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Archive for the ‘Karma & Rebirth’ Category

A few days ago we had one of our lunch/movie meetings in the Tai Pan Hotel. The topic was ‘Just Enough’, as a reflection on the nature/necessity of giving up sense pleasures.
Video’s were as much for fun as serious debate. The longer videos came from the brilliant TED website.
We looked at the ‘Paradox of Choice’ [...]

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Farrah’s Story

A few days ago, former artist, model and actress of Charlie’s Angels fame Farrah Fawcett passed away from rectal cancer. Her passing was overshadowed by the death of Michael Jackson on the same day. But her story is more likely one that we can learn from.
She ‘battled’, in so far as one can battle [...]

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Thursday 10th Nov 2008 we enjoyed a dhamma talk by Thai monk and clear thinker Phra Bhasakorn. The topic was Karma, a subject he has written a lively little handbook on in English. 
 
Was Karma Explained?
Karma is probably the most slippery of all the topics in Buddhism. The Buddha himself taught that even the arahants, those with immense psychic powers [...]

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Karma is ‘imponderable’ according to Buddhist teachings. But that does not stop us from speculating. A specualtory exercise is to pick figures from history and guess about karmic forces in their lives:
Barak Obama got elected to the universal sigh of relief from the free world. It should have been a shoo-in but you never know [...]

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Tales of Karma

A recent tale you might call karma, or justice …

Burglar got stuck in lift
A German thief was sunk after he got stuck in the lift of an office block he’d just burgled.
Heinrich Klopp, 27, had raided an office on the sixth floor, taking computers, mobile phones and other electronic goods.
He decided to take the lift [...]

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Kamma Sutta

Second part of the notes on Kamma – Talk Wat Yannawa 2008
 
Samyutta Nikaya XXXV.145
Kamma Sutta
Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
For free distribution only.
 
Monks, I will teach you new & old kamma, the cessation of kamma, and the path of practise leading to the cessation of kamma. Listen and pay close attention. I will speak.
“Now [...]

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Tales of Karma

  [summary: anecdotal story of trans-lifetime karma]
Tales of Karma
Karma attracts endless interest in Buddhism, even thought the Buddha himself named it as one of the ‘Imponderables’ – meaning your head will split into pieces before you can understand it fully. Luang Phor Caran disciple and well known Thai writer in both Thai and English Sudassa [...]

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[Summary: follow up to a blog on Right Speech last month, where a woman was arrested for shouting swearwords. At her toilet. Court case results]
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Last month I blogged up the story of a woman in the U.S. who was arrested for swearing at her toilet while in her own home. The toilet had overflowed and [...]

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Right Speech

Last one from Ananova – this is irresistible. A lesson in observing Samma Vaca (Right Speech) :
Woman charged with swearing at toilet
A Pennsylvania woman is facing a jail sentence after she was arrested for shouting profanities at an overflowing toilet.
Dawn Herb was inside her own home in West Scranton when her neighbour, a police officer, [...]

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Do good, get good

Virtue is its own reward says Christianity. Though Karma is supposed to ensure your rewards will come for your good behaviour it only works mentally. That is to say, if you do a good deed it will add to your self worth, self esteem and integirty, and that I’m afraid, is your reward. Thus if [...]

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This story is just mad enough to be true. The wording may be the key to the issue, but it is amusing anyway …..
 from msnbc.com
Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue – In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued [...]

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