Conviction in the principle of karma helps get rid of the delusion that somehow there are ways of getting away with evil deeds

"Conviction is conviction in the principle of karma. In other words, believing that the quality of your life is determined by the quality of the intentions you act on. That conviction helps get rid of the delusion that somehow you can act in sloppy ways, or act in careless ways, or even act in evil ways, and not suffer the consequences.

So many people think, “There must be some way you can get away with that kind of behavior.” And we often see examples of people who seem to have gotten away with it, but if you look at things over the long term, you realize they don’t get away with anything at all. Even as they’re doing that kind of behavior, there’s a lot of dishonesty, there’s a lot of discomfort in the mind that they’ll often deny and cover up. But that activity of denial is a form of suffering. And then, over the long term, there will be more bad results that come back.

When we’re convinced of this, this is a strength because it enables us to make the effort to develop the good qualities in the mind. If we don’t see any use in those good qualities, there’s no way that we’re going to make the effort. But once we’re convinced that the principle of karma does bring results in line with the actions we’ve done, in line with the intentions that inform those actions, and when we’re convinced that karma is a 24-hours-a-day / 7-days-a-week / 365-days-a-year kind of principle that’s always operating, we realize we have to spend a lot of time and apply a lot of focus to the mind, because the mind is where these intentions come from."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Strong & Heedful"

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