Buddhism
September 2008 
Another question from Anna
Posted on Feb 21st, 2008
by 
True Eloquence
True Eloquence
This is a reply to Anna's following question, which I thought would be useful to reply here:
"I am really enjoying my sanskrit studies and discovered many interesting posts on your blog.
As you know I am really interested in many of the things you write about - and my next question is again about being a monastic. In your profile you say you stayed in the monastary because of “gravity of your karma”. Can you tell me what you mean by this - what you mean by “gravity of karma”? In other words - if you have time - can you write about the reasons why something kept you at the monastery. In fact I am interested in life in a monastery. How it is different from conventional day-to-day living. I hope I get to visit a monastery here in South Africa - and experience for myself - since words can only give a basic idea.
Please only answer if you have time - I know you have lots to do.
many greetings as always,
anna"
Well Anna, thanks for your enthuciasm. So, Gravity of Karma right, it is like the gravity of the earth. It pulls down naturally whatever in its governing body. In the same way, we believe that we are here in whatever forms (black, white, Asian, tall, short, beautiful, ugly, small, big) because of our past karma (actions) and will be in the future because of the creating new karma. And this is quite scientific and not a difficult thing to understand. Yeah, like I studied English and now I can speak in English, so if you now study Sanskrit, some years later you can teach Sanskrit, if you don't study then ofcourse you won't know it, the same thing is applied to the law of karma. So I believemy early life was partly governed by my past karma, I was karmically conditioned to live and trained in the monasta, because i didn't really choose it, but somehow the power of my past karma dynamically worked. I know lots of kids of my age rather stayed at home and why I would stay in the temple. I mean it is partially because of my past karma. Another factor was also society where I grew up, we have a custom to ordain boys for a few days as a sign of gratitude, good fortune and merit. Our parents bring us into this world and nurture us and we take sometimes off to repay our gratitude, by giving ourselves in the monastic trainings. This helps our parents receive some merits. Well, as a child I did not know such philosophical explanations to this, but the society had in general and I just had to follow my karma. But we can change our karma the way we want, we have choices, like as an adult now, I can make my own future karma. I can be what I want to be and I am sure everyone can. Karma is just one aspect of our being that determines our lives. It is a natural law our actions which can be simply said: if you do evil things, evil will follow you like the wheels of the car and on the other hand if you do good things (help others, live a moral life, meditate, purify one's mind) then all those good things will happen to you. Well you can argue why some people haven't done anything but they suffer, We believe it is because of some of the negative karmas done in the past and the results is being shown when it is time, just like when one has an cancer, it does not immediately kills the person, but slowly and slowly when it ripens then one dies. So now the problem is why Cancer, may be because that person has done something to get that cancer like carelessly eat something, drank something, and so on. Well, I can talk about karma for hours, because this is one of my favourite subjects. So much is discussed about Karma in Buddhism. We can only be free from karma, if we have completely eradicated the 3 Poisons of greed, hatred and ignorance and one becomes Arhant or Buddha. For them simply active karmas don't operate, they just perform actions without any residue of karma, like when they smile they will simply smile without having to be conditioned by anything. The positive qualities are already built up in these noble persons. This is much discussed in one of my posts here called "Sense-sphere Consciousness". Anyone interested can go into details there. It is kind of interesting, as it opens us to the whole reality of ourselves as beings. So, I hope this answers your interesting question.
"I am really enjoying my sanskrit studies and discovered many interesting posts on your blog.
As you know I am really interested in many of the things you write about - and my next question is again about being a monastic. In your profile you say you stayed in the monastary because of “gravity of your karma”. Can you tell me what you mean by this - what you mean by “gravity of karma”? In other words - if you have time - can you write about the reasons why something kept you at the monastery. In fact I am interested in life in a monastery. How it is different from conventional day-to-day living. I hope I get to visit a monastery here in South Africa - and experience for myself - since words can only give a basic idea.
Please only answer if you have time - I know you have lots to do.
many greetings as always,
anna"
Well Anna, thanks for your enthuciasm. So, Gravity of Karma right, it is like the gravity of the earth. It pulls down naturally whatever in its governing body. In the same way, we believe that we are here in whatever forms (black, white, Asian, tall, short, beautiful, ugly, small, big) because of our past karma (actions) and will be in the future because of the creating new karma. And this is quite scientific and not a difficult thing to understand. Yeah, like I studied English and now I can speak in English, so if you now study Sanskrit, some years later you can teach Sanskrit, if you don't study then ofcourse you won't know it, the same thing is applied to the law of karma. So I believemy early life was partly governed by my past karma, I was karmically conditioned to live and trained in the monasta, because i didn't really choose it, but somehow the power of my past karma dynamically worked. I know lots of kids of my age rather stayed at home and why I would stay in the temple. I mean it is partially because of my past karma. Another factor was also society where I grew up, we have a custom to ordain boys for a few days as a sign of gratitude, good fortune and merit. Our parents bring us into this world and nurture us and we take sometimes off to repay our gratitude, by giving ourselves in the monastic trainings. This helps our parents receive some merits. Well, as a child I did not know such philosophical explanations to this, but the society had in general and I just had to follow my karma. But we can change our karma the way we want, we have choices, like as an adult now, I can make my own future karma. I can be what I want to be and I am sure everyone can. Karma is just one aspect of our being that determines our lives. It is a natural law our actions which can be simply said: if you do evil things, evil will follow you like the wheels of the car and on the other hand if you do good things (help others, live a moral life, meditate, purify one's mind) then all those good things will happen to you. Well you can argue why some people haven't done anything but they suffer, We believe it is because of some of the negative karmas done in the past and the results is being shown when it is time, just like when one has an cancer, it does not immediately kills the person, but slowly and slowly when it ripens then one dies. So now the problem is why Cancer, may be because that person has done something to get that cancer like carelessly eat something, drank something, and so on. Well, I can talk about karma for hours, because this is one of my favourite subjects. So much is discussed about Karma in Buddhism. We can only be free from karma, if we have completely eradicated the 3 Poisons of greed, hatred and ignorance and one becomes Arhant or Buddha. For them simply active karmas don't operate, they just perform actions without any residue of karma, like when they smile they will simply smile without having to be conditioned by anything. The positive qualities are already built up in these noble persons. This is much discussed in one of my posts here called "Sense-sphere Consciousness". Anyone interested can go into details there. It is kind of interesting, as it opens us to the whole reality of ourselves as beings. So, I hope this answers your interesting question.
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