last time i took buddhist study during my sec days
teacher always brought us to temple and meditate
one...
but too bad i fall asleep..and my mind was totally blank
Originally posted by noahnoah:
last time i took buddhist study during my sec days
teacher always brought us to temple and meditate
one...
but too bad i fall asleep..and my mind was totally blank
so bad of you to sleep
knotty knotty
Originally posted by Isis:Don't you think people without conscience will create a harm to the society?
It was okay to own slaves to those people who own the slaves.
But do you think it will be okay if you are a slave to them?
That was not my point. My point was that conscience was not universal, but a system which people were brought up to believe.
Originally posted by dadeadman1337:That was not my point. My point was that conscience was not universal, but a system which people were brought up to believe.
I think it works in both ways - not just by learning but also by our natural instinct.
Originally posted by Isis:
I think it works in both ways - not just by learning but also by our natural instinct.
Hmm, if we followed instinct, we would behave like animals wouldn't we?
Originally posted by dadeadman1337:Hmm, if we followed instinct, we would behave like animals wouldn't we?
actually some times
humans behave in a way that
they are far worse then animals
Originally posted by dadeadman1337:Hmm, if we followed instinct, we would behave like animals wouldn't we?
My natural instinct does not refer to animal instinct.
For example if you see someone suffers or someone lose their loved ones, what do you feel for them? Do you feel pity for them? Do we need to be taught?
Actually all beings wants happiness and do not wants suffering. This is our natural inborn instinct.
Originally posted by noahnoah:
actually some timeshumans behave in a way that
they are far worse then animals
I agree. for eg, like the case of throwing babies away
Originally posted by dadeadman1337:Hmm, if we followed instinct, we would behave like animals wouldn't we?
Originally posted by dadeadman1337:Hmm, if we followed instinct, we would behave like animals wouldn't we?
Originally posted by Weychin:
If you are an animal(not literally!), you use whatever within your ability to survive, and to care for your offspring. If you are a human, you will also use whatever available to you. Instinct and also reasoning(intelligence). That your parents give birth to and love you without reason, that's instinct. That they use their reasoning (empathy) to be kind to other peoples' children and other people will be kind your children! That throwing babies away is bad, because you use your reasoning!
Ah the love of the parent is quite simillar to the kind shown in animals where the adults are protective of the young.
Originally posted by Isis:
My natural instinct does not refer to animal instinct.For example if you see someone suffers or someone lose their loved ones, what do you feel for them? Do you feel pity for them? Do we need to be taught?
Actually all beings wants happiness and do not wants suffering. This is our natural inborn instinct.
Protectiveness shown towards members of your own species, shown in animals as well. I remember an article in the newspapers where a child stabbed, yet failed to give any reaction. Thus a basis for assuming that certain things have to be taught
Originally posted by SevenEleven:
but then i see krama differently. the effect does not need to be direct. for example, if he got away with the stealing, he would be free with the direct impact but not his consciencious.
I remembered there was a monk (could not remember his name), he said there was once he counselled a murderer who was in jail. The murderer told the monk that he was really innocent, he did not kill the victim. The monk told him there must be a reason (karma) why he was jailed even though he was innocent. He confessed to the monk that he once killed someone but got away with it.
This just got to show karma will get you one day, either now or later.
Wow I did not expect this to become a thread with so many comments.
Anyway I wish to comment a bit on some points raised so far:
My personal opinion is that inside humans, we do have some instincts that would put us in the same category of animals or maybe worse, as some suggested here..
For example, we can now get to read or hear about news of natural fathers sexually abusing their own daughters...
Now, how many fathers would do that to their own flesh and blood? Why is the natural paternal instinct of a father unable to overcome the sexual perversions?
Without the concept of karma as explained in Buddhism, I would find it very hard put to convince myself logically and emotionally, after seeing and hearing such shocking news.
These are some of those many moments that I thank myself for having the chance to be in touch with Buddhism.
Followings are some of the LAW OF KARMA which I believe many people (including myself) who have misunderstood in the past :
1) Good deeds cannot redeem bad deeds. They are accounted for separately. For eg, a man who is very rich but short life. Reasons being he was very generous in donations in his past life but had committed a lot of killings. His generousity could not redeem his killings.
2) Sins cannot be eliminated, it can only be lightened by repenting sincerely in front of Buddha. Repenting sincerely means one has regretted what one had done and will not do it again.
3) There are many people who said it is not fair for they have to suffer for something they cannot remember (past life). It is just like killing someone while drink driving or one falls down and breaks a pair of legs while drunk. When one sobers up, one has to face the consequence of a pair of broken legs even though he cannot recall what he had done when he was drunk.
Originally posted by Dawnfirstlight:Followings are some of the LAW OF KARMA which I believe many people (including myself) who have misunderstood in the past :
1) Good deeds cannot redeem bad deeds. They are accounted for separately. For eg, a man who is very rich but short life. Reasons being he was very generous in donations in his past life but had committed a lot of killings. His generousity could not redeem his killings.
