So when you choose well, it reflects well on you, and it’s going to come back to you in a good way. This teaches you to be very careful in how you treat other people, how you treat yourself.

"Mundane right view, of course, is about karma and rebirth: teachings that the West has hated for so long. This hatred goes back to the eighteenth century, when people began to learn about Buddhism and right away began denouncing karma and rebirth as morally abhorrent. That was because they didn’t understand them.

They felt that karma and rebirth were teachings to justify the status quo. If you were suffering, it was because you deserved to suffer: That’s how they interpreted the teachings. But that’s not what the Buddha meant by those teachings at all. His vision of karma and rebirth was much larger than that. On the one hand, it’s because we do choose our actions — and our actions are under our control — that all the virtues we can think of really are worthwhile.

If everything were predetermined, the fact that you were good or bad wouldn’t be your responsibility. It’d be something or somebody else’s. But you have your choices — you’re the one who chooses. So when you choose well, it reflects well on you, and it’s going to come back to you in a good way. This teaches you to be very careful in how you treat other people, how you treat yourself."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Rewards of Right View"

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