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Every depiction of karma in the Scriptures of both Hindu and Buddhist traditions explain that Karma is a mess and unpredictable and you could say it appears “unfair” sometimes. Yet you are correct that the point is that dharma is not about karma, but in fact exiting the samsaric rebirth loop of good/bad karma.
It only appears unfair if we consider only the actions in this lifetime. But once the actions in a countless multitude of previous lives is considered, then one can see that it is neither fair nor unfair, simply a blind process of cause and effect and modifying factors
EXACTLY what I thought. If being immoral leads us to repeat the same mistakes in future lives and we also go to hell for our actions, why can't Karma make thieves be reborn in an area where they can more easily progress and get rehabilitated, and not suffer from poverty or be starving as a Peta?
@@maciejrzepczyk6562 Karma doesn't work as a judge sending beings here or there. It's a blind process and very complex. As Doug mentioned, it's not simple tit for tat. It's more than just the action, but also the motivations behind the action. Also other past karma that has not ripened or that one creates later will modify the effect of the karma created now. To take the example of the thief: the poor man one who steals out of desperation and compassion for starving family although he goes to prison in this life, might also have created a lot of good karma for example if he shared whatever he had with others out of compassion for them. In this life, things may not go so well for him, but in the next life he might be in much better position. The rich guy who steals out of greed might get away with it in this life, but in the next life may end up in a hell realm because of this and all the other bad karma he created in this life abusing his position. This is only taking into account actions in this life. When the unripened karma of countless other lives comes into play, then we cannot even begin to see how any single action will play out in the future. Even Devadatta, the Buddha's evil cousin although gone to the lowest hell realm because of his actions against the Buddha, dharma and sangha in that particular life will one day become a buddha in some distant future, presumably because good karma he had accumulated in previous lives will eventually ripen and set him up in the suitable conditions in future lives. According to the suttas, not even an arahant, but only a fully realised Buddha can untangle the web and say definitively where someone is going to be reborn because of a particular action or what action caused someone to be reborn in this condition. This is only the Theravada understanding of karma. When you look at the Mahayana understanding with Bodhisattvas and "skillful means" involved, it gets a lot more complicated!
I'm recalling some debated reports of small children remembering details of past lives that were shown to accurately correspond to historical records. One of my teachers used a Marathi phrase that he translated as "rags to riches, riches to ruin," explaining that often people without much wealth will turn to intensive spiritual practices that generate a lot of merit, but then forget about their past austerity when they get reborn and fall into corruption due to the temptations of wealth and power. I decided for myself that for practical reasons, even if karma cannot be definitively proven, assuming that the teachings are true makes people more likely to behave in ways that are beneficial towards others due to the possibility of karmic reward and punishment.
For Zen practitioners, one of the most striking notes on Karma is in The Gateless Gate; a student asks; 'Is an enlightened man subject to the laws of Karma?' 'No, he is not,' answers his teacher. The teacher is then transformed into a fox until he hears the correct answer; that the enlightened man is one with the law of karma' - that enlightenment doesn't grant control or escape, but understanding of how it ebbs and flows. From then on, they exist in karma not as a drop of water exists in a river, but as the river itself. So for me, the two parables of the Buddha which you examined highlight the danger of worshipping Karma, of treating it as cosmic justice that will raise the poor and humble the rich, rather than cause and effect.
This reminds me of a parable from the bible (Mark 12 and Luke 21). The poor widow donated just a few coins and quietly went away, while the rich man donated lots of money and elicited much admiration from bystanders. Jesus said that the poor widow actually contributed more because she gave a big proportion from the little she had, while the rich man gave from a small proportion of what he owned. So this story is an inverse of bad deeds - those who have more need to do more good too. These parables from the Pali Canon and Bible are useful instruction for us. Sadhu x 3. 🙏🙏🙏
The key insight you have to develop is that the world sucks as long as it exists (as long as there is dependently co-arisen stuff). The path can't make the world not suck, the path just can make you not want the world not to suck.
The world sucks? I would say your attitude sucks. I've got a decent body to live in, the sun came up, there's tons of people to love, a meteorite is not going to hit tomorrow. It's a beautiful world. All you need is appreciation and gratitude.
@@kelleemerson9510 Thats true but still Bad things will hapen in the future ... your family will die you will experience illnes (probably) etc if you are positive its good but no one IS safe from sufering. Good thing will happen too. But still if death exist sufering exist. Watch some videos about budhism
Thank you. This reminds me of a parable in the bible. A poor widow donated a few small coins vs a rich man who donated lots of money, and everyone admired the latter. But Jesus said the widow contributed more, because she gave a large proportion of the little she had, but what yhe rich man gave was just a small proportion of what he had Mark 12 and Luke 21). The parable is an inverse of bad deeds that - kind of similar for good deeds,l. To me, those who have more, have a greater opportunity and also responsibility to do good, in proportion to the resources they have. What an interesting nuance from the Pali canon and the bible. Sadhu x 3 🙏🙏🙏
Moreover, Subhuti, when bodhisattvas give a gift, they should not be attached to a thing. When they give a gift, they should not be attached to anything at all. Subhuti, the body of merit of those bodhisattvas who give a gift without being attached is not easy to measure. “As a lamp, a cataract, a star in space / an illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble / a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightning / view all created things like this.”
Thats what differentiate Buddhism and Hinduism, Hindu believe that karma of previous birth responsible for birth in a particular caste, and this belief is responsible for wide scale caste atrocities among them. Buddhism focuses more on raising consciousness, there's a sutra of Suttapitaka where Buddha said that if someone raises his consciousness he can transfer from Demon realms to divine realms within a blink of an eye, this concept is something which differentiate Buddhism from all other religion
According to Buddhism as explained even in the video a birth in poverty was seen as a result of Karmas of past life (or lives). So if a person is born in a so called lower caste which is involved in doing jobs which majority don't want to do and also does not involve much capital then would that not mean that he got birth in that particular caste because of his Karmas ? from a Buddhist lens at least ?. Caste atrocities are a separate issue altogether at the very core of it which just got layered up in this Karma-Rebirth concept and Buddhism apparently does accept such a concept although gives the freedom to acquire skills which can lift one's socio-economic condition towards a better position which is not possible within traditional Hinduism. Buddhism does actually seems to accept the Caste system and related Karma-Rebirth concept (and also by the way all previous Buddhas were born in Upper Caste and the coming Buddha is said to born into a Brahmin (highest caste) family). Anyway, Caste atrocities arise mainly out of power difference, indoctrination, economic factors and historically had racist roots (Arya vs Non-Arya) in ancient times. Caste based atrocities are unfortunate and not acceptable however blaming Karma-Rebirth concept for such atrocities is oversimplification if not completely wrong altogether.
According to buddhism the kind of birth you get depends on karma too just like hindus. Although don't know about caste but being born as a woman is considered a lower birth conpared to a man.
I love the insights Doug shares on this channel and deeply appreciate how he makes complex Buddhist teachings accessible and thought-provoking. I wanted to share a perspective that may slightly differ on the interpretation of karma. From my understanding, the Buddha’s teachings on karma emphasize how accumulating good karma helps smooth life’s difficulties and supports our spiritual journey. It’s not about wealth or power, but how positive actions protect us from harsher karmic consequences, making it easier to progress on the path to Nirvana. Good karma acts as an aid, reducing obstacles, much like how avoiding unskillful habits can make meditation and insight practices more effective. So, rather than viewing karma as a simple mechanism of reward or punishment, I see it as a way to ease the challenges of samsara and support us toward liberation. Again, I think Doug’s approach is brilliant, and this is just a personal reflection of how karma functions in our lives.
