Home→Forums→Spirituality→Laws of Karma & Reincarnation are BALONEY!!!
- This topic has 3 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by Tannhauser.
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October 11, 2017 at 12:34 pm #172699SeanParticipant
I think the Buddhist movement should find a way to teach others how to prevent suffering and reach nirvana; especially children at an early age so they won’t have to suffer so much to learn otherwise we as human kind seize to evolve and allow suffering for future generations due to negligence. I suggest Buddhist monks with the great discipline that they have to use that energy and focus to change others into becoming good moral people as well, not people who sit around and wait for a donation but people who take active initiative to change the world.
What should be taught is why we must live righteous and ethical lives so the world can reach world peace, unification, and understanding. This needs to be simple yet detailed enough for even children to understand.
Also sitting around meditating all day isn’t benefiting anyone but your own peace of mind, if you are capable of work (any mental or physical effort) that will benefit society in a positive way you should do so. I don’t think Gautama Siddhartha intended for anyone to copy him sitting at the tree seeking the truth of life when he passed his hypothesis of the laws of “Karma” and “Reincarnation”. I’m pretty sure his intention was for Buddhists to work together to make the world a better place, not sit around trying to figure out more truth of the cosmic universe.On another note I’d like to add my objections to the key principles of Buddhism:
1) I disagree with the law of reincarnation; I believe Siddhartha meant reincarnation as in a rebirth of the soul or spirit or new soul and spirit within the same flesh. For instance if we are not understanding of the way one person’s soul is than we as world shall get reborn spiritually in the same flesh, otherwise there is no true understanding because we are born without memory of a past life and for that some of us will die wondering why we suffered so much more than others.
2) I disagree with karma because it does not explain why some children are born suffering and others are born blessed, if we apply the law of reincarnation into the equation it still leaves the fact that we are born with no memory of the past life. If one has no memory of it’s mistakes but is suffering to learn mistakes that it has no recollection of making, what does one learn or understand besides that this world is unjust? Being that somethings in this world are created so perfectly, including the human body and it’s functions for survival, to have something like karma as a law does not sound reasonable at all.
November 7, 2017 at 2:11 pm #176911PeterParticipantThe idea of karma has been greatly misunderstood.
My understanding after reading the Tibetan book of the dead was that karma wasn’t about reward, justice or punishment but a quality that keeps a person from “seeing” / experiencing and so stuck. To a large extent we see what we expect to see/experience. Forgive us our failings as we forgive those who fail us is not a suggestion but a truth. In the book of the dead karma keeps a person stuck in the cycle of death and rebirth. A person capable of “seeing” beyond suffering and pain…. can end the cycle.
You might apply such concepts to the afterlife however symbolic language suggest that we experience the cycle of death and rebirth in every breath we take. Such teaching is common in all wisdom traditions if one has the eyes to see and ear’s to hear.
Sorry have to run
December 18, 2017 at 5:34 am #182727TannhauserBlockedI find both ideas equally repugnant and disgusting, and on balance I would prefer total oblivion at the cessation of life. I don’t understand why many people are afraid of death, it’s the ‘afterlife’ you need to be scared of. With death, all your suffering is over forever. With ‘afterlife’, you continue on a sort of ‘misery-go-round’, learning and suffering and craving and experiencing birth and death pains again and again and again. Fuck that.
What’s even worse is that according to the Hindu/Buddhist hokum everything is pre-ordained. So that would include rape, murder, the Holocaust, the burying alive of Chinese captives during the Japan-China war, childhood terminal cancer and so on.
Best wishes,
Tannhauser
December 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm #182865JayParticipantMy understanding is that Karma is not a cosmic justice system, it is not punishment or reward for good or bad behavior. Karma an volitional/willful action, it is cause and effect pure and simple.
Here is a link to an article that will explain it much better than I could. https://www.thoughtco.com/buddhism-and-karma-449992
June 11, 2018 at 10:54 am #212075TamaraParticipantI learned in Thailand about the Dhamma. It was kept very simple.
Regarding karma: if you plant a mango seed, you get a mango tree. It’s impossible to plant a mango seed and get a potato.
Whatever we plant we have to reap the results at some point. Whether that’s in this existence or another depends on many things.
It takes a lot of understanding though when you have done only mainly good in this life and see only bad come back. That is very testing of your wisdom. But then look at the teaching of the Buddha where He said that if we bones from our every lifetime were piled up they would be higher than the hugest mountain (sorry if not an exact quote!!!) – the tears we have shed would be more vast than all the oceans… then start to reflect on how much we have ‘planted’.We were taught to reflect on this, understand it and turn things around to see that all we see before us is a reflection of all we have done in the past. Our hope is only not to create any more bad karma and seek forgiveness for that which we have done and cannot remember throughout countless existences…
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