Search results for: past karma

  1. Book search result icon Noble Strategy Karma
     … Although many ancient concepts of karma are fatalistic, the early Buddhist concept was not fatalistic at all. In fact, if we look closely at early Buddhist ideas of karma, we’ll find that they give even less importance to myths about the past than most modern people do. For the early Buddhists, karma was non-linear. Other Indian schools believed that karma operated in … 
    Show 2 additional results in this book
  2. Karma for Freedom
     … In fact, if it weren’t for your present intentions right now, you wouldn’t be experiencing past karma at all—which is one of the reasons why this is a theory of karma that really is good for putting an end to suffering. So, it’s not karma to tie you down. It’s karma for freedom. It’s the understanding of karma … 
  3. Karma in the Present
    When we hear the teaching on karma, we usually think about past karma—not only past karma in this lifetime but also in previous lifetimes—and it seems something far away. Actually, we’re creating karma all the time. Every time there’s an intention in the mind, that’s karma. Sitting here with your eyes closed, you’re creating karma: mental karma. So … 
  4. The Karma Snake
     … You can’t see all the past karma of even one person, let alone all the karma of all beings. There’s a statement that floats around in Buddhist circles, that if you want to see someone’s past actions, you look at their present state; if you want to see their future state, you look at their present actions. But that’s much … 
  5. Page search result icon How to Use the Teaching on Kamma
     … There your present karma comes first, under the factor of intention in name and form, and then the results of past karma, under contact at the senses, are shaped by your present karma. So what you’re doing right now is really important. That’s what I said. As I was giving this talk, though, I was getting a lot of blank looks. It … 
  6. How to Use the Teaching on Kamma
     … There your present karma comes first, under the factor of intention in name and form, and then the results of past karma, under contact at the senses, are shaped by your present karma. So what you’re doing right now is really important. That’s what I said. As I was giving this talk, though, I was getting a lot of blank looks. It … 
  7. The Karma of Meditation
     … When the results don’t come, you may wonder, “What about that past karma?” The Buddha doesn’t have people think too much about past karma, except for the general principle that you want to do good karma right now, skillful karma right now, as much as you can, and be prepared for the fact that there may be some bad things coming up … 
  8. A Mind Bigger than Pain
     … We can’t do much about the past karma but we do have a lot of control over our present karma—if we train the mind. In fact, the more trained the mind is, the more control you have over how you’re going to actually be experiencing that past karma. And part of understanding the situation is to realize that your past karma … 
  9. Karma Storms
     … It means finding something to do in the meantime, both in terms of finding a source of pleasure inside someplace, and remembering that anything that’s coming up in the mind over which you have no control is past karma. This is what the result of past bad karma is like. Do you want to keep on creating more of that? No. So you … 
  10. The Power of Present Kamma
    A lot of us, when we first hear the teachings on karma, think about the bad things we did in the past, which is one of the reasons why karma is a very unpopular teaching. Things that were past, we hope to leave past. But karma says, “They may still have their fangs.” Of course, “karma” doesn’t mean just bad karma. It also … 
  11. In the Light of Karma
     … And what is the useful way to look at karma? First he has you look at your own life in terms of karma: The things you’re experiencing now are a combination of potentials coming from past intentions and of your own present intentions. This same principle applies to everybody, everywhere. There’s a very common reflection the Buddha has you do, which is … 
  12. The Stakes Are High
     … But even your karma is an iffy thing. The workings of karma are very complex. You can spend a whole lifetime doing good, but it turns out you’ve got some bad karma from the past that’s going to come in and take charge for a while. Or you’ve been doing good all your life and suddenly at the last moment, you … 
  13. Intelligent Equanimity
     … That’s where the reflection on karma comes in. You realize that certain things are caused by past karma and there’s no way you can change them. Other people’s karma places limitations on them; your own karma places limitations on you. You have to live realistically within those limitations. You can push them a bit, you can push the envelope to see … 
    Show 7 additional results in this book
  14. The Karma of Pain
    When we think of the word karma, we usually think about bad things we did in the past. But that’s only one kind of karma out of four. There’s good karma and bad karma, and there’s past karma and present karma, and those two distinctions intersect, so that there are four types altogether: good past, bad past, good present, and bad … 
  15. Cooking Skills
    A lot of people don’t like the teaching on karma because it sounds fatalistic: You did something bad in the past; you’re going to have to suffer now. The irony, of course, is that the Buddha said that that was one of the worst forms of wrong view there is. The way he taught karma was a lot more complex and offered … 
  16. A Refuge from Karma
     … Now, karma comes in lots of different kinds, and it’s dangerous in lots of different ways. There’s our own karma, and there’s the karma of other people; our own past karma, our own present karma; skillful karma, unskillful karma. We need refuge from all these things. We need a place of safety, and yet we’re driven by bewilderment. As the … 
  17. Strength of Conviction
     … All we have when we come is our past karma. All we take with us when we leave is the new karma we’ve made. As the Buddha said, it follows you around. If it’s bad karma, it’s like a cart that weighs you down and obliterates everything you do. Whereas if it’s good karma, it’s like a shadow that … 
  18. Mindful of Karma
     … But the path is the karma that’s neither bright nor dark because it leads you to the end of karma, it takes you to a spot where the mind is no longer is creating intentions and is no longer receiving the results of karma past or present. But to get to that spot requires a certain kind of karma: what we’re doing … 
  19. Cooking the Present Moment
    We’re sitting here in a heap of old karma: this body of ours. The fact that we’re born with this particular body, with these particular features, is the result of past actions. Of course, the things we’ve been doing with the body since it was born are our past actions, too. You find them embedded in here. But that’s not … 
  20. The Complexity of Pain
    The Buddha’s discussion of pain is very complex because it’s related to karma, and as we all know, karma is very complex. If we tried to tease out all the details as to why something has happened, how it relates to your past karma and present karma, the Buddha said we’d go crazy. But the basic teaching on karma is the … 
  21. Load next page...