Do You Believe In Karma ?

so how's this? True story. A woman at a party got hit over the head with a beer bottle. While at the hospital in surgery, they dicover she has a malignancy and she is operated on and her life is saved. She later sues the basher and wins. The basher goes to jail. Does the basher get good Karma or bad? .

The result of karma (action) is vipaka, not karma. All you have to do to answer questions like this is look at the intent. If the basher's intent was to harm her, then his action was akusala karma (unwholesome action) and it will result in akusala vipaka.

The positive side of what happened to her in the hospital was kusala vipaka resulting from her own kusala karma.

As far as what kind of karma was generated by her suing the basher, well you would have to know her intent to fathom that one. If her intent was to wreak revenge, that's akusala. If her intent was to protect others from the basher, we might say that's kusala. Only dhamma knows for sure, we as observers cannot know for certain.

To take it to a more detailed level, everything depends on the citta - mental states - at the time the action was performed. Everything else follows from that.

But it's a lot more useful to pay attention to one's own karma ...