Maybe I Am Wrong: karma can’t be avoided
Nov 09, 2008 | Categorized Under: Buddhism | | CommentsSo I had this talk with someone before, but I wanted to clarify this thing to myself by jotting down here. Can you eliminate karma by purifying your sins? An example would be chanting a mantra that would relieve you from a karma of killing a bug.
In my opinion sin can be get rid of, but not the karma. Karma can be get rid of only by facing and going thru it. To make it less confusing, let’s define and distinguish the two – sin and karma. Sin is more virtual and karma is more physical.
Let’s go back to the example where I killed a mosquito fly in my previous life. This year I can eliminate the sin I acquired from doing so by chanting and doing good deeds. But regardless how good of compassionate person I turn myself into this year, I will still have to face the karma eventually by taking birth and getting killed by that bug (most likely in a human form and me as a bug).
Sin, IMO, is like a token that leads you to having bad moments; it is nothing specific. You may have committed a sin in one situation but you can suffer in a totally unrelated one. On the other hand, karma is very specific – i.e. what you do is what you get.