Question: “I am really stuck on the concept of Karma? Could you please help me figure out what the actual texts say about Karma and your thoughts on it. Whenever I do light research it seems to come back to past life deeds and I think that is a more sophisticated way of victim blaming.”
In the Samyutta Nikaya text it says:
“According to the seed that’s sown,
So is the fruit you reap there from,
Doer of good will gather good,
Doer of evil, evil reaps,
Down is the seed and thou shalt taste
The fruit thereof.”
Our present life has everything to do with our past Karma. Where we are, who we are, our failures and successes, our special skills or lack of can all be blamed on our past lives and their Karma. However, though our past lives’ karma has influence on our present life, our present karma can also have influence on our present and future lives.
In my post about Karma I mentioned that you can’t “erase” bad Karma, but you can outweigh it with good karma by accumulating good deeds and merits by practicing the Eightfold Path. By accumulating enough merits, you can be reborn in the heavenly realm and reach Enlightenment much quicker. But being reborn in the heavenly realm doesn’t mean you stay there. In all six realms of rebirth you still die and reborn, but you live longer in the heavenly realms and stay there until your good karma points are used up.
Karma follows the law of causality; where there’s a cause, there’s an effect. So if you create a good cause, you’ll get a good effect; a bad cause, a bad effect. However, keep in mind just because you do so many good deeds in this life doesn’t mean you’ll receive the good effects in the same life – the effects happen when the time is right. So it could be in this life, the very next life, or any other life after that. So, when doing good deeds and accumulating merit, don’t just think of the benefits for this life, but also know that your next life will be a much better one, and one day when you reach Enlightenment you’ll be able to see your past lives and thank yourself that you did so much good to help you find liberation.
Smile and be well!
Thank you for the response. I appreciate that. I suppose I need proof to believe in past life. Who/ what keeps record of karma? I hope it doesnt come down to faith because blind faith is a good reason I fled Christianity.
Also you mean to tell me all the Jews did something horrible to reap the Holocaust and all the starving dying children in Africa did something in their past lives? sexual abuse victims..
That’s one way of looking at it. Karma is its own entity – no one or thing controls it but yourself. Since you can’t control where you are reborn (unless you’ve been awakened), Karma acts like the police and puts you in jail (a place where “bad” things/people happen/go). So what happened to the Jews also happened to the people of Tibet when China invaded, maybe rape victims got raped because they did so in a past life, maybe slaves are slaves because they owned slaves in the past.
It’s not blind faith, but you can ask yourself, “Why do I have the life I have? Why was I born into this poor/rich family and not another? Why am I good at one thing but bad at another?” Are there certain animals, foods, colors, or people you just don’t like and don’t know why? Maybe you had a bad experience with them in past lives, or the person you can’t stand you’ve had rivals with in a past life.
There have been hundreds of cases of children being able to recall their past life. Have you ever seen a video of a toddler playing the piano like a pro? A few years ago there was a kid on the news who knew exactly who he was in his last life; a warplane fighter who got shot down. Google/YouTube it, you’ll find many compelling stories. However, it’s one of those things that you either believe in it or you don’t.