Yes, this is the way I also view the way accumulation of karma works. Although wholesome karma is not the “producer” of insight and eventual liberation, nevertheless it paves the way in that it provides for a path of less obstacles and downright roadblocks, such as being born somewhere there’s no chance of meeting the dharma or having the leisure for actual practice. Dough pointed towards a very important danger with being born in a situation of little sufferings, lots of natural influence and affluence in that we might fall pray to arrogance, sloth and just plain disinterest in the welfare of others as a consequence of not having met with the obvious downsides of samsara. In the case of the Buddha (to come) all he needed to turn away from a life of affluence and leisures was to witness one old, one sick and one dead person for his mind to turn towards the seeking of the truth of suffering. I believe that readiness for seeking the truth was also due to his immense storehouse of wholesome karma. As someone in the Mahayana tradition I also believe his many lives as a bodhisattva paved the way for him to recognise his mission in this last life before he became the Buddha. Even though the principles of Bodhichitta and the heart of a bodhisattva lies outside of the obvious shortcomings of samsara, a bodhisattva is someone with an unbreakable commitment of always returning to the worlds of suffering beings in order to assist in whatever ways possible. Therefor a bodhisattva carries an big load of karma connected with that tie to samsara in order to be linked with the circumstances that torments sentient beings. A bodhisattva returns, life after life, in a seemingly ordinary form in order to be among ordinary living beings as teachers, lineage holders, doctors, nurses, prostitutes, what have you. All for just one purpose; -to facilitate the easing of the heavy burdens of samsara of all those that have not yet found their own means for liberation. If we link our accumulation of karma with a grand commitment, such as Bodhichitta, that (wholesome) karma will become earmarked for our future bodhisattva activity and thus pave the way for being used for the betterment of life situations of both oneself and all those that we meet on our path. Eventually, this kind of karma will be what’s needed in order to accomplish our bodhisattva activity. This means, although karma is linked to us in individual ways, it can be transformed into a fuel for bodhisattva activity that benefits many. A prime example of this is of course the ripening of karma for Buddha Shakyamuni himself that lead to immeasurable benefit for all of us due to his previous commitments as a bodhisattva. Karmic connections is essential in the activities of a bodhisattva. In a reality of interdependent origination karma is what links a bodhisattva with the world of suffering beings. For that reason a bodhisattva is not afraid of karma but seek to utilise it in the best and most beneficial ways possible. So, we should not be surprised to see (or hear of) someone of that caliber taking a plunge deep into the murky waters of samsara seemingly out of free will. What really counts is the underlying motivation and vision of the person committing such acts. For an outsider, with limited insight and understanding, some of these acts may look like crazy and even immoral in their appearance, but may be very pure in their underlying motivations and long term visions. These are my own views only and how I interpret the teachings I have received throughout my journey, so far.
My understanding of karma in Buddhism are the things we think say and do that cause us to have inner conflict within ourselves. That could lead to conflict externally. And turning that into wisdom and eradicating it would be Buddhist “enlightenment “. It’s not this western idea of what goes around comes around that may very well exist but is not karma it’s something else.
Correct word for "accumulation of kamma" is Anusaya - the reservoir of tendencies to repeat kilessa through kamma: the more we do something, the more we are inclined to keep repeating that. Kamma is intention, and action that follows from that intention. Both good and bad kamma (actions) are unwholesome because both add to the reservoir of Anusaya; in both cases we keep repeating the cycle, and so become more and more tied down to samsara. I like to say, good and bad kamma are like cooking - whether we are preparing wholesome or junk food makes no difference to the pot - both heat it up. (The pot being our mind and two types of food being the two types of kamma.) These two kammas are nothing original, every religion teaches that doing good is good, doing bad is no good. The Buddha introduced the third type of kamma - acting that does not add to Anusaya, acting that empties the reservoir of Anusaya. - And where, on the wheel , do we stop kamma? We stop it at Feeling (Vedana) -discriminating bad-good, pleasant-unpleasant etc. As soon as we know bad from good we repeat the "original sin" (to borrow from Christianity) and the Paradise is lost, again and again and again - until we develop equanimity and stop reacting emotionally to sensory inputs. Because, from Vedana comes craving, from craving comes attachment, from attachment comes becoming, from becoming comes "birth" - arising of the sensed object as me, I, mine in consciousness. This arising of me, I, mine is dukkha. It doesn't happen lifetime after lifetime, but Contact after Contact... If the mind is not afflicted with greed/hate/ignorance, then there is equanimity and upon Contact of sense organ with its object, Vedana doesn't arise - to the awaken mind a feeling is just a feeling, nothing good or bad about it. And without Vedana, craving and attachment cannot arise. Consequently, what is born in consciousness is not "me, mine", but the sensed object just as it is.
Thank you, Doug! 🙏 The idea of not creating karma reminds me tremendously of the Daoist concept of wu-wei (or: wei-wu-wei). Just thinking aloud... 🙈😂 Much metta... 🐱🙏
I've never been comfortable with the idea of Karma being some kind of punisher.If you were to light a fire and sit next to it, you would be warmed. This could be seen as a harmonious relationship between you and this force of nature. But, obviously, if you put your hand into the fire, it's not! Would anyone really say that the fire is punishing you? In the same way, we can live in harmony with other people and with the flow of reality, to our mutual benefit, or violate them and get burned. I prefer to see karma as an infinitely wise teacher. 🙏
Not doing anything or wu wei is called not reacting to the arising of phenomena. The way not to react to bad situations is to adhere to precepts. The Buddha has prescribed the 5 Precepts to restrain our negative habits. That way we would not create negative karma.
Growing up in a Christian faith tradition, this reminds me of some of the better teachers I’ve had warning against what’s often referred to as a Prosperity Gospel.
As an open minded former Christian, I find Buddhism to make more sense sometimes than Christianity. A follower of Christ may say a little leaven leavens the whole lump. What I agree with is the nature of corruption on a practical sense. The simplicity of the explanation as to "how the world works" that often comes from Buddhism and here, applied to abuses of power and corruption, forms a great insight into the nature of the world. What you are teaching about transcending Karma also makes sense. Just because you are powerful, in any capacity - either with worldly power of spiritually, does not give you licence to do the wrong thing, even if you can get away with it. I'm more inclined to believe is that nobody gets away with anything.
I would like to believe that in the final analysis nobody gets away with anything, looking at the way the world works I find it difficult to maintain. That said, many of those doing the most damage to the world appear themselves to live unhappy lives. Perhaps there is a causal link there somewhere.
@@DougsDharma I think there is a DEFINITE link. Consider what is going on in the Ukraine at the moment. Do you really think a happy person would do that to a nation? Going back to what I learned in the church, you reap what you sow. Jesus' words, not mine. It's like the irony of Nuclear weapons. If you test them on home soil, you permanently harm your country. Look at how damaged Russia is from it's tests. I also don't believe you can use a WMD in a war situation without being suicidal, which is also an indication of your state of happiness. I come from Australia and we have all sorts of problems here. As a nation, we liked to gloat about how lucky we are. We like to gloat about how good we are at sport, how we are getting the Olympics in 2032 (again), how we are cultured and recognised in all of the arts and sciences, academics, best universities, best healthcare. We are entitled and we take advantage of our iron ore, gold, copper etc, and the old ways of good will, to give us an advantage which seemingly would make other countries jealous and enviable. But the metrics that matter aren't considered by most people here. We have the highest rate of plastic surgery per capita of any nation. We have the second highest rate of anti-depressant prescription per capita of any nation. We are destroying all of our farming land because we demand more from governments when they don't give us what we want, replace them frequently, so the one we have now, in order to make Australia the saviours of the world for fighting climate change, are putting up solar panels and wind turbines all over the nation. It makes no difference to the world but we are killing animals and ruining the environment FOREVER. I look at this and think, why is this happening? What have we done? In 18 years the Iron Ore runs out, then what? I think that we became selfish, haters, legalistic, offended, woke, obsessed with material items, resentful, atheistic and unspiritual, and the list goes on. Soon the rivers of money will be taken away. I believe then, we will find out what karma is. Karma has no menu, you get served what you deserve.
I pay for someone's groceries because they don't have enough money and my joy at seeing their burden lifted is my good karma, to expect the fruit of my deed to pay me back later with something similar is to negate said good karma with my adharma. That's the way my plebian brain makes it work for me.
Doug, the parable you quoted is only problematic for those who do not believe in or accept rebirth. For those who do, there is no problem at all. In another sutta the Buddha explicitly says that the state one is born into whether rich, poor, stupid, intelligent, popular, unpopular, etc is precisely due to one's previous karma. What one does with the fruits of that karma in this life then determines or influences one's circumstances in the next rebirth, unless they become fully enlightened and extinguish all karma. That rich and powerful guy who squandered the fruits of his past good karma and stole and got away with it in this lifetime will have to suffer the consequences in another lifetime when this karma comes to fruition. You are of course right that the karma belongs to the samsaric existence and the whole point of the Buddhist path is to stop making karma and get off the hamster wheel. But the hamster wheel is only complete and makes perfect sense if rebirth is accepted as an essential part of it.
Sure, karma only can function as a kind of perfect justice if we assume rebirth. That said, in that circumstance the cases you mention also often lead people towards blaming victims of poverty and misfortune as being due to their own fault and responsibility, even when no such thing is in evidence.
Increasingly, I think considering karma as some kind of universal justice system may not be the most skillful way to look at it. Perhaps a better way to understand it is to see it as simply a chain of causality working within the parameters of samasara following a set of universal laws like the laws of physics. So certain actions done with certain intentions will always have certain results, modified by other intentional actions. Just as if you throw a stone hard enough at a sheet of glass, it's going to break unless along its course something happens to divert it or reduce its kinetic energy. As compassionate beings practising the Buddha's dhamma, we can make it one of our practices to try to be that modifying force. When we know people are suffering in this life because of past karma, we should not judge them for their past actions that led them to this point. That would serve no purpose to alleviate their suffering. Instead we use that knowledge to cultivate compassion, and seek ways to help them get through this difficult rebirth, contributing to conditions that will give them a better future rebirth, or better still no rebirth.
Heh... the story of the two people stealing and what happens to them is so apropos given current events in the USA. Some things never change! I understand karma more as a metaphor, not any kind of ontological reality.
