In Christianity, there is a lot of talk about grace, but I wonder if this quality actually means anything in Buddhism. When we say "grace", we often think of feeling thankful for a provider, a giver or some creator being who has special powers to bless us. While there certainly are beings who provide us with blessings in Buddhism (Dharma protectors and the like), this is not considered to replace karma. In fact, nobody can ever replace another person's karma, so there is no such thing as "grace" or "gratuity" from this perspective.
However, in Buddhism, we have the notion of emptiness--which, in my opinion, counts in a weird way as a form of grace. To be empty means that there is no final judgment or evaluation on what we do, or who we are, in any given moment, because good and bad actions are not forever. I may do something terrible one day, but then the next I am able to redeem myself through improved or corrected actions. The very fact that the mind is capable of improving on its previous mistakes is evidence that emptiness is a kind of grace in the world. Otherwise, a mistake we made ten years ago would still reverberate just like the day it was committed.
Grace is not a free ticket by any means, but it helps to sometimes reflect that our thoughts--however dire they are--are only temporary phenomena, and what they relate to is bound to change. No matter how terribly bad something may seem, at the end of the day, it is but one of many thoughts we happen to have. So I think in this regard, it's important to reflect on how wonderful it is to live in an empty world where change is possible.
Emptiness and karma seem contradictory to me: karma follows us through lifetimes and is not nullified by reincarnation. The only opportunity for change is through reflection and correction. Meanwhile, emptiness is often obscured by the chaos of the world, which is precisely what we need to cultivate as our ultimate goal.
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