karma

You know there is no need to stress or trip over getting even, because my life is gilded and grounded…..and I really believe that karma in itself avenges us - Angie Stone

Words from a song that’s a current favorite of mine. Is it really true. Is it true that life unfolds in a karmatic fashion? And just what is karma. Karma is the doctrine of actions and their causal consequences. For those of us who believe in karma, we believe that your present is as a result of your past, and most importantly, your future is determined by your current actions. Common sense really. But isn't it also true that certain situations we find ourselves in cannot be explained by our past? Isn't it also true that we can get away with some of things we do now. A friend of mine calls this buzzer beating: quitting jus before anything goes wrong. The thing about Karma is that it is within us and most importantly, it is independent of us. This means that we cannot beat Karma. We cannot buzzer beat. The good thing is we can let it work for us, by pursuing good causes, then karma will return good effects. And if someone wrongs us, we let karma handle that(okay fine, maybe sometimes they deserve a punch on the nose!). We let karma avenge us.

Pleasure and pain are effects. The fact that they change shows that they depend on causes. This is why you will not experience the pleasure you want unless you create its causes, and you will prevent the suffering that you want to avoid by giving up its causes. As soon as a cause of suffering is inscribed in your mental continuum, you will have to go through its cause and effects whether or not you would prefer to avoid suffering. The effect of harmful actions is based on the intensity of the delusions that motivate them. It also corresponds to the associated cause.

Some people believe in a system of rewards and punishments. That if you do good you get rewarded, if you do bad you get punished. I believe in a system of consequences. If you do good, you get good consequences, if you do bad you get bad consequence. So as much as possible try to do well. Not so much because you expect the same from people, but the more because you owe it to yourself. And if someone wrongs you…do not fret…for Karma will surely avenge you

As the Dalai Lama put it, 'pleasure and pain come from your own past actions. So it is easy to define Karma in one short sentence: Act well, and things will go well,; Act wrongly, and things will go wrong'