Quotes and passages on karma

Like gravity, karma is so basic we
often don't even notice it.

Sakyong Mipham

Karma is a Sanskrit word meaning "action," though it's often used to refer to both an action and its results. Many people think of karma as Newton's Third Law--"For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction"--as it applies to the psychological or ethical domain. Karma isn't luck or destiny--luck suggests randomness; destiny, a lack of choice. Nor is it the voice of the gods trying to keep us in line. Karma is a description of how moral law operates, not a prescription for good behavior. Joan Duncan Oliver Good Karma

If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have. John O'Donohue Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Karma is simply the law of cause and effect. If you plant an apple seed, you don’t a get a mango tree. If we practice hatred or greed, it becomes our way and the world responds accordingly. If we practice awareness or loving-kindness, it becomes our way and the world responds accordingly. We are heirs to the results of our actions, to the intentions we bring to every moment we initiate. We make ripples upon the ocean of the universe through our very presence. Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours. Wayne W. Dyer

The Law of Karma is also called the Law of Cause and Effect,
Action and Reaction and: as you sow, so shall you reap.

Sham Hinduja

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Situations seem to happen to people, but in reality, they unfold from deeper
karmic causes. The universe unfolds to itself, bringing to bear any cause
that needs to be included. Don’t take this process personally. The working
out of cause and effect is eternal. You are part of this rising and falling
that never ends, and only by riding the wave can you ensure that the waves
don’t drown you. The ego takes everything personally, leaving no room for
higher guidance or purpose. If you can, realize that a cosmic plan is unfolding
and appreciate the incredibly woven tapestry for what
it is, a design of unparalleled marvel.

Deepak Chopra
The Book of Secrets

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the
consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground
upon which I stand.

Thich Nhat Hanh

There are the waves and there is the wind, seen and unseen forces.
Everyone has these same elements in their lives,
the seen and unseen, karma and free will.

Kuan Yin

Not only is there often a right and wrong, but what goes around does
come around, Karma exists, chickens do come home to roost, and as my
mother, Phyllis, liked to say, “There is always a day of reckoning.” The
good among the great understand that every choice we make adds to the
strength or weakness of our spirits—ourselves, or to use an old fashioned
word for the same idea, our souls. That is every human’s life work: to
construct an identity bit by bit, to walk a path step by step,
to live a life that is worthy of something higher,
lighter, more fulfilling, and maybe even everlasting.

Donald Van de Mark
The Good Among the Great

It is your karma to fight evil. It doesn't matter if the people that evil
is being committed against don't fight back. It doesn't matter if the
entire world chooses to look the other way. Always remember this.
You don't live with the consequences of other people's karma.
You live with the consequences of your own.

Amish Tripathi
The Secret of the Nagas

Belief in karma ought to make the life pure, strong, serene, and glad.
Only our own deeds can hinder us; only our own will can fetter us.
Once let us recognize this truth, and the hour of our liberation
has struck. Nature cannot enslave the soul that
by wisdom has gained power and uses both in love.

Annie Besant

Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.

Edwin Hubbel Chapin

People pay for what they do, and still more, for what they
have allowed themselves to become. And they pay
for it simply: by the lives they lead.

Edith Wharton

Articles and book excerpts on karma:

The Law of Karma Is the Law of Life Asoka Selvarajah
Being Together: How to Live in Harmony with Everything Joan Duncan Oliver

There is a destiny that makes us brothers: none goes his or her way alone,
All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.

Edwin Markham

People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are
going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are
being punished. That's not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that
you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To
the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting
your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift
of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything
you need to open further.

Pema Chodron

It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how
to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma
will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.

Randy Pausch

When you say "Wait a moment," you are bound by your
own karma; when you say "Yes I will," you are free.

Shunryu Suzuki

Due to having made karma, rebirth consciousness arises. But we need
not think of rebirth only in a future life. We are in actual fact reborn
every moment with new thoughts and feelings, and we bring with us
the karma that we made in past moments. If we were angry a moment
ago, we are not going to feel good immediately. If we were loving
a minute ago, we would be feeling fine now. Thus we live from
moment to moment with the results of our karma.

Ayya Khema

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I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions
which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and
grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there
were an impersonal karma within a family which is passed on from
parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer
questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not
yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue,
things which previous ages had left unfinished.

Carl Jung