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(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

© 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 to show the benefits of meditation on our health, both physical and mental.

This post is, however, not directly about the health benefits. It is about the misconceptions around meditation. It is necessary to deal with this because meditation is one of the tools that can help us to change the course of our lives, our karma. And if we are operating on misconceptions, then we cannot make proper use of this valuable tool.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche provides the context for this post

“If we follow thoughts back, we can see that they stem from an embedded karmic situation that has gone on for a very long time.”

“The point of buddhism is that we are creating future actions. We can change the course. We are not stuck in our karma.”  (Classes 4 and 5)

By meditating, we see how the mind that created our karma is the same mind that can cut the creation and maintenance of that karma.

Before we get into details about how meditation can cut karma and allow us to control our lives, I want to first dispel some common misconceptions: Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

I remember when my parents took me to the three-ringed circus when it came to Toronto.

The world of suffering and confusion seems to me to be like a three-ringed circus. But instead of the circus barker introducing the lions, elephants, and high-wire acts, he shouts:

Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner we have the rooster, representing the poison of passion. Over in that corner is the snake, representing the poison of aggression. And over in this corner is the pig, which represents the poison of ignorance.

The poisons are interrelated. That is why the tail of the rooster is grasped by the pig,  and the tail of the snake is grasped by the mouth of the rooster.

The role of the three poisons? To make us (our egos) feel solid, permanent, ongoing, unchangeable.

They work together. They each act to assist the others. They are partners. And for that reason I liken them to a three-ringed circus. There are three different acts going on in this ring, but at the same time they all mesh together to produce an integrated “show,” an effect.

Read the rest of this entry »

We do not have to believe in reincarnation to benefit from this post or weblog. We only have to agree that present actions have effects in the future. What we call our past history was once the future that was caused by previous “present” actions.

Prologue: We understand intellectually, conceptually, that karma is carried from one lifetime to another and from one situation to another in this present lifetime, much like a torch is passed from team member to team member in a relay race. Put another way, what are the consequences of our past volitional actions when certain causes and conditions meet and certain seeds ripen in the present?

But what does karma actually look like “on the ground” in our daily lives?

Based on my weblog paged called Actual face of karma, what would the life of someone who is the present (fictional) incarnation of Queen Tiye (mother of Akhenaten), Helen of Troy, Jezebel, Cleopatra, St. Teresa of Avila and Sigmund Freud actually look like? In other words, what is the fruition of the karma of this portrait gallery of these six historical figures in terms of money, career, sex, family, etc.? To try to answer this question, I use diary entries like the one below.

*  *  *  *  *  *

I, Rainbow Desert Flower, enter this into my private diary on the 29th day of the month of June in the year 1971 CE. May it benefit all beings who are trying to understand their karmic footprint. This diary entry deals specifically with the romantic relationships that arose out of the kind of past karma carried by the present incarnation of our portrait gallery described above.

Part One:

You needed to see me as
rough
but my kiss told you as
tender

You needed to see me as
critical
but my words told you as
helpful

You needed to see me as
formidable
But my eyes told you as
searching

You needed to see me as
having left you
But my presence told you as
here

You needed to see me as
You needed to see me
You needed to see
You needed to
You needed
You

But where does that leave us?

Part Two:

rough kiss tender
critical words helpful
formidable eyes searching
left presence here

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(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

The story of Helen of Troy, with its combination of sex and violence, has endured for over 3,000 years since Homer wrote about it. There have been movies on the big screen. Movies on television. And scores of books.

Helen was the Greek version of Marilyn Monroe. Her story, as told by one of my favourite authors Margaret George, is a dramatic illustration of the laws of cause and effect, afflictive emotions, grasping and craving. In short, we watch with fascination as the karma unfolds. (For an historical account, based on The Illiad by Homer, you can read the first three chapters of Helen of Troy by Jack Lindsay.)

Helen was Queen of Sparta, married to King Menalaus. While Prince Paris of Troy is visiting Sparta, he meets Helen and the rest, as they say, is history.

Agememnon, King of Mycenae, and older brother to Menalaus, creates alliances with other Greek kings and they set sail — in the fabled 1,000 ships — to make war on Troy. While Agememnon is in Troy, his wife takes a lover. After ten years, Troy is sacked. Helen returns to Sparta with her husband King Menalaus.  When Agememnon reaches Mycenae to take up his throne again, his wife stabs him to death.

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