Understanding Karma
Karma, the action of body, speech, and mind, affects every aspect of our life. Actions affect both doers and those around them in unimaginable ways, and the seeds of karma shape our lives and our worlds, though different Buddhist traditions give different weight to whether the action is willed or not.
In either case, through mindfulness, we become aware of the nature of these actions and can in fact change our karma, the concept of cause and effect.
When we understand the karma allows us to take responsibility for past actions with an attitude of compassion, appreciating that a particular act may have been unwholesome or harmful, and strongly determining not to repeat it.
We always experience Karma that we created!
The law of karma is one of the most important laws governing our lives. When we understand it, and live our understanding, when we act on what we know, then we experience a sense of wholeness and peace. If we live in a way that is out of harmony, ignoring the nature of things, we then experience dissonance, pain, and confusion.
The law of karma is one of the fundamental natural laws through which we create these vastly different realities. It is as though we are all artists, but instead of canvas and paint, or marble or music, as our medium, our very bodies, minds, and life experience are the materials of our creative expression. A great sense of fulfillment in dharma practice comes from knowing this and from actively creating and fashioning our lives.
The law of karma can be understood on two levels, which indicate the vast scope of its implications in our lives. On one level, karma refers to the experience of cause and effect over a period of time. We perform an action, and sometime later we begin to experience its results.
The other level of understanding karma has to do with the quality of mind in the very moment of action. When we experience a mind state of love, there comes naturally, along with it, a feeling of openness and love that is its immediate fruit; similarly, when there are moments of greed or hatred, in addition to whatever future results will come, we also experience the painful energies that arise with those states.
Understanding the law of karma leads us to reflect wisely on the skillfulness or unskillfulness of our actions.
Karma Guide
Karma literally translates to “action” (Verbal, Mental and Physical Actions)
Karma can also include your reactions
There are 3 types of actions:
Bad
Neutral
Good
Bad action — Bad result
Neutral action — Neutral result
Good action — Good result
Actions create our environments
BUT Motivation is heavier than the actual action, which means if you stole something in order to help someone - your motivation was good, but you still made an unwholesome action such as stealing, so you created less negative karma by doing it with the positive motivation that benefits others.
There are 2 types of Karma
Individual Karma
Collective Karma
Karma increases in future lives - Bigger suffering Bigger happiness
So try to avoid doing even little negative actions.
There is no one to blame but ourselves.
Karma doesn’t expire, you will get the result from your action sooner or later
You cant change the karma, just like you cant take your words back, but you can work on creating only good karma but doing only positive beneficial actions!
Anger destroys positive Karma
Regret destroys bad Karma
Good emotion - good karma ripening
Bad emotion - bad Karma ripening
Keeping good ethic - reborn in a human realm