Get a Lifetime Dot Com

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

Prologue: 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 (past volitional actions) of this portrait gallery of six historical figures when certain causes and conditions meet and the seeds of their past virtuous and non virtuous action  ripen in the present? 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 25th day of the month of November in the year 1975 CE. May it benefit all those who are trying to understand their own karmic package.

In Part One of this series, we see how our actions are tied to certain results.

Today, I will demonstrate this link between past actions and future consequences by reviewing some real-life examples that involve Freud, Cleopatra and Helen of Troy. 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!)

If I make certain decisions, I will get certain outcomes. That is the law of karma — the basic flow of nature. <source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche – The Four Sessions of Basic Goodness and here.>

In the post of March 28, 2010 we heard the story of Sariputra, the monk, who roared with laughter. We saw that once the consequences from our past volitional actions ripen,
we cannot change them. So it would be a good idea to get familiar with the
10 non virtuous actions and the karma accumulated from having engaged in them — especially as one of those non virtuous actions is not understanding how karma works! Yikes!

As Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche puts it, karma is tit for tat. <source: description of One of the Four Reminders: Karma, its cause and effect. For full quote, please click
here.>

Here is the chart of the 10 negative consequences that arise from ten past volitional actions. The one thing they all have in common is that they spring from self-absorption <source: teacher Jay Lippman, Talk 5 of weekend seminar in Toronto, Canada on Karma, March 13-14, 2010, Toronto, Canada>:

In a future post, I will demonstrate the information in the chart by using real examples from real lives.

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Thinking I have problems.
Thinking I have.
Thinking I.
Thinking.

There can be many meanings for this verse.

Here’s one:

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. <source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche)

The point of the practice is to stop being the person who has problems, and instead to abide fully in the nature where there are neither problems nor a separate individual to struggle with them.  <source: Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche>

It is often thought that the buddha’s doctrine teaches us that suffering will disappear if one has meditated long enough, or if one sees everything differently. It is not that at all. Suffering isn’t going to go away; the one who suffers is going to go away.” < source: Ayya Khema: When the Iron Eagle Flies>

Leave the mind in its natural, undisturbed state. Don’t follow thoughts of “This is a problem, that is a problem!” Without labeling difficulties as problems,  leave your mind in its natural state. In this way, you will stop seeing miserable conditions as problems.” <source: Lama Zopa Rinpoche: Transforming Problems into Happiness.>

(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 March 21, 2010 post, we discussed what we can do once the consequences of our previous actions ripen.

Unlike Erica in the popular Canadian TV show “Being Erica,” once the seeds from past volitional actions have ripened, we cannot go back and change the consequences.

The only choice we have at this point is how to relate to these consequences. Are we going to dwell in anger, bitterness, resentment if we see the consequences as negative? Or gloat, bask in ego-pride because we see the consequences as positive?

Many of us think of Cinderella as a “fairy tale.” But I like to think of it like this: while we may not have a fairy godmother upon which to call, if we relate to the obstalces in our lives as teachers rather than demons, something magical happens. Just as Cinderella’s fairy godmother produced a beautiful ball gown for Cinderella to wear to the royal ball, and turns a pumpkin into a magnificent coach, and transformed weak, tiny mice into swift steeds, our inner splendour can be released.

When we meet obstacles (that which prevent us from fulfilling our expectations or desires), we often look around for someone or something to blame. Or we may withdraw, or try to somehow seduce the obstacle. These responses keep us imprisoned in our habitual patterns and create further obstacles.

A few years ago, I started to save some of the quotations from daily e-mails I receive from Rigpa Glimpse of the Day to which I can refer when I need help to turn ugly rags of a mentality of poverty into ball gowns, to turn a feeling of being stalled into a handsome vehicle to take me somewhere, or to turn a feeling of powerlessness into a way to energize that handsome vehicle.

Here is my favourite:

Pain, grief, loss, and ceaseless frustration of every kind are there for a very real and dramatic purpose: to wake us up, to enable, almost to force us to break out of the cycle of samsara and so release our imprisoned splendor. <source: October 24, 2004>

This next is a rather graphic description of an enlightened approach to the obstacles in our lives: Read the rest of this entry »

The men I love always seem to die at 19h00.

The common cold had turned into pnuemonia and my beloved grandfather lay dying. I was in university at the time. But my time was devoted to my grandfather. Not my classes. I was getting ready to go to the hospital. It was 19h00. The telephone rings. My grandfather has just died. And I hadn’t gone to visit him that day….

Today is Sunday, April 04, 2010. But I am remembering when it was April 04, 1987,

It’s 19h00. We are meditating in the shrine room.

The telephone rings. We have been dreading this call from Halifax, Nova Scotia. It means that our beloved spiritual guide Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, crazy wisdom master, has died.

I was inconsolable. I could not stop crying.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the world to pay tribute to this great mahasidda (teacher who has great spiritual abilities.)

Here’s an example from one of Canada’s major newspapers, The Globe and Mail, April 06, 1987: 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!)

Doesn’t every good story start with “Once upon a time……..”

Well then, once upon a time, Sariputra, a highly-realized student of Sakyamuni Buddha’s, is travelling with some of his (Sariputra’s) students when they come across a family who has just sat down to supper on the lawn. The supper table sits between a pond and the house.

