not how nature works. The good and bad in Taoism is learned by experience and calculation which is why we need to train and learn in taoism to get the real good and bad. You can say good and bad is something named for better understanding of things, but it is just a name that makes us realize the "after effect" of any actions.

 

We in taoism learn good and bad by seeing the after effect. Which means we learn good and bad by the cause and effect of things. Of course, we cannot just read a book and know what is good and bad. We first learn from scriptures (past experience from the wise masters) and text. Then we experience them in our daily life and learn from daily life experience. If you are a taoist priest, you also gain lots of experience from your patients who find you to do ceremonies and healings for them.

 

Now let me give an example of doing a good deed.

 

Donating money - Many people think that donation is a good deed. Yet, braodly speaking it is, but if you donate money, it doesn't means you get good luck and good feedback. Why so? There is a calculation here that determine how your payback for the good deed will come. For example you donate to the sick kids, that means your money go to the route of human. Then your payback will be something good to you or your kids. But if you donate to WWF (animals) then it means the payback only comes back when you have animals (pets) or if you became a pet in your next life. Very little is coming back to you this life. If you donate to an army, they use the money to build armies and for killing people, so you do not do any good deeds. Maybe you helped to safe people's life, but you saved people to kill others, which is not good. You can say they are only killing bad people, but on the others side, what do the opponet think?

 

Doing good and bad deeds are calculated by karma, cause and effect. You can learn them and found them in your daily life. It comes somtimes in a period of time, sometimes in instant. So you must know how to calculate to be able to know the real good and bad in nature. By ignoring these, you are just making excuse for yourself to not accept the reality and how nature works. That is also why we learn ethics and lots of things about karma in taoism. BAISC.

 

As said by Lao Zi, Good and Bad luck came from no door, people just invited them by their own.

 

You begin by pointing the potential relitivity of morality and 'good' and 'bad', and you continue on making unsubstantiated assertions about an independent standard of 'good' and 'bad.' You have proven nothing, you have just given your definition of good and bad. It seems that you think that suffering=bad, and while this may very well be the origin of the word, it does not imply a metaphysical truth. Nor is it necessarily true across the spectrum of human experience. 'Good' and 'bad' are words, and like many words the connotations vary greatly.

 

And then you go on to make the ridiculous and manipulative claim that anyone who does not agree is fooling themselves and is lacking in an understanding of nature. If you in fact had an elementry understanding of any epistmological theory you would see that your assertions, claims, and manuscripts hold little water.

 

Do not bottle yourself up and reject all other possibilities without reasoning out your own first.

[Ryan T.]

 

We in taoism learn good and bad by seeing the after effect. Which means we learn good and bad by the cause and effect of things. Of course, we cannot just read a book and know what is good and bad. We first learn from scriptures (past experience from the wise masters) and text. Then we experience them in our daily life and learn from daily life experience.

 

But we can't see everything or know everything. We only get a small piece of the picture, maybe a billionth or trillionth of it. Even if a person lives to be 200 years old there are still infinite possibilities about the outcomes to any given action.

 

And I am sorry but it is ridiculous of you to say that a baby dying at an early age is due to karma. Can you also blame karma on the millions of Jews, Christians, gays and others that died in the holocaust? They all had it coming karmically?!! What about the perpetrators of some of those crimes that lived out their lives and saw no retribution? Were they so good in a previous life that it didn't matter what they did in their current one? Or will they pay in the next? And why is it that you and your religious affiliates get to decide such things? Or are you only telling us what has been handed down to you from generation to generation?

 

You seem to be wrapped up in some pretty limiting dogma.

[Pero]

And I am sorry but it is ridiculous of you to say that a baby dying at an early age is due to karma. Can you also blame karma on the millions of Jews, Christians, gays and others that died in the holocaust? They all had it coming karmically?!! What about the perpetrators of some of those crimes that lived out their lives and saw no retribution? Were they so good in a previous life that it didn't matter what they did in their current one? Or will they pay in the next? And why is it that you and your religious affiliates get to decide such things? Or are you only telling us what has been handed down to you from generation to generation?

 

I didn't read MTS posts because I don't feel like reading such long posts so late, it's over 2 am here, so I don't know what he's saying. But, this reply is pretty classical.

