I’ve heard the terms “Fur Baby” and “The Universe” a lot lately (last ten years). A fur baby is a puppy (or cat) and the universe is a non-gendered, impersonal Karma-like force.

The Universe replaces the false, Western idea of Karma. So the universe is that force which balances everything out. Or more specifically, the universe makes sure that everyone I don’t like gets his/her proper comeuppance for being mean to me.

The Hindu and then Buddhist concept of Karma seems to have something to do with their idea of reincarnation. I tend to think this combination of Karma and reincarnation is more colloquial than formal. In common usage, according to how you lived your life – good or bad – your next life will be appropriately pleasant (a rich man with beautiful wives) or unpleasant (an insect). So a motive for living the Eight Fold Path of Peace, for most believers in Buddhism, is to obtain a better reincarnation.

This concept of Karmic Reincarnation, or the universe giving you what your deserve from your previous life, is why a Hindu can peacefully and with a clean conscience walk pass a starving baby or actually anyone you pass who is openly suffering. To interfere with someone else’s Karma is to cause them harm. This is also why there are no “feed the poor” campaigns in India except by Christians.

However, as with most religions, the common practitioner is not really in tune with what the religion formally teaches. The real goal of a proper Buddhist life is no reincarnation and the end of Self. Just as the real goal of Christian charity is to help a person take care of himself, find work, and to stop making himself a burden to others and to thereby honor God with a life well lived.

Buddhism believes in the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. These truths are Life is Suffering, Suffering is caused by desire or Karma, to end Suffering we must eliminate Karma, and the Path to ridding oneself of Karma is to practice the Eightfold Path of Peace which will lead to Nirvana. And Nirvana is not some paradise but actually means the blowing out (like the flame on a candle) of your conscious existence and becoming One with the ultimate Reality.

The Eightfold Path consists of eight practices: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi or ‘meditative absorption or union’.

The Noble Eightfold Path, also known as the magga (or Make America Great-n-Good Again), is a set of 8 practices to help you end the dreary cycle of birth, suffering, death and rebirth.

• Right understanding: An accurate understanding of the true nature of life
• Right thought: Avoiding thoughts of attachment – neither love nor hatred
• Right speech: Refraining from verbal misdeeds like lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, and senseless speech (which includes joking)
• Right action: Refraining from physical misdeeds like killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct
• Right livelihood: Choosing work that is in harmony with ethical conduct and does not harm others
• Right effort: Making a persistent effort to cultivate wholesome qualities that do not produce Karma
• Right mindfulness: Experiencing the moment with an attitude of tranquility so as to avoid Karma
• Right meditation: Also known as right samadhi, which means “meditative absorption or union”

This path was invented or received by Buddha as a means to shortening the ill-defined paths of Hinduism which he considered unhelpful and unworkable.