Sometimes we find ourselves in difficult or disappointing circumstances, and might believe that they are not of our making. The laws of Karma are universal, we get what we deserve, so whether we recognise the causes or not, the effects speak for themselves.
We might feel sorry for ourselves, we may think it’s unfair, but we make the causes for the effects we experience day in, day out. Now you may be saying that it’s destiny, fate, or coincidence, but that simply means you are delegating responsibility for your life to chance or a mystical figure whose existence can never be proven.
Why do we allow ourselves to be fooled? When we know the reason for events, we accept the situation and move on. When we don’t know, or remember why something has happened, we waft it away with airy fairy excuses, like fate or God’s will.
I’ve been through the mill at various times in life. Failed relationships, jobs losses, illness and even death in the family. More than enough to make me feel, at times, that enough is enough. But when I sit and think things through, at the bottom of every disaster, there is a cause of my own making.
So I have to be the first to hold my hand up, I’m culpable, in part at the very least, and my chanting, prayer and meditation are the tools I use to put things right.
You might be sitting there thinking this doesn’t apply in your case, but you are wrong. You are where you are at this very second, as a result of all the decisions and actions you have taken up to this moment. Accept your responsibility and start making your own causes to get the effects you would like to see. If you don’t, you have nobody else to blame if things refuse to improve.
So many of us strive for a personal goal, something that we believe will make us happy. That may be money, status, property, love or anything else you would like to cite.
Being a success or good at something isn’t just about talent, it’s about having the desire, in your heart, to make it happen. Ichinen is a Japanese word meaning determination (amongst other things). If you have a strong Ichinen, you are far more likely to reach your goal. You still have to put in the effort and in fact, the more talent you have, the more effort is needed, because your end result might be far more exacting than a less talented person.
With details of the release of the 
We all live with expectations, of ourselves, of others and of the outcome of situations in our lives, and it is all too easy to be disappointed when those expectations are not met.
We are all aware that life is made up of two components, the physical (ke or ketai) and the spiritual (ku or kutai).
Each day brings us joys and challenges, each of which have the ability to alter our life-state in some manner. Joys tend to raise our life-state, challenges may lower it if we let them, and there lies the conundrum. We need to be vigilant, to observe our life-state from moment to moment, but in doing so, we affect that life-state.
So many of the ills in modern society are driven, if not caused, by our insatiable desire to earn, to own, to use, more and more.
Hearing and reading about the attacks on Muslins, by Buddhists, in Burma is rather troubling. As a practising Buddhist I keep getting asked why this is happening. ‘Buddhists are peaceful people aren’t they?’ is a common question, and I find myself having to try to defend the entire faith. There is a misconception that Buddhists exist is some kind of parallel universe, unaffected by the goings on in the real world … wrong.
The Search For Enlightenment 
Recents Comments