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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!)

We’ve heard the term carbon footprint. I have adapted that term and created a new one: karmic footprint.

(Our) actions…make imprints…whether we are acting physically, verbally or mentally.  <source: 12links chapter 2, pages 11-12 >

We’ve all seen children’s colouring books where, if the dots are connected, they form a picture.

Same thing with our lives, or even one action.

The “dots” (factors) in this case are the 12 interlinked factors that create and maintain our karma, which, when “joined,” in the sense of cause and effect, paint a picture of our karmic footprint. In other words, this “dot” leads to this “dot” leads to this “dot” and so on.

Each of the “imprints” below, if put together, might form at least a good, workable — if not necessarily complete — picture of the nature of karma.

In terms of our own lives, we could contemplate these imprints from the perspective of our own personal experience and see as much as possible what the karmic package of our life looks like and how the habitual patterns that are created leave our own karmic footprint.

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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.

The popular view is that the placement of our planets in our natal chart “causes” our behaviour.  I have long believed that it’s the other way around: our actions from past lives create the placement of our planets. In other words, our natal chart in this lifetime reveals our “karmic package” brought from the past.

John Heisler, a physician with a practice in Schubenacadie, Nova Scotia, expressed this view in an article called “A Comparison of Western and Vedic Astrology, ” in a newsletter called Banner, Vol VII, No. 2, April 1994.

The position of the stars and planets do not cause illness in our body or changes in our state of mind, rather they reflect our own karmic patterning, whether it is group or individual karma.

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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!)

When we don’t like what someone is saying about our behaviour, we may say, in defensive tones, “Oh you’re just projecting.”

They’re right! But it goes well beyond mere defensiveness. What’s more important is that what we call “reality” is made up of our projections.

What exactly does this mean?

First, what are projections? They are our thoughts about things. We see a dog and immediately project “nasty” onto the dog.

Second, what’s the problem with projections? Nothing really, until we confuse our thoughts about things with the things themselves! In other words, when projections become our reality. And it happens so quickly that we are not aware of it. Put another way, we believe that what we perceive is inherently “real.” So we fail to realize that what we call “reality” is actually our own projections coming back to us.

“It is not getting rid of our projections, but copping to the fact that we are projecting. Then we can leave space for things to be as they are.” (source: Jim Lindsey, student, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche)

For me, the episodes from the old television series called The Twilight Zone, now out on DVD, represent projections in their extreme form.

Example: take the episode called “Nothing in the Dark.” An elderly woman has, she thinks, kept Mr. Death at bay by refusing to open her front door for years!

How do we get out of the Twilight Zone of our daily lives and live directly in the sun? Another way to put this is: what can help us see projections as projections? Click here.

If you found this post helpful, please tell a friend. Then consider subscribing to my weblog. Just click the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and then follow one of three sets of simple, step-by-step instructions. Thank you.

(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!)

You have access to two homes that you can’t sell, take out mortgage on, trade, give away, change the structure of ….

What do these homes look like? What is their location? Actually, there’s no shortage of explanations, descriptions, analyses — both ancient and modern — of these homes. I’d like to share a description I read two days ago. For me, it’s moved into first place!

(The emphasis is mine.)

Scientific research reveals that the universe is a wonderful and mysterious place. Indeed, modern physicists sound more and more like ancient mystics as they describe its nature. The seeming vacuum of “empty space” is now portrayed as being filled with immense amounts of energy; our vast cosmos is viewed as profoundly interconnected in ways that transcend all apparent separation in space and time; despite its monumental size, our cosmos is thought to have emerged from an area smaller than a pinpoint; matter is no longer viewed as being “solid” but, instead, is thought to be composed of whirlwinds of energy that flow together with such precision that they give the appearance  of solidity…. <click here for source>

For me, the good news is that there is no separation between this fabulous universe and our own minds.

In short, our mind shares the same nature as the universe. And the universe shares the same nature as our mind. And they are both our homes.

