Ep. 8. What is Karma?

Karma as I know it when I was kid, is a circumstance that one will receive the consequence of what he/she gives.   We were often told what kind of ‘karma’ we will have base on what kind of action we give.  We believed that we were born with big load of karmatic debt, so we pray and chant in hope to reduce that debt.  We also pray and chant in hope to reduce our karmatic debt this life in hope for a better next life.  We believe the life that we are living right now is the result of what we did in the previous life.  To give you an example. if we saw a husband abuse a wife, our mind will instantly justify such behavior as the wife is repaying her karmatic debt and believe that she must have mistreated her husband in the previous life.  Somehow, such mentality supposed to make the one being abused feel better, and take on whatever abuse is given to her.  Seriously, that is something I never understood when I was kid, and still don’t understand.  I believe a soul must come to this incarnation to learn to live a life instead of worrying about a life that they simply don’t see.  While people seemed to live in the karma of the past life and worrying about the karma of the next life that is not even starting yet, I often wonder ‘how about now?’  Surprisingly, that mentality seems to be just the same in North America even when this is a place without Karma or reincarnation belief as foundation.  People seem to always living in the past and worrying about the future that they forget to live their presence.  Beside, the biggest question I have in regard of Karma; how do you know when you pay off your debt?   How do you know that it’s not too little or too much that you will be trapped in the same karma again? (Thanks to my inner child of curiosity, I seemed to have endless questions to keep me going to find out more.)

Karma, in the definition of where I came from, seems to be a term that commonly used to describe someone repaying their previous life’s debt, but that’s not really what I believe.  Through years of observation, case studying and self experiments, I realized that Karma in not a punishment for what you did (this life or the last), it is simply an universal force that keep everything in balance.

To understand how karma works, you will first have to understand how soul work.  In soul level, there’s no good or bad, right or wrong, better or less, or even high or low, everything is there for a reason, and everything is there for a purpose.  It is simply what it is.  Judgement is really a language that human create for ourselves.

Buddism belief is true, Karma is something that will bounce back to you depend on what you throw out there.  But Karma doesn’t bounce back what you give base on your action, but your intention.  To clarify this; a man who kill a dog so he can feed his family will have a completely different karma from a man who kill a dog simply because he believes he is higher than a dog and have the power over a dog.  It will be the same as a poor person give his hand to help someone in need will have a complete different karma as one who donate millions into charity so he looks good in his society.

If you understand Karma is a force that keep everything in balance and your intention is the cause to define that balance, you will then understand how it works.  If your intention is to help, the karma will bounce back help.  If your intention is to hurt, karma will bounce back hurt.  Karma is not there to punish or judge anyone, but to keep everything in balance.  To give you an example, if one is very judgemental towards Jewish in this life, he or she may be born as a Jewish and live in a judgemental community to be judged.  The purpose of it is so that specific soul will be able to understand what it is like to be in both side of views, therefore, use that understanding to balance and centres his core and belief.

So my suggestion to you all who is interested in minimize your karmatic debt; think before you act.  Really take something to think what it is your intention behind your action.  Is your intention to help or to hurt, to give or to get?  Because that intention will eventually bounce back to you in this life or the next).  If you are not sure what your intention is, then think about this statement ‘Don’t treat others the way you don’t want to be treated’.  Before you say something, think if that’s something you want people to say to you?  Before you hurt someone, think if you want to be hurt in the same way.  If you have done something bad that still linger in your mind for years, go back to that and make up for your wrong doing.  Make it a lesson to be learned, instead of waiting for Karma to hit you hard in who-knows-when.