I knew that was coming.

Oh, duh. You post was a bit vague, sorry.

I'm the same as others in that I don't believe in luck as some kind of driving force, or my reward for deeds in past lives or anything, but on the whole I'd say I'm generally quite lucky. I was born in a first world country where even at my poorest I've been richer than what millions of people could ever hope for. I've got a comfortably dysfunctional family who I love a lot, a small circle of good friends, and whenever I thought I was at a low point, there was always a positive turning point somewhere nearby. I've also never broken a bone, which I'm stupidly proud of for some reason.

There is no luck: THERE'S ONLY KARMA! You try hard, you get what's coming to you and vice versa

Tell that to the victims of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

'Murica!

Regarding material goods, I tend to be lucky often (Having won a laptop and several games - including Skyrim - and music CDs from some online contests)...

In the realm of romance, however...I'm not so lucky when it comes to trying to get a girlfriend

Tim (aka the Slipperman)

I'd say lucky.
It's not like I win the lottery every day, but it seems the smaller things always seem to a find a way to come out at-least-neutral for me.
Late for class? No class or class started later.
Late with an assignment? Seems everyone is late, everyone get's another week.

Things just tend to work out as I live my life.

I get sort of lucky sometimes. Sometimes when things start to seem rough and despairing, I pull out my ace card and voila!

I find that my luck is pretty good when I need it to be, not when I want it to be. I have a feeling this is also somewhat related to karma too, as my luck tends to be better when I try and do good things. Case in point, I helped our school's sister carry some heavy things into her car after I'd done my exams and she let me use the room with the comfy chairs to read my book in 'till the end of the day. When I got in the room, I saw a charity box and I deposited all of my loose change in it. That night, I discovered a new anime purely by chance that I'm liking quite a lot so far.

...hm. Yep, definitely some karma in play here.

AFAIK, Karma is simply cause and effect, not some universal arbiter of morality. A straightforward example might be someone who's a jerk to people will get it back in return for the negative vibes he or she is giving off. Or a dog owner that abuses his dogs and one day faces the bloody consequences.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

– Seneca: Roman dramatist, philosopher, & politician (5 BC - 65 AD)

True say.
But man I cant help but feeling cursed sometimes....

That is simply another term for the same thing in my opinion. Do good things, good things happen to you. Do bad things, bad things happen to you...it is essentially just a positive or negative cause and effect pattern, but I'm just calling it karma because it's a lot shorter and easier to understand for some people.

It would be interesting to see how many people who claim to have good luck are naturally optimistic people, and bad luck the opposite (pessimistic?).

I consider myself extremely lucky. I am right where I want to be in life. Could things be better? Oh Hell yes! My financial life is literally in ruins and every day brings me closer to screaming at the banks and the bosses. But I wouldn't change that for the world. I'm getting married, have a dream job (if not quite a dream salary), family that are there for me and a body that is healthy.

Luck is a form of perception. I see good fortune in the good and a challenge in the bad. Others see bad luck in the bad, and in the good only a respite from the inevitable fall.

I used to do a lot of work for children with severe learning disabilities. If you still think yourself unlucky after seeing their lives and their inevitable future, you're a more depressed person than me.

I seem to have an inverse karma effect: the more I do good things, the worse my luck gets; the worse my behaviour, the less I seem to be troubled with bad luck. Shame I'm not so good at the latter, though...

i'm never lucky, never

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GCyMtNl8T8

Not exactly. It's a Buddhism term, and the cause and effect is rather simple. It says when things happen, there's a cause, the cause could be committed through cycle of life or by many things combined. The effect may not takes place right away, but it will accumulate along with other deeds he/she had done. It could manifest right away, or several years, or even in next incarnation or after many incarnations later.

The karmic cycle doesn't measure in terms of hours or years or through your perception. It's part of the grand scheme of universe, measuring in terms of eternity.


So in Vometia's case. No matter how much good he does, it never seems to pay. In fact he may be already paying back of the horrible deeds he had done in his previous incarnations. What he does right now, will pay off in the future, maybe not right away, but it accumulates until when all factors favor it to manifest. However that doesn't mean it will come to be, sometimes karmic tides interfere with each other and deeds others had done may overcome what he had done. Again, karma doesn't serve one person, it flows as the universe indiscriminately.

Mm, sometimes being good means you do the right thing despite knowing that karma might not deposit a reward in return, and in fact might kick you in the face for it. But you should try and do the good thing anyway...because it's just the right thing to do. That's how I see it anyway.



I realise that my definition of karma does not fit the one Buddhism uses, but as I said I use the term anyway because it's just a lot easier to say than going long winded on a chain of cause and effect.

I don't understand why that would be the case, or why that's even moral. If I want to be perceived as altruistic in my social circle and donate large amounts to charity in an obsequious, self-righteous manner, and some humble spirit equals that amount, it makes little difference to starving Ethiopians, does it?

Of course, the karma that comes with it is that I'll be perceived as someone who displays altruism only for social reasons, thus invalidating any gain and tarnishing my reputation. But the net effect is exactly the same.

This karma thing doesn't really hold in real life. There are lots of bad people reaping benefits, and lots of good people who always have something bad happening to them. Karma seems to be something invented so that people feel good when they do something good thinking they will get something else good in return one day, and that bad deeds will be punished.

And it's not like there's this negative or positive energy which oozes out of people. That doesn't exist.

Some people seem to have a lot of favourable things in life.
Some others are the opposite.
Some are in the middle of the spectrum.

Basically, it's just a combination of a lot of factors in your life.

I'm not sure it's even that; rather it seems a placatory system.

It seems to discourage any pursuit of justice because they'll get their 'just desserts'. Obviously it's mainly contingent on there being multiple lives, but even if reincarnation had evidence (It does- look up Dr.Ian Stevenson's research) that doesn't actually imply karma transfers between lives or is even present.

I wouldn't say it's right or wrong, but sometimes it's like a man blaming public transport when he's late just cause it's easier to get through even if he had good but rather complicated reason. If listener knows you well they'd say meh ok. For those who doesn't know you that well would give you a longwinded lesson like I did.

Again! Karma in effects!

"She". Although I'm not big on the concept of reincarnation anyway, I figure I would've had to be a fundamentally different person to clock up that level of misdeeds: it's just not in my character.