Karma

Religion has attempted to give meaning to suffering in many different ways, as a way to make life more satisfying, more endurable, more explainable. In Hinduism, there is the concept of reincarnation and of karma--people are encouraged to make the best of their current lot in life since it is a result of their past actions—in this life and prior ones. In Hinduism, there is no way to rise above one’s current caste, but good deeds in this lifetime are believed to ensure a better life in the next reincarnation.

Buddhism also includes the concept of karma. It’s helpful to think of karma not just about what we have personally done, but about all the causes and effects in the world, both now and in the past, either by ourselves, our families, other beings. Tracking karma is not quite so simple as we might wish. We can’t control the actions of all beings on this planet. But, we can control our own. We can begin immediately to change our actions to more skillful ones, and have a positive impact on our lives and the lives of others going forward. If it’s so simple, why doesn’t everyone act skillfully to create good karma?

Many of us find it difficult to begin making positive changes in our lives because of the perceived obstacle of our past experiences and actions.

In Ken McLeod’s book entitled, Wake up to your Life, he describes these obstacles as a wall of illusion that we have built up around us. Waking up to life means that we must first recognize these walls that we cling to so dearly. He identifies six different components of this wall of illusion:

• Our definition of success and failure
• The belief that we are completely separate from other beings
• The reactive emotions that we have developed over a lifetime
• Passivity (aka laziness) = the lack of motivation to free ourselves from suffering
• Our inability to open to others
• Our misperception about the nature of being

Understanding these six components is the first step in tearing down our wall of illusion.

Our definition of success and failure

For many of us, we have looked to our parents and our culture to dictate how success and failure are defined. While we may have innate yearnings to pursue certain paths, we may have delayed or avoided them because of how others viewed them. Perhaps our parents wanted us to be a doctor or a lawyer, and we pursued that path, yet always felt a sense of something missing. Or, perhaps, we have tried and failed at something in our past. We may now be so fearful of failing that we decide not to take a chance. We may see our past failures as what define our worthiness. From a Buddhist perspective, neither approach is helpful. Skillful action is better served by seeing success and failure within the context of the present moment. What did I learn? What can I do differently going forward?

The belief in our separateness

One of the most important messages that The Buddha delivered was the Truth that we are not separate beings. Although it may appear that we are separate from one another, and that our thoughts and actions are only impacting us, a deeper look will reveals the connection that we all share. The life force within us (our Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness) is the same in each being. Once we recognize that our lives are not being lived in isolation, we can start to wake up to the fullness of life. Research shows that babies cannot thrive without human touch. Each of us can only flourish within the context of our oneness.

Reactive emotions

We have all had many, many experiences in life that have helped form the way we see the world. Based on our limited experience, we create knee-jerk reactions to certain situations and certain people, even to ourselves. When we begin to practice meditation and compassionate attention, we begin to see the broader perspective of situations, the wholeness of what’s happening, and begin choose more skillful responses.

Passitivity/laziness

Knowing that mindfulness and meditation can transform people’s lives, why do we often choose to distract ourselves with other activities, convinced that we don’t have “time” to meditate? In Buddhism, there is a story about meditating like your hair was on fire. If you were in the middle of a flame, and meditation would help, we would all make it a far higher priority than it may currently fall on our list of things to do. How often is the suffering not severe enough to motivate us to change? How often do we get comfortable with half-living our lives?

Inability to open to others

We often convinced ourselves that wearing the armor of our personality is the safest way to go through life. Why would we want anyone (maybe even ourselves) to see us with all our parts? When we insist on wearing our personality as a guard against others, when we gloss over situations and or actions to put ourselves in a better light, when we see others only through the filter of our expectations, we erect a wall between ourselves and others. After a while, we might live in a fear of being found out. We become convinced that no one would ever love us if they “really” knew us. Embracing all of ourselves, allowing others , loosens our grip on the illusion of our false front. Embracing does not mean that we are condoning unskillful actions, others or our own. Embracing means that we accept ourselves and others as we are, not perfect, but innately good, regardless of any perceived flaws or shortcomings.

A misperception about the nature of being

After years of building of this false front, we may have lost the ability to easily reconnect with being alive. How often do we live an entire day just going through the motions, never experiencing in real-time that sense of aliveness? We may continue to think of being as this “thing” that we are, this life that we have created. This is a misperception, from a Buddhist perspective. Being is what is happening in this present moment. and this next moment. and so on. When we allow ourselves to wake up to the genuine experience of being, we discover the incredible power that being provides. Allowing ourselves to experience the good, the bad and the ugly, enables us to see more clearly.

Waking up, little by little, seeing things within the wholeness of living.

Pam Asjes shared with me this week a simple but profound thought. “People are messy”. I’m messy, You’re messy. We are not perfect, nor do we need to be. Embrace your messiness. Embrace every part of you. Embrace all the parts of your life and the other beings in it. Ken McLeod gives very simple instructions, “Do this practice (meditation and mindfulness) and bring attention to what arises in experience.”