Is the theory of karma empirical and scientific, or is it accepted on faith?
The idea of karma makes sense in many ways, but there is some misunderstanding about what karma is. Some people think that karma means fate or predestination. If somebody is hit by a car or loses a lot of money in business, they say, “Well, tough luck, that is their karma.” That is not the Buddhist idea of karma. In fact, that is more the idea of God’s will – something that we do not understand or have any control over. In Buddhism, karma refers to impulses. Based on previous actions we have done, impulses arise in us to act in certain ways now. Karma refers to the impulse that comes into someone’s mind to invest in a stock the day before it crashes or before it rises in value. Or, someone may have the impulse to cross the street at just the moment when he or she will be hit by a car, not five minutes earlier or five minutes later. The arising of the impulse at just that moment is the result of some previous action or actions the person did. In a previous life, for example, the person
