Read it again. We do not need to see an event as a
"result" of good or bad. But is was just an event. It
is beacuse so many humans died we get emotional. Do
you think those who died suffered? It was so quick and
finished in matter of minutes. So who is suffering
those who are alive. So which is better if you had
been living in Acheh for example?

The article give you an opportunity to look at things
differently and not associate anything with the law of
karma which is so misunderstood and widely used with
the misunderstanding.

The path of a Buddha is the middle path. He is not
swaying to any extremes. Thus he is in Bliss and
equilibrium. He who is ready for the changes in life
plays the game first. When an event takes place, he
gathers himself, puts thinks in a little order, helps
others to pick themselves up, encourages, consoles,
motivates, inspires, provides, cares, leads and with
faith, courage, intelligence and senstivity moves on
with life. He still smiles in a disaster as it is all
happens.

Read again and contemplate on it.

--- "Moodley, Kavesh" <kaveshm@...> wrote:

> Not a lot of compassion in what he says. Sadness is
> a human emotion how would one just think of it as a
> karmic action? I find his message quiet crude.
> Best Regards,
>
> Kavesh Moodley
> Nuplex Industries Pty Ltd
> Phone +61 (2) 9666 0473
> Fax +61 (2) 9666 6404
> Mobile +61 (0) 409 559 011
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Velu <velu8@...>
> To: Naturopaths <naturopaths@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sun Jan 09 00:30:47 2005
> Subject: [Naturopaths] The Consolation of Karma
>
>
> Article taken from Beliefnet.com
>
> The Consolation of Karma
> Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman talks about how
> suffering, even through the tsunami disaster, can
> offer a karmic advantage.
>
> Interview by Lisa Schneider
>
>
>
> Robert Thurman holds the first endowed chair in
> Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the United States,
> at
> Columbia University in New York. He is the author of
> the international best-seller "Inner Revolution,"
> and
> the co-founder and president of Tibet House U.S., a
> nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation
> of Tibetan culture.
>
> Why do bad things happen to good people? Does karma
> play a role?
>
> Abstractly speaking, karma is not really a theory of
> fate; it's a causal theory. And it says that
> anything
> bad that happens to you is a resonance of something
> bad that you perpetrated in a previous life.
> The main thing about karma, what we might want to
> call
> collective karma, when there's a disaster where
> people
> haven't done anything and a terrible thing happens
> from nature, is that the bodhisattva, or the outside
> person looking at the situation, never invokes the
> karma theory and says, "Well, I don't have to worry
> about them because that was their bad karma and they
> got wasted and too bad--as if it were some sort of
> fate or a way of writing off the disaster. It should
> never be used that way.
>
> The bodhisattva never accepts the absoluteness of
> that
> explanation, although she would be aware of it. She
> would think of it as a terrible tragedy, unprovoked
> and unmerited, and would try to do everything
> possible
> to save the people from the disaster and help the
> survivors.
>
> On the other hand, the karma theory that everything
> bad that happens to me is from my own negative
> action
> in the past is always useful for the person who
> suffers. In other words, using the karma theory to
> blame the victim is good for the victim to do about
> themselves. This is a very surprising idea. If the
> victims just sit and shake their fist at the
> universe,
> shout at God (if they are theists) or shout at
> karma,
> then they weaken themselves in the sense that they
> have just emphasized their helplessness.
>
> Whereas if they say, I'm going to use this disaster
> that happened to me as if it were expiating previous
> things that I did to the world that were negative,
> and
> I'm going to grow stronger from it....In other
> words,
> I can't do anything about the disaster but I can do
> something about my reaction to it. I'm not going to
> add to the suffering it has caused with a new
> suffering of agonizing about myself and feeling
> helpless and feeling angry at the external world.
> I'm
> going to take responsibility for being in the way of
> the disaster as part of my own karma and therefore
> I'm
> going to use this tragedy as an advantage toward
> freedom, towards Buddhahood.
>
>
> Is that a way they can find meaning in their
> suffering?
>
> They find meaning and they find advantage is the
> main
> point. They can say, this is going to be a conscious
> effort I'm going to do.
>
> Now if they got killed, of course they're not going
> to
> do anything in that life. But from the Buddhist
> point
> of view, if they have a lingering memory of a
> catastrophe because they died in a moment of panic
> and
> fear and worry for their loved ones and so on, if
> they
> retain some memory of this death-which often the
> just-dead do, in the Buddhist view in the bardo, the
> between state-and they're saying, well, this is a
> terrible karma thing that happened to me and others.
> I
> will try to make my suffering a sacrifice, an
> expiation of previous things that I caused, and I'm
> going to have a better life in the future. And I'm
> going to try to help the beings who died, my loved
> ones and others, and be of more help to them in my
> next life.
>
> So that they would try to take advantage in the
> between-state in the after-death state in order to
> improve their rebirth, rather than just freak out.
>
> What solace can Buddhism offer to survivors who have
> lost loved ones?
>
> The solace to survivors who have lost someone is:
> Well, they lost this life, I lost my contact with
> them, but moaning and groaning and freaking out
> about
> it and being angry about it isn't going to help. I
> should send them good prayers and good vibrations
> about their rebirth. If I dearly love them, I will
> pray to meet them again in the coming life, in
> wherever they are reborn, to make the world in
> general
> a better place for them, and vow to rejoin them (if
> it's a soulmate sort of thing) in another life. So
> the
> consolation of karma is not just identifying the
> lost
> beings with the embodiment of a particular life, but
> feeling a sense of spiritual connection to their
> larger continuity of life and sending good vibes
> toward that.
>
> The theist says it's God's will and God took care of
> them and hopes to join them in heaven, which is also
> good consolation and sort of leaves it up to God.
> But
> the karma is seeing it as a process in which you are
> also a responsible actor. Otherwise the vastness of
> the causal mixes is so huge it's pretty
> incomprehensible, and no wonder some people call it
> God, or God's will, or providence.
>
> But the key thing is that karma is not the exercise
> of
> a particular agency or divinity; it is an impersonal
> process of causality. I call it evolutionary
> causality.
>
> What do you mean by that?
>
> It's a causality by which beings evolve. Like if
> they
> do an action of a certain type, they get an effect
> from that action because it changes their being and
> their being evolves. It can evolve in a negative or
> a
> positive direction depending on whether the actions
> are negative or positive. In a way, karma is a
> biological theory just like a Western genetic
> biological theory. And it is very like a genetic
> biological theory in that it has humans being reborn
>
=== message truncated ===

=====
Love All & Serve All

Saravanan (Velu)
Holistic Lifestyle Practitioner
Centre of Integrated Medicine
Healing With Tender Loving Care.

If you don't take care of your body, where would you live?





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