the karma express

In one of my Buddhism books there's this anecdote (and we all know I like an anecdote that supposedly proves a point, don't we, kids?) about a meditation student who continually complained to his teacher about his mom, her failings as both a parent and a human being. After some time of this, the teacher advised the man to simply love his mother. "She wouldn't let me," the student said petulantly. "She couldn't stop you," replied the teacher. I think I actually chortled out loud when I read this. Yes!

I don't mean to suggest I'm buying everything I've been reading (more about that later) but some of it is so brilliant and so simple and resonates so much I can hardly stand it. You don't need anyone's permission to love them. You don't need them to love you back. The sooner you realize that every emotion and every thought of yours doesn't *have* to be a reaction to other people's emotions, thoughts, and actions, the sooner you're going to be happy. That pattern of going through life reacting rather than choosing cannot be anything but toxic. Plus, love is free, love me, say HELL YES. Okay then.

Let's move on to something I'm having a harder time getting with. Karma. Everything I've read so far has gone out of its way to try and convince me that the actual Buddhist principal of karma has, contrary to the Western misperception, nothing to do with reward and punishment. If you live a shitty life, you are going to suffer, if not now, then in the future, or in your next existence. But not because you're being punished. Instead, because they believe that suffering and difficulty you live through leads to the development of the compassion and wisdom that brings you one step further to enlightenment. If you're living a shitty life full of anger and cruelty, greed and jealousy, you're stepping away from enlightenment and karma's gonna help you out by giving you a little kick back towards it. It's not punishing you, it's helping you grow. Or something like that. I have several problems with that, which we'll get back to.

I was reading last night about anger, in the context of beginning to learn to offer metta to your "enemy" (which doesn't need to be all that dramatic--it can just be someone who is a big pain in your ass or pisses you off every time you need to deal with them). The principal being that you can help let go of your anger by realizing that whatever wrongs, large or small, have been done to you by this person, karma's gonna take care of it. It's not your responsibility to seek vengeance. But, Ms Salzberg takes pains to emphasize, neither are you supposed to look at it as, "Aha! He's gonna get his!" That's still vengeance and anger. You're just supposed to let go of it in faith that the universe will work things out and it's not *your* concern. I agree that's probably the healthiest way to go about it, because I think we'll all agree that that anger you just can't let go of is the most soul-crushing and unhappy-making emotion there is. But! But you are not telling me that, no matter how they try to spin karma in the twenty-first century Western world, the original concept of karma as written down two or three thousand years ago *did not* carry that connotation of reward and punishment. All societies need that as a means of social control. "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." There's got to be someone telling the common people that you just can't go around killing your next door neighbor because he stole your goat and impregnated your daughter. (Or vice versa.) That way lies societal chaos. Yet you have to provide hope to those same people that their shitty neighbor is gonna get his, preferably in both this world and the next, because that's how people work when they haven't learned to let go of their anger yet.

Okay, my next problem is with the concept that suffering and difficulty leads *all people* closer to enlightenment and increases their compassion and wisdom. Sometimes it does. I know D's illness has granted me more compassion and perspective. But there's a whole hell of a lot of people whose response to painful circumstances is more anger, hate, and bitterness, and they don't learn a damn thing. I haven't really seen, or at least understood if I have, how the Buddhists fan-wank that little detail.

Finally, for karma to really "work" you have to buy into reincarnation, because we all know that there are many, many spectacularly crappy people who have fabulous lives. Now, I know the Buddhists will say that they aren't *really* happy, because they're full of anger or greed or whatever. But, yeah, there are a whole bunch who do a good facsimile of looking pretty damn pleased with life, I gotta say.

I've still been listening to the hip hop (shut up) and I was listening to "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z, really paying attention to the lyrics. Mr Z (if I can be so presumptuous, ha!) seems to imply in this song that his former profession was, y'know, drug dealer. Now, I didn't know all that much about him, other than the obvious, well-known facts, so I looked him up to see if this was true. And, yes, apparently twenty or twenty-five years ago, Mr Z provided crack to the eager consumers of NYC.

Let's review how that shitty behavior worked for him, hmm? He had a successful career as a rapper. He was the CEO of a huge record company. He's got a clothing company that my own child may just have purchased from in his teen aged years. He owns the New Jersey Nets (wait...that might be a punishment). Basically, though, he's got more money than god. And he's married to Beyonce whom, though I may find a bit too Barbie-ish for my own tastes (in the female R&B-singer looks contest, you know I'm a Rihanna girl, right?), is widely regarded as an extremely beautiful woman. Plus she's got, if not more money than god, at least as much as. Perhaps Mr Z cries himself to sleep every night, wiping his tears on his lovely wife's weave, but somehow I don't think so. Without reincarnation working, explain the karma in that, Buddhists!

You all stopped reading four paragraphs ago, I imagine.

Peace out!

xoxo