{"id":993,"date":"2010-01-14T10:08:48","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T10:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2010\/01\/pat-robertsons-comments-the-earthquake-in-haiti-and-karma.html"},"modified":"2010-01-14T10:08:48","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T10:08:48","slug":"pat-robertsons-comments-the-earthquake-in-haiti-and-karma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2010\/01\/pat-robertsons-comments-the-earthquake-in-haiti-and-karma.html","title":{"rendered":"Pat Robertson’s Comments, The Earthquake in Haiti and Karma"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pat_robertson_earthquake_in_haiti.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>posted by Ethan Nichtern<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Did anyone see TV Evangelist Pat Robertson’s comments <\/a>Wednesday on the Earthquake in Haiti<\/a>, from which it is believed a death toll<\/a> of more than 100,000 people may come? He called the event a possible “Blessing in Disguise<\/a>,” and linked the tragedy to a “Pact with the Devil<\/a>” the Haitian population<\/a> made long ago. His representatives released a statement on Haiti<\/a> later backing away from the comments. Wow.<\/p>\n


\nAt the same time, I have been pondering the situation in Haiti from the
\nperspective of karma<\/a>, or cause and effect. The simple question I keep
\nturning over is why do desperately poor people keep getting screwed
\nkarmically? <\/p>\n

In the Buddhist<\/a> tradition that I practice and study, karma is the study
\nof habitual conditioning in the mind, and the relationship between our
\nminds’ perceptions and how the world “out there” appears to us. That’s
\nall it is. That’s actually plenty for it to be, because examining our
\nhabitual mentalities and perceptions takes a whole lifetime.<\/p>\n

A few (deeply) wrong views about karma:<\/p>\n

1. Karma is An Invisible Boomerang<\/b> – and what goes around comes
\naround (which is how I interpret Pat Robertson’s Pact with the Devil
\ncomments). It is not nearly as simple or one-to-one as this, because
\ninterdependence<\/a> causes us to live in a huge web of causality.<\/p>\n

2. Karma is a Cosmic Bank Account Somewhere<\/b> – this is a subtle
\nand deeply materialistic view, and it’s not surprising that the
\ndominant view of karma in our society attempts to commodify it
\nspiritually, rather than use it as a way to look deeply at our own
\nacquired habits.<\/p>\n

3. Karma is a Way to Play The Blame Game<\/b> – The idea that when bad things happen, karma allows us to place blame on the victim. “You were robbed at gunpoint solely<\/i> because of your negative actions in the past.<\/p>\n

Robertson’s comments seem to fall into #1 and #2 here.<\/p>\n

Still, I can’t help but wonder, heartbroken at Haiti, what these events
\nmean karmically. The first thing that came up for me was a feeling of
\nguilt. Combine that with projections on the effects of global warming
\non Earth, where poor countries will be hit the hardest the soonest, and
\nrich countries (which created the problem), will be less effected by
\nclimate change. In fact, some argue that the Northeastern US will
\nbecome more and more eden-like as global warming advances.<\/p>\n

What’s up with Pat Robertson? And what’s up with poor people always getting the short end of the stick? And by that I mean, with no stick at all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

posted by Ethan Nichtern Did anyone see TV Evangelist Pat Robertson’s comments Wednesday on the Earthquake in Haiti, from which it is believed a death toll of more than 100,000 people may come? He called the event a possible “Blessing in Disguise,” and linked the tragedy to a “Pact with the Devil” the Haitian population…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-right-lifestyle"],"yoast_head":"\nPat Robertson's Comments, The Earthquake in Haiti and Karma - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2010\/01\/pat-robertsons-comments-the-earthquake-in-haiti-and-karma.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pat Robertson's Comments, The Earthquake in Haiti and Karma - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"posted by Ethan Nichtern Did anyone see TV Evangelist Pat Robertson’s comments Wednesday on the Earthquake in Haiti, from which it is believed a death toll of more than 100,000 people may come? He called the event a possible “Blessing in Disguise,” and linked the tragedy to a “Pact with the Devil” the Haitian population…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2010\/01\/pat-robertsons-comments-the-earthquake-in-haiti-and-karma.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-14T10:08:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/pat_robertson_earthquake_in_haiti-thumb-200x150-10739.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ethan Nichtern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pat Robertson's Comments, The Earthquake in Haiti and Karma - One City","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2010\/01\/pat-robertsons-comments-the-earthquake-in-haiti-and-karma.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pat Robertson's Comments, The Earthquake in Haiti and Karma - One City","og_description":"posted by Ethan Nichtern Did anyone see TV Evangelist Pat Robertson’s comments Wednesday on the Earthquake in Haiti, from which it is believed a death toll of more than 100,000 people may come? 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His writing has been featured in numerous print and online publications. He is the founding director of the Interdependence Project and the host of the I.D. Project\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s popular weekly podcast (available on iTunes). He is currently on the part-time faculty of Eugene Lang College at New School University in NYC, where he teaches Buddhism. Ethan lectures regularly at universities and venues around the country on Buddhism, meditation, contemporary culture, and activism.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/enichtern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}