I think the concept is valid in a sense, not however as a supernatural process of judging good vs evil. Nature sees no good or evil.

I believe that whatever thoughts a person dwells upon get imprinted into the subconscious and have a profound effect on the person’s actions and emotions. If we get caught up in a web of trouble and unhappiness, then we are the responsible party. Through conscious awareness mistaken thoughts can be corrected. We can escape our webs of woe.

Events in the world, such as the recent tsunami are regrettable, and the victims are fully deserving of sympathy, however that event was not karma but just the course of nature. After all, our bodies are all slated to die at some point. For a body to die is neither good nor evil.

It depends on how you define karma. I've seen comments on this thread that I agree with on both sides of the argument.

In my opinion, no, karma is not a supernatural force handing out justice on the world. However, if you are making positive changes in reality around you, logic dictates that those good things might multiply into good things for other people as well. Same with negative actions.

Karma is real and there's nothing supernatural about it. Actions resonate and we live in their consequences. There's no supernatural force meeting out perfect justice and that doesnt make everything fair in the end. Not everything we receive is something we deserve, but a great deal of reciprocation will occur for whatever you decide to put into the world.

There's only so many places for consequences to spread to, and the world is small enough that you will most definitely feel and sit in the consequences of your own actions. A good deal of punitive karma is self fullfilling by our own conscience and ego like someone else said, and a good deal is out of our hands. It's an echo of whatever we shouted bouncing back to us off the mountains.

Imagined. We don't always get what we deserve and we don't always deserve what we get.

To all the people who think karma in the form of people getting what they deserve as a natural occurance is real based on what they see or from the world they live in might I remind you that over a billion people are starving to death right now and that is not a trivial number and Im pretty sure most of them don't desrve it. Further more if karma is real then either all those people do desrve to be starving to death in which case its horrible or they don't in which case the fact that they're still starving shows that its not just not perfect its an absolute train reck. Maybe if people stopped believing people just got what they desrved than maybe we'd we'd be able take the actions necessary to make sure people actually got what they deserved

REAL!

The planets of the universe must love me and/or friends in higher places must look after me. Because for every wrong or hurt that's done to me, I get to witness the courtesy being returned back to that person.

There is a weak tendency for "what goes around, comes around" to prove out. It is by no means ironclad.

Logically, even if there were such a thing as karma, there are so many causal chains and influences that it would be super-easy to misconstrue anyway.

Karma is basically a result of the human need for comprehensibility and explicability in as many things as possible, combined with that fact that the concept fits well with religions who proffer cyclic afterlives (as opposed to the typical Christian sequential afterlife). Also, the concept can be seen as just a way to rationalize the fact that life ends up mostly baffling us anyway. Karma would just suggest that there is order or a kind of justice behind the apparent chaos, and offer a hypothetical "explanation" for how that could work.

The Christian version of this BTW is often described by the "life is a beautiful tapestry" trope ... we only see the gnarly side with all the knots and underpinnings, but it's all in the service of the gorgeous priceless rug on the other side that we can't see, that god is patiently weaving out of the raw material of our lives.

If that sort of thing comforts or satisfies someone, they're welcome to it. It only irritates me.

Real in that if you spend your life acting like an asshole, crappy stuff usually happens around you.

Imagined.

In human lives, as in science, there is cause and effect, and there is probability. Effects resulting from causes, the probability, greater and lesser, of things happening. Karma is a typical result of human subjective thinking, the human brain's need to create patterns and structures to explain what we call reality. We subjectively combine observation of cause and effect and probability outcomes, and create a mystical "law" or "principle" of karmic retribution, and somehow we fool ourselves into thinking we understand reality a little better. It's an illusion. Worse, it's dangerous. I've lived in a Buddhist country and have seen how this concept is contorted to human biases and prejudices. Example? Beggars in the street - explanation? Bad karma. Charming.

Why, yes, yes it is. ???

I believe in it. I've seen it happen too many times. I don't think there is any religion tied to it. It is just basic, "what comes around goes around". You do bad things, bad things will eventually happen to you. Just be a good person and do good things and good things will happen to you.

Definitely real in my world.

There's no such thing - you keep making bad decisions there will eventually be consequences even if it takes years to catch up to you. The same is almost true with good decisions - these don't often come with many rewards.

Karma is self-inflicted by the super-ego.

Karma is a shorthand way of saying that if you keep fucking people over, eventually you'll bump up against someone with the power and authority to call you on it. Let's use, for example, someone who avoids/evades taxes. The IRS is a slow-moving machine, but eventually, often years down the line, they end up coming down hard on people who don't their income taxes. You can take this to the bank—no pun intended, at least I don't think.

I have seen this happen more times than I care to describe in great detail, and in some cases, it's really predictable, given patterns of behavior. One of my LT significant others had serious issues with alcoholism; after we broke up, he also screwed around randomly and capriciously with basically anyone. He'd done this while we were in a relationship, which is why I abandoned ship and did not look back. I didn't want to 1) have to bail him out of the clink when he got picked up with a PUI/DUI; or 2) help him support a strange woman's , born out of wedlock. Both scenarios came to pass. I wish I could say that he learned from it.

In almost all cases, you cannot display a pattern of bad behavior with total impunity. There are consequences to actions. Call it "karma" or whatever you have it. I don't believe that there's a mystical force twisting the arm of cosmic justice; it's simple law of averages.

Yeah...karma a nice idea in theory...law of attraction at least is closer to reality. Neither are scientifically proven. So although I prefer to think someone bad will get their “just dues”, it will only happen by chance...karma isn’t realistic.

Karma is a lovely idea. It really is. I am a closet believer in karma. I know realistically it don't exist, but it feels good to think those that hurt me will eventually feel the same pain.

Honestly, the karma received is realistically a point of view. Positive people will see that piece of "karma" in a glass half full way. Negative people will feel they are being targeted. It's not my point of view that matters, it is all how the receiver perceives it.

It's such an attractive, satisfying idea, isn't it? Nasty people WILL get their ''dues'' and good people WILL be rewarded. BUT...the reality of it would demand some celestial score-keeper (with a very big book!) who records, plans, arranges and then records again for every human alive. Sure!

As someone who Murphy's law has ruled my life, I think Karma is possible. But realistically it's not. Stuff happens. Once in awhile the bad guy ends up getting what he deserves but it also doesn't happen sometimes so that proves to me that there is no Karma.

Real. My ex girlfriend lied to me ,stole from me (money out of the bank), cheated on me (7 of the 10 years together) and used me (amongst other people). Now her stage 1a cancer has progressed to stage 4 in less than 2 years. She went from 95% curable to 5%. I call that karma.

You'll get far more traction with this question here: "Dharma Café"

My karma ran over their Dogma.