Sunday Reflections — Understanding karma
This week, Sunday Reflections brings you words of wisdom on karma:
“Karma is best expressed in popular phrases like what goes around, comes around and what you sow, you will reap. Karma has also been referred to as having a boomerang effect where the thoughts and actions that you send out into the world turn around and come back at you…” ~ Carmen Harra
“Whether you like it or not, everything that is happening at this moment is a result of the choices you’ve made in the past. Unfortunately, a lot of us make choices unconsciously, and therefore we don’t think they are choices–and yet, they are.” ~ Deepak Chopra
“Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.” ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin
“The teaching on karma starts with the principle that people experience happiness and sorrow based on a combination of their past and present intentions. If we act with unskillful intentions either for ourselves or for others, we’re going to suffer. If we act with skillful intentions, we’ll experience happiness. So if we want to be happy, we have to train our intentions to always be skillful.” ~ Thubten Yeshe
“If your struggle with the conflicting parts of yourself is conscious, you are able to choose consciously the response that will create the karma that you desire. You will be able to bring to bear upon your decision an awareness of what lies behind each choice, and the consequences of each choice, and choose accordingly. When you enter into your decision-making dynamic consciously, you insert your will consciously into the creative cycle through which your soul evolves….” ~ Gary Zukav
“When you make any choice–any choice at all–you can ask yourself two things: First of all, ‘What are the consequences of this choice that I’m making?’ In your heart you will immediately know what these are. Secondly, ‘Will this choice that I’m making now bring happiness to me and to those around me?’ If the answer is yes, then go ahead with that choice. If the answer is no, if that choice brings distress either to you or to those around you, then don’t make that choice. It’s as simple as that.” ~ Deepak Chopra
“Karma is often wrongly confused with the notion of a fixed destiny. It is more like an accumulation of tendencies that can lock us into particular behavior patterns, which themselves result in further accumulations of tendencies of a similar nature… But it is not necessary to be a prisoner of old karma.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
“In the early Buddhist view, then, a persons identity resides not in an enduring self but in his actions (karma)- that is in the choices that shape these actions. Because the dispositions formed by previous choices can be modified in turn by present behaviour, this identity as choice-maker is fluid, its experience alterable. While it is affected by the past, it can also break free of the past.” ~ Joanna Macy
