Karma

One of the greatest fallacies I've lived in the past months is trying to objectify my Self, seeking some form of transcendence from the heartfelt experiences of longing and at times, pain that thoughts and emotions I evoked have resulted in. It boils down to the issue of impermanence that all human beings have to deal with. We all hope to go beyond stages of uncertainty. We all hope for something that can account for our existence. At its largest, impermanence comes in the form of inevitable death. For that matter, we ask ourselves what the meaning of our lives is. At other phases of life, it could be a particular aim we seek to achieve: being "rich", having a "successful" career, having a family... But pitfalls await us if we are not careful. We can fall into the mistake of seeing that as the End, without realizing that life, and in fact every experience we go through, constitutes part of a PROCESS. We forget that even reaching what we set out to achieve is in itself just part of what goes on after that. In that string of thought, we may even go to the extent of trying to accelerate things to a state that we define as the most desirable, or deem as the Highest of possibilities.

I committed this mistake, in more ways than one. A recent friendship that came as a great surprise to me months ago could not develop normally because I was too eager to bring it beyond what was possible by present circumstances. Drawing on Buddha's notion of Karma (which can be translated into "acts" or "intention"), based on an agricultural form of growth, in all human experiences we first plant a seed, then we await the correct conditions for the seed to sprout, to grow and eventually bear fruit/ harvest. Too eager to see the fruits of a relationship, even to the extent of living in the illusion that a state of relationship can be persistently non-changing till both parties part this world, I tugged and pulled at the plant, drawing out part of its roots because of brute force. Now I see my mistake, and I want to remedy it. To do so, I can continue nurturing the hurt plant and hope it continues to survive. Yet I know that this baby will eventually become a tree that is deformed and unable to withstand strong winds. Suffering don't necessarily make us better or more resilient. At times, strength that manifest from the grown product may be underlined with many unseen cracks, deformities, flaws - which in all constitute a twisted personality. It is therefore my choice to pluck up the baby plant altogether. I killed it physically. But at the same time, remember that every action is part of a process. My wish is that I can sow a new seed, and lay this old plant in its soil so it becomes the fertilizer for the new plant. Like Karma, the "being" ceases to exist, but its effects will be felt in what follows after its demise.

This is life. As I passed a tree of pink frangipani I was surprised they still bloomed in autumn. However, the cold winds in the past few days must have taken a toll on their lives - some of them have began to shriver. One day all of them shall die, and the tree be bare. But they have bestowed me with their fragrance that opened my eyes to my own life. In this sense, you can say that every single word that you are reading now is part of the blossom's karma. The same logic goes behind the metaphor, "when I drink tea, I smile because I know I am drinking a piece of cloud".

Life is a process, and everything I've lived so far, including all the mistakes I've made, the hurt I've brought to some people, and this letter of confession and repentance are part of what is to come. Never again shall I be blinded by objectification and neglect the processional nature of life and living.

Hence, is there value in going through all I've gone through? Some may say it is all after all a result of my own doing and my heart's insatiable desires, and I have just wasted time. But if we believe that life is a circle, without start or end, going back to where we came from, at least I have not lived in vain neglecting the process. It is only when we come to question these basic assumptions and hypotheses others have conveniently relegated to "unthinkable", experiencing the ups and downs in realizing them - call it a psychological experiment if you wish - that true intellectual capacity is illuminated. Perhaps that is why even at the age of 4 the British Queen, when told not to eat too much of her birthday cake because it will give her a stomachache, replied, "The suffering is worth it."

I am now sharing this with you, because I have gone through a process you may or may not have experienced, and tried to capture it in words. If this has any effects on you, then you have become part of my Karma - and I hope you pass yours on.