chat

I'm sorry you're going through this shit, and I wish I had something which could cut through this and help

Your questions reminded me of the same questions I've thought about a lot. You raised an interesting question about karma that I've thought about a lot having many Buddhist sympathetic tendencies within me.

Feel free to disregard this, as everybody has thoughts on the big questions of life and, like dreams, they are usually more interesting to the one hosting the thoughts than to others lol.

I thought I'd touch on karma, because Biddhism interests me, and I've thought about these questions a lot. Maybe something will reverberate with you, maybe not.

My own syncretic thoughts on karma are that it is the big cause and effect that all our interrelated actions have on each other - which actually makes if pretty simple and sound obvious lol. But, karma means action (particulalrly volitional action). If you shoot a man, the impacts will reverberate outward and return to you, or a "future version of you" in some form. Not because you deserve it or because the universe keeps tabs, but because impacts like shooting somebody throws violence into the system, and agents in the system will see that violence and likely respons somehow and in some way. The cycle doesnt end, that's Samsara.

In Buddhism there is an emphasis on interdependence, what's called codependent arising. Nothing happens on its own or is it's own cause. All things arise due to other events. Existence is a big interconnected web, and karma is like how that webs shakes and vibrates around because of all the happenings in it. Karma is a reminder that you can't separate yourself from this web. You're in it with the rest of us; or better said, we're in it together. Even better - we are the web.

And earlier I mentioned "your future self" that karma acts on. My own personal interpretation of this stuff is to recall that in Biddhism there isn't actually a soul or metaphysical "self". The "self" is an emergent and ever changing phenomena - like all phenomena in that web. The self is always reforming, recreating, and changing with time, and always due to how it is connected with everything else in the web. (It is also codependently arising). Your "self" is constantly being reborn again and again even before you die. Karma acts as a chain of cause and effect that gives one an ability to trace how one self changes into the next self due to the causes and effects of other self's.

If your self is constantly being reborn while you are alive, and was never a metaphysical "thing" separated from the web, then when new selfs are formed after you die, and one can trace how your present life creates the context for future lives, then it isn't as much of a stretch to think of those future selfs as a continuation of your present self. As long as we are open to some rethinking what our "selfs" really are.

And my own interpretation is that you could make that argument to various degrees for all selfs. All selfs, people, entities, lives, nonlives are just particular temporary instances of this larger web, popping up here and there from time to time because of the ripples. One self shakes the web, causes a ripples, makes a new self over there. Is it the same self, or a different self? Idk? Is the rain the river where it lands, is the river the sea where it flows? Maybe our concepts of "this" thing vs "that" thing have always been a bit fuzzy.

And usually these ripples suck for us. But that's because so many people act out of the illusion thay they aren't the web. That they are discrete things in it but not of it. So they don't care if their shaking hurts others on the other side of that web. "It isn't me, so it isn't my problem," most think. But this "Buddhist" way of thinking (and other mystical traditions have similar approaches) try to get us to reconceptualize what a "self" is to remind us that we are much less separated than we'd like. Not even on just a cause and effect, but on a deeper "what is the substance of self" kind of way.

There is a danger to blame victims for their troubles with karma. But I like to recall that, again, we're in it together. Noone is free until we are all free. Victims of settler colonialism don't deserve it, but settler colonialism happens because of the delusions of settlers. Because of historical developments the conditioned the existence of settlers. And we all share a world, all are in the web, so justice requires a universal struggle.

For me, I merge this with a Marxist thinking in many ways. Capitalism develops from previous historical conditions, like the self does. Capitalism will continue to evolve and change into a new mode of production, just as my self will continue to change and evolve into new ones in the future (as long as I realize the self isn't a static soul like thing).

Samsara is this huge never ending evolution of this web, and that means that collective action is needed to solve our problems. It means the only way to a better world is solidarity and love. Realizing that we all aren't separated egos in the way Capitalism wants us to believe. Realizing that others we meet are a part of us just as we are a part of them.

And in the schools of Biddhism I'm more familiar with, once one becomes enlightened and reaches Nirvana you realize that Nirvana was always Samsara this whole time. You were always the web