Is Karma A
Bitch?
11 May 2015 HAYLEY
ROSS | The Butler Collegian
Let’s be real.
All of you reading this have done something in your lifetime
that you probably shouldn’t have. Whether it was something small,
like taking money from your brother’s piggy bank, or something a
bit bigger like cheating on your significant other, the fear of
what is to come is more or less the same.
The same questions filter through your mind, wondering whether
you are going to get caught or if you can live with the guilt this
endeavor has caused, yet the looming thought that is nerve wracking
and almost always present, is the possibility that this bad deed is
going to cause something even worse to happen to you.
That although you may think you got away with it, what you did
is going to bite you in the a** and that your friends are going to
taunt you with the word that makes it all not worth it.
No one, myself included, wants to hear the word karma. Especially if you know they’re
right.
There are a few exceptions, for example, if you are talking
about it in a positive light. Say you held the door open for
someone and found a dollar a few hours later. Then it can be said
that you had good karma. That karma would be a reward and not a
punishment.
However, when you fall and break your phone right after you hung
up on your parents during their infamous “you need to go to bed
earlier” lecture, it’s hard not to feel like the world is out to
get you and that the godly spirits rained down karmic energy on
your ass.
An article in Psychology
Today, titled “What is Karma and Why Should It Matter to Us?,”
spoke about the the importance of intention in relation to karma.
The Buddhist term derived from Sanskrit literally means “action;”
yet Buddha himself stressed the importance of the intent behind an
action: “Intention, I tell you, is karma. Intending, one does karma
by way of body, speech, and intellect.” (AN 6.63)
This gives me a little piece of mind. I often have good
intentions and extremely poor execution.
Still, it is hard to decide whether or not to believe in karma.
It could very well just be our conscience telling us we deserve
this little bad thing to happen because of what bad deed we have
committed.
The reality though is that karma doesn’t always work, which is
why we tend to question it. Bad things happen to good people all
the time, and good things happen to bad people. If karma always
worked the way it should, then my professors’ laptops would be
broken from all the work they gave me during Labor Day
weekend.
Some — many Buddhists and Hindus — believe that karma affects
you in the afterlife as well, and what good or bad deeds you have
committed will follow you after death.
To me, that sounds pretty tragic. Having to wait another 70
years (I’m going to live a really long time I’ve decided) before
karma strikes me for taking my friend’s fruit snacks is way too
much anxiety.
I’d much rather run into the door now and get it over
with.
Imagine every bad thing you have ever done all waiting for you
on the other side. Definitely not a comforting thought.
So, should we believe in it? Should we continue living in fear
of it?
I don’t really have an absolute answer to that question, but if
it makes you second- guess doing something wrong—due to fearing the
wrath of karma—then it wouldn’t be the most horrible thing to
be true.
Also, I wouldn’t want to piss karma off — she’s a
bitch.