Karma and infinite causes

Karma, as anything else, can be filtered through a sense of a separate self, or an absence of identification with stories, and so also a separate self.

When filtered through an unquestioned sense of separate self, it becomes what we see in popular culture: a focus on “my” or individual karma, or at most a group level karma (nations, humanity).

As usual, we can get a fuller picture if we include both the relative (the forms aspect overlaid with stories and boundaries) and the absolute (void, and form as awake void).

In the form aspect, we see that anything happening locally has infinite effects, so karma is really the karma of the whole, or rather, the processes, patterns and movements of the fluid seamless whole of form. Looking at it from the level of the holarchy as a whole, karma is the karma of the holarchy itself.

At the same time, karma is personal or individual in a very limited sense. We can discern local causes and effects related to the individual human self: a thought (appears to) trigger an action, patterns of thoughts and beliefs trigger patterns of actions, he smiles and someone smiles back, she learns something which changes how she lives his life, he gains an insight into a belief so the belief falls away and with it certain mind-body patterns, and so on.

(Although this too is really the karma of the whole, the local expressions of the movement of the whole, the local effects of patterns within the whole of the world of form.)

From the “view” of void, or rather the absence of views here (which allows any views, although now with an absence of beliefs in them), all form just happens. It is the awake void as form, happening on its own. Karma – causes and effects – only comes from an overlay of stories.

And if we use that overlay (which is another form aspect of void, happening on its own), we see that karma is the karma of the fluid seamless whole of form, and also that it can appear as the karma of an individual.

We may also see that using the stories of it as individual can be helpful, in a limited way, in terms of motivation for change and practice. But, if taken as real, solid, absolute and final, it  can hold that belief in a separate self in place, making it more difficult to see it as a belief and discover what is on the other side of it.

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