Karma

You know I keep seeing in trope pages about how some people bring some misfortune on to themselves by commiting some bad if not atrocious acts. What exactly is Karma? And what does it mean?

Karma or kamma as it is spelled in Pali is a concept found in the Dhammic religions of Asia that originated in India. The three key ones that survive to this day being Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. At a base level kamma holds a similar meaning between the three. It’s a sort of universal moral based system of cause and effect. Now the specifics of the system is where things vary. Hinduism’s views are nothing like Buddhism’s and I know nothing about Jainism so I can’t say how they view it.

I can however provide an answer on Buddhism and a brief answer on Hindiusm based on what little I know of that religion. In Buddhism kamma is built from every action you make and indeed every action every living being, human or otherwise, makes. Kamma takes a while to go and, when it is ready, it comes to fruition causing a reaction. This reaction can happen in this life, the next, or many down the line. It can also affect your placement in the next. What sort of conditions you’re born into. Like if you’re born a sick child and in a poor home or as an animal that isn’t a human. Kamma is judged by four factors. Circumstance, intention, action, and result. The effects of kamma are rarely a simple eye for an eye thing as well. If you stab someone you can’t say that you’re going to be stabbed. Kamma also can be separated into four base types: positive, negative, neutral, and Enlightenment. Most people only generate the first three. The fourth is cultivated by Bodhisatta and required to extinguish remaining kamma.

Because kamma is why you keep being reborn. And in Buddhism you want to stop that because being reborn leads to the effect of suffering. There are many causes to this whole kamma thing and to go into the specifics of how this all works could take a whole book. I have one sitting next to me based just on this principle called Dependent Origination. At the base though the concept is simple. Because of this, that arises. Due to the ceasation of this, that ends.

Kamma causes life which results in suffering. Stop kamma and you stop life. Which frees you from suffering.

Now there are problems with this. Namely you have a lot of kamma. Because you keep building it up. Every single action you make builds it. Most of it is null kamma, but a lot isn’t. And it keeps being built up. Now. Think. You may be a nice good person now. …but what of past you? That old kamma just doesn’t go away. You can’t say “I’m sorry Universe. I won’t do it again. Wipe my slate clean?” Because there’s no one to plead with. There’s Yama down in Naraka but he just reads off your sentence and has demons escort you to your proper place in Hell during your very long, but impermanent stay. So you have a lot of kamma. That builds up. It interacts with the old and new kamma. But there are other people too and their kamma lines are constantly acting like yours. So that might affect you as well.

Needless to say this is an unholy clusterfluck. It’s a wonder Yama can read it and it’s damn certain why humans can’t if it is real. You’d have to be up to date for each and every moment no matter how small and taking into account every factor, including their past kamma, to find a judgement on the result of their kamma.

This is how the system works, but what are the rules based on? According to Buddhism a series of ethics and morals that are situational, but primarily pacificistic and based on the love and future Enlightenment of all living beings. The laity gets a few base precepts. Not vows. Just guidelines you try to keep to as best you can. Abstain from killing, stealing, lying, drinking of alcohol and use of other intoxicating substances, and sexual misconduct (definitions vary but rape and adultery are pretty much constants). This goes with the whole “Be nice to people and don’t murder the hell out of things” and in theory will get you slowly but surely closer to that whole Enlightenment thing.

Now Hinduism is different. Their rules I don’t know well. All I know is that at the base there is something to do with acting in accordance with your vocation. The purpose the universe set out for you. Finding your path in life, following it, and coming to understand and accept it is a big thing in it. As I understand it the kamma system works around with this idea as well. Don't take this as any sort of authority because again I don't know much about Hinduism. This is what I am recalling having heard a while ago. I can't say for certain like I can with Buddhism.

Again I don’t know how Jainism works.

edited 20th Apr '12 7:31:14 AM by Aondeug

Doesn't Buddhism promote a state of enlightenment that can free you from Kamma?