If you found this post helpful, please tell a friend. Then consider subscribing to this weblog by clicking on the Subscribe button and following one of the three sets of simple, step-by-step instructions. Thank you.

(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!)

Dharamsala, India, July 1971, audience with HH The Fourteenth Dalai Lama

Amidst all the suffering — which I knew was somehow connected to my karma, but didn’t understand much more than that at this point — in the 1970s, there were a few beams of light in my life. One of them was meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV at Brock University in the Fall of 1967 and my pilgrimage with 108 others to India to see His Holiness, among other teachers. The trip took place from mid May to mid August, 1971.

India and Pakistan were preparing for war. Before reaching India, we disembarked from the ship and took a sight-seeing trip to Tata to see some historial ruins.  My friend Mary and I were almost kidnapped by the taxi-cab driver and his friend.

It was not uncommon to see tanks rolling along the roads in Northern India, where we spent most of our time. We arrived in Bombay in mid July. The transit system was on strike.

The trip was like a fiction story because the cultural differences appeared so vast between Canada and India: black market money exchanges; railroad stations that bring Dante’s Inferno to mind; babies purposely deformed so someone will have pity and give the mother some money; and a bureaucracy that made Canada’s look like a “love-in” scene…

I kept wondering how India could go on existing one more day — the continuing, grinding poverty; the 7,000,000 refugees; the monsoon floods; the eastern tidal wave; people who never leave the floor of the train stations. At some point the aware traveller is going to raise some questions, the type that never seem to have any answers as we conventionally think of them, despite all our sophisticated social scientific explanations.

Why does one country have so much suffering?….Actually, it can be difficult to compare the Indian experience with any other. In order to compare and contrast there at least must be a shared human experience.

There is: human suffering.

The following account is from a diary entry circa August 05, 1971 from my Trip Journal.

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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 are told that karma is carried from one lifetime to another and from one situation to another in this present lifetime. It’s much like passing the torch in a relay race. But what does karma actually look like “on the ground” in our daily lives? 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?

Based on my weblog page called Actual face of karma, what would the life of someone who is the present (fictional) incarnation of Queen Tiye (mother of Akhenaten), Queen of Sparta (aka Helen of Troy), Queen 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 six historical figures in areas like money, sex, friendships, career, 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 28th day of the month of April in the year 1999 CE. May it benefit all those who are trying to understand their own karmic footprint.

All my desires around relationships, career, money, friendships etc. are thwarted. I spend a considerable amount of time during my life asking “Why?” No matter what I do, it is unsuccessful. I try many methods. They fail. About the only thing I understand is that it is some karma I have brought with me from my past. Results coming due from seeds planted long ago. But what kind of seeds? What kind of karma? My desires in past lives were ego-based. In those lifetimes “I” was used to being famous and powerful and had abused that power. Actually, it’s not so much “bad” karma as it is frustration with not getting what I want now. Karma is a balancing act: “I” was powerful at the expense of the well-being of others. Now I feel powerless.

Update: Sunday, October 04, 2009:

• Today is the anniversary of the death of the Spanish St. Teresa of Avila, one of the historical figures in our Portrait Gallery — as described in the Prologue above — who died at the age of 67 in 1582.
• Karma from my past actions has now ripened because my desires in the past were ego-based. The antidote to this habitual pattern is to put others’ first rather than wallowing in self-absorption.
  

If you found this post helpful, please tell a friend. Then consider subscribing to my weblog. Just click the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and then follow one of three sets of simple, step-by-step instructions. Thank you.

(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!)

True freedom, true liberation, is going to come from egolessness, selflessness. <Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: Shambhala Day Address, 2004; paragraph 23>

In the post on September 06′09, part 1 in a series of 3, we raised the question of whether there is really such a thing as “free will.”

In part 2 we pointed out that as long as ego is our default position, we only have relative freedom i.e. the freedom to choose how to respond to the consequences of our past actions that have now ripened. We cannot change the consequences. In part 2 we examined a few of the 12 factors that create and maintain our karma, and where we could cut the links of the chains that bind us.

