On karma

[barbara100 at jps.net]

http://www.zenguide.com/concepts/karma.cfm
The Buddha said:

"According to the seed that is sown,
So is the fruit you reap
The door of good of will gather good result
The door of evil reaps evil result.
If you plant a good seed well,
Then you will enjoyed the good fruits."

http://www.vedanta.org/wiv/karma.html#anchor785440
Human suffering is one of religion's most compelling mysteries: Why do the
innocent suffer? Why does God permit evil? Is God helpless to act or does he
choose not to? And if He chooses not to act, does that mean he is cruel? Or
merely indifferent?

Vedanta takes the problem out of God's court and places it firmly in our
own. We can blame neither God nor a devil. Nothing happens to us by the whim
of some outside agency: we ourselves are responsible for what life brings
us; all of us are reaping the results of our own previous actions in this
life or in previous lives. To understand this better we first need to
understand the law of karma.

http://home.pacbell.net/amsec/karm1a.html
[...]
Since everything is interlocked and interlinked and interblended with
everything else, and no thing and no being can live unto itself alone, other
entities are of necessity, in smaller or larger degree, affected by the
causes or motions initiated by any individual entity; but such effects or
consequences on entities, other than the prime mover, are only indirectly a
morally compelling power, in the true sense of the word moral.

An example of this is seen in what the theosophist means when he speaks of
family karma as contrasted with one's own individual karma; or national
karma, the series of consequences pertaining to the nation of which he is an
individual; or again, the racial karma pertaining to the race of which the
individual is an integral member. Karma cannot be said either to punish or
to reward in the ordinary meaning of these terms. Its action is unerringly
just, for being a part of nature's own operations, all karmic action
ultimately can be traced back to the kosmic heart of harmony which is the
same thing as saying pure consciousness-spirit. The doctrine is extremely
comforting to human minds, inasmuch as man may carve his own destiny and
indeed must do so. He can form it or deform it, shape it or misshape it, as
he wills; and by acting with nature's own great and underlying energies, he
puts himself in unison or harmony therewith and therefore becomes a
co-worker with nature as the gods are.
[...]

http://home.pacbell.net/amsec/karm1a.html
[...]
The early seers who brought through the Vedas were practitioners, mystics
and divine oracles who put into practice the knowledge of karma. To them,
Karma -- from the root kri, "to do" -- was a power by which they could
influence the Gods, nature, weather, harvests and enemies through right
intent and rites righteously performed. Thus by their actions they could
determine their destiny. Through the ages, other realized souls explained
the workings of karma, revealing details of this cosmic law and, when the
tradition of writing came into vogue, recording it for future generations.
In this way they established karma as perhaps the fundamental principle of
Hindu consciousness and culture then and now.
[...]
The Upanishads (circa 1500-600 bce), the philosophic treatises of the Vedas,
show how karma relates to the individual and his or her actions -- with
questions of morality, responsibility, reward and retribution. They clearly
command the individual to be responsibly concerned about personal conduct
and not expect the priesthood alone to secure and safeguard one's karma
through the performance of sacred rites. As Sage Yajnavalkya says in the
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: "What becomes of this man? Indeed, one becomes
good by good action and bad by bad action."
[...]

http://home.pacbell.net/amsec/karm1b.html
We can see then that every one of the billions of human souls that have been
in and out of existence on this earth during those thousands and thousands
of centuries must have developed countless attractions and repulsions, and
set in motion innumerable causes -- causes which at some time, in some
place, and under the right conditions, will inevitably express themselves as
effects. But karma is by no means a merciless round of reaping and sowing,
with never a chance to get out of the squirrel's cage. Not at all. Life,
everything, moves in spiral fashion, not in a closed ring or circle. That is
where we make our greatest mistake when we first come across the idea of
rebirth and karma.
[...]