Karma

Karma is not punishment or retribution but simply an extended expression or consequence of natural acts. The effects experienced are also able to be mitigated by actions and are not necessarily fated. That is to say, a particular action now is not binding to some particular, pre-determined future experience or reaction; it is not a simple, one-to-one correspondence of reward or punishment.... Karma is not a theory that says you do this, you will get that, whether good or bad. It says do good work, I'll decide when you'll get good results, when you need it, and not when you want it. - Parvesh Singla

Karma is not simply the belief that everyone should get an equal taste of the hardships and enjoyments of life. It also has to do with cosmic punishment and reward for good and evil actions – but even this isn't the main point. A deeper purpose of karma is to give people the opportunity to develop spiritual mastery of the pains and pleasures involved with life. Once you come to terms with what life has to offer and grow to see things as they are, then you're ready to move on to a higher level of existence. - Jay Stevenson

Karma is not something pessimistic. If you think of karma as something wrong, you are seeing karma only according to what happened in the past. You look at the past and karma becomes a monster. So you should also look at karma in the present and future. Then karma becomes something very wide and really alive. Through karma you can understand what your destiny is. Destiny itself has no solid form; it's something you can create. You can create your life. That is why we study karma. - Dainin Katagiri