Karma doesn't exist

[machinegun]

 

I don't know if this is a revelation everyone has, but a few days ago I came to the conclusion that life is not even remotely fair. This was because I read about the case of Junko Furuta. Don't read the Wikipedia page unless you're willing to cry and/or vomit. 

I think karma is something we all want to believe in-bad guys getting punished- but seriously, a lot of the times it works out in favor of the bad guy.

I watched a video from Leo about how karma comes back in the form of a guilty conscience, but some actions are so fucked up that guilt alone could never absolve the pain these people cause.

Like do you really think a motherfucker like Gengis Kahn was feeling remorse at the end of his life? People were celebrating this mass rapist and murder as a hero, he must have felt like a fucking god.

I guess I'm just disappointed because I have always wanted to believe things return to balance at the end. This world is truly fucked up.

 

[machinegun]

10 hours ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

I mean yeah, I guess. But, based on what we can see, and speaking from my experience, there's little to no retribution. If there were some proof of karma I'd like to see it

@DefinitelyNotARobot

[How to be wise]

@machinegun This may be hard to believe, but everything that happens in life is a gift for you. Everything, bar none. If it wasn’t for your highest good, it wouldn’t be happening. 
 

Karma doesn’t exist, but not because life is unfair. It doesn’t exist because nothing bad happens in life that requires retribution. 
 

This is something that I have directly experienced. The only reason you’re not seeing it is because your ego is doing a good job of hiding it. Once you’ve done enough work on your ego, I’m sure you’ll see it too. Life is good!

[Tim R]

@machinegun Karma is just an idea. There isn't any actual Karma being collected or cleared. 

Karma means "action" or "deed". 

Ok, so what does that mean? It means, that if you think "you" act, then there is Karma. It means that there is still an identification with thought, because you think that behind every "doing/deed" there is a "do-er"; somebody, who is doing certain things. The "do-er" however is itself just a thought; there isn't any individual self exerting control. 

So, to "lose" Karma means to see though the illusion of a separate self. 

This is connected to the idea of Samsara: if you think that you as a separate self exist, "you" were born. And as long as you think that you were born, you will also have to think that you're going to die because birth implies death (life is not the opposite of death, it's birth).

Edited December 27, 2020 by Tim R

[No Self]

15 hours ago, machinegun said:

Like do you really think a motherfucker like Gengis Kahn was feeling remorse at the end of his life? People were celebrating this mass rapist and murder as a hero, he must have felt like a fucking god.

He by himself would have been unlikely to cause much trouble. Ditto for Hitler and others. Humanity wants to blame everything but itself, which unfortunately ensures progress will be minimal.

I believe there are mechanisms in the bigger picture to balance the extremes of unfairness and injustice that we appear to witness here. But if there is only one of us, it becomes harder to judge anything as good or bad.

[Tim R]

29 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

The waves aren't in a state of doer ship.

That's right, therefore there is no Karma, no illusion of doing, no birth (the wave doesn't believe itself to be a wave, "waving" along) and hence no death.

Can you see how there aren't any "waves"? We aren't waves, we are the ocean believeng itself to be a wave.

29 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

But still, there is a consequence to each wave. In fact, the wave itself IS a consequence, caused by another consequence, causing another consequence.

Consequence and cause are also just illusions (albeit very, very tricky ones); Dogen says it in his "Shōbōgenzō": "Spring doesn't become summer. There is spring, and then there is summer."

Which is exactly correct of course. Look at the sky: are the clouds leaving a trail? No. Are the birds leaving a trail? No. Look at wood, burning: does it leave a trail? No, there is wood and then there is ashes, but the wood doesn't become the ashes. 

Why not? Because the past doesn't exist (and neither does the future).

Now look at yourself in the same way: you aren't the consequence of who you were, what you really are is who you are now! But if you think that you are somehow a consequence from the past and a cause for the future, you are under illusion; that is your Karma. 

To think that you are the consequence of your past is your birth (= cause), and to think that you are the cause of your future is your death (=consequence), you see? That's Samsara. (since all consequence is also a cause, birth and death are of course identical)

Whereas in reality, you only exist now! And now is neither birth nor death because you as a separate self don't exist and therefore were never born and are never going to die!! That's Nirvana! 

 

btw if you're into Zen/Buddhism in general, I highly recommend you read Dogens "Shōbōgenzō". It might be a difficult book, but definitely worth giving a shot!

Edited December 27, 2020 by Tim R

[Tim R]

1 minute ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

the sense of something being done is just another wave, right?

Right. 

3 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

I first have to experience the eternal now

@DefinitelyNotARobot And when do you expect that is going to happen, hm?

