[Buddha-l] Re. karma and consequences

[Vicente Gonzalez]

Robert wrote:

RE> I thought that karma involves both justice and causality. If
RE> karma was true, it would thus be reasonable to expect both.

but Justice is a moral issue. You are seeing a complete portrait of a
life (the good person) and later asking for a god reward. Kamma is not
that. 

This is not dishonest but it exists in the Buddhist doctrine. You can
find many episodes of people without an special good or bad life
making only one concrete action which was able to decide a better or
worse rebirth. 
You can see in example the tales of Vimana mansions edited by the
Pali Society. Here all the examples are showing how one action causes
a good or bad destiny, and the complete biography many times is quite
secondary. 

RE> I expect causality of some type (and I agree with Kant that
RE> causality is probably a conceptual scheme that we use to
RE> understand the world), but karma asserts the universal existence
RE> of a particular type of causality. It does not help to constantly
RE> insist that karma is nothing more than ordinary causality: if it
RE> were, why do Buddhists bother to talk about karma (rather than
RE> just causality) at all?

because with kamma we learn a way how to manage the phenomena in the
present moment, no more things. Probably we don't talk of causality
because kamma involves actions related with our will. Wayne Codling
has a message explaining this

RE> Skilfulness (kusala), as I understand it, involves addressing
RE> conditions adequately. The notion of skilfulness is thus morally
RE> helpful, but it has nothing to do with absolute karma, only with
RE> addressing the conditions we find in our experience.

I fear you are trying to impose your own logics of causality into the
kamma idea. Kamma is not mathematics, neither causality is mathematics.

RE> I agree with all that you say here about the limitations of our
RE> understanding and reason. But surely the implication of this is
RE> that we should not make absolute claims that go far beyond our
RE> experience?

I think yes. However, we must be aware that experience not only means
the experience of the outer perceived world.

RE> I wonder if your understanding of causal relationships is
RE> actually Platonic? If I am not misunderstanding you, you seem to
RE> be implying that our limited experience, despite its limitations,
RE> nevertheless?provides rational access to essential truths about
RE> the universe. This view seems to me to take insufficient account
RE> of our degree of ignorance about the universe. The law of karma is
RE> something expounded by human beings, and we do not have direct and
RE> unequivocal access to God to check it out for us.

if I'm right, according Buddhism, God is an state of  mind able to
embrace the universe, and it can be reached by human beings not only
gods. There are truths explained and shared by humans and gods.
Then wisdom would not be an accumulation of knowledge but the
vanishing of ignorance. 


best regards,