Karma Breaker

It's been said by many advocates of meditation that it's a way to accelerate karma, burn negative karma, or even transcend karma altogether. After taking a meditation course in Ithaca, NY this weekend, I think I'm closer to understanding just what such statements mean. My understanding of karma is still limited, but the Hindu concept of karma is still the one that makes the most sense to me, and learning more about meditation helps me understand that better.

It's become clear to me that meditation and karma are somehow linked, although exactly how I've yet to discern. How does meditation, and the joy and inner peace it brings, advance one's goals of lasting happiness in this lifetime? That is, what is its true effect on our physical lives? Does it really make our material lives any easier to live by giving us what we want? From what I understand of karma, the concept of accelerating or "burning" one's negative karma would have a component or result in our physical lives, since what we have done in the past influences our future karma. How meditation reduces the influence of our negative karma is a bit of a stretch for me.

If you ask me, I think how meditation accelerates our karma and gives us happiness is not by changing the physical events that happen in our lives, but rather our attitudes toward them. After all, it has been said that happiness is not born out of our circumstances, but our attitude towards said circumstances. I personally think meditation doesn't necessarily alleviate our bad karma, but rather prepares us mentally for it so we do not suffer.

Or maybe karma is affected by meditation in a way I do not grasp yet, and that meditation has an effect on our physical fate. I do not know. All I know is that right now, my karma outlook is looking good. ;-)