@@russv.winkle8764 I go with Heidegger's "dasein" when it comes to ontology, and my educational focus was in phenomenology, so I'm only comfortable with "the human _experience of_ reality" and nothing much outside of that. When I was a kid I wanted _knowledge_ of the truth of reality, but all I got was increasing apprehension of a Transcendent Mystery so I gave up on that. lol!
@@nsbd90now yeah fair point, my basis is an epistemology of psychedelic experience and breaking away from hardcore rationalism into the realm of inner vision. Of course it's a dubious claim but if karma is real it must have a mechanism of causality that can be apprehended.
Have you maybe overlooked the role of volition or intent in karma. Surely the poor person or the person without power who steals to feed their family or to pay their rent creates less negative karma than the rich or powerful person who steals for greed or amusement?
The Buddha famously said that by "karma" he meant "intention", so intention is essential to karma. Other things equal, a good intention should make all the difference. The odd thing about the parables in this sutta is that apparently all things aren't equal in these cases.
Great theory. I wish people would get tired of making the same mistakes, or choosing the same mistakes for 10,000 years. It's hard in this life, not to be tempted by Mara if it's all we have.
@@Giantcrabz But in light of multiple lives how would you know it's not consistent and universal? You're only observing effects (or not) in the snap-shot context of the current life. It could be, on occasion, as case where it takes multiple lives for "what goes 'round come's 'round" to occur. For karma to be applied. In effect, cause and effect does not suffer that constraint of being bound to one lifetime, does it? Just some thoughts.
That's part of it for sure, but the Buddha does say that not everything is due to karma, some things just happen due to causes and effects that aren't karmic.
@@DougsDharmai sneezed today with a release of the ages, for sure, because my partner some many lifetimes ago spilled some pepper which I unfortunately inhaled but had to really really not let out a sneeze because our daughter was sleeping in her small bed after being awake for a day with a painful fever. So, explain that.
@@DougsDharma I like to think of it this way, 40% of your life is affected by the cause of your present WILL (in this life), 30% of your life is affected by the cause of your WILL in your past lives (Karma). 20% of your life is affected by Divinely Orchestrated situations or Events (Destiny, “God’s” Will). And 10% of life is “random”, “accidents”, unintended perhaps (to a certain extent, not unexpected however) but the result of cause and effect that created relative room of chaos.
From my POV, karma is a taste, flavor, savor, feelings. If you inflict pain to others, you will receive the same feeling of what the victim endured. If you kill someone, there are more "feelings/taste" occurred, not only from the victim but from the family of the victims such as the feeling of "lost/sad" or even "glad" if the victim was an evil person. The repercussion might not be the same as the action that causes it, but the "feel/taste" would be the same. The reason is bcuz there is nothing that was killed, but the "feel/taste" that linger (only if you understand non-attachment and anatta). Human born(appear) n die(disappear), just like any other existence but we cling to it so bad, that it creates the "feel/taste" that we don't want to let go.
but does that mean that the rich and powerful who abuse their power are in a sense "cashing out" their good karma and that means it will run out eventually and when it does run out they're gonna feel the effects of all the bad karma they accumulated? if that makes sense?
yes exactly it is. I'm not sure what your religion is, and I do respect every religion. That being said, in Buddhism, Karmic circle more often than not doesn't meet its full circle in one lifetime. We believe people suffer good or bad consequences--the results of their karma--in their next lives instead of their current lifetime. just like you said, if somebody is rich and powerful and abusing their power, they might successfully abuse it to the end of their current lifetime, by using their good karma which they reaped from one of their past lives. But in their next life, they will suffer the results of the bad karma. At times, if the abusers have accumulated extremely good karma in one of their past lives, they might even get away with two or more lifetimes but they will suffer the consequences eventually for sure. I haven't watched this video so I don't know how Doug interpret Karma. But I and many Buddhists believe the results of good and bad karma are literal rewards and punishments. Our good karma will be multiplied more than a hundred times, and our bad karma is the same. In literal interpretation, the results of bad karma can be extremely excruciating and scary. I'm a Theravada Buddhist, we believe throughout our lifetimes, we can be humans, animals, insects, other entities that can't be seen by naked eyes, and we can be in hells, and heavens and then repeat. So a bad karma will be definitely paid.
In context, are these parables explicitly related to karma, or are they traditionally interpreted as related to karma? I'm thinking about some similar parables of Jesus that have traditionally been interpreted as portraying God in certain ways, but are more recently being interpreted as simply describing the reality of injustice perpetrated by the rich and powerful of this world. The simplest example I could give would be Matthew 25:29, "For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." A similar saying is found in another part of Matthew, speaking about the reasons for parables being explained only to disciples and not to the crowds, but in Matthew 29, the parable is about the actions of an unjust ruler. There is a controversy over whether the ruler in Matthew 29 represents God, in which case the heroes of the story were the people who invested the master's funds to make huge profits or whether the parable simply illustrates the injustice perpetrated by rich people, and the hero is the person who hid the money rather than using it to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The similarity of these parables led me to wonder whether the interpretation of these parables is controversial within contemporary Buddhism as it is in contemporary Christianity.
@sfcameron1 The Mathew Principle is in modernity known as the Pareto Effect or 80:20 rule. This is just a statement about how things are. It's been my experience that people will accuse you of trying to justify something when you are merely explaining it as an observed phenomena. I think this is the reason for parables, because the meaning is less direct they can't so easily be misrepresented as a justification by people who are out to get you.
Interpretation is always going to be controversial, especially since apologetics is so tempting, though I am not aware of any live controversy with these parables. That said, they appear in a context discussing the workings of karma.
We need to distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive. The story of the person being jailed for stealing is a descriptive story, not a prescriptive parable. Nothing disturbing about it, Doug.
The key to removing bad karma is to avoid the cause leading to karma. Karma is often used to mean the fruition of the actions of the doer. In order not to have fruition, the actions leading to its fruition should be cut off.
This reminds me of something that one can think of as a sola-scriptura interpretation of the New Testament in Christianity. Legalism is the lesser good and is the domane of the Pharisees and (if gnostic) if the demiurge. But Christ, whether in Apostolic Christianity or Gnostic Christianity, presents forgiveness and redemption as the superior alternative to legalism.
@@DougsDharma Dear Doug, I really love your films! They are amazing. I'm not really sure what you are asking here? Are you asking whether I was motivated to write this, or whether or not something motivated Early Christians to think that way?
@@DougsDharma one early "heretic" in Christianity was called Marcion, who wrote the Gospel of Marcion (apparently a variation of Luke). Marcion believed that Jesus's teachings vary so greatly different from the Old Testament, that the Old Testament god was a vengeful and evil creator god, the Demiurge, and Jesus was from an all-good god from the "Realm of Barbello", known as the Pleroma (a "formless" heavenly realm by Buddhist standards, and the embodiment of Compassion, righteousness, truth etc...). It was this vengeful creator god who often punished people. "Gnostic Christians" believed that human souls are trapped in a lesser-good or even evil material world, and the way to escape it is by giving up your worldly identity and attachments, just like the Bible says "if they love the world, the love of the Father is not in them" (roughly). Gnosticism remained in Europe until the mid-middle ages in the form of the Bogomils in Bulgaria, and the Cathars in southern France and northern Italy. They were all killed off.
Doug, I was under the impression that there is no such thing as good karma? Isn't all karma bad? Aren't moral acts valuable in cultivation because they are karmically "neutral", i.e. they are selfless so "no dust alights"? I understand this is a somewhat fraught issue in the dharma, and I'm not certain if I just paraphrased what you were teaching or if your position is more nuanced?
Traditionally yes, since traditionally karma is understood to work across lifetimes. (The good karma is supposed to be responsible for one being born into prosperity, for example).
@@DougsDharma I can understand this. At the same time my understanding was that while good karma can help you being born into prosperity, it will not affect your future in any other way. Your actions cause consequences for you. So if you do something bad, you may not be punished by the government due to your wealth (thanks to your previous good karma), but you still generate bad karma and you will have consequences in your current life. No amount of previous lives' karma can fix this.
I can see how being born to a wealthy family can potentially give you more ways to generate more good karma or become enlightened. There was a metaphor in suttas about an elephant and a sparrow. But still we can see in many cases how the wealth/power corrupt.
Only because they are ignorant and don't know their own material. Jesus for example, was a Buddha like teacher that the Christians worship as an Idol. They do not follow his teachings after interpretation. They can't. Jesus said, "The measure you mete unto others will be likewise meted unto you." That's his cryptic version of cause and effect. He also said to forgive ones inner ought in order to have your life automatically changed. That's nested karmic teachings carried by the many standing outside the narrow gate. Buddha, seek emptiness. Jesus, blessed are the poor in spirit. They are encoded teachings, not plain language. Christians don't follow Jesus teachings. They just worship him. Like this too, Everyone has a Buddha nature and you become a Buddha when you achieve Nirvana. Everyone has a Christ nature and you become a Christ when you achieve the Kingdom of Heaven Within. Secularist Christians are waiting on something from outside that's actually theirs to accomplish within themselves. They won't look inward, only outward. Jesus returns every time someone follows his teaching.
