Karma, Violence, Intention, and Justice

[Shimi]

Does a persons intention influence or determine their Karma? Can can someones intentions be just even when violence is used to revolve an conflict?

A man robs a store at gun point. The police arrived before he could escape with the money. This causes the man to take hostages. He demands that $50,000 be wired into a bank account, before he will let the hostages go. He shoots one hostage in the leg to show that he is serious. Instead of complying, the police send in a sniper and the man is killed.

The police resorted to killing the man. However their intent was to save the hostages. Have the police created "negative" karma? Or is it because of their intent to save lives that they created "good" karma? Can there simply be none at all? Is this justice even though it was resolved by violence?

Now, the man that robbed the store. He attempted to steal money so that he could pay for his wife's chemotherapy, and save her life. That was his intention. However to do that he had to create suffering and harm by shooting someone and taking hostages. So what is his karma? Does his intention justify the harm and pain he created?

 

[RoaringSilence]

This entire sequence could be a play out of past entanglements being settled how they were meant to.
To answer the depth of understanding karma at a macro level - 1) you are already born with past life tendencies , some identify those and work on improving those , others spiral further down. 2) Your intentions are already in effect of your personal tendencies (shades of grey)+ and current life circumstances.

moral of the story : Everyone already does what they do once they validate their personal reasoning to it, which is a result of tendencies + improvements made. So whatever the outcome will be , the real point is who made most improvement from where they began will determine what they get served next life.

Micro level - i don't know

 

[YmirGF]

Negative and postive karma, as @crossfire alerted me to, some time back, is one of the Buddha's imponderables. Don't sweat things!

Four imponderables

The four imponderables are identified in the Acintita Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya 4.77, as follows:[5]

1. The Buddha-range of the Buddhas [i.e., the range of powers a Buddha develops as a result of becoming a Buddha];
2. The jhana-range of one absorbed in jhana [i.e., the range of powers that one may obtain while absorbed in jhana];
3. The [precise working out of the] results of kamma; (karma)
4. Speculation about [the origin, etc., of] the cosmos is an imponderable that is not to be speculated about.

<source>

Aside from this it looks like you are using the "cosmic Checkbook" version of karma. If only reality was so simple. There is no way to precisely tell what fuzzy actions resulted in what fuzzy consequences... though that won't likely stop some from trying to explain this in painstaking detail.

 

[Chakra]

Does a persons intention influence or determine their Karma? Can can someones intentions be just even when violence is used to revolve an conflict?

A man robs a store at gun point. The police arrived before he could escape with the money. This causes the man to take hostages. He demands that $50,000 be wired into a bank account, before he will let the hostages go. He shoots one hostage in the leg to show that he is serious. Instead of complying, the police send in a sniper and the man is killed.

The police resorted to killing the man. However their intent was to save the hostages. Have the police created "negative" karma? Or is it because of their intent to save lives that they created "good" karma? Can there simply be none at all? Is this justice even though it was resolved by violence?

Now, the man that robbed the store. He attempted to steal money so that he could pay for his wife's chemotherapy, and save her life. That was his intention. However to do that he had to create suffering and harm by shooting someone and taking hostages. So what is his karma? Does his intention justify the harm and pain he created?

If you want to know my particular view (and the view of my sect), read this- http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/karma.174234/#post-4180577

 

[crossfire]

All of your intentional thoughts and action go toward building patterns of thought called habits, which will then in turn, influence your future actions, especially when you are not mindful. Obviously, good and skillful habits will carry you through stressful and unmindful moments more skillfully than unskillful habits will.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Does a persons intention influence or determine their Karma? Can can someones intentions be just even when violence is used to revolve an conflict?

A man robs a store at gun point. The police arrived before he could escape with the money. This causes the man to take hostages. He demands that $50,000 be wired into a bank account, before he will let the hostages go. He shoots one hostage in the leg to show that he is serious. Instead of complying, the police send in a sniper and the man is killed.

The police resorted to killing the man. However their intent was to save the hostages. Have the police created "negative" karma? Or is it because of their intent to save lives that they created "good" karma? Can there simply be none at all? Is this justice even though it was resolved by violence?

Now, the man that robbed the store. He attempted to steal money so that he could pay for his wife's chemotherapy, and save her life. That was his intention. However to do that he had to create suffering and harm by shooting someone and taking hostages. So what is his karma? Does his intention justify the harm and pain he created?

Well a person can delude him/herself into thinking there is some cosmic scorecard. That's karma as well. All one has to do is see how things pan out and see karma at work before one's very eyes. Karma is everywhere and not from any one initial source so anything and everything acts and reacts. "0)

 

[atanu]

Negative and postive karma, as @crossfire alerted me to, some time back, is one of the Buddha's imponderables. ...

Then why the prescriptions? I think it is mentally imponderable as to what exact reaction an action will lead to, but there are very solid prescriptions as to what will lead to ananda (positive karma) and what will lead to dukkha (negative karma).

