Karma and Catholic prayer: "Purgatory" (film)

PurgatoryMovie.com; Crystal Quintero, CC Liu, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Purgatory the movie: trailer and review

(Uniquely Mary, Oct. 26, 2021) This week only check out the official trailer and movie review. Be inspired. Learn more. Understand things you never knew about purgatory.

The movie seems to be saying that it is not, in fact, "God" who orders rebirth in heaven,  hells, purgatory, the human world, or any of the other planes of existence.

It is, instead, as the Buddha said, one's own deeds (karma) -- merit, "sin," intentional conduct, courses of action. As we sow, so we reap. We plant seeds of action, and they ripen into results (vipaka and phala).

• purgatorymovie.com

"Purgatory" in Buddhism

Dhr. Seven, Crystal Q. (ed.) Wisdom Quarterly

"Ksitigarbha saves." He rescues those in Hell.

How can we, the living on earth, help those who have been reborn in lower (subhuman) worlds, like the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (preta loka)?

There is the transfer of merit -- doing a good thing here in their honor that they may rejoice and thereby make good mental karma they otherwise do not have the opportunity to make in that world.

This human plane is a very fortunate place to be reborn, in that it is an in-between station between the many, many celestial worlds superior to it and not nearly so grim and difficult to endure as the many lower planes called the Downfall (niraya) and lowest worlds or naraka.

In later Buddhism, which is very Catholic and Hindu in its orientation, worship of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva became popular. This figure represents a "savior entity" (bodhisattva), who has vowed to "rescue all beings from hell" (i.e., purgatory, as no world no matter how low or how long the lifespan there is truly "eternal").

He is Kṣitigarbha, the "guardian of souls" who have died before their parents.

Kwan Yin Bodhisattva

The worship of a Mother Goddess figure, like beautiful Mother Mary in Catholicism, is also greater than concern or interest in the historical Buddha. She is Kwan Yin Bodhisattva, the Goddess of Compassion to countless people, primarily Chinese, a billion of whom are uncounted Buddhists.

In fact, in Mahayana Buddhism, the worship of Amitabha "Buddha" is most popular, paralleling Catholic and Christian obsession with the "Son of God" (devaputra) rather than God.