[Jonty]

I'm reading a book at present by Alan Watts entitled "You Are It!". In there he states that the word karma has been mistranslated in English. @Tim R has hit the nail on the head with his explanation above. It correlates with what Alan Watts describes. 

The book is well worth a look too. Also available on Audible 

[Hulia]

@machinegun Karma is not about rewarding the good and punishing the bad. Karma is about cause and effect on different levels: individual, collective, physical, metaphysical and so on, which are all interconnected with each other in a very complicated way, which is difficult to track down. And which is impossible to track down for somebody whom you know only from Wikipedia. A lot of dimensions and interactions get lost for you.

When I observe people and events around me, I don´t see any irregularities or something illogical. But I am speaking really about the 1st circle, not the friends of the friends and not about Gengis Kahn and his victims  

[Tim R]

8 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

Perhaps somewhere in the future? 

@DefinitelyNotARobot Well keep looking then❤

[PurpleTree]

17 hours ago, machinegun said:

This world is truly fucked up.

No it's not. Maybe you need to get into nature more.

[Tim R]

2 hours ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

Are there even any waves or is the ocean completely still?

The ocean is not still. "Stillness" is just another idea. The ocean isn't moving, "movement" is also just an idea. 

[How to be wise]

4 hours ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

But does karma require the existence of the concepts of 'good' and 'bad'? What even is karma in the first place?

Some people see it as some kind of universal justice system. But is THAT really what our ancestors meant? It feels like there is a lot more beneath the surface.

When Sadhguru talks about karma, he basically means ‘consequence.’ If you do x, then expect y to happen. For example, if you gorge on sugar, expect to gain weight. That definition of karma makes sense to me. But most people, especially in the west, define karma as ‘retribution’, which I believe is false.

[lmfao]

22 hours ago, machinegun said:

I don't know if this is a revelation everyone has, but a few days ago I came to the conclusion that life is not even remotely fair. This was because I read about the case of Junko Furuta. Don't read the Wikipedia page unless you're willing to cry and/or vomit. 

Some months ago an acquaintance of mine told me about that Junko Furuta case, that shit was crazily horrific and stills sticks in my mind. It made me feel physically sick when I first read it, not so extreme a reaction anymore but it still leaves me unsettled with a "moment of silence" mood. 

I think we have to see the fact that we don't know why suffering and human cruelty like this exists, or don't know if the universe will make things even, as hard as that might be. 
 

22 hours ago, machinegun said:

I guess I'm just disappointed because I have always wanted to believe things return to balance at the end. This world is truly fucked up.

I'm not sure if you were ever religious, but when the worldview of Islam fell apart for me, one of the things which bothered me was surrendering the idea of heaven and hell. Because those two concepts give you the security that no matter what happens in this life, a higher wisdom will sort things out once everything is done and we're dead.

Maybe there is a higher wisdom, but we have to empty our cup of old and familiar, and recalibrate our senses to see it. And that includes emptying the cup of old unfounded beliefs in a higher wisdom. 

---
https://filmdaily.co/news/junko-furuta-2/ This very simple article summarises a lot of the wisdom to be learnt from acts of cruelty such as these. 

Edited December 27, 2020 by lmfao

[Quantum Toad]

All karma can become cleared in one moment of realization, the realization that you are not the doer. The realization that you are free from karma, frees you from karma. When you know that you are free to determine who you are at every moment, that recognition in itself breaks the karmic tie.

[SgtPepper]

What if I told you that Junko Furuta is her own torturer and her torturer is Junko Furuta?

 

[Someone here]

Yeah I think it's obvious what Karma is from a oneness view point. If you are the same being in every being. If you are beheading a chicken.. You are the human who's beheading the chicken and the chicken that's getting beheaded simultaneously. So instant karma. It's not a process in time and doesn't require reincarnation because it's hard for us to make sense of how time is illusory and our relative notion of how the universe works are not what's absolutely true. 

[Moksha]

Karma is part of the dream. In transcendent reality, there is no change, and thus no karma, or cause and effect.

Which is not to say that dream forms don't accumulate karma to themselves, like a snowball rolling down a snowy slope. If you care about the dream, and to some extent, if you are wise, you will; don't create bad karma. Pleasant dreams are better than nightmares.

[Arion]

6 hours ago, SgtPepper said:

What if I told you that Junko Furuta is her own torturer and her torturer is Junko Furuta?

 

Huh? 

I don't get it.  If your coming with the ' everything is one' archetype, how does that help answer the OP's question?

[Blackhawk]

According to the karma model, the karma stuff will hit them in the next lives.