Karma and Rebirth

The word “karma” literally means “action”. In Buddhism it refers not only to actual action, but also to the intent to act and to the consequences of action.

According to the concept of karma, every action has a cause and results in an effect, which can either be negative or positive. In this way one accumulates bad or good karma, as the case may be. A person’s karma has an influence on his or her present life but also on his or her future existences.

A person’s karma also determines how he or she will be reborn.

According to Buddhism, there are six realms of existence. You may be reborn as a human being or an animal, or maybe as a hungry ghost; you might emerge in the realm of the gods or that of the titans, or even into the realms of hell. How long you stay there is again determined by your karma.

Why do Buddhists wish not to be reborn?

According to Buddhism, beings experience pain and suffering in every realm of existence, not only in hell. Even the gods and titans are subject to hate, craving, and ignorance, and regularly experience pain and disappointment.

Suffering can only be fully overcome outside the various realms of existence, when one no longer inhabits a body that can suffer.

Do all Buddhists really aspire to break the eternal cycle of rebirth? And what are the requirements for this?

According to some Buddhist traditions, only monks and nuns who live by strict doctrinal rules will ever get the chance to experience awakening and escape the cycle of death and rebirth. Most laypeople, by contrast, are enmeshed in a life of family and work. They must endeavour to accumulate good karma in order to be reborn into a better life..

Other schools maintain that attaining awakening and thus breaking the eternal cycle is possible for anyone.

Most people will accumulate negative karma in the course of their lives. Despite their best efforts, they will not be able to avoid feeling anger or envy, they may offend or disappoint others, and so on.

Therefore, Buddhism provides different ways to obtain good karma. The most important one is to give selflessly and generously, for instance by giving alms to Buddhist monasteries in the form of food, clothes, and money.

Donating statues and pictures, or copies of sutra texts, or even entire temples, is also considered a good deed and leads to the accumulation of merit.

According to Mahayana Buddhism, there exist beings that have broken the eternal cycle of death and rebirth but have decided to remain in this world. They have delayed their entry into parinirvana – complete extinction – in order to support others in their quest for this goal.

Such beings are referred to as bodhisattvas. Literally translated the word means “awakened being”.