Views of Karma in Hinduism & Buddhism

The concept of karma in general is not as simple as the popular interpretation of it would hold. Comparing the two religions' views brings out additional subtleties and complexities. On one level, karma would seem to lock the individual into a cycle of behavior from which he has no hope of breaking free, as Schroeder writes with respect to the Hindu definition of the concept:

Karma: "deed, action, impression": The law of causality: all events have causes and results; the principle of universal determinism applies to the mental and the moral sphere: our conditioning produces the impulse for every thought and action. Good/Evil acts have immediate psychological effects; good acts tend to break down our ego-centeredness and lead to liberation, while evil acts reinforce our ignorant assumption of the reality of the ego and inhibit our realization of all-inclusive consciousness.

Clearly, the Hindu concept of karma does give the individual freedom in choosing his actions, or such "liberation" through good acts would not be possible. The prison in which the ego entrap[s itself is composed of ignorance and ego, rather than a cycle from which the individual cannot break free.

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ifferent force which strives at all times to maintain a balance or harmony between conflicting powers, which are rooted in the individual in relationship to the whole universe and its tendency to correct imbalances. The Buddhist concept of Dependent Origination, which is comprised of the twelve links of Conditioned Genesis, is a way to view the entire process of karma from a distance. The essence of the concept is that the origins of suffering are rooted in ignorance. Simply put, this means that the end of suffering will come with the awakening from ignorance. The cycle of karma can thereby be broken, and liberation attained. This process is long-term and complex because "the causes generated in one life cannot all be digested in their appropriate effects in the same life." The process involves a stopping or de-conditioning of numerous, interrelated elements of the karmic cycle, including the karma-foundations, the consciousness, the mind-and-body, the six sense-fields, impression, feeling, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, aging and dying, grief, sorrow, suffering, lamentation, and despair. The discouraging part of stopping the karmic cycle is that there are indeed so many parts to it, but the encouraging part is that ther
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