But that is just dealing with what we “see,” as it were, above ground.

How about the roots?

In this post, part 3 of 3, we will deal with the root of why were are not really free — Ignorance. That’s the most crucial factor of all. Ignorance here doesn’t refer to some mistake that we made, like a a case of “mistaken identity” where we think that ego, our manufactured self, is who we really are. For sure, that is a problem. But not the most fundamental one.

To repeat, our lack of ultimate freedom goes back to the ignorance described in the first factor.

…why does conditioning [and our karma] arise in the first place? How did the whole process ever start? The Buddha traced the root cause back to ignorance, the mind’s ignorance of its own awakened nature—the final and original link in the chain. This is the farthest back we can go within the circle of samsara [the world of confusion based on ignorance; ego’s creation]; this is where everything begins. …Ignorance means ignoring the truth of reality, shutting one’s eyes to the awakened state. Although the light of reality is ever-present, ignorance chooses to remain blind. The nature of this blindness is to believe in the existence of a separate, independent self. (source: Francesa Freemantle: Luminous Emptiness, publ. Shambhala 2003, page 28)

“…The nature of this blindness is to believe in the existence in a separate, independent self.” I was wondering what example I could use from daily life to underscore this idea when I came across a wonderful story:

…on my high chair at the dining room table, I would stare at a candle flame, seeing that it was always changing. I’d stare right into the centre of it, and even though it always had a yellow color, it was always vibrating ever so slightly. There wasn’t anything constant there that you could call the flame, as if it actually existed for some time. These childhood perceptions…led me to realize that nothing remains. The stuff of ourselves is like the flame …. What existed a few moments ago is not somehow sitting on top of the present.” (source: Jeffrey Hopkins: A Truthful Heart)

Once we’re caught up in the deluded belief in some permanent, independent self and some corresponding permanent, independent other, then “the full catastrophe,” as alluded to by Anthony Quinn in the movie Zorba the Greek (1964), follows.

So we have to replace ignorance with knowledge in order to be free. Otherwise, the only “freedom” we have is to choose now this poison, now that poison, or chose to follow this disturbing thought rather than that one!

If you found this post helpful, please tell a friend. Then consider subscribing to my weblog. Just click the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and then follow one of three sets of simple, step-by-step instructions. Thank you.

(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!)

In the post on September 06’09 we raised the question of whether there is such a thing as “free will.”

Generally speaking, as long as we are in the grip of an almost irresistible, spinning undertow as described by the 12 factors\links, there is no ultimate freedom.

Specifically speaking, there is no freedom without  understanding the concept and reality of dependence and  interdependence i.e. this leads to this leads to this and so on. On and on. It’s like links in a chain. Each link produces (makes
possible) the next link.

Why? Because we are just following the habitual patterns that have been imprinted on our minds from previous actions. Continually acting on these patterns both maintains our current karma and creates further karma. To repeat, no ultimate freedom to be found here.

Only when we go completely beyond karma (cause and effect) can we be truly, ultimately, free. That takes time. Lots of time. But we live in the relative, conventional world.

So what do we do in the meantime? That is what Part 2 of this series about free will is about. Read the rest of this entry »

Readers 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 are told that karma is carried from one lifetime to another and from one situation to another in this present lifetime. It’s much like passing the torch in a relay race. But what does karma actually look like “on the ground” in our daily lives? 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?

Based on my weblog page called Actual face of karma, what would the life of someone who is the present (fictional) Cleopatra actually look like? In other words, what is the fruition of the karma of this historical figure in terms of money, career, sex, family, friendships etc. To try to answer this question, I use personal and private diary entries like the one below.

*  *  *  *  *  *

I, Rainbow Desert Flower, enter this into my private diary on the 25th day of the month of November in the year 2004 CE. May it benefit all those who are trying to understand their karmic footprint.

