Buddhist Teachings By Ven. Robina Courtin

Many people all over the world don’t like karma, Buddhists included. It’s seen in a really cliched, hippy kind of way. So serious people don’t like to talk about it. But actually, if we look at the big picture of Buddha’s view of the universe, it’s a coherent world view actually. The thing is, if the law of karma were not relevant to Buddhism, if it were not something valid, the whole of Buddhism would collapse into a heap of complete absurdity.  The whole of Buddhism is rooted in the view of karma, so it’s crucial to understand. Because it’s so fundamentally different from the philosophical materialist view, which of course is the view that prevails in our culture, and the one we think is serious, then we feel sometimes embarrassed to talk about it.  But let’s look at it. The Buddha’s view is fundamentally different from other religious traditions. But often when we hear about karma it sounds exactly the same. Don’t do this and don’t do that, and if you do do this something bad will happen. We don’t ever thi