RE: karma
Karma is usually understood by people as a law of cause and effect. It seems to me that it is a more limited understanding because it has a shadow of inevitability. For me, personally, it is closer to understand Karma as a balancing force.
The tools of balancing are my feelings about every situation in life. For example if something bad happens in my life, I do not try to see it as a negative effect of me doing something negative sometime. I see this negative incident as a tool to balance. In this case if I feel negative in response to a negative situation, I only make the negative deeper so I try to feel happy knowing that this relation balances out the negative that came upon me.
In the next instance, I can recieve something good. If I recieve something good, I don't feel absolutely happy and try to distance myself from happiness because if I feel happy, then thenext moment I will encounter something negative. Icannot say that it is very easy, or that I can always encounter this, but if you treat it as a game, it becomes very interesting.