The Buddha Project Y2Q18) Individual and collective karma
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- This topic has 5 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 1 week, 6 days ago by
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A philosophically very interesting aspect of how we as humans do in relation to each other. I would like to say that there are several levels of social/collective karma. The more private level within a family – which can consist of blood ties or close friends who are the family of our choice. Worldviews and values are shared, which means that actions based on these take place in interaction with “like-minded”, i.e. a creation and recreation of patterns of action.
Then there is the more collective level in, for example, an area of work, for my own part in academia. Here, certain expected patterns of action are created and recreated where we expect and expect others to act within specific frameworks. Karma – the seed of patterns of action – is planted and grows by repeating the actions and notions of the state of affairs created in this social context. We repeat them as if it were a truth in itself. -
Collectieve karma as a result, in another way, could also be the environment that we humans perceive and share in a general way. I wonder how we, in all its complexity have created this collective result. Did we only individually create causes for a human existence where we meet our fellow human beings who created the same cause, or was there also a collective aspect to it (to being here in this world at this time with these people)?
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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.
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Thanks for the explanation about the role of language in creating a collective environment. In a way quite obvious but I never looked at it that way. There is always a strong feeling that there is a world out there apart from my mind designating ‘wholes’. Such a world could never create a shared experience as it would be independent, in fact it could never exist. By sharing the same labels using our similar human senses we create this world together!
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