That's the idea. Freeing yourself of kamma in pretty much all branches. Kamma is needed to end kamma however. Build up Enlightenment kamma, wait for the rest to react, and then stop generating it and die.

On a more pop culture level, the modern concept of karma is the basic idea that whatever goes around, comes around. Meaning that if you're an asshole, it's going to bite you in the ass hard or if you're an altruistic person, it's going to eventually pay back in some many. It's a very, very simplistic and watered down version of the concept and is very immediate as opposed to being millennium long bouts in Buddhism.

It's also derived off the fact that people are bad at probability. It's similar to the idea that a person will think they will have a better chance of winning this time since they lost last time in a game of chance. With karma, it's part truth that if you are an asshole, people are less inclined to help you and part fiction in that apparently the universe has this balancing act going on with people, what happens to them, and their morality.

So Kamma is essentially metaphysical pollution?

In a way yes? Save that the universe runs on it. All of existence does. There is no life without kamma.

I personally think Karma is a synonymous term for causality. It goes around and comes around. No effect without a cause, and with each effect, there are new causes.

Note, I said personally. It is also my personal take that karma hits back 99% of the time, but in different magnitudes. What you do counts. Every single action.

@Aondeug

That makes some sense but is it somewhat similar to the Golden Rule we have in the West?

Well, if you want to get technical, causality means that causes precede effects (A.K.A. no time travel), but that just semantics.

I don't believe in Karma myself, but I do think that being good encourages others to do the same, making life better for everybody.

edited 20th Apr '12 8:54:50 AM by RTaco

In part yes? Kamma along with the entire system of ethics in Buddhism and our virtues have what is essentially the Golden Rule in there somewhere. I forget where.

The problem with this thought system is that it encourages the Just World Fallacy, which says "If you are unlucky/poor/sick/born in a low caste, then you deserved it either in this life or a past one".

Well, if we have to get technical, I think that there are as many definitions of causality as there are philosophers I know that some people at least are willing to entertain the possibility of causal chains going from the future to the past...

Maybe I am mistaken, but it seems to me that the definition of Kamma that was given has nothing to do with notions of justice or punishment. If you are unlucky/poor/whatever, perhaps it's because of something you did in your past life. Or perhaps it's because of something somebody else did in their past lives, or because of some incredibly complex factor. That matters little, what matters is to improve your lot as much as possible (and of course, other people get an useful chance to improve their lots by trying to help you improve yours.)

Oh good, I got here before anyone got the chance to make a My Name Is Earl reference.

Hm, I never heard of that show before, but the premise sounds fun. Might have to try it sooner or later.

Medinoc that's a problem that Buddhism faces. Some use it to justify persecution. Others, such as myself, believe that this is contrary to what the religion teaches us. The idea is to beat kamma and get out of the universe. Two of our virtues, two of the things we should all strive to cultivate and need to become Enlightened, are metta and karuna. The first is loving kindness. A desire for ALL living beings, human or not, bad person or not, to be happy, healthy, wise, and knowledgeable. Karuna is mercy and a desire to help ALL living beings.

Those who've messed up are those who especially need help. The Buddha ordained a number of rapists and murderers as monks because of this. Some of them became some of his most devout followers.

The idea is this. Yes the universe says you deserve it. You also deserve love and help. And a chance to try again. So you, when you can, should extend your hand to all those who need help if you can within reason give it. As should they. The system is harsh and its rules unchangeable, but if we all work together and all work with mercy and love we can beat it and create a more peaceful world for the living, if not a perfect one.

edited 20th Apr '12 1:40:54 PM by Aondeug

I can speak for Hinduism. Your actions, thoughts, and feelings become you. Therefore if you focus your life and efforts towards the greater good than your atman, your embodied essence, carries more goodness, like a little light you can build brighter. Likewise with bad acts or thoughts, they can stain your atman.

Now the confusion with this is how do you judge if someone has good karma or not? The Vedas ascribe you judge people by the wisdom of their speech, the kindness of their actions, and the compassion of their thoughts. However humans being human have tried to claim material, economic, or biological gifts as indications of good karma.

