So when I think of karma in the context of a past life, I think of the character of who I was before now. To what extent was I mindful or was I confused or misguided, and how has that influenced who I’ve become and the behavior that sets in motion future events?

    Likewise, I think of Karma in the next life as who I become in each moment, how the future will be determined by my action, and how those actions will influence my future behavior and the development of my character.

    Because some actions bring us relief they may seem like a solution to our predicament. So we adopt them as a strategy and cultivate the habit of repeating them when similar circumstances arise. If it turns out the actions we took were in fact a way in which we avoided the pain of loss rather than answering its question, it is our nature to continue addressing pain in the same manner. Our actions will then bring about a cumulative result in the future that will be much more painful than what we were trying to avoid.  A

    Karma can be a major attribution to unresolved grief. Judith Viorst in her excellent book, “Necessary Losses” (Fireside, 1998, 1986), observes that the way in which we deal with previous losses will determine the way in which we deal with subsequent losses.

    Unresolved grief may be the result of attempting to avoid the pain, in which case we do not allowing ourself to feel.  In consequence, we are not able to relinquish aspects or our relationship to what has been lost. Sometimes, whether consciously or not, we attempt to continue our relationship long after physical loss has passed.

    The consequence (or karma) is that when future losses occur we are unable to let our self experience the pain of the current loss without opening ourself up to the pain of all the prior losses.    Finally, a day comes when we suffer another loss and the cumulative weight of all the previous losses comes cascading down on us. We may not recognize that the grief we currently experience carries the weight of all the other unresolved loses. To find resolution to the current loss we must first find resolution to the earliest and subsequent losses, even if the most recent loss was dissimilar. The losses need not be of the same kind. They can be losses from abandonment, abuse, broken relationships, financial loss, loss of work, or any of the things we have become attached to.

    There are many ways in which loss goes unresolved. Unresolved grief may be related to the unexplained disappearance or unaccounted for loss of a loved one, a violent death in which justice has not been served in the mind of the bereaved, or the loss of a child through miscarriage and socially unacknowledged losses such as AIDS are a few examples.

    When loss is not resolved one may experience an inability to grieve a currant loss, or one may find the grief they experience to be disproportionate to the level of attachment they held.

    Unresolved grief is self-protecting. It is very difficult to open the heart to that which hurts so much. The paradox lays in that it is only in letting go of the need to protect ones self that freedom is found, not only from a present loss but the bondage of previous and future losses as well.

Read more about the aspects of loss through the appropriate link to the right.

Read the story of Unresolved Loss.

  Karma is a word with compound meanings, and therefore very difficult to define without a context.

   In its most basic sense, karma means ”moving” or “acting” with reference to both deed and doer. In a psycho-logical view, there is no differ-ence between the deed as such and the doer in character. Anything done has a corre-sponding source. Anything done is caused and is in itself the cause of something else. This applies to both beneficial and harmful action.

Nyo. "As it is," the way things are, without delusion, without illusion.