Karma is life unfolding based on the general emotional state of the human and starting from where you're born. It is "Cause and Effect." Every tradition nests this in their teachings. Some in plain language like The Hermetic principles. Same thing as "The measure you mete to others is coming back at you." But this is not based in physical action, but in mental emotion. This is why evil people like Trump don't have bad things happen to them. They harbor no shame or honor. They do not feel bad and therefore are not going to attract in kind. The hell of it all, is that life contains suffering and there is one personal pathway out of feeling what one cannot change, but changing inwardly, the things that hurt those of us who have so much compassion for the world that pain is going to be our lot as we watch what we cannot interrupt.
Hi Doug, In an older video I remember you saying that you used to struggle with arrogance. I just want to say that I've never gotten the vibe that you are arrogant.
A simple way to look at it is resonance. Every thought and action has a vibration that builds a resonance. If you identify with your thoughts and actions you are these things. Sympathetic resonance can draw you to positive or negative energy. Does your identity consist of looking for the next opportunity to screw the world or does your identity wish for the best for mankind. Remember when you were a small child and you were in touch with these subtle vibrations that we label as our conscience. The conscience I speak of is not our societal moral conscience but a conscience that is under that and natural in every human.
So he's basically saying that there is moral inequality. Good people are like rich people, bad people are like poor people. And the good people go to heaven and experience bliss and power over the poor people, who go to hell.
I think that misses a critical part of the context here, which is that any state of "good" and "bad" is temporary. The good will be bad, the bad will be good, and all will revolve in samsara so long as they are grasping for karma.
it's not difficult to understand. if you are a wicked person, death is guaranteed on your death, the Soul is eventually placed into a new body, perhaps with some strange deformity that will effect the entire life of that host. Thus you are the lesson. One of millions for the Soul. The reason this is not transmitted, is because the central truth, that the Divine Soul is not yours, is hidden from you.
This all seems legit, though, not troubling. I mean, karma is neither about deserving something, nor about justice, certainly not about being a good person. And the dangers of good karma are hinted quite succinctly: a person with hood karma gets off the hook so often, they get used to it, ut becomes a new norm, they get attached to them getting out of jail free, but the good karma eventually runs out... And the attachment to cutting the corners, as well as purses or even throats, does not go away as easily... So, I mean... Yeah? That's how it works? Besides, painting one of good karma as a corrupt richman gets the point across - the point that the goal is to be a decent person, not to accumulate. As one Jewish teacher said: God forbid I become so poor I'm tempted to steal to survive; and God forbid I become so wealthy I'm tempted to steal because of greed and impunity. Not poor, not rich, some middle ground, yes...?
Karma merely means action. In its simplest form it works like this. Wake up, smell coffee, desire coffee, make coffee, drink coffee. Habit energy basically. But on a fundamental level karma is impersonal as there is no self doing it, and self to be liberated from it.
There seem to be some misconceptions here. Karma is not some merit based currency, so to say this person has a lot of good karma and this other one has very little - it means nothing at all. This is likely a western interpretation - not a teaching from the Buddha. Second, to collect merit is not only to acquire a favourable rebirth - though this may be a secondary consequence of it. In fact, actions performed with the desire to acquire a good birth - will most certainly not have that effect. Rather, we acquire merit to become meritorious - i.e. we fill the jars of paramita (virtues) and without this, liberation may not be attained. The Buddha became the Buddha through the acquisition of tremendous merit and this by performing innumerable compassionate deeds.
Thanks for your thoughts. It sounds as though you are saying that good karma isn't something one can have a lot of, and yet merit is something we can fill jars with. If that is the case, what difference do you see between good karma and merit? For example, I look in Nyāṇtiloka's Buddhist Dictionary and find that merit (puñña) is defined as a term for karmically wholesome action.
@@DougsDharma Kamma (which is the Pali language word, karma being the sanskrit equivalent) are deeds only. And such deeds, in which inheres the ego-mind - that is to say, 'selfish' deeds or more accurately, actions performed without attainment of the wisdom of 'anicca' (impermanence), 'dukkha' (the causes and nature of suffering) and 'anatta' (no-self) - are bound to generate sankharas' - volitional mind-formations or habits that follow beings from birth to birth. Indeed, it the composite formation of sankharas to which we cling, laboring under the illusion that it is permanent, and which, out of ignorance, we identify as the sphere of 'I, me, mine'. By contrast, having attained even partial experience of these three truths through meditation, we become capable of performing selfless deeds, i.e. actions that do not generate sankharas. Acts that do not generate sankharas bring merit and lead us to liberation. By way of an example, consider - a rich person gives away wealth to the poor and needy - but being desirous of praise, acquires no merit...whilst, another person, though possessing no great material means, may give away meagre alms but acquires tremendous merit because there is no desire or expectation for praise or acknowledgement... I base these assertions, in part on the basis of an examination of scriptures but primarily on the basis of my own practice of vipassana meditation over several years. May all beings be liberated!
Doug, you're choosing which Buddhist stories to tell and which to skip according to your own opinions. It's like lite Buddhism. While you're free to talk about and believe what ever you want to, you shouldn't present what you talk about as Buddhism. It's disingenuous.
The Buddha recorded in our histories performed a similar action on his own journey towards buddhahood. Reject this, embrace that, merge from these, extract from those. With such a long and storied karma as our information, maybe we should not be so attached to the letter of the law or the truth of the named details (which isn't to say we ought to disregard it). The way which can be named is not the way. Instead, we live it and aim to attain skillful wisdom through that life while the karmic flow is tightly bound and discernible.
@@kphamcao what else can he do? He will have to chose in some way; and what criteria would you propose for this not to be “lite Buddhism”? I assume a choice closer to your own opinions.
@@andrescosetti927 I'm not nitpicking here. He chose to not talk about reincarnation altogether but that is a like a corner stone of Buddhism. Exercise a thought for me, you know that you are destined to die, but you also don't believe in reincarnation, what then prevent you from indulging in the maximum pleasure this earth could offer? Or worse why do you care what happens to others in your pursue of pleasure? In the end everyone will return to dust anyway. Logically you would have no reason to practice the Dharma. You may or may not choose to believe in Buddhist thoughts but as a whole it is a complete, logical system of thoughts. When you start omitting things it is no longer compete. So for me, it is quite illogical to not buy into it wholesale.
You’re thinking of the Kama Sutra, totally different. Kama roughly means love. Suta or Sutra means something like a textbook. So Karma Sutra is kind of like a textbook on Karma, not… what you’re thinking of.
Material from antiquity can be strange for people in modernity. Ever read Abrahamic material like Genesis? They have so much sexual perversion going on. Makes me feel dirty just to read it. It's like porn. Greek Myth? Whew. Antiquities media. Was this the correct way to flesh out that weed seed from the garden?
That's simply a personal opinion based on a current belief. Which is based on where you were born in the world. What would be appropriate reading for you? Hopefully not the highly risque Genesis? Now that's stuff you don't teach your kids. If I posted it, YT would not allow it to post. It's not proper behavior or conduct.
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@DougsDharma how to get out of the loop of karma?
Every depiction of karma in the Scriptures of both Hindu and Buddhist traditions explain that Karma is a mess and unpredictable and you could say it appears “unfair” sometimes. Yet you are correct that the point is that dharma is not about karma, but in fact exiting the samsaric rebirth loop of good/bad karma.
Truth!
the caste system in Hinduism is pretty barbaric in particular Just straight up victim blaming
It only appears unfair if we consider only the actions in this lifetime. But once the actions in a countless multitude of previous lives is considered, then one can see that it is neither fair nor unfair, simply a blind process of cause and effect and modifying factors
EXACTLY what I thought. If being immoral leads us to repeat the same mistakes in future lives and we also go to hell for our actions, why can't Karma make thieves be reborn in an area where they can more easily progress and get rehabilitated, and not suffer from poverty or be starving as a Peta?
@@maciejrzepczyk6562 Karma doesn't work as a judge sending beings here or there. It's a blind process and very complex. As Doug mentioned, it's not simple tit for tat. It's more than just the action, but also the motivations behind the action. Also other past karma that has not ripened or that one creates later will modify the effect of the karma created now. To take the example of the thief: the poor man one who steals out of desperation and compassion for starving family although he goes to prison in this life, might also have created a lot of good karma for example if he shared whatever he had with others out of compassion for them. In this life, things may not go so well for him, but in the next life he might be in much better position. The rich guy who steals out of greed might get away with it in this life, but in the next life may end up in a hell realm because of this and all the other bad karma he created in this life abusing his position. This is only taking into account actions in this life. When the unripened karma of countless other lives comes into play, then we cannot even begin to see how any single action will play out in the future. Even Devadatta, the Buddha's evil cousin although gone to the lowest hell realm because of his actions against the Buddha, dharma and sangha in that particular life will one day become a buddha in some distant future, presumably because good karma he had accumulated in previous lives will eventually ripen and set him up in the suitable conditions in future lives. According to the suttas, not even an arahant, but only a fully realised Buddha can untangle the web and say definitively where someone is going to be reborn because of a particular action or what action caused someone to be reborn in this condition. This is only the Theravada understanding of karma. When you look at the Mahayana understanding with Bodhisattvas and "skillful means" involved, it gets a lot more complicated!
