Karma Story of Buddhist Ethics

Author(s): Paul Carus
Publisher: Chicago Open Court Publishing Company

Page 48

40
KARMA.
No one saves us, but ourselves, No one can and no one may: We ourselves must walk the path, Buddhas merely teach the way.
110
"Our Karma," the samana said, "is not the work of Ishvara, or Brahma, or Indra, or of any one of the gods. Our Karma is the product of our own actions. My action is the womb that bears me; it is the inheritance which devolves upon me; it is the curse of my misdeeds and the blessing of my righteousness. My action is the resource by which alone I can work out my salvation."'"
Then the samana paused and added:
"While every one is the maker of his own Karma, and we reap what we have sown, we are at the same time co-responsible for the evils of evil doers. Such is the interrelation of Karma that the errors of one person are mostly mere echoes of the errors of others. Neither the curse of our failings nor the bliss of our goodness is purely our own. Therefore when we judge the bad, the vicious, the criminal, let us not withhold from them our sympathy, for we are partners of their guilt."
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