Buddhist Philosophy Topic of the Day: What is KARMA?

     Karma is just Cause and Effect. The difficulty with compassion in the Buddhist belief is that the teachings specify that to be fully compassionate one should not care the resulting Karma. Basically you should help others, give or be compassionate for selfless reasons and not in order to gain something in the end. This can be difficult to overcome but is very self fulfilling in nature if you can accomplish it. I see lots of example of it within the SteemIt community.

Where could I find leather enough to cover all of the earth?
With merely the leather of my shoes it is as if the entire earth were covered.
-Shantideva

     It is very easy to try to blame our suffering or unhappiness on others. We do this daily as a people. "Its his fault I did that." or "I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't done that first." This is our self-cherishing and selfishness. We also get angry at these factors that we blame. So how is this related to karma? Looking at the quote above we see that if we try to remove all our enemies (human or otherwise) we would be working on this endlessly. BUT if we work on ourselves we can accomplish this more realistically. We do this by removing our hatred. This is whats causing us to view these factors as an enemy. So by changing how we view things we can be piratical in our approach to ridding ourselves of suffering. This is just one of many aspect we need to cleanse ourselves of.

So how do we do this with practice? Start by reflecting on the shortcomings of anger. What is the result of our anger and how it ultimately only hurts us.

Disengaging from the analytical process that puts the blame for our suffering on external causes is the best way to began to detach ourselves from our mental afflictions. Yangsi Rinpoche (Practicing the Path)

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     Deeper in tradition karma is that the root of our happiness is the following of karma. Buddhists are taught to take refuge in the three jewels; Buddha, the Dharma (teachings) and Sangha (community), but it is said that this isnt the only thing that is required of a practitioner to end Saṃsāra (cycle of rebirths). I can talk more about that later if you wish. It is required of you to abandoning the ten non virtuous actions and also following the rules of karma is the only way.

So to break it down simply, Karma is the awareness of which thoughts and actions we should be cultivating (using). This is a very very short breakdown of the meaning, practices and related topics. I hope you enjoyed this and gained something.

Non-Virtuous actions

1. Killing
2. Stealing
3. Sexual Misconduct
4. Lying
5. Divisive Talk
6. Harsh Talk
7. Idle Talk/gossip
8. Craving/Coveting (to be attached)
9. Harmful intent
10. Wrong View

Saṃsāra (Sanskrit: संसार) is a term that means "wandering",[2][12] as well as "world" wherein the term connotes "cyclic change".[1] Saṃsāra is a fundamental concept in all Indian religions, is linked to the karma theory, and refers to the belief that all living beings cyclically go through births and rebirths. The term is related to phrases such as "the cycle of successive existence", "transmigration", "karmic cycle", "the wheel of life", and "cyclicality of all life, matter, existence".[2][3][13] Many scholarly texts spell Saṃsāra as Samsara.[3][14]
Source: Wikipedia

You can find a quick definition of Samsara at wikipedia. I know its the worst possible source but it translates it correctly. I can do a post on it later if needed.

Daily Buddhist Philosophy:

I am considering doing a daily post,discussion, lesson on Buddhist philosophy and teachings. I would like to it more often but shorter and on point. Does anyone like this idea?

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