Rima 1 Wendy Rima College Composition II Exploratory Essay 3/22/11 You Reap What You Sow A man is walking

down the street and sees a flustered college student drop 20 dollars onto the ground, but instead of picking it up and returning it to the student; he pockets the money without saying anything. A week later he is pick-pocketed on the street while looking in a store window. Coincidence? Another man is given too much change at the grocery store, corrects the mistake, and gives the cashier the extra money back. Later that month he wins 500 dollars on a three dollar scratch off. Coincidence? There are some people who would answer yes to both of those questions and credit both of those situations purely to coincidence. But I have always chosen not to see those things as purely being chance, and instead, accredited it to the workings of karma. I have been a long time believer of karma, and I thought I pretty much had it all figured out. You do something good; something good happens to you. You do something bad; something bad happens to you. Pretty simple right? Well, I always thought it was that straight forward until recently, when it seemed as if I was doing a lot of good things and getting nothing good back in return. In fact, it felt as if I was just getting worse and worse luck. So when I was given the task of looking deeper

Rima 2 into something I had always been interested in, I chose karma in the hopes of finding a better understanding of this concept that could explain my unbalanced luck. For this paper I am taking a look into the Buddhist and Hindu definitions of karma. The concept of karma was started and grown in these religions, and the people who practice these faiths are the ones that have a deeper understanding of karma that most directly plays into their lives. While many people in the U.S. acknowledge karma or choose to believe in it, most do not have the full and accurate understanding. I will use aspects from both Buddhism and Hinduism, because their definitions of karma are very similar and my definition intertwines both of them. One of the most surprising and important things that I think many people do not understand is that karma is not destiny or fate, it is causality. While karma does give us the comfort that things are not just happening at random, but for a reason, it centers more around cause and effect. Unlike destiny or fate, where what needs to happen just miraculously appears, karma relies on your choices and the consequences of those choices, or causality. For an example, lets take a look at the situation of someone meeting their future husband in a coffee shop. That day, a woman chooses to go to a different shop than she normally attends and ends up meeting her future husband. This is where the idea of fate and karma, with the idea of causality supporting it, differ. Fate would say she was compelled to do this because it was meant to be, and she really had no say in the matter. Causality said that meeting her husband was simply a result of her actions, cause and effect. She went to a different coffee shop that day, so she met her future husband. She was in control of her destiny. Causality holds

Rima 3 you accountable for the decisions you make, and either punishes or rewards you for what you have done (Lama Ole Nydahl Diamond Way Buddhism Audio Podcast). I love this aspect of karma because Im the type of person who thinks people should be recognized for the good things they do, and have consequences for the bad they do. Its nice to know that life, like everything else, has a way of evening the score. Another aspect of karma that was unknown to me is that it can be changed or removed. Ive always thought about karma much like fate, its going to turn out a certain way and there is nothing you can do to interfere. But the real rules of karma say that anything can be changed until it happens, and that even when it happens it can be removed. The idea that you can change something until it happens is reasonably easy to accept if you understand that karma is all about choices. Nothing is set in stone until it happens, and you have the power to choose what it will be. But I was surprised to learn that you can remove your karma after it happens. According to Buddhist practices, to remove bad karma you must be aware that something is wrong, wish to remove it, use special methods like a mantra, and then decide never to do it again and do the opposite of that thing (Lama Ole Nydahl Diamond Way Buddhism Audio Podcast). It is comforting to know that even when you make a bad decision, if you recognize it, you are able to reconcile it. The biggest misconception about karma for me, which is most likely my explanation for why Im not receiving the good fortune I should be, is that not all karmic payback is instant. There are some instances of more timely reward or punishment, and there are some that are not experienced in this life. Kriyamana karma, in Hinduism, is the type of karma that we

Rima 4 experience in this life. The catch with this though, is that most trivial actions will not fall into kriyamana karma. More extreme actions, such as murder, are the ones that will have consequences in this life. Hinduism teaches that all of our other good and bad actions qualify as sanchita karma, which is our accumulated karmic forces. The everyday good and bad decisions we make are not dealt with in this life, but instead put into a grand tally that will be dealt with after your death. These energies are in a potential state, until they mature and become kinetic, which is when they start having an effect on the mind and body of the doer (Swami Bhaskarananda). This is called prarabdha karma. In The Essentials of Hinduism it is explained, According to Hinduism, prarabdha karma causes a persons birth and determines how long he will live. It also causes pleasure or pain during the lifetime of a person. When the forces of his prarabdha karma is exhausted, his body dies (81). Buddhism focuses mostly on this form of karma as well. They believe that karma does not usually come in this life but after death. Buddhists believe that the karma you have built up in your lifetime determines what life you shall be reincarnated in, just like Hindus. This type of karma is the hardest for me to accept, being that Im Catholic. I dont believe in reincarnation, so the idea that the majority of karma is dealt with in another life was disappointing for me. But that also does not mean that the whole idea of karma is completely foreign to Catholicism. The article Buddhist Karma makes a good point by saying, The idea behind
karma is not only found in Buddhism and Hinduism; it seems that the Bible certainly conveys the same essence. Although here God is the medium that links actions to their results: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A person reaps what he sows (Gal. 6:7); All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets (Matthew 7:12) (A View on

