External karma is the reactions you plant in the universe.
Internal karma is the reactions you plant in yourself.
There are 4 kinds of karma, differentiated by their characteristic loop (table below)
Internal karma is the reactions you plant in your future self as a consequence of the actions you take today.
- The skills
- The worldviews
- The identities
…you plant in yourself with your actions define whether your future actions will be good or bad for you.
Some examples of internal karma:
- if you neglect your body, your body will neglect you (- twitter.com/gorsan99)
- if you act lazy, you'll lose energy.
- if you workout, you'll get energy.
- if you linger in anger, you'll burn your self.
- if you smile, you relax.
…
A misunderstanding about karma is that it is not only about the ripples of our actions which coalesce into the waves that hit us (external karma) but about how the way we trained our body and brain (internal karma) will influence consequences.
Examples:
- we get involved into a fight (not our fault). If we trained (positive internal karma) we'll be able to fight/run and avoid negative consequences.
- we meet the love of our life in a shop. If we improved our selves well enough, (s)he'll react with attraction.
Karma is about judging our actions not for the result they bring but for the reactions they build up.
Karma is about understanding that the world is dominated by second order effects.
When you take a decision, think how it will change you.
Not how it will change things for you, but how it will change YOU.
That's the most important, in the long run