I'm recalling some debated reports of small children remembering details of past lives that were shown to accurately correspond to historical records. One of my teachers used a Marathi phrase that he translated as "rags to riches, riches to ruin," explaining that often people without much wealth will turn to intensive spiritual practices that generate a lot of merit, but then forget about their past austerity when they get reborn and fall into corruption due to the temptations of wealth and power. I decided for myself that for practical reasons, even if karma cannot be definitively proven, assuming that the teachings are true makes people more likely to behave in ways that are beneficial towards others due to the possibility of karmic reward and punishment.
For Zen practitioners, one of the most striking notes on Karma is in The Gateless Gate; a student asks; 'Is an enlightened man subject to the laws of Karma?' 'No, he is not,' answers his teacher. The teacher is then transformed into a fox until he hears the correct answer; that the enlightened man is one with the law of karma' - that enlightenment doesn't grant control or escape, but understanding of how it ebbs and flows. From then on, they exist in karma not as a drop of water exists in a river, but as the river itself.
So for me, the two parables of the Buddha which you examined highlight the danger of worshipping Karma, of treating it as cosmic justice that will raise the poor and humble the rich, rather than cause and effect.
Sure, that's kind of what I was getting at at the end of the video. Good karma isn't the goal.
Always appreciate how you tease out the complexities of Buddhism for us, Doug. Thanks!
🙏🙏
This reminds me of a parable from the bible (Mark 12 and Luke 21). The poor widow donated just a few coins and quietly went away, while the rich man donated lots of money and elicited much admiration from bystanders. Jesus said that the poor widow actually contributed more because she gave a big proportion from the little she had, while the rich man gave from a small proportion of what he owned. So this story is an inverse of bad deeds - those who have more need to do more good too. These parables from the Pali Canon and Bible are useful instruction for us. Sadhu x 3. 🙏🙏🙏
The key insight you have to develop is that the world sucks as long as it exists (as long as there is dependently co-arisen stuff). The path can't make the world not suck, the path just can make you not want the world not to suck.
Maybe there are many worlds, some good and some bad. Sentient beings born into this relatively bad world is because of their relatively bad karma.
First Noble Truth right there ...
Renunciation
The world sucks? I would say your attitude sucks. I've got a decent body to live in, the sun came up, there's tons of people to love, a meteorite is not going to hit tomorrow. It's a beautiful world. All you need is appreciation and gratitude.
@@kelleemerson9510
Thats true but still Bad things will hapen in the future ... your family will die you will experience illnes (probably) etc if you are positive its good but no one IS safe from sufering. Good thing will happen too. But still if death exist sufering exist. Watch some videos about budhism
Thank you. This reminds me of a parable in the bible. A poor widow donated a few small coins vs a rich man who donated lots of money, and everyone admired the latter. But Jesus said the widow contributed more, because she gave a large proportion of the little she had, but what yhe rich man gave was just a small proportion of what he had Mark 12 and Luke 21). The parable is an inverse of bad deeds that - kind of similar for good deeds,l. To me, those who have more, have a greater opportunity and also responsibility to do good, in proportion to the resources they have. What an interesting nuance from the Pali canon and the bible. Sadhu x 3 🙏🙏🙏
Moreover, Subhuti, when bodhisattvas give a gift, they should not be attached to a thing. When they give a gift, they should not be attached to anything at all. Subhuti, the body of merit of those bodhisattvas who give a gift without being attached is not easy to measure.
“As a lamp, a cataract, a star in space / an illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble / a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightning / view all created things like this.”
Thats what differentiate Buddhism and Hinduism, Hindu believe that karma of previous birth responsible for birth in a particular caste, and this belief is responsible for wide scale caste atrocities among them. Buddhism focuses more on raising consciousness, there's a sutra of Suttapitaka where Buddha said that if someone raises his consciousness he can transfer from Demon realms to divine realms within a blink of an eye, this concept is something which differentiate Buddhism from all other religion
@@max-cs9ko is there any reason other than scriptures to believe that anyone has gone from one “realm” to another?
@@muffinman145experience
According to Buddhism as explained even in the video a birth in poverty was seen as a result of Karmas of past life (or lives). So if a person is born in a so called lower caste which is involved in doing jobs which majority don't want to do and also does not involve much capital then would that not mean that he got birth in that particular caste because of his Karmas ? from a Buddhist lens at least ?. Caste atrocities are a separate issue altogether at the very core of it which just got layered up in this Karma-Rebirth concept and Buddhism apparently does accept such a concept although gives the freedom to acquire skills which can lift one's socio-economic condition towards a better position which is not possible within traditional Hinduism. Buddhism does actually seems to accept the Caste system and related Karma-Rebirth concept (and also by the way all previous Buddhas were born in Upper Caste and the coming Buddha is said to born into a Brahmin (highest caste) family). Anyway, Caste atrocities arise mainly out of power difference, indoctrination, economic factors and historically had racist roots (Arya vs Non-Arya) in ancient times. Caste based atrocities are unfortunate and not acceptable however blaming Karma-Rebirth concept for such atrocities is oversimplification if not completely wrong altogether.
According to buddhism the kind of birth you get depends on karma too just like hindus. Although don't know about caste but being born as a woman is considered a lower birth conpared to a man.
pleasant to listen the dharma so concise but clear in the same time.. may all being be happy
I love the insights Doug shares on this channel and deeply appreciate how he makes complex Buddhist teachings accessible and thought-provoking. I wanted to share a perspective that may slightly differ on the interpretation of karma. From my understanding, the Buddha’s teachings on karma emphasize how accumulating good karma helps smooth life’s difficulties and supports our spiritual journey. It’s not about wealth or power, but how positive actions protect us from harsher karmic consequences, making it easier to progress on the path to Nirvana. Good karma acts as an aid, reducing obstacles, much like how avoiding unskillful habits can make meditation and insight practices more effective. So, rather than viewing karma as a simple mechanism of reward or punishment, I see it as a way to ease the challenges of samsara and support us toward liberation.
Again, I think Doug’s approach is brilliant, and this is just a personal reflection of how karma functions in our lives.
Yes, I agree that karma is most useful for us in the way you mention. One of the reasons these parables are so strange!
Yes, this is the way I also view the way accumulation of karma works. Although wholesome karma is not the “producer” of insight and eventual liberation, nevertheless it paves the way in that it provides for a path of less obstacles and downright roadblocks, such as being born somewhere there’s no chance of meeting the dharma or having the leisure for actual practice.
Dough pointed towards a very important danger with being born in a situation of little sufferings, lots of natural influence and affluence in that we might fall pray to arrogance, sloth and just plain disinterest in the welfare of others as a consequence of not having met with the obvious downsides of samsara. In the case of the Buddha (to come) all he needed to turn away from a life of affluence and leisures was to witness one old, one sick and one dead person for his mind to turn towards the seeking of the truth of suffering. I believe that readiness for seeking the truth was also due to his immense storehouse of wholesome karma.
As someone in the Mahayana tradition I also believe his many lives as a bodhisattva paved the way for him to recognise his mission in this last life before he became the Buddha. Even though the principles of Bodhichitta and the heart of a bodhisattva lies outside of the obvious shortcomings of samsara, a bodhisattva is someone with an unbreakable commitment of always returning to the worlds of suffering beings in order to assist in whatever ways possible. Therefor a bodhisattva carries an big load of karma connected with that tie to samsara in order to be linked with the circumstances that torments sentient beings. A bodhisattva returns, life after life, in a seemingly ordinary form in order to be among ordinary living beings as teachers, lineage holders, doctors, nurses, prostitutes, what have you. All for just one purpose; -to facilitate the easing of the heavy burdens of samsara of all those that have not yet found their own means for liberation.
If we link our accumulation of karma with a grand commitment, such as Bodhichitta, that (wholesome) karma will become earmarked for our future bodhisattva activity and thus pave the way for being used for the betterment of life situations of both oneself and all those that we meet on our path. Eventually, this kind of karma will be what’s needed in order to accomplish our bodhisattva activity. This means, although karma is linked to us in individual ways, it can be transformed into a fuel for bodhisattva activity that benefits many. A prime example of this is of course the ripening of karma for Buddha Shakyamuni himself that lead to immeasurable benefit for all of us due to his previous commitments as a bodhisattva.
