karma
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karma is a sanskrit word meaning action. In a general sense karma
means
all good and bad actions. It covers all kinds of intentional actions
whether mental, verbal or physical thoughts, words and deeds.

karma is not a doctrine of predetermination, the past influence the
present but
does not dominate it, for karma is created in the past as well as the
present. The past and present influence the future.

To explain karma
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Throw a stone in a pond and watch the effect. There
is a splash and a number of little rings appearing around the place
where the stone strikes. The rings grow wider and wider, when the
tiny waves reaches the edge of the pond, the water moves back till
it
pushes the stone that has disturb it.

likewise when you grow a mango seed, a mango tree will come up and
bear
fruit, if we sow a chili seed and a chilli plant will grow and
produce
chillies.

The two examples teaches us 3 things
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(1)karma is fair, it does not know us or hate/love us. It is simply
the
law of cause and effect. example when fire burns us, does the fire
feel
sorry? NO, it is the nature of fire to burn and give out heat. All we
have to learn is to use fire the right way (light, cooking)
(2)karma is created by oneself, man himself is responsible for his
happiness and misery. He creates his own heaven and hell. He is the
master of his own destiny, child of his past and parent of his
future.
(3)karma affects not only oneself by others because of inter-
dependence
in our relationship.


Lessons taught by karma
------------------------
(1)patience
The law will be our helper if we live by it and we will understand by
suffering we know we are paying a debt and we learn if we wise not
to
create more suffering in future. In rejoicing we are thankful and if
we are wise to create more good karma.

(2)confidence
We have nothing to fear in the wide universe except our own misdeeds.

(3)self-reliance
Since as we in the past have cause ourselves to be what we are now,
so
by what WE DO now will our future be determined.

(4)restraint
If we realise that evil we do will return back to strike us, we will
be careful in our thoughts and action.

(5)power
The more we make the doctrine of karma a part of our lives, the more
power we gain to direct our own future and help our fellow beings.

To remove negative karma
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The seeds of negative actions stay hidden in our consciousness, when
the right conditions come together, the seed will ripen into the
effect.
Just as a seed will grow into a plant given the right conditions
such as
sunlight, soil and water.

At our level we can seek to purify karma by (like keeping the seed
from ripening
from recieving water, sunlight and fertilizer so that even if the
seed ripens its
effects will be weak and short-lived like a sick plant).

(1)Regret
(2)Determination not to repeat such action
(3)Any positive action such as meditation, cultivation of postive
characteristics
such as loving kindness, compassion.
(4)actual remedial or corrective action

It should be done repeatly as we have done so many negative actions,
so naturally we
cannot expect to counteract them all at once.

At a higher level, the ultimate way of uprooting the karmaic
imprints or seeds
is by meditating on the emptiness of inherent existence. This is the
way to purify
the afflictive emotions and the karmic imprints completely.

To explain emptiness is to look at a river, a river is not really a
river but many
streams of water and each stream is made out of many droplets of
water. Also the stream
of water or droplets of water can change direction anytime and flow
completely in a new
direction. So is the river a river? It is a river and yet is not a
river, because it
is just changing droplets of water. It looks as a river but we know
it is made out of
many droplets of water.