Karma Is Cognitive Bias
We project according to our karmic filter, our perception bias, our cognitive bias. A hundred people will sit in a teaching, and won’t all hear it the same way.
From this perception, we create our own subjective reality, which is a constructed reality that dictates our behaviour. Cognitive biases may lead to distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation – or what is broadly called ‘irrationality’. Unless we are enlightened, we are all subject to cognitive bias, and this is why we must check our motivations for whatever we think, say or know.
Even if we see clearly (and know the right words), this is only to a certain level of understanding, each of which may be correct but with the meaning changing at every level.
See https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Nine_yanas
Whatever we say or do has consequences. Even if we are correct in our view, we still need empathetic compassion otherwise we may achieve the opposite effect of the one we intended.
In the media, we can see this happening every day, where the opposite effect is the one intended. The target is our reactions, our bias that controls us. It’s the ‘click bait game’ that’s so obvious but also dangerous as it can succeed in fuelling our bias.
There are many types of bias; this is a hugely underestimated subject. Here are just three: information bias, selection bias, and confounding bias. It all adds up to collective confusion.
You’ll laugh when you see this – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
The answer?
Know your bias!
“We are free in the moment of seeing.”
– Tulku Urgyen.