Karmic connections is essential in the activities of a bodhisattva. In a reality of interdependent origination karma is what links a bodhisattva with the world of suffering beings. For that reason a bodhisattva is not afraid of karma but seek to utilise it in the best and most beneficial ways possible. So, we should not be surprised to see (or hear of) someone of that caliber taking a plunge deep into the murky waters of samsara seemingly out of free will. What really counts is the underlying motivation and vision of the person committing such acts. For an outsider, with limited insight and understanding, some of these acts may look like crazy and even immoral in their appearance, but may be very pure in their underlying motivations and long term visions.
These are my own views only and how I interpret the teachings I have received throughout my journey, so far.
My understanding of karma in Buddhism are the things we think say and do that cause us to have inner conflict within ourselves. That could lead to conflict externally. And turning that into wisdom and eradicating it would be Buddhist “enlightenment “. It’s not this western idea of what goes around comes around that may very well exist but is not karma it’s something else.
Correct word for "accumulation of kamma" is Anusaya - the reservoir of tendencies to repeat kilessa through kamma: the more we do something, the more we are inclined to keep repeating that.
Kamma is intention, and action that follows from that intention.
Both good and bad kamma (actions) are unwholesome because both add to the reservoir of Anusaya; in both cases we keep repeating the cycle, and so become more and more tied down to samsara.
I like to say, good and bad kamma are like cooking - whether we are preparing wholesome or junk food makes no difference to the pot - both heat it up. (The pot being our mind and two types of food being the two types of kamma.)
These two kammas are nothing original, every religion teaches that doing good is good, doing bad is no good. The Buddha introduced the third type of kamma - acting that does not add to Anusaya, acting that empties the reservoir of Anusaya.
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And where, on the wheel , do we stop kamma? We stop it at Feeling (Vedana) -discriminating bad-good, pleasant-unpleasant etc. As soon as we know bad from good we repeat the "original sin" (to borrow from Christianity) and the Paradise is lost, again and again and again - until we develop equanimity and stop reacting emotionally to sensory inputs.
Because, from Vedana comes craving, from craving comes attachment, from attachment comes becoming, from becoming comes "birth" - arising of the sensed object as me, I, mine in consciousness. This arising of me, I, mine is dukkha. It doesn't happen lifetime after lifetime, but Contact after Contact...
If the mind is not afflicted with greed/hate/ignorance, then there is equanimity and upon Contact of sense organ with its object, Vedana doesn't arise - to the awaken mind a feeling is just a feeling, nothing good or bad about it. And without Vedana, craving and attachment cannot arise. Consequently, what is born in consciousness is not "me, mine", but the sensed object just as it is.
Just stumbled upon your chanel Doug, excellent. Keep up the great work!
Thanks and welcome!
This is a transformative way to look at karma -- very interesting. And I love those parables! Thanks for letting me know they exist.
You are very welcome!
What I get from the video is that Karmic accumulation just furthers your entanglement in Samsara even if it is merits
Yes, it can. I suppose it depends on how you hold it.
Karma in the early Rig Vedic texts referred to rituals and sacrifices for the Rig Vedic gods.
Thank you, Doug! 🙏
The idea of not creating karma reminds me tremendously of the Daoist concept of wu-wei (or: wei-wu-wei).
Just thinking aloud... 🙈😂
Much metta... 🐱🙏
Yes, I don't know enough about Daoism ... 😄
I've never been comfortable with the idea of Karma being some kind of punisher.If you were to light a fire and sit next to it, you would be warmed. This could be seen as a harmonious relationship between you and this force of nature. But, obviously, if you put your hand into the fire, it's not! Would anyone really say that the fire is punishing you? In the same way, we can live in harmony with other people and with the flow of reality, to our mutual benefit, or violate them and get burned. I prefer to see karma as an infinitely wise teacher. 🙏
Not doing anything or wu wei is called not reacting to the arising of phenomena. The way not to react to bad situations is to adhere to precepts. The Buddha has prescribed the 5 Precepts to restrain our negative habits. That way we would not create negative karma.
Thank you
The idea that karma running through multiple lifetimes implicates injustice or impunity is highly misguided.
Growing up in a Christian faith tradition, this reminds me of some of the better teachers I’ve had warning against what’s often referred to as a Prosperity Gospel.
Interesting, yes that can be pernicious.
As an open minded former Christian, I find Buddhism to make more sense sometimes than Christianity. A follower of Christ may say a little leaven leavens the whole lump. What I agree with is the nature of corruption on a practical sense. The simplicity of the explanation as to "how the world works" that often comes from Buddhism and here, applied to abuses of power and corruption, forms a great insight into the nature of the world. What you are teaching about transcending Karma also makes sense. Just because you are powerful, in any capacity - either with worldly power of spiritually, does not give you licence to do the wrong thing, even if you can get away with it. I'm more inclined to believe is that nobody gets away with anything.
I would like to believe that in the final analysis nobody gets away with anything, looking at the way the world works I find it difficult to maintain. That said, many of those doing the most damage to the world appear themselves to live unhappy lives. Perhaps there is a causal link there somewhere.
@@DougsDharma I think there is a DEFINITE link. Consider what is going on in the Ukraine at the moment. Do you really think a happy person would do that to a nation?
Going back to what I learned in the church, you reap what you sow. Jesus' words, not mine. It's like the irony of Nuclear weapons. If you test them on home soil, you permanently harm your country. Look at how damaged Russia is from it's tests. I also don't believe you can use a WMD in a war situation without being suicidal, which is also an indication of your state of happiness.
I come from Australia and we have all sorts of problems here. As a nation, we liked to gloat about how lucky we are. We like to gloat about how good we are at sport, how we are getting the Olympics in 2032 (again), how we are cultured and recognised in all of the arts and sciences, academics, best universities, best healthcare. We are entitled and we take advantage of our iron ore, gold, copper etc, and the old ways of good will, to give us an advantage which seemingly would make other countries jealous and enviable. But the metrics that matter aren't considered by most people here. We have the highest rate of plastic surgery per capita of any nation. We have the second highest rate of anti-depressant prescription per capita of any nation. We are destroying all of our farming land because we demand more from governments when they don't give us what we want, replace them frequently, so the one we have now, in order to make Australia the saviours of the world for fighting climate change, are putting up solar panels and wind turbines all over the nation. It makes no difference to the world but we are killing animals and ruining the environment FOREVER.
I look at this and think, why is this happening? What have we done? In 18 years the Iron Ore runs out, then what?
I think that we became selfish, haters, legalistic, offended, woke, obsessed with material items, resentful, atheistic and unspiritual, and the list goes on. Soon the rivers of money will be taken away. I believe then, we will find out what karma is.
Karma has no menu, you get served what you deserve.
Thank you Doug
I pay for someone's groceries because they don't have enough money and my joy at seeing their burden lifted is my good karma, to expect the fruit of my deed to pay me back later with something similar is to negate said good karma with my adharma. That's the way my plebian brain makes it work for me.
Well at least on the Buddha's telling, any generous deed is good, even if it's not done for the purest motives.
Doug, the parable you quoted is only problematic for those who do not believe in or accept rebirth. For those who do, there is no problem at all. In another sutta the Buddha explicitly says that the state one is born into whether rich, poor, stupid, intelligent, popular, unpopular, etc is precisely due to one's previous karma. What one does with the fruits of that karma in this life then determines or influences one's circumstances in the next rebirth, unless they become fully enlightened and extinguish all karma. That rich and powerful guy who squandered the fruits of his past good karma and stole and got away with it in this lifetime will have to suffer the consequences in another lifetime when this karma comes to fruition.
You are of course right that the karma belongs to the samsaric existence and the whole point of the Buddhist path is to stop making karma and get off the hamster wheel. But the hamster wheel is only complete and makes perfect sense if rebirth is accepted as an essential part of it.
Sure, karma only can function as a kind of perfect justice if we assume rebirth. That said, in that circumstance the cases you mention also often lead people towards blaming victims of poverty and misfortune as being due to their own fault and responsibility, even when no such thing is in evidence.
Increasingly, I think considering karma as some kind of universal justice system may not be the most skillful way to look at it. Perhaps a better way to understand it is to see it as simply a chain of causality working within the parameters of samasara following a set of universal laws like the laws of physics. So certain actions done with certain intentions will always have certain results, modified by other intentional actions. Just as if you throw a stone hard enough at a sheet of glass, it's going to break unless along its course something happens to divert it or reduce its kinetic energy.
As compassionate beings practising the Buddha's dhamma, we can make it one of our practices to try to be that modifying force. When we know people are suffering in this life because of past karma, we should not judge them for their past actions that led them to this point. That would serve no purpose to alleviate their suffering. Instead we use that knowledge to cultivate compassion, and seek ways to help them get through this difficult rebirth, contributing to conditions that will give them a better future rebirth, or better still no rebirth.
Heh... the story of the two people stealing and what happens to them is so apropos given current events in the USA. Some things never change! I understand karma more as a metaphor, not any kind of ontological reality.
I think there is an ontological reality that is hidden from ordinary consciousness.
