An Examination of Karma: A Hopeful Message of Change
By Grant Lawrence
"I declare, O Bhikkhus, that volition is Karma. Having willed one acts by body, speech, and thought." (Anguttara Nikaya)
The Buddha
Many believe that Karma is a law of predestination in which a person must experience results based exactly on their past actions. But if we accept this understanding of karma then there is no hope to escape from the circle of Karmic rewards and retributions. For instance, a person steals from another and thus that person must be stolen from. Then that person must steal again from another person that had stolen from another. Thus the vicious circle of theft, according to a simplistic understanding of karma, in which a person must be forever bound.
Karma then becomes a system in which a person is forever trapped acting and reacting to the same seeds that were previously sown. It is a type of cosmic merry-go-round in which a person is destined to forever repeat the same past failure and successes.
But I see Karma as something a bit more profound and helpful.
As some quantum experiments suggest, it is consciousness that seems to have some weird connection to and effect on energy/matter. If such experiments, like the double slit experiment, are correct, an observer effects the observed, then there is another way of looking at reality and Karma.
Karma is thought of in basic terms as action, or as the Buddha points out it is what occurs from volition.
If Karma, or action and reaction, arise from our volition or will then what is it that wills?
It is our being, or some use the term consciousness, that wills and we will from what we essentially are as beings. A spider wills according to what it understands as a spider. A horse wills according to what it understands as a horse. As the being becomes more complex, the understanding becomes more complex, and thus the volition is more varied. But, still, essentially a being chooses according to its being.
So a person experiences life according to what that person fundamentally is. The volition which arises from being then turns into actions (thoughts, words, and deeds) and then into reactions. For many, if not most people, they stay stuck in a certain Karmic pattern described earlier (action, reaction, action, reaction, etc.). But it doesn't have to be that way and that is why Karma is not predestination.
Instead a person can learn from life (move toward greater wisdom and away from ignorance) and thus change his or her very being. Once a person raises the vibrational pattern that corresponds to their being then the rest of life responds to their present state of consciousness. Matter/energy and consciousness (being) are not separate in any way but correspond to each other, as some quantum experiments seem to suggest.
So the truth often seems paradoxical. But what appears as a very complicated pattern of infinite relationships (Karma) can really be expressed in terms of where you are in your own head and your own heart (your being).
So change your head and your heart (your being) and change your world. That is the hopeful message of change that can be found from an examination and understanding of Karma.
Source: Bodhi Thunder
"I declare, O Bhikkhus, that volition is Karma. Having willed one acts by body, speech, and thought." (Anguttara Nikaya)
The Buddha
Many believe that Karma is a law of predestination in which a person must experience results based exactly on their past actions. But if we accept this understanding of karma then there is no hope to escape from the circle of Karmic rewards and retributions. For instance, a person steals from another and thus that person must be stolen from. Then that person must steal again from another person that had stolen from another. Thus the vicious circle of theft, according to a simplistic understanding of karma, in which a person must be forever bound.
Karma then becomes a system in which a person is forever trapped acting and reacting to the same seeds that were previously sown. It is a type of cosmic merry-go-round in which a person is destined to forever repeat the same past failure and successes.
But I see Karma as something a bit more profound and helpful.
As some quantum experiments suggest, it is consciousness that seems to have some weird connection to and effect on energy/matter. If such experiments, like the double slit experiment, are correct, an observer effects the observed, then there is another way of looking at reality and Karma.
Karma is thought of in basic terms as action, or as the Buddha points out it is what occurs from volition.
If Karma, or action and reaction, arise from our volition or will then what is it that wills?
It is our being, or some use the term consciousness, that wills and we will from what we essentially are as beings. A spider wills according to what it understands as a spider. A horse wills according to what it understands as a horse. As the being becomes more complex, the understanding becomes more complex, and thus the volition is more varied. But, still, essentially a being chooses according to its being.
So a person experiences life according to what that person fundamentally is. The volition which arises from being then turns into actions (thoughts, words, and deeds) and then into reactions. For many, if not most people, they stay stuck in a certain Karmic pattern described earlier (action, reaction, action, reaction, etc.). But it doesn't have to be that way and that is why Karma is not predestination.
Instead a person can learn from life (move toward greater wisdom and away from ignorance) and thus change his or her very being. Once a person raises the vibrational pattern that corresponds to their being then the rest of life responds to their present state of consciousness. Matter/energy and consciousness (being) are not separate in any way but correspond to each other, as some quantum experiments seem to suggest.
So the truth often seems paradoxical. But what appears as a very complicated pattern of infinite relationships (Karma) can really be expressed in terms of where you are in your own head and your own heart (your being).
So change your head and your heart (your being) and change your world. That is the hopeful message of change that can be found from an examination and understanding of Karma.
Source: Bodhi Thunder
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