This is against Vedic tradition but has been ingrained in most cultures who ascribe to Karma most do not question it, like the whole misunderstandings of the caste systems.

Sorry, I don't believe in karma in the least. The universe is amoral; it does not reward good any more than it punishes evil, because these are only perceptions of mortals. The idea of karma always struck me as nothing more than a final vestige of hope for the wronged.

Example: some cunt stole my bike last year. It was all too easy, and all too reassuring, to think he may get his just desserts soon- but how likely is that, really? Petty theft is impossible to track, plus the cops have bigger fish to fry. He'll sell the bike and be about his business.

So no, friends, I say evil goes unpunished far too often (just read the news) to believe in karma. As I've always said, "you gotta make your own karma."

The likelihood of that kamma coming to fruition so soon for is stealing your bike, and then all factors must be taken into consideration, isn't high. It's likely just to be growing at its own small pace or building up with his other kamma of the negative variety. There's also his constant building of kamma of the three key types we experience that can and does affect the growth of the kamma. Meaning its coming to fruition might take longer.

It also affects next lives and the conditions in which are you born into them. Meaning if you've been fucked by the genetics lottery and have a crappy homelife your kamma has finally come to bite you in the ass.

The system is slow, complex, and unfeeling. It's also not what humanity wants. You can be forgiven by humans or gods or animals. You can't be forgiven by kamma. It just builds and reacts. Keeping you bound.

edited 23rd Apr '12 8:41:46 AM by Aondeug

This is very interesting, and sounds rather similar to the way in which the concept of "vocation" is interpreted in my tradition. By sharpening your natural inclinations and ordering them in accordance to the greater Good, you become more similar to what you were meant to be and, therefore, more similar to the Divinity Itself of Which humankind is an imperfect image. And conversely, through bad acts or thoughts you become more different from what you were meant to be and, hence, farther away from the Divinity.

edited 23rd Apr '12 8:46:42 AM by Carciofus

very acurate. The ultimate goal is to commit t your duty and obligations, called Dharma, with such honesty and sincerity that your Karma helps pull you realizing the truth that leads to Moksha. It's not a tit-for-tat exchange system, rather more of a training session with each life you experience.

One maybe a wealthy doctor in one life than a dog on the next. This does not mean that they had bad Karma and that's all. Rather it means they either have a specific lesson or experience to go through based on their particular karma and the choices they make only improve or degrade their efforts.

Now I will mention Hinduism does have hells. They are not eternal, but if your karma is so tainted (after several lifetimes, not just one) you may be sent to do time in hell to be pushed to rectify your mistakes and cleans your character for the greater good.

There is also heavens, but again, they are for those who are not quite to the point of Moksha and still have some last lessons or experiences to conquer and are not eternal.

I don't know which, if any, tradition it comes from but one interpretation of Karma I've heard of is a sort of external, environmental thing. By doing bad things, you make your local environment worse to live in, which affects you as much as those around you. And vice versa for good. Presumably this is some sort of spiritual force affecting fortune and such, but it also bears out socially. If you're a dick, the people around you won't trust you or like you as much. A kinder person will earn much more gratitude from their peers.

In all likelihood, that successful theft will encourage him/her to steal other stuff, which eventually will result in getting caught: "go up a mountain many times, eventually you'll meet a tiger." Or alternately, somebody with that kind of uncaring for others will have that bite him/her in the ass eventually. Karma doesn't mean the consequences are direct, if I'm reading Anon correctly.

While I agree with the idea of karma, I don't think it as a suffering so much as Buddhists do. Hey, if I made a choice I want to experience the consequences, damn it, for good or for bad. Roller coaster ride is far more fun and hilarious than just a steady slow walk.

The consequences are rarely direct. Kamma isn't "Eye for an eye" with its results. The result is always constantly changing because of the constantly changing nature of your kamma and that of those around you.

Makes it hard to predict.

That is more the Chinese Buddhists interpretation. Some Japanese Buddhists adopt this as well because Shinto finds similar ground.