[Buddha-l] Re. karma and consequences

[Robert Ellis]

Vicente Gonzalez wrote,
>>that's not real. Kamma is accomplished without any failure. Can you give some example of kamma not accomplished?<<

First, thankyou for responding to a philosophical point philosophically, Vicente, which no-one else seems to be doing.

I previously gave some examples of karma not being accomplished: a good person getting cancer, a nasty dictator in happy retirement, and also a lie which does not necessarily lead to ascertainable bad results. To assert that in these kinds of examples karma must be being fulfilled even though we do not experience it is dogmatic. It is unfalsifiable.

I do not think there is such a gap between justifiable approaches in scientific and spiritual contexts as you seem to assume. Both science and spiritual practice can be pursued in an open, provisional spirit, or narrowly and dogmatically. The way to tell the difference in each case depends on the relationship of theory with experience, with the distinction that in spiritual practice that experience may be individual rather than publically verifiable. I am not trying to reduce spiritual practice to physical science; but on the other hand I think you are creating a false dichotomy between them, which leaves us with no way of distinguishing dogmatic claims in spiritual practice from useful and practical ones.
Best wishes,
Robert


Robert Ellis

website: www.moralobjectivity.net