The fish that had been swimming in the pond has just been caught by the father and is now being eaten by the family for supper. The father, sitting at the head of the table, has his baby son on his knee. As soon as the father finishes eating the fish, the family dog runs up to the table, grabs the fish bones and begins to eat them.

The father is very angry. He beats the dog.

Sariputra laughs. His students ask him “What’s so funny? What do you see that we don’t see?”

Sariputra explains.

In a past life the father thought that is wife was cheating with on him with the neighbour. So he killed the neighbour.

The father’s parents — the grandparents of the father’s children — are deceased. But while alive, the grandmother was a real homebody, very attached to her home, her children, and everything connected with her home. The grandfather loved fishing.

In this present lifetime, the grandfather is now the fish who has just
been caught and eaten by his son.

The grandmother has now been reborn as the family dog!

So the grandmother (now a dog) is now eating the grandfather (the fish) and she is also being beaten by her son in this lifetime.

This story expresses the reality of suffering. It demonstrates how the attachments of a previous life are now expressed in the circumstances of the present lifetime.

Source: material based on weekend seminar on karma by teacher Jay Lippman.

If you found this post helpful, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog. Just click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and follow one of the three easy sets of instructions. Thanks! I would welcome your comments. May you be well and happy.

(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!)

Unlike Erica in the popular Canadian TV show “Being Erica,” once the seeds from past volitional actions have ripened, we cannot go back and change the consequences.

Our past lives karma might be determined but in this life we should always try to remedy it, make efforts to make it workable.” <source: “His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche, January, 2011 in reply to a question that I sent to him.>

The only choice we have at this point is how to relate to these consequences. Are we going to dwell in anger, bitterness, resentment if we see the consequences as negative? Or gloat, bask in ego-pride because we see the consequences as positive?

Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is nudges me off my psychological default position (ego) and helps me to respond to consequences —that I myself have brought about — in a much more spacious, graceful and positive way.

Here’s a book review: 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’m on my way to meet a friend at a restaurant. It’s raining. So I take my umbrella along with me in the car. We meet. Eat. And leave. I then discover that I do not have my umbrella. Return to restaurant. Return to the table at which I was sitting. No umbrella there. Ask the hostess whether anyone turned in a black umbrella. She checks. No.

I demand to speak to the manager. In harsh language, I tell the manager that the restaurant is bad news. In fact, maybe one of the staff stole my umbrella.

When I get home, I’m still fuming.

(source: modified version of original by teacher Jay Lippman)

What just happened?

• umbrella was stolen as a consequence of past negative actions that have now ripened;
• harsh speech and indulging in “the blame game” create future negative karmic consequences;  and
• hanging onto anger by indulging in it, even when the situation has ended, strengthens my habitual tendency to be angry. This ensures that when I am in a similar situation in the future I will most likely behave in a similar negative manner.

In the next scenario, the situation is the same — someone has stolen my umbrealla — but I respond differently:

• recognize that the karma of previous negative actions is being burnt up;
• Although anger is arising in me about the loss of the umbrella,  I refrain from harsh languzge when speaking to the manager;
• when the situation ends, I try to let go of anger every time it arises. This weakens the  negative habitual pattern. The next time I am in a similar situation, I will have a better chance to recognize that this is yet another opportunity to weaken my negative tendency to anger.
  

What’s the difference between these two sets of responses? 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!)

On subway cars in my city, there’s a sign on the door saying “Mind the Gap.” Love it! I need to be constantly reminded to not follow all the subconscious gossip and discursive thought going on in my head and just mind the gap.

The gap to which the transit company is referring is that gap between the platform and the subway car.

The gap to which meditation instructors refer is that between one thought\emotion and the next. That’s where primordial awareness and intelligence lie. That’s where the unchanging essence that underlies all changing things is. This unchanging essence is sometimes described as being as vast as the sky where “nothing but everything arises from it.” The spaciousness that lies beyond the claustrophobia of our conventional minds. Beyond judgment, contrivance, change, accepting and rejecting. Just beyond….

I know from personal experience how, in a nano second, I get caught up in thoughts\emotions and how easily I get “hooked” if one of my painful “buttons” is pushed. e.g. if someone is extremely aggressive towards me. One of my spiritual guides, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, used the example of walking along the street and a stranger looks at you and shouts “F — — K YOU!”  Or my child does something that really upsets me. What’s my usual reaction? How can I avoid going on automatic pilot? 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!)

This weblog is dedicated to the subject of karma and its many facets and factors. Today I write about Milarepa, a murderer and saint, who is, for me, the best object lesson for karma!

When we hear the name Tibet, many people think of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Gentle. Compassionate. Humorous. Loving. Wise.

Milarepa, one of the greatest figures of Tibetan Buddhism, couldn’t present a better contrast to the perception we have of the Dalai Lama.

I mean, Mila was one bad dude. Got into black magic in a big way. Murdered his enemies to avenge some wrong-doing done to his family after his father had died.

But he is favourite of mine. Why? It’s really quite simple. He was a very naughty boy who went from sinner to saint. From a murderer to a magician and mystic. And did it all in one lifetime.

Milarepa’s message to me is: “I transformed a great deal of negative karma into enlightenment. So can you.”  Well, it’s taking me many many lifetimes. But Mila is my inspiration.

Let’s start at the beginning of his story. Read the rest of this entry »