Korean Job Discussion Forums

[paperbag princess]

since i've been in korea, i've experience from both koreans and foreigners, some of the pettiest, most shallow and vindicative behaviour; back- stabbing, lying, cheating and stealing. happening mainly in the work place, but occaisionally in social settings as well. so i started thinking about whether or not people think their actions have consequences. i do and live like they do, however it seems to me that a lot of the people who are here don't.

what do you think? does karma happen, or will crappy hagwon owners and public school recruiters get away with treating us like crap, or will they "get there's" in the end?

[Col.Brandon]

Perhaps for many Koreans, being Korean and living in Korean society is a kind of instant karma. You just know most of them hate their lives; look around a subway carriage sometime.

Their lives suck so they behave badly so their lives suck - hey, maybe I just discovered perpetual motion!

[ChimpumCallao]

i dont believe in karma as some metaphysical judge, but i do believe that one's actions can lead them to negative or positive reactions, just because of simple cause and effect. nothing spiritual about it...if you're a jerk, you probably won't have many friends...etc....

[RACETRAITOR]

If doing bad things has negative consequences, how can you explain like 90% of the upper class? I say doing bad things kills you on the inside but people who do things like this rarely get what's coming to them.

[Col.Brandon]

The recent story of the CEOs daughter committing suicide in New York springs to mind. Cause and effect? Karma? Bad luck?

[Mills]

If, for instance my four-year-old daughter is doing something she should not (climbing dangerously high on precariously stacked furniture), I tell her to stop, she ignores me and falls, I always say "That's karma.", to which she yells "That is NOT karma!". So to answer your question, yes I do believe in karma (this life) but no, my four-year-old daughter does not.

[periwinkle]

That's funny, Mills. I completely believe in karma. I swear, if I do something I wrong, I get paid back twofold. Karma is the best behavior governance ever, if you believe in it. There is a really, really good book written on it. I'll have to google it. The guy cites Deepak Chopra a lot. Gary something, I think...

*Edit* Gary Zukav's Seat of the Soul. I need to re-read it. It's been a good 7 years since I've read it.

[SPINOZA]

Metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.

I do believe in some metaphysical things like numbers, concepts and musical notes, but Karma is just bollox.

It's some story humans make up - like Heaven and Hell - to comfort themselves into thinking people get their just desserts.

It's too similar to religion.

[sadsac]

Put good out there, get good back, put bad out there, get bad back. At least thats how I hope it works.

[ChimpumCallao]

[Ya-ta Boy]

Karma and Hell are concepts invented to make the just-been-screwed feel better about their sore a$$.

[bobbyhanlon]

so what the hell does someone killing themself (�̰���'s daughter) have to do with this? are you saying she deserved to be that miserable in some way? samsung isn't exactly mother theresa, but come on...

anyway i think karma is a bunch of bull. as far as i'm concerned its something people create just to make themselves feel better after having been stepped on by some scumbag who should have it coming, but probably doesn't.
it would be nice if it were true though..

[numazawa]

If there were such a thing as karma, Dapper Dave would spend the rest of eternity glued to a whiter-than-white phpBB Critical Error screen.

[Rteacher]

The intricacies of karma are very difficult to understand because universal laws are made by the supremely intelligent person. The first two options of this poll should be combined: there is karma that determines the particulars of one's next life-situation, and there is also "instant" karma hits us right away (and karma that comes back at us later in this life - good and bad.) There is "mature" karma (past activities) for which we a suffering (or enjoying) now, and there is karma whose reactions are still lying dormant and have yet to fructify. Even if one apparently gets away with murder in this life, the karmic reaction will catch up with him eventually. He may be born into a situation where he will be killed as an "innocent" child...

The material world is basically a nasty place not fit for a gentleman (or lady...) Material society has two main segments: the cheaters and the cheated. Korea is no different in that respect than anyplace else. Heaven and hell are both within the world of relativity. When one's good karma wears out (one lifetime on a heavenly planet = 10,000 human years) he returns to earth. Similarly, after suffering one lifetime on a hellish planet (100 years or less) one comes back to an earth planet. Only when one stops generating either bad or good karma (akarma) can one be liberated from material entanglement and the cycle of repeated birth and death... (In the meantime, we are "free" to choose whether we want to suffer being cheated in Korea - or suffer being cheated someplace else...We may apparently "enjoy" more by cheating others, but we'll have to suffer either the "instant" or delayed reactions ...) In this era of high-tech, mass-scale eavesdropping, it shouldn't be inconceivable that all our activities (and thoughts) are monitored by superintelligent beings who enforce the laws of God...

[weatherman]

The goal is not to collect Karma, but to do good things in your life so as you don't have Karma. Nothing-ness.