Sam Vara wrote:I don't, of course, have any insight into the workings of kamma at this level, but there are two possibilities which spring to mind. One is that if kamma can determine where we are born, and to which parents, etc., then it could presumably also determine (by the same mysterious process) how we are perceived by others. Secondly, in the case of human beauty, there are trans-cultural standards of what counts as attractive. These appear to be "hard-wired" into the organism, possibly as an evolutionary factor in reproduction and child-rearing, and consist of factors such as symmetry and proportion. Whereas our preferences in mountains are subjective (craggy or smooth?) we can all agree that a person whose body is asymmetrical, or lacking an eye or limb, is ceteris paribus less attractive than one whose features are perfectly regular.clw_uk wrote: How on earth can you say good actions lead to "beauty" when beauty is merely perception. It doesn't actually exist as a quality of the world.
For example a mountain doesn't have the charateristic of "beautiful". The notion of beauty is added to the mountain via the individuals perception.
It then seems strange to say that a particular action leads to beauty.
The problem here is that someone else's Kamma then influences, or determines, my perception of them. That seems a real stretch.
Also there are some people who find "unsual" traits attractive, such as amputee fetishes. If one person finds you attractive and another unattractive you are, in essence, neither. From this the claim that actions can lead to beauty or ugliness seems to be a bizzare one.
To expand, let's say someone is born "ugly" but realises, through reflection, that ugliness and beauty don't actually exist as an inherent quality. They then won't be saddened by other peoples perception of them, which in a sense negates them suffering via their appearance due to past actions.