What are the Buddhist teachings? How Karma exists and how it works. Buddhists believe future lives are more important than this one. The laws of Karma exist whether we believe it or not. It doesn't matter....
Buddhists believe future lives are more important than this one. The laws of Karma exist whether we believe it or not. It doesn't matter. It's like we say, "As you give you get." This is true, but even more than what we think. So, those are two main tenants, also, that we have had many lives in the past, and we will have many lives in the future. These are the three main tenants of Buddhism.
Karma is actions and their effects. So, Buddha says every action has an effect, everything. Not just bad actions have bad effects. Good actions have good effects too. So, we sometimes forget. We think, "Yeah, you're gonna reap the Karma of that one, when somebody says or does something really nasty. But we also we have to think, I'm gonna reap the Karma of this one. I've been trying to meditate. I've been praying for my father who I haven't seen in years and I love him still. I've worked through my anger. I'm gonna reap the good Karma of this too. Right?" So, basically if we act with an intention of helping others we reap good results. If we act with the intention of not helping others, building more and more selfishness, or building more barriers, we reap those effects too.
So, you think,"Why is somebody who is very angry chase everyone away?" They've created the causes for nobody to want to be near them. Nobody likes that. People are afraid. So, they've created the causes. It's like in science and in psychology, they say yeah, they pushed them away. Well, in actuality because they created the causes nobody wants to be around that kind of person, even if others are a little bit angry. So, again everything comes from our mind. Karma says the things that appear in our mind, the things that happen to us in our lives we've had something to do with it. It's not just random. So, in essence what it teaches us is to be responsible for our future by trying to develop good hearts, peaceful minds, virtuous minds so that we can see. It might be in the next life, that we see the results of that. We might be experiencing now the results of good Karma we created in the past, because we did that then.
From a standpoint of Buddha's teaching, it's very important. It's basically cause and effect. "As you give you get." Everybody knows it.
Buddha says we all have what is called Buddha Seed. We all have a good heart, really down deep, even in the most hardened criminals there is some good part. Buddha Seed means that we all have the potential to become an enlightened being, because we all have goodness in our heart. It is a matter of us working individually to clear out the junk in the way.
Ever look at lotuses how they grow in the murky mire, murky water? Lotuses can't grow in clean water, but when they come up through the dirt, through the water, they blossom into this beautiful flower. We can be like that.