@@russv.winkle8764 I go with Heidegger's "dasein" when it comes to ontology, and my educational focus was in phenomenology, so I'm only comfortable with "the human _experience of_ reality" and nothing much outside of that. When I was a kid I wanted _knowledge_ of the truth of reality, but all I got was increasing apprehension of a Transcendent Mystery so I gave up on that. lol!
@@nsbd90now yeah fair point, my basis is an epistemology of psychedelic experience and breaking away from hardcore rationalism into the realm of inner vision. Of course it's a dubious claim but if karma is real it must have a mechanism of causality that can be apprehended.
@@russv.winkle8764 Ohhhh... yeah... "epistemology of psychedelic experience" is something I can relate to! Ha ha!
@@russv.winkle8764apprehended potentially after we exit causality. If we can. If there is an exit.
Have you maybe overlooked the role of volition or intent in karma. Surely the poor person or the person without power who steals to feed their family or to pay their rent creates less negative karma than the rich or powerful person who steals for greed or amusement?
The Buddha famously said that by "karma" he meant "intention", so intention is essential to karma. Other things equal, a good intention should make all the difference. The odd thing about the parables in this sutta is that apparently all things aren't equal in these cases.
Great theory. I wish people would get tired of making the same mistakes, or choosing the same mistakes for 10,000 years. It's hard in this life, not to be tempted by Mara if it's all we have.
To my mind karma, quite simply, is the law of cause and effect.
it can't be a law since it's not consistent and universal imo
@@Giantcrabz But in light of multiple lives how would you know it's not consistent and universal? You're only observing effects (or not) in the snap-shot context of the current life. It could be, on occasion, as case where it takes multiple lives for "what goes 'round come's 'round" to occur. For karma to be applied. In effect, cause and effect does not suffer that constraint of being bound to one lifetime, does it? Just some thoughts.
That's part of it for sure, but the Buddha does say that not everything is due to karma, some things just happen due to causes and effects that aren't karmic.
@@DougsDharmai sneezed today with a release of the ages, for sure, because my partner some many lifetimes ago spilled some pepper which I unfortunately inhaled but had to really really not let out a sneeze because our daughter was sleeping in her small bed after being awake for a day with a painful fever.
So, explain that.
@@DougsDharma I like to think of it this way, 40% of your life is affected by the cause of your present WILL (in this life), 30% of your life is affected by the cause of your WILL in your past lives (Karma). 20% of your life is affected by Divinely Orchestrated situations or Events (Destiny, “God’s” Will). And 10% of life is “random”, “accidents”, unintended perhaps (to a certain extent, not unexpected however) but the result of cause and effect that created relative room of chaos.
From my POV, karma is a taste, flavor, savor, feelings. If you inflict pain to others, you will receive the same feeling of what the victim endured. If you kill someone, there are more "feelings/taste" occurred, not only from the victim but from the family of the victims such as the feeling of "lost/sad" or even "glad" if the victim was an evil person. The repercussion might not be the same as the action that causes it, but the "feel/taste" would be the same. The reason is bcuz there is nothing that was killed, but the "feel/taste" that linger (only if you understand non-attachment and anatta). Human born(appear) n die(disappear), just like any other existence but we cling to it so bad, that it creates the "feel/taste" that we don't want to let go.
but does that mean that the rich and powerful who abuse their power are in a sense "cashing out" their good karma and that means it will run out eventually and when it does run out they're gonna feel the effects of all the bad karma they accumulated? if that makes sense?
Yes
This is certainly one way to understand it.
yes exactly it is. I'm not sure what your religion is, and I do respect every religion. That being said, in Buddhism, Karmic circle more often than not doesn't meet its full circle in one lifetime. We believe people suffer good or bad consequences--the results of their karma--in their next lives instead of their current lifetime. just like you said, if somebody is rich and powerful and abusing their power, they might successfully abuse it to the end of their current lifetime, by using their good karma which they reaped from one of their past lives. But in their next life, they will suffer the results of the bad karma. At times, if the abusers have accumulated extremely good karma in one of their past lives, they might even get away with two or more lifetimes but they will suffer the consequences eventually for sure. I haven't watched this video so I don't know how Doug interpret Karma. But I and many Buddhists believe the results of good and bad karma are literal rewards and punishments. Our good karma will be multiplied more than a hundred times, and our bad karma is the same. In literal interpretation, the results of bad karma can be extremely excruciating and scary. I'm a Theravada Buddhist, we believe throughout our lifetimes, we can be humans, animals, insects, other entities that can't be seen by naked eyes, and we can be in hells, and heavens and then repeat. So a bad karma will be definitely paid.
In context, are these parables explicitly related to karma, or are they traditionally interpreted as related to karma?
I'm thinking about some similar parables of Jesus that have traditionally been interpreted as portraying God in certain ways, but are more recently being interpreted as simply describing the reality of injustice perpetrated by the rich and powerful of this world. The simplest example I could give would be Matthew 25:29, "For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." A similar saying is found in another part of Matthew, speaking about the reasons for parables being explained only to disciples and not to the crowds, but in Matthew 29, the parable is about the actions of an unjust ruler. There is a controversy over whether the ruler in Matthew 29 represents God, in which case the heroes of the story were the people who invested the master's funds to make huge profits or whether the parable simply illustrates the injustice perpetrated by rich people, and the hero is the person who hid the money rather than using it to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
The similarity of these parables led me to wonder whether the interpretation of these parables is controversial within contemporary Buddhism as it is in contemporary Christianity.
@sfcameron1 The Mathew Principle is in modernity known as the Pareto Effect or 80:20 rule. This is just a statement about how things are. It's been my experience that people will accuse you of trying to justify something when you are merely explaining it as an observed phenomena. I think this is the reason for parables, because the meaning is less direct they can't so easily be misrepresented as a justification by people who are out to get you.
Interpretation is always going to be controversial, especially since apologetics is so tempting, though I am not aware of any live controversy with these parables. That said, they appear in a context discussing the workings of karma.
We need to distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive. The story of the person being jailed for stealing is a descriptive story, not a prescriptive parable. Nothing disturbing about it, Doug.
Indeed, however I think we naturally assume that anything involving good karma is going to be prescriptive. It's jarring.
The key to removing bad karma is to avoid the cause leading to karma. Karma is often used to mean the fruition of the actions of the doer. In order not to have fruition, the actions leading to its fruition should be cut off.
This reminds me of something that one can think of as a sola-scriptura interpretation of the New Testament in Christianity. Legalism is the lesser good and is the domane of the Pharisees and (if gnostic) if the demiurge. But Christ, whether in Apostolic Christianity or Gnostic Christianity, presents forgiveness and redemption as the superior alternative to legalism.
Interesting thought, I do wonder about motivating the reasoning behind such a move ...
@@DougsDharma Dear Doug,
I really love your films! They are amazing.
I'm not really sure what you are asking here? Are you asking whether I was motivated to write this, or whether or not something motivated Early Christians to think that way?
The latter!
@@DougsDharma one early "heretic" in Christianity was called Marcion, who wrote the Gospel of Marcion (apparently a variation of Luke). Marcion believed that Jesus's teachings vary so greatly different from the Old Testament, that the Old Testament god was a vengeful and evil creator god, the Demiurge, and Jesus was from an all-good god from the "Realm of Barbello", known as the Pleroma (a "formless" heavenly realm by Buddhist standards, and the embodiment of Compassion, righteousness, truth etc...). It was this vengeful creator god who often punished people.
"Gnostic Christians" believed that human souls are trapped in a lesser-good or even evil material world, and the way to escape it is by giving up your worldly identity and attachments, just like the Bible says "if they love the world, the love of the Father is not in them" (roughly).
Gnosticism remained in Europe until the mid-middle ages in the form of the Bogomils in Bulgaria, and the Cathars in southern France and northern Italy. They were all killed off.
May I know Where did u learn Buddhism from ?
🙏☸️🙏 what do you think about doing a video on the precepts?
I did one a long time ago, perhaps it's time for an update. Let me think about it! 😄
What is the difference between merit and karma?
"Merit" is essentially another way to understand (good) karma.
@@DougsDharma Thank you
Karma economic of consuming and producing Karma seems to be a complicated topic.
Yes ..
Doug, I was under the impression that there is no such thing as good karma? Isn't all karma bad? Aren't moral acts valuable in cultivation because they are karmically "neutral", i.e. they are selfless so "no dust alights"? I understand this is a somewhat fraught issue in the dharma, and I'm not certain if I just paraphrased what you were teaching or if your position is more nuanced?
The Buddha says there are four kinds of karma. See: ruclips.net/video/EyzNHJfKFCY/видео.html
I grew tired of Buddhism being solely for funerals and sought solace in Edgar Cayce.
Did I get it correctly? One can be born into good karma like one can be born into prosperity? That's puzzling.
Traditionally yes, since traditionally karma is understood to work across lifetimes. (The good karma is supposed to be responsible for one being born into prosperity, for example).
