Currently I’m studying Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones with a Dharma friend, the Venerable Tashi Nyima.

This is my contemplation on the final line of verse 19 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

“There’s no time to be happy; happiness is over just like that;

You don’t want to suffer, so eradicate suffering with Dharma.

Whatever happiness or suffering comes, recognize it as the power of your past actions,

And from now on have no hopes or doubts regarding anyone at all.”

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

When I was a little girl I had a book about dinosaurs. It was beautifully illustrated. It talked about how big they were, how it would have felt like an earthquake if a herd of them ran past your house, and how some of them could fly. This fascinated me. I would spend hours looking out my bedroom window, sort of wishing a T-Rex would rumble past. I’d go to sleep and dream of dinosaurs, then I’d wake up mildly disappointed because there weren’t any in my waking world.

We all have dinosaur-dreams. We all spend a lot of energy and time wishing for the impossible. Then when we don’t get it, we feel betrayed, disappointed, angry, even disillusioned. We wish for the perfect marriage, then when the other person doesn’t fulfill our dreams of perfect love and happiness, we feel they have betrayed us. We look for the perfect job, only to find that the same annoyingly petty nonsense is in the new workplace and the only change is cosmetic.

We go on and on like this without ever paying attention to the causes for happiness or suffering we’re bringing into our lives. If we change workplaces, but have the same mental habits of aggression, jealousy, and envy, then the new workplace will be the same (or worse). If we are unhappy with ourselves, and we get married, then we’ll be even more unhappy because the other person will simply mirror our unhappiness.

Karma is inescapable cause and effect. It is inevitable activity. This sounds like doom and gloom, but it’s actually the key to freeing ourselves of the cycle of hope and fear that is such a constant in the suffering of samsara. In the sixties, the chant to end a war was “Give peace a chance”. To this I say, let’s end our constant battle with hope and fear and give karma a chance.

***

Apply to a past situation (how would it have been different?)

Like most people, my entire life has been a drama defined by the supporting players of hope and fear. But if I had to point to just one situation, I’d say it was when I wanted to start my own business selling handmade children’s clothes. When I left school, I was disillusioned with academia. I decided to leave it behind and go into business for myself. The product was upscale dresses for little girls about aged three to ten. I was very good at sewing. The dresses I made were gorgeous. I chose good fabric. I followed the patterns. I had a good product.

At the time I believed that just by wanting something badly enough, it would happen. I wasn’t into crystals or beads, but I was definitely influenced by New Age thinking. I might have even considered making a vision board. I knew nothing about marketing. I had no investors. I had no overall plan for my ‘business’. But I figured if I stuck with it, good things would happen. After about six months, I gave it up. I’d only sold a few dresses. And lost money. I felt stupid. I wanted to throw away my sewing machine.

Looking back at that situation, I can notice that I had put no causes in place for a business to flourish. I didn’t network with any local business people. I didn’t do any market research. I didn’t take actions that would lead to a business coming into being. Had I noticed that, I could have taken a step back and asked myself what ‘starting a business’ was really all about. If I’d been honest with myself, I would have seen that the business was a way of escaping the discomfort of leaving school before I finished my PhD studies.

Having noticed this, I might have breathed with that discomfort, gotten to know it well, and eventually, I would have been able to free myself from it. Had I done this, the epic drama of hope and fear, driven by the attempt to escape that deeply painful discomfort of leaving school with ‘only’ a Masters would have had less power in my life. I would have had more peace and clarity. More peace and clarity would have led to more skillful acts. More skillful acts would have led to more causes for my future happiness.

***

Apply to an (ongoing) present situation (how does it matter today?)

The biggest ongoing situation in my life right now is the Pilgrimage of 62. At nine days into it, there is much greater clarity of the connection between what I do now, and what “happens” to me tomorrow or an hour from now.  What I’m really learning these past few days is that there are no exceptions to karma. That should be self-evident. But in a way, before the pilgrimage, I’d sort of disregard ‘little’ things. Recently I left the pen that I use to write in my journal on a different table, and I thought, “I don’t feel like putting it back. I’ll forget I left here, but that’s okay.” But the consequence was bigger than I thought it would be. What actually happened was that I finished meditating, I was ready to write, and…no pen. It took me a minute to remember where it was. I got agitated, and I forgot what I’d originally started out to write.

This sounds very mundane, but I think our whole lives are like this. Most times we don’t even notice the tiny causes for suffering that we put in place. This lack of clarity leads us to have hopes and fears regarding everyone. We become sort of professionally paranoid. We hold others responsible for the outcome of our own past actions.

On the flip side, by scrutinizing my actions, I have been able to put in place small causes for happiness. This doesn’t lead to a fairytale life of ongoing ecstasy, but it does lead to fewer struggles in my ordinary life. I’m tempted to say things fall into place. But I think what’s actually happening is that the causes for happiness I put in place are constantly manifesting. Ordinary life feels like less work.

When something unpleasant does happen, I’m able to pause for a moment and recognize that the unpleasantness is a result of my past action. And this is where the Dharma really supports us. If we come to see the Dharma—which is to say, see the world as it truly is—we gain the power to free ourselves of the entanglements of hope and fear in samsara.

***

Apply to a potential situation (bringing it home to play)

On Friday in a meeting at work a topic was brought up by our manager. I pointed out that it was a non-issue because it was standard procedure to do what she was telling us to do. I asked why it was being brought up. After much hemming and hawing, it turned out that Salem [my co-worker] had made a very basic mistake in handling a whole slew of emails. This is something I went over with her constantly in the beginning. She blew it off. Then I decided to let go, and just let what happened, happen. Her mishandling of the emails resulted in double-billing for a whole bunch of products to the client.

Wow.

Sitting in the meeting, ego was on it. How dare you point this out to me? When did I ever do something so idiotic as not check dates? When did I ever open orders that didn’t need to be opened? How many mistakes will it take before you notice Salem’s utter incompetence? And on and on and on.

Then I noticed something.

The meeting was still going on. Salem was doing her usual smoke and mirror “it’s not my fault” routine. My manager was doing her usual routine of buying into it. The only one suffering intensely with thoughts of aggression and frustration and resentment was…me.

Hmmmmm…this ain’t right, I thought. And right then and there I realized I could go on thinking those thoughts for years, eons, and all that would change was the degree to which I would suffer. Those same thoughts came up all day long. Each time they came up I worked with them by breathing and doing mantra. Sometimes I had to escalate the situation to the Dharma Brigade and recite a verse of prayer.

My normal reaction to an incident like that would be to go to work tomorrow morning with a demeanor of rejoicing in Salem’s mistake, and hoping she makes an even bigger mistake that makes the client complain all the way to the top. But, especially after working with this stanza, I can see how that would be putting in place causes for my own future suffering.

So I’ve decided that tomorrow I’m going to be like a farmer clearing rocky ground for planting. Tomorrow when I go to work, I am going to genuinely look for three things to do that will help Salem. My only guideline is that it has to be of genuine help (not a smarmy…here, looks like you need this), and that I offer these three things with the intent to help. I’ve already thought of one thing, possibly two.

I am going to do this for purely selfish reasons. I am coming to see very, very clearly that the only way to decrease my suffering in samsara is to offer my help to the Salems who manifest in my life due to my past actions. I didn’t get it right before, but now karma is giving me a second chance.

I don’t know if karma can be healed, but just the genuine intent, the desire to help Salem feels very healing.

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