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Buddhist view on karma / revenge

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  • #122133
    Cheryl
    Participant

    I would like some help from a Buddhists point of view on what’s going on in my life at the moment
    7 months ago my husband left after 5 yrs together , I left my first marriage after 20 yrs so I understand if your not happy , and you can’t work it out , you have to go ( my first hubby and I still like and respect each other still)
    The reasons he left were incomprehensible maybe there was more to it , I’m not the perfect wife but I’m generally a good kind person
    Some of the reasons were he felt trapped , I didn’t earn enough he’d said he wanted someone to pay for their own holidays , my anxiety irritated him , he wanted his own money back so he start doing his biking again
    Within 3 months of leaving he’s booked up 3 skiing holidays and brought a £6000 bike on credit he’s got a massive tv days he loves it on his own , he even went on a holiday to the USA which we’d planned to go on .hes mentioned a few women were interested in him at work and all this time ( apart from the beginning Ive remained as dignified as I could )
    I’ve had to sell my house ,which is stressful enough , I’ve had the most awful depression and anxiety that I ended up taking 2 weeks off work and getting a verbal warning , I’ve been riddled with illness after illness currently missed my Xmas party ( where I could have met the love of my life lol ) it just doesn’t seem fair
    I’m coming out of it now but even saying I’m not sure what I’m going to do at Xmas, he says ” I’ll be on the ski slopes”
    I know the best revenge for me is to be happy and not to react and to make such a success of my life , but at night I lay awake thinking you have had no consequences to your actions , I don’t love him at all I despise him i have to have contact for financial reasons , I don’t wish him harm, i just want to let go of this anger and these ruminating thoughts of revenge

    #122156
    Peter
    Participant

    I have often wondered when someone hopes that karma evens the score so that if a person that hurt us is hurt in return isn’t creating bad karma for that person. Such thoughts certainly impact a persons present experiences in a negative way so I guess the answer could be that it does.

    My understanding of Karma is that it’s not a tool of justice or revenge which are manmade concepts as they don’t exist in nature. Personally I stay away from invoking karma or looking to karma for solace.

    I think the purpose of karma is for our becoming and awaking not punishment or reward.

    The car/self goes were the eyes/consciousness goes. Our karmic debit determines what we are capable of seeing and experiencing. Karma is a filter through which we experience life, it might limit what we get to experience while overcoming it allows us to expand what we get to experience.

    The task is to overcome karma debit in order to become the best version of ourselves and “see” more clearly.

    Relationships are a crucible of becoming and it is often through the pain we experience as they dissolve that we discover ourselves. It is a bitter sweet truth. There are those that get to discover these truths about themselves while keeping a relationship strong while for others karma/growth/becoming/life requires the pain of separation to push the individual.

    For all things there is a time. Today your thoughts keep going to what your ex was is thinking and experiencing, wanting him to hurt as much as you hurt. Do not judge these thoughts, they just are. When it is time redirect the thoughts back to the present and to who you are who you want to become. How can you take what you learned about yourself in the direction of positive growth? When it is time, forgiveness. Not forgetting, forgiveness does not make what happened ok, nor does it require that we let the person that hurt us back into our lives. Forgiveness creates space where we can let go of thoughts like revenge and the hold that the experience might have on the present moment and so move forward with our lives as we hope them to be.

    #122157
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Cheryl:

    I hope a Buddhist will answer your thread. I am not one. I can still comment on the “Buddhist view on karma/ revenge” –

    It is my understanding that the term “karma” literally means “action” or “doing”. In the Buddhist tradition, karma refers to action driven by intention. Buddhists believe that we are stuck in an ever-ongoing, undesirable, and painful cycle of being reborn because of our intentional bad actions. The Buddhist aim is liberation from this cycle, no longer being reborn. So, if your ex boyfriend intentionally mistreated you, the Buddhist thinking is that he will continue to be reborn.

    That is my best understanding of it, but I don’t believe in it.

    anita

    #122168
    Cheryl
    Participant

    Peter I totally get what your saying , and when I re read my post I didn’t mean it to sound like I want revenge , I think I just want help in forgiveness , not accepting his behaviour but forgiving it .
    I remember someone else saying that when things happen like divorce etc, it does catapult you on to a different and better plane , I have kept that in mind whilst I was feeling, rejected, ignored even laughed at sometimes .
    Karma i understood was it takes some kind of suffering to understand others suffering not the enternal rebirth thing , i like Anita do not believe in it , but I think if you have your house burgled you understand it and wouldn’t want it to happen to anyone else as an example , with my ex husband I just feel like he has no feeling and is totally focussed on himself and he will go on in life treating people badly but getting no consequences.
    I want help,in not caring as you say and focus on myself and my happiness , to his unhappiness
    Maybe it’s just a time issue but it currently eats me up

    #122170
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Cheryl:

    Departing from the karma definition of Rebirth and Liberation, and thinking of it in the casual sense- getting what one deserves, a couple of lines from the movie Unforgiven with Clint Eastwood come to mind, lines that I do agree with:

    1. When he was about to shoot Gene Hackman, Hackman said: “I don’t deserve this.” And Eastwood replied: “Deserve’s got nothin to do with it.” And he shot him.

    2. When the kid, in the movie, lamented that the bad man he shot got it coming, Eastwood said: “We all got it coming, kid.”

    Applying these to your share here: you didn’t deserve to be abandoned by your recent husband and he has it coming.

    anita

    #122173
    Peter
    Participant

    I very much recommend the following book.
    Art of Forgiving: When You Need to Forgive and Don’t Know How by Lewis B. Smedes

    A problem you face is that you can only imagine what you think the impact your ex_husband actions are having on him. Right now you’re telling yourself the story that his actions have had no consequences however that is not something you cannot know as consequences tend to show up unexpected ways.

    We can become the stories we tell so be careful not to fall into a story of bitterness. The car goes where the eyes go so a when you notice yourself thinking about what your ex may or may not be experiencing, acknowledge it and set your gaze onto where you want to go.
    It is a practice so no labeling self judgments.

    If your ex’s does not deal with his karma/filters he will inevitable repeat the same experiences over and over again perhaps believing that a new relationship will fix things without him have to make any meaningful changes.

    It is true that some people are blessed/cursed with no thought for self-reflection which may be the path your ex is on but I suspect is not the path that you are on. Self realization is a difficult process. I believe that consciousness is a result of a confrontation with the problem of opposites, our expectations of what should be good, what should be bad, what is fair…

    In a way you are in this moment experience the tensions between fairness and injustice perhaps asking yourself the question (if unconsciously) what is relationship what does love have to do with it, what is love, what is my relationship to relationship and to love… all which can lead you to greater self-understanding and individuation. If your ex does not experience this tension he is unlikely to grow and that you might say might be labeled as a negative consequence if you believe growth is important. (Karma/life demands growth)

    With regards to karma and being reborn because of our intentional bad actions
    Labels like bad and good in Buddhism tend to disappear so I’m pretty sure karma is not about our concept of punishment or justice.
    As for believing in reincarnation… I have no clue… however I do know that each breath we take is a death and rebirth, life living off of life, each moment a birth, death and resurrection two which we get to respond to with a yes or no. Yes to life as it is, or no. My own experience is that saying no only ends in more suffering. (the trick is saying yes to live as it is while still engaging in life and living your truths as you know them to be in the moment – not easy)

    Your experience happened, it hurts, let it hurt, but also let it connect you to your authentic self.
    I am sorry to say that in my experience time does not heal, forgiveness does not forget, forgiveness leans to say yes to the experience, to life, and then just maybe if you work at it to your authentic self to which your ex was a door to pass through

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Peter.
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