The best thing about past karma.

Most of the time we look at our karma as a burden.  We are conditioned by all of our past decisions, actions and experiences, and perhaps we look back and wish how things could be different.

The best thing about our karma is that it has brought us to where we are today.

All of that hardship, pain and misfortune has brought us here, now.
All of those problems, lessons and bad decisions have allowed us to stand here, awake, at this moment.
If we had done things differently, we wouldn't be who we are right now.  Maybe we would still be asleep.

Maybe we needed to learn something through all of that pain and hardship.
Maybe we needed to work through something.
Maybe what we have to share is hidden in that struggle.
Maybe the wisdom needed to truly benefit others had to be experienced directly. 

So today, everyday, is a grand juncture.  We are the total sum of our past decisions and actions, and what we do with that now determines what and who we will be in the future.

The choice is up to you.

What should I do?

How often do we find ourselves saying this?  How often do we ask this to others?

We really don't know what to do.  The complexity of our lives and all of our decisions and responsibilities are overwhelming.  If someone has the right answer, please, tell me.

This question actually protects us.  Implicit in the question is that we want to do something remarkable, we want to live a meaningful life, a life of purpose, but we don't really know how to do it so we ask the question.  But asking the question actually shields us from the responsibility of the result, it shifts the fear and the possibility of failure onto the other person.  If this doesn't work out, it is her fault not yours. 

We all care about our life, how we live it and how we spend it.  But caring is not enough.  You need to take responsibility.  Responsibility for your actions- your thoughts, words and deeds.  You need to take responsibility for your health, your well being and your values.  

First we need to care about our practice, then we need to carry the responsibility. 

Oddly enough, then we might find ourselves asking, how do you do this?  Why do you do this?  What advantage does this have over that?

We become curious, active learners and experimenters.  Little scientists with big dreams.  Everything falls within our domain and we are always pioneering the next breakthrough.  

Gravity.

Gravity is very interesting.  We are all familiar with it, we learned how to operate within its bounds and even to use it to our advantage to do amazing things.

But what about the gravity of our decisions, actions and responsibilities?  Those have a lot of gravity, gravity that gives a lot of weight to our lives.  Weight that we often don't know how to deal with.

The interesting thing about gravity is that it always starts off with a fight and a fall.  We have to fight to get up.  We need to push and finagle and adapt.  We need to be persistent.  And then we fall.  The falling is inevitable really.  We may have succeeded in getting up but we still need to learn how to maintain that posture and even more so how to maintain it amidst movement and change.

But we persist.  The falling provides us with the tools to learn and we continue to examine and analyze until we succeed.  But the success doesn't stop there, once standing we move forward, we take steps and learn to hop and skip and roller skate and even fly.  We have actually learned to fly, even with gravity, not despite it.

So let's go back to the gravity of our decisions, actions and responsibilities.

Our initial reaction is to feel the heaviness of our situation.  We are often overwhelmed by the weight of our life, wishing that somehow it would all change and we could soar through the sky carefree and without any problems or conflict.  But it is important to realize that we are the weight.  That heaviness, it is us.  So we need to fight to pick ourselves up.  Or push ourselves up I suppose.

We will fall.

But recognize the problems and conflicts for what they are- learning opportunities.  Opportunities to adjust our posture.  Opportunities to find our balance.  Opportunities to make the right correction at the right time.

As we learn to stand with dignity and confidence, we can then learn to step forward with kindness and generosity.  As those develop momentum we can run with insight and develop the endurance it takes to accomplish great feats, great feats for ourselves and great feats for others.

We may even learn to fly.  Fly even amidst problems and conflict, amidst doubt and the impossibility of doing so because of the heaviness of our situation.  We learn to fly on the wings of skillful means and wisdom.  We can build those.

But first we need to learn to stand.