user: What is 'karma' according to Buddhism?

assistant: Karma is a central and fundamental aspect of Buddhist doctrine common to all traditions of Buddhism. The Buddhist concept of Karma is a natural process that operates with all our volitional actions and which does not need an external agency or power that sits in judgement.

Karma in Buddhism should not be considered as moral justice, or a method of reward and punishment, that needs an external body or authority to decide whom or what should be punished and rewarded. It is believed that Gautama Buddha attained complete insight into how the process of Karma works during the night of his full enlightenment when, through the divine eye (dibbacakku), Buddha saw how other beings die and are reborn in happy and unhappy states according to their Karma.

According to the Cula-kammavibhanga sutta of the Majima Nikava (collection of the middle length discourses of the Buddha), a young brahmin by the name of Subha had approached the Buddha and inquired as to why there was so much inequality among human beings in terms of being short-lived or long-lived, sickly or healthy, ugly or beautiful, powerful or powerless, poor or rich, low-born or high-born, ignorant or intelligent, etc. Buddha had then explained that:
"all living beings are the owners of their actions, heirs to their actions, they originate from their actions, they are related through their actions, they have their actions as their refuge and that it is action or Karma that distinguishes beings as inferior and superior

The word Karma in Pali, and karma in Sanskrit, means action but encompasses only actions that are intentional, volitional and willful and which will lead to consequences sooner or later. The mind (citta) by itself cannot perform or direct any mental, verbal or physical action and it is the intention, will, mental effort or volition (cetana) that directs any mental, verbal or physical action.

Thus the Buddha declared:
"Cetanaham bhikkhave kammam vadami
Cetayitva kammam karoti, kayena, vacaya, manasa"

"It is volition that I call Karma, by volition one performs Karma through body, word or mind."

user: who is Hugh Ogden?

assistant: <think>
Hugh Ogden (March 11, 1937 – December 31, 2006) was an American poet and educator. Ogden was a 1959 graduate of Haverford College. Ogden received his master’s degree from New York University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He taught at Michigan and then for four decades at Trinity College in Hartford. While at Trinity, Ogden co-founded the College’s creative writing program in 1968.

Ogden was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. Ogden has written an estimated 400 to 500 poems, many of which have been published in small presses and magazines, and he has won a National Endowment for the Arts grant and two Connecticut Commission on the Arts Fellowships. In 1998, Ogden was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry.

Ogden died on December 31, 2006, after falling through the ice on Rangeley Lake in Oquossoc, Maine.</think>
Hugh Ogden was an American poet who taught at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Ogden wrote an estimated 400 to 500 poems, and was published with his book "Gift".  He was born in Erie, Pennsylvania and won several poetry awards and co-founded the College's creative writing program in 1968 at Trinity College.  Ogden died on December 31, 2006, after falling through the ice.

user: Given this paragraph about Simon Bolivar, tell me when and where they were born, and what they are known for

assistant: <think>
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios (24 July 1783 – 17 December 1830) was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire. He is known colloquially as El Libertador, or the Liberator of America. Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas in the Captaincy General of Venezuela into a wealthy family of American-born Spaniards (criollo), but lost both parents as a child. Bolívar was educated abroad and lived in Spain, as was common for men of upper-class families in his day. While living in Madrid from 1800 to 1802, he was introduced to Enlightenment philosophy and married María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa, who died in Venezuela from yellow fever in 1803. From 1803 to 1805, Bolívar embarked on a Grand Tour that ended in Rome, where he swore to end the Spanish rule in the Americas. In 1807, Bolívar returned to Venezuela and proposed gaining Venezuelan independence to other wealthy creoles. When the Spanish authority in the Americas weakened due to Napoleon's Peninsular War, Bolívar became a zealous combatant and politician in the Spanish American wars of independence.</think>
Simon Bolivar was born in Caracas, Venezuela on 24 July 1783. He is known for leading the wars of independence from the Spanish Empire from what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia