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**xanaxonlinexanax** · 07-30-2011, 01:10 AM

Mystic,

It is very recommendable not to speculate about Kamma. World happenings are highly complex. Many variables are set into action. Most of the time, world happenings will not accomplish our desires. Our margin of control of external events is very limited but not our mental disposition toward them. Mind is the real thing with which you can really work with. The teachings of the Buddha are about that.

What Kaarine said.

Also, Buddha didn't teach that the world we know is a particularly nice, fair, stable or satisfying place. Far from it. The Buddhist term for our situation is "samsara", and it's characterized by impermanence, discontent, unsatisfactoriness and suffering.

For instance, according to the traditional cosmology, beings can get to a Buddhist heaven -- only to drop out of it into hell. You can spend your life cultivating virtue -- only to suffer the painful results of some karmic inheritance from the past. In the rebirth cycle, you could be a hungry ghost one life, a celestial deva in the next, a human after that, and then a mosquito. Moreover, the workings of karma are said to be "imponderable", so no matter how positive or negative the outlook seems, you really can't be sure.

Even if you don't take all this literally, you can see how it presents existence as ever-changing and never satisfying. So concerning the question:

why do a lot of people who only do good have bad things happen to them? ...a traditional, provisional answer is that it's due to the workings of karma, past and present. But the deeper answer is that this is the nature of samsara, and that's why Buddhists strive to liberate themselves from it.

07-30-2011, 01:10 AM	#33
xanaxonlinexanax Join Date Nov 2005 Posts 540 Senior Member	Mystic, It is very recommendable not to speculate about Kamma. World happenings are highly complex. Many variables are set into action. Most of the time, world happenings will not accomplish our desires. Our margin of control of external events is very limited but not our mental disposition toward them. Mind is the real thing with which you can really work with. The teachings of the Buddha are about that. What Kaarine said. Also, Buddha didn't teach that the world we know is a particularly nice, fair, stable or satisfying place. Far from it. The Buddhist term for our situation is "samsara", and it's characterized by impermanence, discontent, unsatisfactoriness and suffering. For instance, according to the traditional cosmology, beings can get to a Buddhist heaven -- only to drop out of it into hell. You can spend your life cultivating virtue -- only to suffer the painful results of some karmic inheritance from the past. In the rebirth cycle, you could be a hungry ghost one life, a celestial deva in the next, a human after that, and then a mosquito. Moreover, the workings of karma are said to be "imponderable", so no matter how positive or negative the outlook seems, you really can't be sure. Even if you don't take all this literally, you can see how it presents existence as ever-changing and never satisfying. So concerning the question: why do a lot of people who only do good have bad things happen to them? ...a traditional, provisional answer is that it's due to the workings of karma, past and present. But the deeper answer is that this is the nature of samsara, and that's why Buddhists strive to liberate themselves from it.
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