Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival last week to a Hong Kong TV channel, Stone, 50, said: “I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else.
“And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice bad things happen to you.”
Karma is not like that at all.
What Sharon Stone is referring to is what is commonly known to Muslims and Arabs as kismet, and what the West knows as predestination i.e that a previous sin will lead to a trial similar to what tested Job. It could also be seen as destiny, because that implies that one's choices influences one's destiny, and that one's bad decision leads to punishment by God.
Specifically regarding karma, it is NEUTRAL, but humans judge a particular situation as bad or good arbitrarily. However, each situation calls for a code of ethics to be followed according to the circumstances.
It only feels right to say wrong action in the past begets bad karma in the future. Why not just use the term "destiny"? Or "kismet?"
Anyone who views karma in terms of an absolute "one-size-fits-all" code of ethics is totally missing the point of Buddhism and Hinduism.
Karma actually works within the framework of situational ethics i.e. under these circumstances, these past actions end up in passing on karma by our actions which is like setting up a row of dominoes, die by die.
Just like dominoes falling, the mishandling of a situation may result in a future result as the karma of the previous action is passed on, but only man judges it to be good or bad, according to his whims.
Therefore there is no such thing as "bad" or "good" with respect to karma.
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