The Power of Karma (part three)

We learn about the positive effects of prayer for both our own needs and to advocate for others. We want the magical events that seem to be outside of ordinary experiences such as an answer to a prayer, synchronicity, or divine appearances in meditation. That would definitely be a kind of amazing and magical happening. Just when life is moving along in a predictable manner, magic strikes! We want it to be that way. We want the surprise of magic in our life!

However, within the context of the boring, the predictable and the ordinary, magical events are taking place continuously within your own mind, causing you to perceive the world, yourself and others in ways that are not actually how they exist in reality. As human beings, we perceive the world as though it was real, but it is like a fantasy, a magical display. Events, experiences, as well as the arisal, occurrence, and dissolution of karma are self-constructed magical creations. The magical qualities of our life are the actual ordinary experiences that are not perceived in reality.

To be unaware of this important dynamic between past and present actions and future events has become normal in this world. So, let us express the meaning of karma in another way. Karma is the self-induced, magical bond that holds ordinary beings to suffering cyclic existence. This form of karma is facilitated by the accumulation of our belief in what we are, in how we expect to react to our world, and everything else that influences us in both our innate and conscious statement of “who I am.” This combined with the original hypnotic innate view that continues to take the transitory to be permanent acts as a magical charm to experience the result like an unexamined template for living.

Personal karma is a template that holds the individuals worldview. Because the karmic charm is strong, the world cannot be perceived in its actuality. This magical bond has so far held you to cyclic existence, even before your birth and after death. That means uncontrolled birth, death, and birth, without choices. You simply are who you are, and you are reborn without having options. In a world of seeming unlimited range of preferences, suffering cyclic existence is the very thing that you would not choose voluntarily.

By living a virtuous and careful life, you would naturally think, 'I have done many good things in this life. I have many friends. I also can produce witnesses to affirm that indeed, I have been a good person. I have never done anything bad!' However, from a Buddhist practice benefit, it is possible to also think that there might have been causes lurking inside, pressuring us, and waiting for suitable conditions to arise. In this way, the cascade from cause to actual event emerges from a seed state to full stinking flowering, created in previous lives. How can we be so certain the unhappy karma that we are enduring, might not be a leftover from some unresolved conflict from the past or earlier in this life? You know, even in the best of lives, somewhere deep inside, when we are honest with our self, there is a feeling of unresolved conflict and lack of closure. On the other hand, with all the good things in your life, will the potential for meeting the same nice conditions come again in the future? Can we be so certain that we will get such a wonderful life in the future as right now?

Karma is powerful, binding living beings to the wheel of samsara, the cycle of births and deaths. This is karma. The unappreciated magic of our ordinary karma, combined with our experiences and how we react to those experiences, is another layer of mistaken identity created in the individual personality. To be continued…..