2) Sins cannot be eliminated, it can only be lightened by repenting sincerely in front of Buddha. Repenting sincerely means one has regretted what one had done and will not do it again.
3) There are many people who said it is not fair for they have to suffer for something they cannot remember (past life). It is just like killing someone while drink driving or one falls down and breaks a pair of legs while drunk. When one sobers up, one has to face the consequence of a pair of broken legs even though he cannot recall what he had done when he was drunk.
Some comments on the above points raised and additional information for further reading:
Additional Information: How do we overcome our past evil kamma?
To overcome past evil kamma, the Buddha said that we have to do a lot of good deeds now. The Buddha gave a beautiful simile of salt and water (A.N 3.99 Lonaphala Sutta: The Salt Crystal).
During the time of the Buddha, there was no fine salt like the kind we have, but they have lumps of salt. So the Buddha said that suppose a man took a lump of salt and put it into a cup of water, stirred the water, and drank it. The water would definitely taste salty.
However, if the person took the same lump of salt, and put it into the river, and stirred the river water, and drank it, it would not taste salty because of the large amount of water in the river.
The Buddha said that the water represents good kamma and the salt represents evil kamma. So a lot of good kamma dilutes the effect of the evil kamma. Therefore it is very important that we do a lot of good to overcome our past evil kamma. What is past, we cannot change; we can only take care of the present. To take care of the present, we have to do a lot of good (which includes avoiding evil, i.e. keeping the precepts).
All kamma that we do have the potential to ripen. However, not every kamma will ripen. The Buddha said that if every kamma has to ripen, then we cannot get out of samsara (round of rebirths). This is because our kammic account is so great due to our uncountable lifetimes of kamma.
The author then gives the example of Venerable Angulimala ["Angulimala Sutta: About Angulimala" (MN 86)]
...Then Angulimala strove very hard and became an Arahant. Just think of that! He did not have to be reborn in hell for many hundreds of thousands of years to repay his kammic debt!
The merit of striving in the holy life and attaining ariyahood is so great as to free us from rebirth in the woeful places.
So we can see that of the three bases of meritorious actions, development of the mind (bhavana) surpasses moral conduct (sila) and charity (dana).
- Extract from 'Only We Can Help Ourselves' by Dhammavuddho Thero
Originally posted by Spnw07:Some comments on the above points raised and additional information for further reading:
Additional Information: How do we overcome our past evil kamma?
To overcome past evil kamma, the Buddha said that we have to do a lot of good deeds now. The Buddha gave a beautiful simile of salt and water (A.N 3.99 Lonaphala Sutta: The Salt Crystal).
During the time of the Buddha, there was no fine salt like the kind we have, but they have lumps of salt. So the Buddha said that suppose a man took a lump of salt and put it into a cup of water, stirred the water, and drank it. The water would definitely taste salty.
However, if the person took the same lump of salt, and put it into the river, and stirred the river water, and drank it, it would not taste salty because of the large amount of water in the river.
The Buddha said that the water represents good kamma and the salt represents evil kamma. So a lot of good kamma dilutes the effect of the evil kamma. Therefore it is very important that we do a lot of good to overcome our past evil kamma. What is past, we cannot change; we can only take care of the present. To take care of the present, we have to do a lot of good (which includes avoiding evil, i.e. keeping the precepts).
All kamma that we do have the potential to ripen. However, not every kamma will ripen. The Buddha said that if every kamma has to ripen, then we cannot get out of samsara (round of rebirths). This is because our kammic account is so great due to our uncountable lifetimes of kamma.
The author then gives the example of Venerable Angulimala ["Angulimala Sutta: About Angulimala" (MN 86)]
...Then Angulimala strove very hard and became an Arahant. Just think of that! He did not have to be reborn in hell for many hundreds of thousands of years to repay his kammic debt!
The merit of striving in the holy life and attaining ariyahood is so great as to free us from rebirth in the woeful places.
So we can see that of the three bases of meritorious actions, development of the mind (bhavana) surpasses moral conduct (sila) and charity (dana).
- Extract from 'Only We Can Help Ourselves' by Dhammavuddho Thero
Thanks for the clarification. I have learned something today.
Originally posted by Fantagf:Is karma "ying guo" in Chinese?
yah :)
For those of you who doubt if there's such thing as karma or Law of Karma, the answer is yes. I'm speaking this from a spiritual point, not of any religion per say.
Whatever we do, say or even think have the possibility to create karma, which is really cause and effect. People's current lives are so, because they choose to learn from their past. However, we should not assume all suffering people as being repaying past bad karma. It could be that they are old souls who wish to learn from a tougher experience.
The point is: we should not live our lives constantly worrying about what karma we're creating or repaying. It's all a matter of rebalancing of Life and energy. We should just live our lives caring about people around us in general, and all that should happen will happen. If we lead our lives doing good deeds simply because we are afraid of creating more bad karma, we've not understood truly the meaning of Life and cause and effect. Goodness should come from our true heart, not of fear.
