Re: The evil fruits of bad Karma

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Riku Simonen) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> If the Law of Karma truly exists than poor, handicapped, mentally ill
> etc. people are just "enjoying" the evil fruits of his/her previous
> evil action. What a disturbing thought what is hard to accept.

At the time of the Buddha no one knew about DNA. What was really hard
for them to accept was that handicaps and the like were merely random.
So they developed an explanation which made sense at the time. By
calling such things the results of past evil action, however, there
was no demonization of people suffering from such things. The point
was that we have all committed such karmas, and those of us not
presently suffering from such things eventually will sooner or later
(unless we really get our acts together and practice). So the
karma-explanation is meant as a way for those afflicted to take some
comfort, and those not afflicted to take heed. It's not to say 'it's
your own fault' and then mistreat anyone.