Imo, your friend, and some in this thread, misrepresent, or simply do not grasp beyond the very surface meaning, the nature of Karma. It is not good or bad - it simply is. It is the cause and effect in all of universe and existence as we perceive it. It is not that your individual bead on the chain will suffer or be rewarded for actions your previous bead form took (if you even believe in reincarnation), but rather that all of nature and all of existence is inextricably tied together, the influence and impact of one bead reverberates through the string that connects all and thus impacts all. Put another way, suffering and discord put into the universe will impact all future events, some to lesser degree than others. That impact may not necessarily be negative on the micro level for any given individual or life being, but on the macro level it nonetheless adds to the overall entropy and disharmony in the universe. The idea of nirvana is reaching a state where one is attuned to a state of consciousness and existence that does not generate Karma, but rather simply exists and floats on a universal wave, existing as an inseparable and fully necessary part of the wave, simply observing and letting what was, is, and always was going to be be.

The first thing to note is that Buddhism is a broad term that contains a lot of different belief systems. It is also plagued by poor translations of terms that don’t translate well into English, especially without looking meanings of the original terms.

Imo, your friend has distorted and misrepresented Buddhist teachings in order to justify not changing their behavior regarding meat-eating.

I’d challenge the use of the term “deserved” altogether, and I’d say “caused” might be a more accurate interpretation. Karma is not about an intelligent, all-powerful being passing judgement and smacking you down. It’s sometimes referred to as “the law of cause and effect.” It’s described as a function of the universe, the same way that physical laws makes objects fall to the ground when dropped. The exact way in which this works is up to interpretation. More secular-minded Buddhists might point to logical and observable consequences to explain it, while more spiritually-minded ones might argue that it’s more of an invisible, unexplainable force that carries over between lifetimes.

To use an example: a child that is fed a hamburger by their parents does not have knowledge of the animal’s suffering that was required to make it, nor do they have agency to control their diet or to prevent the animal from being harmed. But, an animal is still harmed through the process. The intent and agency of the actor are not important in the same way that it doesn’t matter if a ball on top of a slope is pushed or knocked over. It would only really matter if you’re dealing in terms of judgement.

It is not your responsibility to enforce karma on others. Karma isn’t a positive or negative force, and just because something happens that doesn’t make it good or fair or deserved. Rather, the idea is to navigate the world in such a way that you minimize undesirable consequences. Buddhist precepts are a list of guidelines that are intend to do just that, the precept about nonviolence being the first. The idea is: “Bad things seem to happen a lot when people go around killing living beings so it’s probably better to not do that, generally speaking.”

You are correct that your friend’s interpretation and worldview is a mess of contradictions that could just as easily be used to justify harm to humans, and that they’re blatantly violating the first precept. But I would argue that they’re not accurately representing Buddhist teachings, and their views shouldn’t be held as representative of the belief system, though admittedly, like I said there are a lot of different traditions and beliefs.

That’s a populist belief marred by just world fallacy.

The end goal of Buddhism is to achieve Nirvana, which means no more Karma and no more continuous rebirth amd suffering whether they’re “deserved” or not. It can be implied that continued rebirths are itself suffering. So the only peaceful path is to stop it somehow.

I’ve stopped being Buddhist a long time by now but I did discuss a lot of it’s philosophy with some studied Buddhists and monks.

Also a lot of populist Buddhists are actually scared of Nirvana. They just want to be reborn into a nicer life than they have now.

A Buddhist was saying to me that anything bad that happens to someone is deserved because they must have had bad karma as a result of having done something bad, either in this life or a previous incarnation. By the way for context, the Buddhist person I was speaking to used this idea of karma to defend the evils humans cause to other animals in factory farming.

Their point of view appears to conflict with the Five precepts of Buddhist lay people.

I don’t want to no true scotsman you, but your friend appears to have a really, really poor understanding of what karma is.

Edit: sorry, that was flippant.

Leaving that aside, just from the perspective of logic, basically youre saying if people deserve violence for past acts of violence then why not carry out more violence on them thus causing yourself to also deserve violence for past violence.

Like, why would you?

I think there’s something important in Buddism in separating the bad events you experience from the bad actions others do. I can burn down a building or I could be caught in a house fire - in both cases I’m either executing violence or suffering from violence without a clear second party. I think you can resolve the dissonance you’re feeling by considering a universe where someone’s bad karma will inevitably be paid - if they suffer harm from another then that harm will serve to balance their bad karma… but if they didn’t suffer that harm a more nebulous harm would end up occurring to repay that debt.

Another way to reconcile the dissonance is to figure that evil in the world is inevitable, some people will always do harm and that cycle can never be broken - but, as an individual, you can perhaps remove yourself from that cycle and lead a blameless life. You could do evil yourself, and it would pay down another’s karmic debt, or you could abstain - there will always be another evil doer available to take your place.

Just a clarification, I don’t personally ascribe to this and while I think it’s a good idea to not harm others I take offense to the idea that something like rape was earned by prior lives actions - it strikes me as deeply unjust.

Karma is not about deserving. It’s about cause and effect. If you are harsh with people they’ll be harsh with you. That’s karma.

That’s one seriously confused Buddhist.

Wouldn’t it logically follow, then, that it’s fine for any person to choose to commit harmful actions on another person, since if those harms did happen to befall the person (even if it was as a consequence of our willful decision to cause them), it would be deserved due to bad karma they had from a previous life (even if they were a young child/baby in their current life for example)? And then couldn’t we use this to justify literally any harm we choose to do as being deserved due to assumed bad karma, making the idea of avoiding causing harm (ahimsa/nonviolence) meaningless or pointless?

Before I respond, I just want to clarify:

Are you asking if we can justify our committing harm based on our belief of another’s state of karma and what they deserve?

It seems this is the crux of the your arguments.

Zuzak’s comment is great and i wouldn’t dare to suggest that I could do a better job - I just want to hammer on the point that you are not the agent of karma

when I say you, i don’t mean you DragonWasabi, or you DragonWasabi’s friend, i really mean anyone. especially in most Buddhist schools, there really isn’t a “distributer of karmic justice” or what have you. it’s just, as i understand the Buddhist perspective, a force of nature and it is how it is. it doesn’t need an agent, and acting as if one is that is almost certain to worsen one’s karmic load, hence ahimsa.

disclaimer that i myself do not identify as Buddhist or anything resembling a Buddhism expert. i took one intro to Buddhism class in college and that’s all i’ve got.

Personally, I think the most buddhist thing I have ever read was probably The Egg.

By harming another, you fundamentally harm yourself far more than you harm them. Even if they deserve it.

Why would karma have to come from the self and not from nature?

Probably if there is some sort of universal intelligence evaluating our actions and decisions, it would turn anyone entertaining this idea into an worm in their next life. The premise that the good fortuned should be passive to suffering, and enable it, out of some misguided moral calculus is absurd. You can’t game the system.

It’s just that you are directly hurting yourself. The difference is an illusion.