red dot little duck

I talked yesterday with a man about karma; wonderful Indian man with a strip of red paste between his eyes and a level, kind voice. More specifically the question was about Samskara and how Karma related to that. As usual the answer was not so straight up. It’s like a bit of wind blowing through and around, and to understand, one has to certainly be paying attention to the path of the floating object, the original question. To start with, Samskara, as I came to understand it via this conversation, is, at a basic level, change. You change a pattern and that is Samskara. Karma is (again according to this conversation) biological. It is a result of a pattern or patterns. Some of which we are born with in regard to what we are taught from the day we opened our eyes. Some would even say in the womb. It comes from habitual patterns or beliefs that continue to take us to a certain state. However, we are not “stuck” with this Karma. We have the ability to change it. “You identify the root of this behavior, and you change that. Now you have changed your Karma.” He said with a slight head bobble. Eyes glittering. I could tell he loved talking about it but was also ready for his lunch.

I would love to open discussion on this so for those with some insight please share. For now, this is what I got from my conversation… Samskara is working through your Karma. No one is stuck with their Karma. You simply have to be willing to dig the well and find the root.