So, I will talk about my understanding of karma based on what I have gathered from Ajahn Brahmavamso (AB) & my wonderings.
Why is it that its not easy to live in this reality world we have?
Buddha says that beings are the owners of your kamma, the heirs of their kamma. But it’s a bit more subtle than that as you affect other beings in this world and they affect you. For example. From some things I read, I gathered that people reincarnate as groups together. A family of people reincarnates together because they “cling” to each other through wanting. If in a previous life you were a parent and you were mean to your children, you created kamma for yourself. The children may subconsciously want to pay you back (positively or negatively) and reincarnate as your caretakers in the next life. Now, depends on how nice or mean you were to them results in how hard they work to bring you up. If they abuse you and neglect you, then you did not generate good kamma for yourself (with them). And thus, your life is uneasy as you have to struggle in various ways where they could have helped instead.
If you take my parents for example, they had done everything in their powers to make my life paradise despite how much they suffered doing so. No matter how much I take and be ungrateful, they keep on giving without wanting back or being mad at me for taking selfishly. Even me being 30, my mom still wants to give me more. It’s like an unsatisfied need.
Through my life, I saw this as normal parent behavior, but as I look at it now, and see other parents, this is not normal at all. Furthermore, the more I walk this life, the more people I meet, the more I see this reinforced. I am almost always loved and taken care of everywhere I go. People take me in, they want to adopt me, give me riches and things all the time. And I know myself, I am not that pleasant of a person, I am not that nice, I am not that kind. These things are within me, but they are buried deep due to the environment I grew up in. When I walk this earth I see life as the most easiest thing that ever existed. I cannot explain it in other terms than kamma. The people I meet now – I have positively affected in the past. So when people said to me – life is hard, I could never understand them. Now, I understand a bit more.
All that said, I do understand that if I ride on people’s backs through this life, the next life they will still give me things, but their patience will not be infinite, as it is now. They will start getting annoyed and such. And thus, I will be using up the kamma of my past deeds. This is how, as I understand, we fall from heaven realms as well. As AB says – using up the good kamma we accumulated. This life is a chance to create good kamma so that our next life is easier (by serving people), or to let go of kamma all together by letting go of self. It’s like a game, you can choose to play it or choose to not play it.
A good solution would be going to a monastrey and simply practice the dharma peacefully.
Kamma can follow people there as well, if life is not good to some now, life will also not be good there either. The abbot will be mean or altogether racist, the monks will have a hard time accepting new people or the lay people will always ignore them and give little alms food.
Any why is it that one cannot also be contempt with the monastery because one misses on this reality we live in?
I think a good question to ask yourself is – what will you truly miss in this life? If you can make a list, just do those things every day (if possible that is) until you get tired of them, and you will realize that those attachments are also empty.
“Why does Mara exists?”
Mara was a person who was trying to test and move dhamma followers during those times. He became a metaphor for the wanting of the 6 senses. It is also the “devil” in Christianity. Although, people might think that both of these are actual beings affecting your mind, but it’s just skillful means of saying that your mind has defilements and is leaning towards them. A good practitioner trains the mind to see Mara approaching, to smell him a mile a way, to resist Mara and to destroy him before he plants seeds.
“What is exactly the point of it all. Do we like to suffer? Is suffering our nature of humanity?”
There is no apparent beginning to samsara, it has existed for a long time. Note, this is totally speculation on my point about the origin of all things. I think the point is that we lived in absolute peace and harmony of no-sense world at some point, just energy in perfect state of balance. Somehow (and this is a big why?) decided to explore some other ways of existing, so it created worlds, forms, shapes and objects. Not all in one place or at the same time, just through some play as everything could be created (via what we call ESP now). While the consciousness played it was fully aware of its beginning and purpose, but as it created more and more things it started to get engaged in the reality of what was going on. Just like playing a video game, but for a long long time. The energy started to create elaborate shapes, senses and living this world. Experiencing this world and engulfed in this world. After a long long time, this consciousness forgot about it’s origin and its beginnings. It just retained it’s powers outside of the world it created, when it died physically, it’s state of mind at the end of death propelled it to return back (because it wanted to go back). It was still as powerful, but it forgot about its power. And thus, it just lives in this world it created for itself, just like the matrix, just like a game, it plays without end. To return back to its original form, it needs to relinquish its hold of the sense base world and come back to pure tranquility. Only by retraining and re-learning it’s original state of mind can it merge back into consciousness (to nibbana its individuality, its false sense of self).
To live in this world practicing dharma is not easy, it can be done but its not easy, to live in the monastery can be easy, too easy that one wonders if its an escape there doing from this reality.”
After the last paragraph you may understand how funny it is for AB to hear “escape from reality”. He alludes to this as well. He points out that monastic life is true reality as you are no longer trying to play the game of life. “There are beings with little dust in their eyes that are wasting through not hearing this Dhamma. There will be those who will understand this Dhamma.” You already understand the Dhamma, you just have a bit of skeptical doubt sitting in you about the path. Only when there is no skeptical doubt left, will one be able to fully walk the path. That’s why it’s the first 3 components of stream entering. You enter the stream of becoming an enlightened being, once you abandon doubt, you cannot move off of this path. Through your kamma, it will be easy to find dhamma in every consecutive life.
“Just as, in the autumn, when the sky is clear and cloudless, the sun, ascending in the sky, dispels all darkness from space as it shines and beams and radiates, so too, when the dust-free, stainless Dhamma-eye arises in you, then, together with the arising of vision, you abandon three fetters: the view of a permanent essence, doubt, and wrong grasp of behaviour and observances.”
The question stems from the four noble truths, life is suffering. Now im just wondering why?”
I hope I answered it more or less already. But even in this life you can realize for yourself that the Dhamma speaks the truth. If you just weaken your 5 senses, just weaken them enough, you will see that you are diminishing suffering by a significant amount. E.g. you don’t want the Ferrari, you don’t want the house, you don’t want the kids and wife, etc. You are feeling more free without those things. You have no obligations or troubles. You are lowering your suffering. But there will still be suffering unless you walk the whole way. Why? Because even if you are a hermit in the mountains sustaining yourself, you still have a body that will ache and hurt. So there will still be suffering without training the whole way. Only when all sense attachments are abandoned will you be free of the suffering, the body will not bother you, there will be no ego that wants that extra portion of ice cream at danna, etc. The creation of senses is the problem, this is why it is only possible to become fully (or almost fully) enlightened in the human realm. This is the best boot camp for us.