So the answer to your questions is yes. It was karma that millions of Jews were killed (of the Jews and the Nazis). It's karma now that Israel is killing Palestinians. It will be karma if Israel is destroyed. Are you a Buddha? I assume not, so you can't know what happened to those who commited the crimes. Perhaps nothing manifested in this life, but in their next they might have been reborn in Palestine and someone killed them. And there is not only this world, they could've been reborn anywhere. Perhaps in hell realms.

 

You seem to be wrapped up in some pretty limiting dogma.

 

This is not someone's decision. Karma is impersonal, there is no decider. Problem is people can't leave their emotions and their construct of what is right behind them. So I think it's you who are limited (also). "I don't like this because it sounds cruel to me, so I won't accept it, it's just dogma anyway".

 

And for myself I'm telling you what I understood from Buddhism, you may say "only", but the truth is I nor you have the capacity to figure this out on our own. If we had to talk only about things we have figured out 100% on our own, we'd be pretty quiet IMO. Perhaps some day we'll have capacity to see these things for ourselves and understand karma more. But it's not today. So we learn from teachers.

[Ryan T.]

 

This is not someone's decision. Karma is impersonal, there is no decider. Problem is people can't leave their emotions and their construct of what is right behind them. So I think it's you who are limited (also). "I don't like this because it sounds cruel to me, so I won't accept it, it's just dogma anyway".

 

We are all limited. I suppose that is the point of the questions I asked.

 

And for myself I'm telling you what I understood from Buddhism, you may say "only", but the truth is I nor you have the capacity to figure this out on our own. If we had to talk only about things we have figured out 100% on our own, we'd be pretty quiet IMO. Perhaps some day we'll have capacity to see these things for ourselves and understand karma more. But it's not today. So we learn from teachers.

 

Was what you say above not exactly what I was saying to MTS? Perhaps I was not clear. But to say something is or isn't karma based on previous acts or otherwise, seems to me, presupposes a larger understanding of things that we are all really just guessing about. Me, you and MTS. You and I seem to be willing to admit that!

[Anabhogya-Carya]

I didn't read MTS posts because I don't feel like reading such long posts so late, it's over 2 am here, so I don't know what he's saying. But, this reply is pretty classical.

So the answer to your questions is yes. It was karma that millions of Jews were killed (of the Jews and the Nazis). It's karma now that Israel is killing Palestinians. It will be karma if Israel is destroyed. Are you a Buddha? I assume not, so you can't know what happened to those who commited the crimes. Perhaps nothing manifested in this life, but in their next they might have been reborn in Palestine and someone killed them. And there is not only this world, they could've been reborn anywhere. Perhaps in hell realms.

This is not someone's decision. Karma is impersonal, there is no decider. Problem is people can't leave their emotions and their construct of what is right behind them. So I think it's you who are limited (also). "I don't like this because it sounds cruel to me, so I won't accept it, it's just dogma anyway".

 

And for myself I'm telling you what I understood from Buddhism, you may say "only", but the truth is I nor you have the capacity to figure this out on our own. If we had to talk only about things we have figured out 100% on our own, we'd be pretty quiet IMO. Perhaps some day we'll have capacity to see these things for ourselves and understand karma more. But it's not today. So we learn from teachers.

 

If you assume karma exists of course.

[Pero]

We are all limited.

 

Unfortunatelly.

 

Was what you say above not exactly what I was saying to MTS? Perhaps I was not clear. But to say something is or isn't karma based on previous acts or otherwise, seems to me, presupposes a larger understanding of things that we are all really just guessing about. Me, you and MTS. You and I seem to be willing to admit that!

 

Oh sorry, I misunderstood you then.

But I don't agree with something (or I'm not getting you again). For me, pretty much everything is karma, for me everything is based on previous acts. I'm here where I am today because of the things I did in the past, not for any other reason. Though I may not know exactly what were the primary causes.

 

If you assume karma exists of course.

 

Well, partly you can assume, partly you can see for yourself. I take it on faith that there are past lives and that I've done things then which have effects in this life. But in this life I can see if I do/did something it will have/had an effect. Sometimes I can only see what the cause of something is after the effect already manifested. But just the cause in this life, I have no clue what (and if there is) the cause would be from a previous life.