June 21’01 – I notice a sore on present-day incarnation of Marc Antony’s lower left leg. Ask him how long he’s had it. Two years, he says. I try to hide my shock. That’s a long time for a sore not to heal. I ask him to go to the doctor, something he doesn’t like to do. Doctor sends him to oncologist who digs out the cancer from “Marc Antony’s”  leg.

February, 2002 – “Marc Antony” misses follow-up appointment with the doctor. Doesn’t book new one.

November 27, 2001 – I  am very fussy re locking door tonight. Keep checking it before I go to bed.

November 28, 2001 – Have premonition of “Marc Antony’s” death in what I call the “Shroud Dream.”

Dream: I hear someone in the hall outside my bedroom. A long piece of wood materializes beside my bed that I can use to protect myself. A figure shrouded in white from head to foot enters my room and walks over to “Marc Antony’s” side of the bed near the window. I try to scream or shout in fear – feel constricted.

May 06, 2002:  “Marc Antony” leaves his jewellery — the gold ring I gave him on September 5, 2001 and the Cleopatra medallion on a silver chain that I gave him in July, 2001 — when he leaves my house to go to his office. I speak to him later in the day — he does not realize that he is not wearing his jewellery. A reflection of his feelings.

July 15, 2002: “Marc Antony” writes me a letter to say that he is in crisis and has gone into isolation. I leave him a voice-mail message to say that this is the kind of situation where you call on your friends to help.  I am taken back to September 02, 31 BC — Marc Antony is so severely depressed after losing the battle of Actium that he leaves Cleopatra’s palace to live in isolation on the beach of Alexandria.

July 28, 2002: “Marc Antony” telephones to tell me that his cancer has reoccurred. Has three months to live. Says that on July 7th he could not swallow food at supper.  Went to the hospital emergency department. Waits for nine hours. Diagnosis: cancer of the oesophagus from smoking. I realize that his not taking me with him to the hospital or communicating with me until July 28th reflects his lack of interest and love in our relationship in this lifetime.

November 24’04 – Walk into store that sells old records. Felt the presence of  “Marc Antony” on my left shoulder while looking at old George Carlin albums.  “Antony” likes Carlin. Haven’t spoken to “Antony” since July, 2002 when he told me that the cancer had travelled up from his leg to his throat.

November 25’04 – 06h30 – don’t usually check my e-mail before going to work, but I did today. E-mail from “Marc Antony’s” son re death of “Antony.”

This death is a kind of suicide. In other words, instead of falling on his sword as Marc Antony did, in this lifetime he traded one killer (sword) for another (smoking), and died at age 61 of cancer of the oesophagus on November 22, 2004. I mourned not only his death, but our lifetime together. From having once been his “queen,” I was firmly relegated to second place in this lifetime. From the greatest lovers in history to….a “recreational relationship.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Readers 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 membert to team member in a relay race. But how is that karma actually experienced “on the ground” in future lifetimes? Put another way, what happens when certain causes and conditions meet and certain karmic seeds ripen?

Based on my weblog page called Actual face of karma, what would the life of someone who is the present (fictional) incarnation of Queen Tiye (mother of Akhenaten), Queen of Sparta (aka Helen of Troy), Queen 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 six historical figures in areas like money, sex, friendships, career, family etc.? To try to answer this question, I use diary entries like the one below.

*  *  *  *  *  *

It’s a very hot summer evening in July 2001. My life partner and I are sitting on my back porch chatting. He is bitter about the role sex has played in his life. He got drawn into a marriage that was deeply unhappy. I tell him that I’ve come to the conclusion that sexual attraction seems to be some sort of a cosmic joke. But not in any cynical sense. Just as part of a “cosmic plan” for human beings. After all, Earth is the planet of desire. And it’s desire that propels us into relationships. And we need relationships in order to evolve, to “wake up.” It’s hard work. Most of us wouldn’t do the work if we weren’t seduced into it. This is where attraction generally and sex specifically comes into the picture.

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