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With the publication of his book My Remarkable Journey, Larry King loosens his suspenders and dips his toe in his own karmic stream.

During his book tour, I heard Jian Ghomeshi interviewing him on May 26, 2009 on CBC Radio One

Among other things, Larry said that throughout most of  his life he hasn’t engaged in “introspective thinking” because he “lives in the moment.” (I myself don’t think of the two as being mutually exclusive.) Larry never asked himself “why?” or checked the connection between cause and effect in his own life – i.e. he didn’t interview himself! He didn’t explore his own karma.

Larry’s famous suspenders kept him together — kept his manufactured self (ego) in place — until now. The man whom many consider the king of all interviewers is finally interviewing himself.

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Eight-year-old Victoria (Tori)  Stafford went missing on or about April 08, 2009. On May 19, 2009 two people — Michael Thomas C.S. Rafferty, 29, and Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18 — were arrested for the abduction and murder of Tori.

Rex Murphy, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation  (CBC)-TV, on “The National,” May 21, 2009, eloquently gave his point of view about the murder.

We all wonder “what kind of people would abduct and then murder a child? How do people come to this point?”

This is where the 12 factors that create and maintain our karma may help us gain some insight.

In previous posts we have looked at the 12 factors in terms of past lives and how they influence our present one.

In this post, we’ll look at the factors in terms of one particular action.  Killing.

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© The New Yorker Collection 2000 David Sipress from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

Meditation is no longer a strange word. Scientists have done many studies recently to show the benefits of meditation on our health, both physical and mental. Stress reduction.

This post is, however, not directly about the health benefits. It is about the way to cut through our karmic cycle, to change the course of our karmic stream.

We cannot avoid karma as long as we have continual thoughts and continual subconscious gossip. As long as we have a liking and disliking state of mind happening all the time, we cannot avoid karma at all. I think it is quite straightforward. The idea is that virtuous karma, good karma, produces good situations. It’s sort of predetermined. And bad karma produces bad results, which are also predetermined. (Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche)

and:

But at the same time we can prevent sowing futher seeds of karma altogether by realizing that there is a level where karmic seeds are not sown, the nonthought level. That is why we meditate. It has been said that sleeping, dreaming, meditating, and developing awareness are the only states in which we do not sow further seeds of karma. <emphasis mine>(Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche)

√It is said that the mind that created our karma is the same mind that can change its course.

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On Sunday, May 03, 2009 I watched a television programme on the world’s oldest living conjoined twins on The Learning Channel. On Mother’s Day, May 10, I want to pay tribute to their step-mother Mary. Their biological mother rejected them.

With their bodies fused at the lower chest, doctors didn’t think that conjoined twins Ronnie and Donnie would survive through the night. But the twins have confounded everyone by living to the ripe old age of 57. <source – The Learning Channel)

I was so moved by Ronnie and Donnie’s story. Besides feeling great appreciation for their step-mother Mary, I want to honour the twins for demonstrating in a physical way that we are all spiritually, emotionally and psychologically interdependent in this world. That we are not separate or independent from others.

They illustrate in such a heartfelt way the notion of skillful means and compassion.

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My friend Marigold sent me a copy of actor Gwyneth Paltrow’s online newsletter Goop, edition April 16, 2009 in which Paltrow asks: Why are people delighted when bad things happen to other people?

Possible answer: we feel better about ourselves. Why? Because we can “shore up” what we mistakenly believe is our own independent, ongoing, permanent identity.

At the end of her article the actor asks:

I’m curious about the spiritual concept of “evil tongue” (speaking evil of others) and its pervasiveness in our culture. Why do people become energized when they say or read something negative about someone else? What does it say about where that person is? What are the consequences of perpetuating negativity or feeling schadenfreude?

While contemplating Paltrow’s question on her Goop website, I thought of the nursery rhyme about the Goops written by Gelett Burgess and published in 1900.

The Goops they lick their fingers,
And the Goops they lick their knives;
They spill their broth on the tablecloth –
Oh, they lead disgusting lives!
………
……..

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