Holidays and karma

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Luke
Posts: 1999
Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2009 9:04 pm
Location: Europe

Holidays and karma

Post by Luke »

While I watched the passing of Valentine's Day and then later a very similar Hungarian holiday called "Women's Day," I realized how much new karma is created on these gift-giving holidays which are laden with expectations and strong emotions.

The act of giving a gift is clearly an intentional act which creates a certain type of karma. And depending on the details of the gift and how it was given, the receiver can react in all sorts of ways, creating many new karmas of his/her own.

It seems that as Buddhists, we should be especially on guard on holidays, so that our equanimity is not shaken by all the swirling commotion.

Do any of you have any thoughts about this?

(I want to clarify that I used the word "holiday" in the American sense of "a day that is celebrated"--not necessarily a day off from work or school--in my post above.)
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Madeliaette
Posts: 179
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2011 6:29 pm
Location: Currently in Sussex, England. Formerly in Wollongong, Australia.

Re: Holidays and karma

Post by Madeliaette »

I gave up 'celebrating' holidays - apart from Losar and Wesak - about a year ago. I figured that half of them are Christian and half commercial - and I don't really feel the need to celebrate someone else's religion when they do not celebrate mine/spending money for fake pleasure. (I know - I sound like a miserable old bore.)
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