Karma and the Art of Hub Commentary
What goes around comes around is how many westerners think of karma. A cornerstone of both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, karma originated in ancient India. The english translation of the sanskrit word karma is action. HubPages scores your karma, as well as your profile page and each hub. On HubPages your karma goes up when you link other hubs to your hub. My HubPages karma score is 88 . . . but honestly . . . who cares? While karma means varied things to different hubbers, it seems to me hub commentary is where true karma takes place. Positive comments empower hubbers and create feelings of success. Negative comments or deleting positive comments leads to discontent. In his book The Essential Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama devotes chapter 10 to karma. He says karma is more than just cause and effect, because it involves intentional action and therefore an agent.
Motivation and Intent
Intent is defined as resolve or determined to do. What motivates our intention? Let's think of our hubs as gardens and the comment capsules as flower beds. After reading a hub you may feel compelled to comment and vote up, useful, funny, beautiful, awesome or interesting. Your thoughts are seeds that sprout into sentences to enhance the hub you have read. The hub's gardener is free to approve or deny your comment as well as respond. A gracious gardener will favor nourishing comments with positive feedback. Even a bland remark such as "great hub" is fertilizer for the garden. Positive interaction in the comment capsule creates friends, followers and flourishing hubs.
Jealousy, Anger and Disgust
Before you post your comment ask yourself "What are my motives behind this comment." Experiencing a negative motive, such as jealousy, anger or disgust calls for introspection. According to the Dali Lama afflictive emotion is our ultimate enemy and a source of suffering. Emotions without proper reason are what buddhists call afflictive emotion. Afflictive emotion eats at inner peace and becomes the inner enemy, eventually destroying peace of mind and even health, and friendships. Compassion and altruism on the other hand are emotions that have reasoning and intelligence behind them. I have seen a few negative and abusive comments. A hub gardener has every right to pull these noxious weeds. Press delete, forgive the ignorant troll and cultivate good karma.
Ignorance and Forgiveness
Why did the troll put that rock in your garden? Buddhists believe that delusion or ignorance is the stumbling block to spiritual progress. Hubbers or outsiders who leave abusive comments do so from small mindedness. The spiritually aware, more karmic minded hubber looks beyond and sees a rainbow of people with unique thoughts to share.
What does karma mean to you?
"Do not commit any unwholesome actions,
Accumulate virtuous deeds,
Tame and train your own mind."
Shakyamuni Buddha