@@DougsDharma I can understand this. At the same time my understanding was that while good karma can help you being born into prosperity, it will not affect your future in any other way. Your actions cause consequences for you. So if you do something bad, you may not be punished by the government due to your wealth (thanks to your previous good karma), but you still generate bad karma and you will have consequences in your current life. No amount of previous lives' karma can fix this.
I can see how being born to a wealthy family can potentially give you more ways to generate more good karma or become enlightened. There was a metaphor in suttas about an elephant and a sparrow. But still we can see in many cases how the wealth/power corrupt.
Karma is real however much "secular and rational folk" may denounce it. And its a beeyatch.
@@vedantinseeker what do you mean?
Only because they are ignorant and don't know their own material. Jesus for example, was a Buddha like teacher that the Christians worship as an Idol. They do not follow his teachings after interpretation. They can't. Jesus said, "The measure you mete unto others will be likewise meted unto you." That's his cryptic version of cause and effect. He also said to forgive ones inner ought in order to have your life automatically changed. That's nested karmic teachings carried by the many standing outside the narrow gate. Buddha, seek emptiness. Jesus, blessed are the poor in spirit. They are encoded teachings, not plain language. Christians don't follow Jesus teachings. They just worship him. Like this too,
Everyone has a Buddha nature and you become a Buddha when you achieve Nirvana.
Everyone has a Christ nature and you become a Christ when you achieve the Kingdom of Heaven Within.
Secularist Christians are waiting on something from outside that's actually theirs to accomplish within themselves. They won't look inward, only outward. Jesus returns every time someone follows his teaching.
Karma is life unfolding based on the general emotional state of the human and starting from where you're born. It is "Cause and Effect." Every tradition nests this in their teachings. Some in plain language like The Hermetic principles. Same thing as "The measure you mete to others is coming back at you." But this is not based in physical action, but in mental emotion. This is why evil people like Trump don't have bad things happen to them. They harbor no shame or honor. They do not feel bad and therefore are not going to attract in kind. The hell of it all, is that life contains suffering and there is one personal pathway out of feeling what one cannot change, but changing inwardly, the things that hurt those of us who have so much compassion for the world that pain is going to be our lot as we watch what we cannot interrupt.
Hi Doug, In an older video I remember you saying that you used to struggle with arrogance. I just want to say that I've never gotten the vibe that you are arrogant.
Thanks, I'm trying! 😄
🙃🙏🏼
A simple way to look at it is resonance. Every thought and action has a vibration that builds a resonance. If you identify with your thoughts and actions you are these things. Sympathetic resonance can draw you to positive or negative energy. Does your identity consist of looking for the next opportunity to screw the world or does your identity wish for the best for mankind. Remember when you were a small child and you were in touch with these subtle vibrations that we label as our conscience. The conscience I speak of is not our societal moral conscience but a conscience that is under that and natural in every human.
So he's basically saying that there is moral inequality. Good people are like rich people, bad people are like poor people. And the good people go to heaven and experience bliss and power over the poor people, who go to hell.
I think that misses a critical part of the context here, which is that any state of "good" and "bad" is temporary. The good will be bad, the bad will be good, and all will revolve in samsara so long as they are grasping for karma.
it's not difficult to understand. if you are a wicked person, death is guaranteed on your death, the Soul is eventually placed into a new body, perhaps with some strange deformity that will effect the entire life of that host. Thus you are the lesson. One of millions for the Soul. The reason this is not transmitted, is because the central truth, that the Divine Soul is not yours, is hidden from you.
This all seems legit, though, not troubling. I mean, karma is neither about deserving something, nor about justice, certainly not about being a good person. And the dangers of good karma are hinted quite succinctly: a person with hood karma gets off the hook so often, they get used to it, ut becomes a new norm, they get attached to them getting out of jail free, but the good karma eventually runs out... And the attachment to cutting the corners, as well as purses or even throats, does not go away as easily... So, I mean... Yeah? That's how it works? Besides, painting one of good karma as a corrupt richman gets the point across - the point that the goal is to be a decent person, not to accumulate. As one Jewish teacher said: God forbid I become so poor I'm tempted to steal to survive; and God forbid I become so wealthy I'm tempted to steal because of greed and impunity. Not poor, not rich, some middle ground, yes...?
Right, I think that's where the parables lead.
Karma merely means action. In its simplest form it works like this. Wake up, smell coffee, desire coffee, make coffee, drink coffee. Habit energy basically. But on a fundamental level karma is impersonal as there is no self doing it, and self to be liberated from it.
There seem to be some misconceptions here. Karma is not some merit based currency, so to say this person has a lot of good karma and this other one has very little - it means nothing at all. This is likely a western interpretation - not a teaching from the Buddha.
Second, to collect merit is not only to acquire a favourable rebirth - though this may be a secondary consequence of it. In fact, actions performed with the desire to acquire a good birth - will most certainly not have that effect. Rather, we acquire merit to become meritorious - i.e. we fill the jars of paramita (virtues) and without this, liberation may not be attained. The Buddha became the Buddha through the acquisition of tremendous merit and this by performing innumerable compassionate deeds.
Thanks for your thoughts. It sounds as though you are saying that good karma isn't something one can have a lot of, and yet merit is something we can fill jars with. If that is the case, what difference do you see between good karma and merit? For example, I look in Nyāṇtiloka's Buddhist Dictionary and find that merit (puñña) is defined as a term for karmically wholesome action.
@@DougsDharma Kamma (which is the Pali language word, karma being the sanskrit equivalent) are deeds only. And such deeds, in which inheres the ego-mind - that is to say, 'selfish' deeds or more accurately, actions performed without attainment of the wisdom of 'anicca' (impermanence), 'dukkha' (the causes and nature of suffering) and 'anatta' (no-self) - are bound to generate sankharas' - volitional mind-formations or habits that follow beings from birth to birth. Indeed, it the composite formation of sankharas to which we cling, laboring under the illusion that it is permanent, and which, out of ignorance, we identify as the sphere of 'I, me, mine'.
By contrast, having attained even partial experience of these three truths through meditation, we become capable of performing selfless deeds, i.e. actions that do not generate sankharas. Acts that do not generate sankharas bring merit and lead us to liberation. By way of an example, consider - a rich person gives away wealth to the poor and needy - but being desirous of praise, acquires no merit...whilst, another person, though possessing no great material means, may give away meagre alms but acquires tremendous merit because there is no desire or expectation for praise or acknowledgement...
I base these assertions, in part on the basis of an examination of scriptures but primarily on the basis of my own practice of vipassana meditation over several years.
May all beings be liberated!
Doug, you're choosing which Buddhist stories to tell and which to skip according to your own opinions. It's like lite Buddhism. While you're free to talk about and believe what ever you want to, you shouldn't present what you talk about as Buddhism. It's disingenuous.
The Buddha recorded in our histories performed a similar action on his own journey towards buddhahood. Reject this, embrace that, merge from these, extract from those. With such a long and storied karma as our information, maybe we should not be so attached to the letter of the law or the truth of the named details (which isn't to say we ought to disregard it). The way which can be named is not the way. Instead, we live it and aim to attain skillful wisdom through that life while the karmic flow is tightly bound and discernible.
@@kphamcao what else can he do? He will have to chose in some way; and what criteria would you propose for this not to be “lite Buddhism”? I assume a choice closer to your own opinions.
@@andrescosetti927 I'm not nitpicking here. He chose to not talk about reincarnation altogether but that is a like a corner stone of Buddhism. Exercise a thought for me, you know that you are destined to die, but you also don't believe in reincarnation, what then prevent you from indulging in the maximum pleasure this earth could offer? Or worse why do you care what happens to others in your pursue of pleasure? In the end everyone will return to dust anyway. Logically you would have no reason to practice the Dharma.
You may or may not choose to believe in Buddhist thoughts but as a whole it is a complete, logical system of thoughts. When you start omitting things it is no longer compete. So for me, it is quite illogical to not buy into it wholesale.
Remember that most metaphors don’t bear close examination. You’re taking the metaphor too literally, beyond what I think was meant.
Maybe so, but it seems a natural way to take them.
The Karma Sutra is Buddhist? I really wouldn't consider it appropriate reading.
You’re thinking of the Kama Sutra, totally different. Kama roughly means love. Suta or Sutra means something like a textbook. So Karma Sutra is kind of like a textbook on Karma, not… what you’re thinking of.
🤣
Material from antiquity can be strange for people in modernity. Ever read Abrahamic material like Genesis? They have so much sexual perversion going on. Makes me feel dirty just to read it. It's like porn. Greek Myth? Whew. Antiquities media.
Was this the correct way to flesh out that weed seed from the garden?
Karma = actions
Kama = lust
completely different things.
That's simply a personal opinion based on a current belief. Which is based on where you were born in the world. What would be appropriate reading for you?
Hopefully not the highly risque Genesis? Now that's stuff you don't teach your kids. If I posted it, YT would not allow it to post. It's not proper behavior or conduct.
Thanks, Doug! 🙏🙏
Thanks Doug!