Karma and Rebirth

Karma

As most of you know, karma is the law of cause and effect. In Buddhism, causality is a very important notion, this means nothing has an enduring existence, everything exists in relation to something else. Karma is thought of as moral causality. Every thought or action is caused by something, and in turn becomes a cause. It leaves a sort of mental imprint, a karmic residue that lingers until the conditions are right, and it manifests as an effect, and in turn a cause of something else. Many believe that people who think negative thoughts attract the negative, and those who think positive thoughts attract the positive. This is one way of viewing karma. When a person thinks and acts in ways that are beneficial as opposed to harmful, they are likely to have a positive perspective about life and react to life in a positive way, thus bringing positive things into their life.

I have heard it asked, if karma is real, then why do bad things happen to good people? This is where the idea of rebirth or reincarnation comes in. Existence doesn’t begin and end with each individual life. It is a continuous stream of consciousness that flows from one life to the next. So, karma also flows. It may be that something happening to you now is the effect of something that happened thousands of years ago, only now the causes and conditions are just right to bring it to fruition.

Karma doesn’t just happen on the individual level. Everything is connected, everything exists in relation to everything else. So there is karma on the individual level, which implies karma on the community level, which implies karma on the national level or the world level or the universal level. It’s all inter-related.

The notion of rebirth is the same as the notion of reincarnation. Birth and death are just parts of the cycle of existence, the cycle continues, though, and your consciousness continues with it. One thing important to note is that Buddhism does not acknowledge the idea of the individual soul. Buddhism teaches that there is no abiding self, and therefore no abiding soul. It is more like a stream of consciousness that carries with it impressions and residues of what has been experienced. They are not Your impressions and residues that You have experienced because there is no abiding You, but a non-abiding, ever-changing stream of consciousness. The you that may have experienced life a thousand years ago is not the same you that is experiencing life now, because you can’t not change. But since everything is interconnected, it is still you, just not in the individual ego sense.