My beliefs seem to be of buffet style. Ideas and concepts taken from here and there to make up my own personal set of rules. By definition I am Presbyterian but throughout my 25 years of life I've realized that at times, other religions seemed to better help explain why and how I was put here on earth. One of my favorite concepts and beliefs is karma. Originating from Buddhism, karma can easily be defined as getting exactly what you deserve. While I can't say I've ever believed in one God, I do believe in a network of players who help mold and change the world. What sort of Gods would make one suffer without a reason or make another happy without reason? You get what you deserve and like we've all heard a million times before "do onto others as you'd like done onto yourself."I've never seen karma as a punishment but more as an extension of another's acts and attitudes. Wherever there is a cause, there is an effect. Visually, think of it as a ping pong game. You can ping back and forth but if you strike the ball too hard on purpose and it flies off the table, expect it to come back in the same manner. It may not be right away and it may be when you least expect it, but be sure that it will happen. The focus of karma helps keep my own moral code in line. I may be on the cause or effect end of any situation and I have the power to change the outcome by focusing on a positive solution. Each day I try to add simple karma points to my universal score board. Simple tasks like holding doors for others, saying please and thank you or buying an extra coffee for a homeless person I (sadly) pass almost every morning. While I'm unsure how these "points" will help me in the end, I do hope that my own karma affects others positively. How do you settle your own score?
Perhaps I am lacking in individual charity, but I don’t settle the score. I don’t even try and keep score. For that matter, I do not believe that such a universal score exists, at least in that way.
ReplyDeleteOne difficulty is bound up with the notion of causality as applied to actions. Assuming for the moment that the moral quality of actions can be quantified, there is nothing dictating that the doer of a particular action will be affected by the consequences of that particular action. That is to say, you do not necessarily get what you deserve. This is compatible with your ping-pong analogy. In my experience playing table tennis, hitting the ball very hard does not guarantee that it will ricochet. If anything, it is more likely to fly across the room and hit someone who is not playing the game. This is also compatible with the saying from the Sermon on the Mount, “all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,” but not with “you get what’s coming to you.” You may treat someone well, and want to be treated well, but that’s no guarantee you’ll actually get treated well.
St. Paul claims something that seems close to karma at first in the letter to the Galatians: “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” What makes this different from karma is that exactness or deserving do not come into play. The importance is placed on what you do, not who you are, nor what you personally deserve.
I think that the Christian de-emphasis on individual grades of deserving is right, since it prevents a sense of karmic entitlement and a possible disappointment. I’ve fallen victim many times to the idea that since I have helped others, I should in turn be helped i.e., I should get what I desire. This can lead to two different (and equally dangerous) ideas. If my desire is fulfilled, I can turn proud, secure in my own personal virtue. If my desire is thwarted, I can feel the cosmos is a cheat and become distrustful of it, which, karmically speaking, is a vicious cycle. To bring deserving into play seems to me to be turning charity, a gift, into a requirement--you have to be charitable toward me because I have a right to it from what I’ve done. With that kind of inversion, I wonder why deserving needs to be brought into the picture at all. Why not simply do good works without thought of what you might get in return?
One further complication is that good intentions can produce evil results. Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones; and tenderness leads to the gas chambers. Thus the desire to affect the outcome may bring about the exact reverse.
In short, I would like clarification as to how karma explains the problem of evil more fully than the solution given by orthodox Christianity.
One last question: where in the world did you get those shoes?