Karma
Buddhism is a wide subject that includes karma and rebirth. Buddhism and Hinduism share a common element called Samsara, the wheel of life. The Samsara has five segments. It is driven by three main “poisons” aversion, attachment, and delusion. There are areas between the spokes that are different, where sentient beings take rebirth. Sentient beings are people who are follow their senses instead of doing the right thing in life. The principle of karma is also a central part of Buddhism. It is the principle that you are going to be rewarded for your deeds and actions. If you do something it will have a consequence either good or bad. This means all your actions have an outcome, which is either good or bad. If you are wise, and intellectual you may be able to easily distinguish between good and bad in any situation. The Buddhists believe it is important to think carefully and to make a distinction between good and bad before acting. They believe skillful thoughts are good while unskillful thoughts might be the result of greed, or anything bad. Your intention also counts as you decide between good and bad. Buddhists believe that karma is the natural law, therefore, there is no god to change things but only karma with its consequences at any given time to steer your future
Connection to reincarnation
Buddhists believe karma lasts more than one lifetime. Reincarnation is like walking the wheel of life, but being born over doesn’t have to be in the same state. You can be reborn in different situations. Buddhists believe when you are reborn in different situations you can be born a god, titans (anti-god), human, animal, hungry ghost, or a demon. Materialized karma will keep accumulating and coming to your next life but once it is set free your new karma will be calmed and you can enter the stream leading to Nirvana where making good karma is not a goal anymore. The Buddhists believe there is no self, consciousness, mind, body, nor perspective as “mine” or “me”. They believe these lead to greed. They do not believe in a soul either, since soul is just like self; there are no permanent things that we can call a personal part of us
How all this may affect our lives
Karma applies to daily life situations and can help people make decisions. For example: John has a friend who steals things and asks if he would like to assist him steal a valuable item from a store. Stealing has it’s own consequences later on because it is ethically wrong and it is practicing greed. Greed will build up bad karma. John should not steal. Another example: Bill is a CEO of a small but growing company and is actively involved in the stock market. He knows he should not do insider trading since it is illegal. However his broker urges him to trade. What should Bill do? He is clearly being greedy if he does insider trading, and it builds up bad karma that could affect him in bad ways later on . That would show all he wants is money. And Buddhism says you should not be greedy. Bill should think about the results of his actions before he decides what to do. Even if he does not get caught now he could easily be affected some how at a different time so he should not do insider trading. Example three: Linda has been offered to help out at the homeless shelter, maybe it is not fun now but she will get good karma if she helps out the poor therefore she should help out at the homeless shelter. In the example of Bill, he could be affected a different time, because karmas consequences can be experienced at any time, and that’s why it steers your future. Here is a dilemma: You have a poor family that needs clothes and food; your friend offers you 50% of the money if you help him steal from a bank. This is a tough situation since you are helping your own family but you should not do it because stealing is wrong, and you should be comforted by the fact that Buddhism says nothing bad lasts forever. Children are part of the Buddhist relgion, here you can read about it.Children & Buddhism