The Buddha Project Reply To: Y2Q18) Individual and collective karma
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It is a very intricate topic indeed. Reading your contributions made me think again about question Y2Q5. It starts with: “We are continuously adding new seeds (imprints) in our alaya, which at one time will also come out: 1) creating future experiences; 2) creating habitual patterns; 3) formation of concepts; 4) contributing to words and language.” Language must play such an important role in creating this collective karma, which we should perhaps call ‘similar karma’. Similar in time, in space, in object. We could be looking at the same thanka, and thru language we exchange information how beautiful it is, how it raises a sense of aspiration, etc. Still the experience is individual and different, but language increases a feeling of shared experience, shared action and thereby karma so similar, that we can call it collective karma.