How do we explain why mishaps (for example getting killed or injured in an earthquake or being knocked down by a car) happen in life? Do we attribute it to Kamma of past life?
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Who knows what is a mishap?
This is not an EBT story - I don’t know if there are “parallels”, but the concept is compatible with EBT, I think.
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Why do you need to explain it? Some things we make happen, other things just happen independent from us. Is this unacceptable?
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Ajahn Brahmali gave a fine talk on this subject in which he considered those questions:
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Although I do believe in personal kamma, I’ve come to see how dependent origination links every thing. Seeing the delight of the butterfly, I also see the suffering caused by the caterpillar eating the plant. A failure to heed the brittleness of gaskets, heedlessness of oversight and many other originating factors inevitably give rise to an explosion taking the lives of astronauts. When this is that is. From that tragedy arose a deep inquiry and a conviction to become aware and heedful. Challenger’s kamma touched us all before and after.
Sutta SN 36.21 would indicate the view that everything is determined by past kamma is going too far (implying, I think, there’s room for some things just to be accident or happenstance):
Since this is so, the ascetics and brahmins whose view is that everything an individual experiences is because of past deeds go beyond personal experience and beyond what is generally agreed to be true. So those ascetics and brahmins are wrong, I say.
Some feelings stem from phlegm disorders … wind disorders … their conjunction … change in weather … not taking care of yourself … overexertion … Some feelings are the result of past deeds. You can know this from your own personal experience, and it is generally agreed to be true. Since this is so, the ascetics and brahmins whose view is that everything an individual experiences is because of past deeds go beyond personal experience and beyond what is generally agreed to be true. So those ascetics and brahmins are wrong, I say.”
So the Buddha’s teaching on this seems to be somewhere in the middle between thinking everything is determined by past kamma and everything is random.
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Interesting theory. Could well be (though the precise distinction has never been very clear to me).
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Per The Island, idappaccayata is concurrent conditionality (when this is, that is); paticcasmuppada is dependent co-origination (from the arising of this, that arises) separated by time. These two interact to influence any given event. One might say that Challenger blew up because the cold weather at time of launch caused the o-rings to fail (idappaccayata) due to prior heedlessness (paticcasmuppada).
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It’s the nature of the world for bad things to happen. If you weren’t born, they wouldn’t happen.
If you didn’t do the kamma that leads to rebirth, you wouldn’t be born.
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