Originally posted by Rainbow Jigsaw:For those of you who doubt if there's such thing as karma or Law of Karma, the answer is yes. I'm speaking this from a spiritual point, not of any religion per say.
Whatever we do, say or even think have the possibility to create karma, which is really cause and effect. People's current lives are so, because they choose to learn from their past. However, we should not assume all suffering people as being repaying past bad karma. It could be that they are old souls who wish to learn from a tougher experience.
The point is: we should not live our lives constantly worrying about what karma we're creating or repaying. It's all a matter of rebalancing of Life and energy. We should just live our lives caring about people around us in general, and all that should happen will happen. If we lead our lives doing good deeds simply because we are afraid of creating more bad karma, we've not understood truly the meaning of Life and cause and effect. Goodness should come from our true heart, not of fear.
Wonderful! Well-said. I feel the same exactly.
Originally posted by Spnw07:Wonderful! Well-said. I feel the same exactly.
thanks! :)
there are people in this world who constantly do things which are harmful to others, but at the same time, try to donate more to charity. The only reason is they think that will help balance their bad karma, and they fear retribution. They are not doing good deeds out of their goodness of their heart, but out of fear. I personally doubt their donations will be of much use for such cases, no matter how much the money is, or how many times.
Originally posted by Rainbow Jigsaw:
thanks! :)there are people in this world who constantly do things which are harmful to others, but at the same time, try to donate more to charity. The only reason is they think that will help balance their bad karma, and they fear retribution. They are not doing good deeds out of their goodness of their heart, but out of fear. I personally doubt their donations will be of much use for such cases, no matter how much the money is, or how many times.
they keep doing harmful things to others and at the same time get monks to chant for them, will they reap good karma and will entitle them to go for rebirth in the high realm in the next life?
Originally posted by Fantagf:
they keep doing harmful things to others and at the same time get monks to chant for them, will they reap good karma and will entitle them to go for rebirth in the high realm in the next life?
Originally posted by Rainbow Jigsaw:
thanks! :)there are people in this world who constantly do things which are harmful to others, but at the same time, try to donate more to charity. The only reason is they think that will help balance their bad karma, and they fear retribution. They are not doing good deeds out of their goodness of their heart, but out of fear. I personally doubt their donations will be of much use for such cases, no matter how much the money is, or how many times.
Something to share for your reference.
Extracted from http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/wheel367.html
"...Generosity associated with wisdom before, during and after the act is the highest type of giving.
Three examples of wise giving are:
giving with the clear understanding that according to the kammic law of cause and effect, the generous act will bring beneficial results in the future;
giving while aware that the gift, the recipient and the giver are all impermanent;
and giving with the aim of enhancing one's efforts to become enlightened.
As the giving of a gift takes a certain amount of time, a single act of giving may be accompanied by each of these three types of understanding at a different stage in the process.
...The Buddha teaches that in the practice of giving, as in all bodily and verbal conduct, it is the volition accompanying the act that determines its moral quality.
If one is offering something to a monk, doing so without adopting a respectful manner would not be proper. Throwing a coin to a beggar in order to get rid of him would also be considered a defilement of giving.
One should think carefully about the relevance and the timing of a gift for it to bring the best results. A gift given through an intermediary — for example, having a servant give food to a monk rather than giving it by one's own hand — also detracts from the value of the gift.
When one gives without realizing that one must experience the results of one's deeds, an act of giving again diminishes in meritorious potency.
If one only plans on giving a donation but does not fulfill one's plan, the merit earned will be very slight. Thus we should always follow up our intentions of generosity expeditiously, unless something intervenes to prevent our doing so. If, after having given a gift, we should subsequently regret our action, much of the merit of the deed will be lost.
A moral person gives politely and respectfully. Whether the gift is spontaneous or planned, he or she will make sure that the timing and contents of the gift are appropriate for the receiver. Many housewives in Buddhist countries regularly invite a few monks to their homes to receive almsfood early in the day. Before feeding the family, these women always offer the food to the bhikkhus with their own hands.
One might contribute to a certain cause from fear that friends would disapprove if one did not give. Giving in response to such social pressures will have weak, though still beneficial, results. Charitable actions undertaken to gain a good reputation are also selfish and hence not a very valuable kind of giving. Nor can it be praiseworthy when one gives merely to return a favor or in expectation of a reward. The former is like repaying a debt, the latter analogous to offering a bribe.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
6 parts of the merits go to the chanter, 1 part goes to the recipient. Hence it's v limited. Bad karma will be v difficult to clear unless he is truly repentant
The above distribution proportion has part of its roots in Ksitigarbha Bodhisatva's Original Vows Sutra.
Extracted from: http://www.buddhasutra.com/files/ksitigarbha_sutra.htm
Chapter Seven: Benefitting the Living and the Dead
"When men or women laden with offenses who failed to plant good causes die, even they can receive one-seventh of any merit dedicated to them by relatives who do good deeds on their behalf.
The other six-sevenths of the merit will return to the living relatives who did the good deeds. It follows that men and women of the present and future who cultivate while they are strong and healthy will receive every portion of the benefit derived."