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Old 08-08-2010, 11:53 PM   #11
Anatolii

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Oct 2005
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355
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The colloquial use of "karma" is the idea that what goes around comes around, which strikes me as a very very good way to victim-blame. In fact, that was basically its function in Hinduism where it first arose. It was a way of saying that slaves are slaves because they deserve it, as suffering is always caused by the person experiencing it and not any external injustice. In fact, the idea of karma doesn't seem to allow for the idea of injustice at all. I've seen far too much of that in my short years alive to subscribe to a system which doesn't include it in the overall picture of reality presented. Therefore I would be a bad Hindu, and am kind of averse to it in Buddhism as well.

I've heard different explanations from Buddhists of the Buddhist angle on the notion, but no one seems better supported than any of the others, and it just requires too much mental gymnastics to hold it in my head in some kind of painfully-specific way that doesn't feed victim-blaming tendencies in myself or others. Considering that the belief doesn't really add anything to my practice, nor would it change how I behave, I just... have sort of tossed it as one of the few elements of Buddhist dogma which can cause harm (since if it isn't necessary, and can cause harm, I see no reason why I should spend a lot of time building anything around it).
Hi Cobalt, Karma is not used a lot in Zen but I think it need not be (self-)victimising. In everyday caste society 2500 BP it probably fulfilled that role. We cannot really judge others, but in relation to ourselves we can go a bit deeper. I think there lies the value also of the concept of Karma, not to bestow it upon others but to get in touch with a deeper reality. Not our fault, if there has been a tradition of sexual abuse, for instance, passed down the generations of our ancestors, but something where we have an opportunity to break through a cycle of bad habit by taking responsibility. Very best wishes, Jan
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