FREE ESSAY ON KARMA

KARMA

Karma
When people are happy and contented, they tend to take life for granted. It is when they
suffer, when they find life difficult, that they begin to search for a reason and a way
out of their difficulty. They may ask, why some are born in poverty and suffering, while
others are born in fortunate circumstances? Some people believe that it is due to fate,
chance, or an invisible power beyond their control. The Buddha taught that one's present
condition, whether of happiness or suffering, is the result of the accumulated force of
all past actions, or karma. 
Karma is intentional action, that is, a deed done deliberately through body, speech or
mind. Karma means good and bad volition. Every volitional action is called Karma. In
other words, Karma is the law of moral causation. It is action and reaction in the
ethical realm. It is natural law that every action produces a certain effect. So if one
performs wholesome actions such as donating money to charitable organizations, one will
experience happiness. On the other hand, if one performs unwholesome actions, such as
killing a living being, one will experience suffering. This is the law of cause and
effect at work. In this way, the effect of one's past karma determine the nature of one's
present situation in life. 
According to the seed that is sown,
So is the fruit you reap
The door of good of will gather good result
The door of evil reaps evil result.
If you plant a good seed well,
Then you will enjoyed the good fruits. 
- Buddha
No day stands isolated and alone. Karma is a continuous process and does not work by
postponement. If we think of karma as being something whose fruits are to be born in some
remote future existence, we think of it wrongly. Each moment we are shaping the history
of the next. To paraphrase Emerson - Every thought either ennobles or debases the Soul.
There is no standing still. By thinking a noble thought, the Soul is ennobled AT THAT
VERY MOMENT. Similarly, the Soul is debased at the very moment that a selfish or evil
thought passes through the mind.
I strongly believe in the idea of cause and effect, every thing we do is a result of
something we did earlier. Other people believe karma as being part of plan, that every
thing we do is predetermined, and no matter what we do, good or bad can change that. I
find that hard to believe...
We weaken ourselves if we believe that all events are unalterably fixed, that our
external lives are unchangeable, pre-ordained and that there is nothing we can do to
improve the situations in which we find ourselves. It is true that we are compelled to
move within the circumstances we have created in the past and the conditions we have
inherited in the present, but it is also true that we are free from Freedom and that it
exists in the heart of man that is in his very soul. Fate exists only on the surface. The
external life is always a mix of both freedom and fate. No man, however evolved he may
be, has complete control over his life, but he is not entirely enslaved to it either. No
action is wholly free, and no action is wholly fated, but all are of a mixed double
character. The elements of heredity, education, experience, karma (collective and
personal), free will and environment all conspire together to fashion both the outer form
and inner texture of the life we have to live. We sew the tapestry of our own destiny but
the thread we use is of a kind, color and quality forced upon us by our own past thoughts
and acts. Our existence has a semi-independent and semi-predestined characteristic. 
Because our existence has a semi-independent and semi-predestined character, Buddhism
offers a vehicle to enlightenment, only the enlightened will know where to draw the line
between good and evil, at least, the wisdom is to recognize it and avoid evil seed before
it takes root. At last, the ultimate achievement of spiritual enlightenment such as a
Buddha, who has completely overcome emotions and desires altogether, he has no sense of
good or evil because he produces no good nor evil, therefore, he is out of Karma's
boundary. No causes, no effects; No good, no evil, No action, no reaction; he knows, the
judgment of good and evil itself is the cause of Karma.