 

[atanu]

Does a persons intention influence or determine their Karma? Can can someones intentions be just even when violence is used to revolve an conflict?

A man robs a store at gun point. The police arrived before he could escape with the money. This causes the man to take hostages. He demands that $50,000 be wired into a bank account, before he will let the hostages go. He shoots one hostage in the leg to show that he is serious. Instead of complying, the police send in a sniper and the man is killed.

The police resorted to killing the man. However their intent was to save the hostages. Have the police created "negative" karma? Or is it because of their intent to save lives that they created "good" karma? Can there simply be none at all? Is this justice even though it was resolved by violence?

Now, the man that robbed the store. He attempted to steal money so that he could pay for his wife's chemotherapy, and save her life. That was his intention. However to do that he had to create suffering and harm by shooting someone and taking hostages. So what is his karma? Does his intention justify the harm and pain he created?

The way of karma is inexplicable. But when there is no ‘I’ there is no Karma. In this case the action begins with "my wife". In my understanding, in general actions undertaken harbouring the notion of a separate 'me' and 'others' are negative.

 

[YmirGF]

Then why the prescriptions? I think it is mentally imponderable as to what exact reaction an action will lead to, but there are very solid prescriptions as to what will lead to ananda (positive karma) and what will lead to dukkha (negative karma).

Talk of karma bores me. I am positively uninterested in supposed positive karma or negative karma. The way people go on about it one almost gets the idea that karma is a real phenomena.

 

[atanu]

Talk of karma bores me. I am positively uninterested in supposed positive karma or negative karma. The way people go on about it one almost gets the idea that karma is a real phenomena.

But the world is as one's karma is.

 

[YmirGF]

But the world is as one's karma is.

Have it your way.

 

[atanu]

Have it your way.

Remember you said in another thread that one can indeed plan one's life/lives. I agreed wholeheartedly. What is that, if not karma? One gets as one sows .... Not in 1 plus 1 is equal to 2 fashion, but more or less as per one's deepest desires.

 

[YmirGF]

Remember you said in another thread that one can indeed plan one's life/lives. I agreed wholeheartedly. What is that, if not karma? One gets as one sows .... Not in 1 plus 1 is equal to 2 fashion, but more or less as per one's deepest desires.

I'm sorry, Atanu. I have a deep revulsion for the concept of karma, especially when viewed as a "cosmic checkbook". My insistence that we can indeed plan aspects of our lives is not quite the same thing due the unpredictable nature of probability. In other words, you can plan and setup circumstances but there is no guarantee that your plans will ever see the light of day because the unpredictable nature of probability introduces all kinds of unforeseen elements into the experience. Again, I love the trip to the shopping mall idea here. You can sit at home and make a list of all the things you want or need to get. You then go to the mall and realize you have forgotten your list at home. Now you have to try to remember what brought you to the mall as you pass all the stores with all the neat and enticing things. In theory, you can get back home and check your list only to find you remembered two items or no items.... or in very rare case - you got everything you went for and then some.

 

[atanu]

I'm sorry, Atanu. I have a deep revulsion for the concept of karma, especially when viewed as a "cosmic checkbook".

I am not sure what that is.

[quote[My insistence that we can indeed plan aspects of our lives is not quite the same thing due the unpredictable nature of probability. In other words, you can plan and setup circumstances but there is no guarantee that your plans will ever see the light of day because the unpredictable nature of probability introduces all kinds of unforeseen elements into the experience. Again, I love the trip to the shopping mall idea here. You can sit at home and make a list of all the things you want or need to get. You then go to the mall and realize you have forgotten your list at home. Now you have to try to remember what brought you to the mall as you pass all the stores with all the neat and enticing things. In theory, you can get back home and check your list only to find you remembered two items or no items.... or in very rare case - you got everything you went for and then some.[/QUOTE]

In simplest terms, 'karma' means that one's world is largely one's making .. not as retribution or punishment .. but as manifestation of deeply held desires/intentions and actions and one has the wherewithal to overcome the effects of past actions by taking care of the present.

 

[YmirGF]

In simplest terms, 'karma' means that one's world is largely one's making .. not as retribution or punishment .. but as manifestation of deeply held desires/intentions and actions and one has the wherewithal to overcome the effects of past actions by taking care of the present.

I understand this interpretation, Atanu and it is certainly less revolting an idea. Considerably less... But, it is only one interpretation of karma. The problem with this idea is if "good deeds" a good person make, then why do bad things happen to good people? Why did we ever come up with sayings like, "Good guys finish last."

Note: I'm willing to agree that doing so-called "good deeds" will nuture a holistic worldview and can have a deep effect on a given personality. Then again, "bad" people may also do "good deeds" but are still bad people and average people can do "good deeds" for the wrong reasons.