Thread: Does a mental disabled person accumulate karma ?

Originally Posted by VagalTone

That's an implicit important question, but i am asking about karma . That´s a different field of knowledge. It has no other implications beyond religion, i hope.

Conversely, you can answer many questions with the best scientific evidence and still get another answer or perspective by religion, because they have different modes of inquiry and different biases.

You can answer that implicit question but it won´t change centuries of religious philosophy.

So in short, i want an answer based on tibetan buddhism philosophy, not in science.

I think you've misunderstood Jesus of Suburbia.

I think he just meant you can't ask the question "does a mentally disabled person accumulate karma?" without FIRST asking "well, are they accountable for their actions?"

The reason why it matters is because there are a lot of different understandings of how karma works. Does a person get the same karma for accidentally running someone over, killing them, versus a malicious intent to kill? Is it t he same karma if a lion eats a human versus if a human eats a human?

So for a lot of people, understanding the level of innocence does matter if you're talking about karma.

But then again, not all understandings of karma is the same. In some circles innocence doesn't matter. All karma is the return of your actions. Its completely unbiased and doesn't care if you were naive. Its why people pray to gurus or gods, to hold the karmic balance because they were ignorant and didn't know what they were doing.

Originally Posted by juroara

I think you've misunderstood Jesus of Suburbia.

I think he just meant you can't ask the question "does a mentally disabled person accumulate karma?" without FIRST asking "well, are they accountable for their actions?"

The reason why it matters is because there are a lot of different understandings of how karma works. Does a person get the same karma for accidentally running someone over, killing them, versus a malicious intent to kill? Is it t he same karma if a lion eats a human versus if a human eats a human?

So for a lot of people, understanding the level of innocence does matter if you're talking about karma.

But then again, not all understandings of karma is the same. In some circles innocence doesn't matter. All karma is the return of your actions. Its completely unbiased and doesn't care if you were naive. Its why people pray to gurus or gods, to hold the karmic balance because they were ignorant and didn't know what they were doing.

No, i haven´t misunderstood him. He makes perfect sense. That would be the logical step. I just don´t think that any religion, as advanced and sofisticated as it may be, needs to answer that question first. They have the right to escape conventional thinking sometimes

Religion doesn´t always follow a linear, intelligible reasoning. We should not impose our scientific logic to any mystical tradition

Now, as a society, we need to answer that question as best as we can - it seems like modern neuroscience dismisses free will, so it doesn´t even seem to matter how much impaired one is. This question isn´t even solved for normal people.

In tibetan buddhism, free will isn´t even an important issue. They might look at this issue from a different perspective, and surely their concept of substrate consciousness with imprints from previous lifes ( karma ) is already a far out perspective that doesn´t fit ( so far) modern science.

Let´s hear what they have to say - just that..