Buddhism and Karma (Religion)

by dhw, Thursday, August 29, 2013, 13:58 (4102 days ago) @ xeno6696

Xeno: I'm uh...rather late to this game (being that Jan 2013 is nearly 9 months ago)...-Welcome back, Matt. We have missed you hugely. You will see from the page upon page of threads that we have had some lively discussions in your absence and could have done with your particular insights.-"Buddhism and Karma" has not been on the agenda, but it's interesting to read our various comments at the time. Not a great deal one can add, except that to refresh my memory, I've had another look at one of my reference books, which defines karma as the theory that "every action has a consequence which will come to fruition in either this or a future life [...] An individual's present situation is thereby explained by reference to actions in his past history, in his present or in previous lifetimes." It seems that the overall aim is to break the cycle of birth and death (samsara), which doesn't say a great deal for the life of a Buddhist. I'm sure you'll agree that the birth of a child (how is Josephine, by the way?) is to be celebrated, whereas one senses that the correct response for a karma-style Buddhist would be something like: "Oh crikey, here we go again!"-However, you would not have spent 8+ years practising the meditative aspects of Buddhism if you had not found it beneficial. Karma obviously doesn't figure in your branch of Buddhism, so maybe we could change the subject and you could summarize just what it is that you meditate on, and how it helps you. -Once again, welcome back.