I am curious to know if in this life we pay Karma from past lives or if our Karma in this life stays within this life. And if it is derived from past lives how can one find out about it.

There's more than one way to skin a cat!  To discover past lives and the influences they have on this incarnation, you can do a past-life Tarot reading (if you or a nearby Tarotist knows how), past-life hypnotic regression (it was all the rage in the 80s), some psychics purport to be able to tell you your past lives, you can practice several techniques outline by Aleister Crowley in a section of his book "Magick" called Liber Thisharb, or examine your Natal Chart's 12th House for clues as well as your North Node's position and aspect.  And some astrologers believe that Pluto should be part of the picture for this question as well.

Does karma carry over from life to life.  I'm sure you're aware that many faiths that hold strict beliefs in karma do also hold as strictly to the belief that it does transfer from one life to the next - like the balance of check book or ledger carrying over from month to month.  Too many purchases in the red, and that spells trouble when the statement gets sent.

Now for my "opinion?"  There's a little something in applied science that leads us to assume that if something is true in one place, it is true in all places.  Such as the law of gravity, or Newton's Law about objects in motion.  We know with all certainty that no matter what part of the galaxy or even the entire Universe we are in (except maybe black holes - but that's another subject altogether), the rules will always be the same.  And we can even take these things and generalize them into all sorts of concepts.  "Happiness in motion will remain in motion unless met with an equal and opposite force."  Likewise, since cause always preceeds effect, it would seem mathmatically absurd to assume that something ever appeared from nothing out of nowhere - so a soul's force and motion should easily be assumed to have had a pre-existence somewhere.  I prefer to assume that it was a past life.  And that the movement of this life was cast on the currents of the previous life, as well as other concurrent forces known as circumstance (nature and nurture).

So to me, as a scientific mind, it seems logical to presume previous incarnations.  But to what extent do I dwell on this?  Not so much.  Certainly never to blame my conditions on something beyond my control such as a bad attitude while acting as a Roman Soldier leading my life now to some sort of suffering.  To me, that's hogwash.  Blame games are all hogwash to me.  There's nothing in my life now that is not fixable in my life time - unless I should die suddenly and unawares.

yes you pay for karma in both past and current lives - any left over whether good or bad will affect the next life - in other words you can not escape.  you may be able to learn some from a past life tarot or astrological reading, but they normally are of little use. They frequently can only tell you if you were negative or positive (normally negative) and do not really give ways to promote the positive today to counteract.   promote as much positive karma in this life as possible - that way you will not build up the negative and may actually reverse some of the old negative whether from this life or past lives.

Past life tarot readings can be very accurate and detailed, it always depends on the reader. They may be psychic and be able to tap into the memory energy or they may be relying on the cards. Its impossible to generalise like that really.

You could try a karmic reiki session that would tell you what the karma is.

You could try a karmic tarot reading.

Karma is the name given to the energy that IS carried over from previous lives, the debt that needs to be repaid or the lesson that need to be releart or the mistake that has to be rectified.

Wierd to find this in I Ching lol it should really be in the Past life forum?