How to Change Negative Karma with Buddhism

What you sow is NOT what you reap if you practice Nichiren Buddhism

Sapna M
ILLUMINATION
Published in
7 min readOct 5, 2021

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Nine Levels of Consciousness — Image Author S Shirai

What is karma?

Karma is defined as an accumulation of thoughts, actions, and words, lodged deep within your life, manifesting in good or bad outcomes. Buddhism takes this definition a step further and says karma is the accumulation of your thoughts, actions, and words from the present and previous lifetimes. Karma in Buddhism follows a strict law of cause and effect that none can escape.

But how do we know the depth of our karma and if it’s negative or positive?

An easy way to figure this out is by looking at your present life. Are you happy in every aspect of life from health, to finances, and relationships? If the answer is no for any area, then it means you have negative karma accumulated in that area from your current or previous lifetimes.

Nichiren Daishonin a 13th-century Buddhist sage quotes from the Lotus Sutra: “If you want to understand the causes that existed in the past, look at the results as they are manifested in the present. And if you want to understand what results will be manifested in the future, look at the causes that exist in the present” (“The Opening of the Eyes,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 279).

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Sapna M
ILLUMINATION

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