Rima 5
Buddhism). I choose to work karma into my faith, and stay true to any rules and explanations that coincide with my life, because ultimately, I still like the idea of karma better than fate or destiny

because it is more hands on. Even though I dont believe in the idea of reincarnation, I still feel the need to build my positive energies so that, hopefully, good things will come to me. With a new insight into karma Ive had to re-evaluate how karma plays a role in my life. I still believe in it, or more accurately, certain aspects of it. So today I decided to make a more conscious note of how karma plays into my life. What I discovered actually surprised me a bit. I realized that I consider karma for the majority of the decisions I make. Even though I have learned that karma typically doesnt give a whole lot of payback in the present, Im still constantly trying to build up good karma. I was able to see this in several situations today, which was a typical day not unlike any other. I woke up this morning and started getting ready. After a while I realized that my little brother still hadnt gotten up. It was 7:40, so I knew if he didnt get up then he would never have time to get ready before I needed to leave at 8:05. I considered not waking him up and making him deal with the consequences. But then I considered the bad karma that this would inflict onto myself. I was still inclined to think that it would be some sort of immediate payback, like my alarm randomly not going off the next morning, so I ended up waking him up. About an hour later I was sitting in my College Comp class next to my unusually crabby best friend. She usually has a pretty good disposition, but for some reason today she was short and snippy with me for no reason. Every time she rolled her eyes or dismissed something important I was trying to say I wanted to smack her. I was close to giving her a piece of my mind

Rima 6 and telling her that she wasnt any more tired or stressed than anyone else so she should suck it up, when karma popped into my head. If I didnt show her understanding on a day she was crabby and intolerant, how could I expect it in return on my off days? Biting her head off would only make her crabbier and give me bad karma that I would have to suffer through later. Keeping my karma in mind not only stopped me from doing something that would give me bad karma, but it lead me to have empathy for another person by having to consider how I would want to be treated if I was in that position. Now that I was sitting in class not able to say anything, but still incredibly annoyed, I started thinking about how I just helped this same friend get asked to prom. There were a few guys wanting to ask her but there was one in particular she wanted to go with. I went out of my way to make sure that she got asked by the person she wanted in an extravagant matter. I managed to pull together a scavenger hunt, that would normally take a week to plan, in five hours. Now I say that I helped Blake ask her, but basically I asked her. I thought of the whole idea, picked out and paid for everything we needed, including the flowers, picked all of the locations, wrote all of the riddles, and decorated her room. I left as he stood in her room with the song that I picked playing, the sign that I made, and the flowers I bought. You might ask why in the world I would do this. Well, yes, because I was being a good friend, and Im happy when my friends are happy. But Im not going to lie; I was also thinking a whole lot about the karmic payback. I figured doing something like this that was so nice and so over the top would be a huge boost in good karma, and that I would have something extraordinary coming my way. But Ive had no such luck, and frankly, I was getting somewhat pissed about it. But my new

Rima 7 understanding of karma has provided a good explanation; apparently this is going to be one of those things that just goes into the grand karmic tally. The word karma literally means action, so before the research that I have done for this paper I would have thought that I was in the clear, because the poor actions I was considering didnt actually happen, and the prom extravaganza was still nice even if there were somewhat selfish underlying motives. But in Buddhism karma mainly refers to ones intentions or motivations while doing an action (A View on Buddhism). This means that not only do you have to do good things, but you have to have good intentions while doing them. I had actually wondered about this before; do you still earn good karma even if you are only doing things so that you will later experience the benefits? I am inclined to agree with the Buddhist belief that says no, and that could very well explain why I havent received any payback for some of the things I have done. There is saying from an unknown source that I have seen several times in my research of karma. I think it perfectly sums up the concept of karma, and provides the perfect guidelines to live by for those who believe in karma:

Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

Rima 8 Works Cited

Bhaskarananda, Swami. The Essentials of Hinduism. Seattle: Viveka Press, 2002. Print.

Buddhist Karma A View on Buddhism. 1 Mar. 2011. 18 Mar. 2011 Web.

Ole Nydah, Lama. "Karma- Cause and Effect." Buddhism Audio Podcast. 1 Apr. 2008. iTunes. 16 Mar. 2011.