Buddhist Words of the Week
Mar. 11th, 2010 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamcatchingsFrom my Buddhist Wisdom Inspiration Cards:
Not in outer space,
not in the middle of the ocean,
not in a crack in the remotest
mountains--there is nowhere
to go where karma will
not find you.
That would be one of the Teaching Tales cards.
Well I'm not quite sure what to tell you, Buddha Box. This one is a little obvious. Karma is one of those soul energy, cerebral, ethereal things. Of course you can't outrun it, and of course it can find you anywhere. It's not so much a thing that exists outside yourself as it is something you carry around inside of you like Divinity. It's probably part of the Divine that gets lodged in us all. No matter how hard you try, you really can't escape yourself. You can cover it over with masks and force it down and dress it up to go out dancing, but it's under all of that somewhere, Cocky accent and dirty nails and everything. It remains the way it was under all the trappings.
I'm not saying that chance is impossible. Change is. People change. I think that people change a little each and every day based on what happens and who they meet and the choices they make, but they're not those drastic changes. Not typically. They're usually the smaller changes, the river eventually wearing through the stone sort of changes. Little alterations that you maybe don't notice until a few years later when you look back at something and you don't recognize the you that was then anymore. It's strange to explain. I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of it, either.
What are you trying to get through to me now, Buddha Box? I'm getting a little tired of you preaching to me about karma. I'm starting to feel as guilty as Hitler, as marked as Cain. I think I live a good life. Good enough. I try to go through helping others rather than harming, though I know my words and my wit can be caustic. I try to let people know I don't actually mean it. Unless you're chiding me for being mean to myself, which I suppose doesn't make my karma any better, either. That's hard to let go, Buddha Box. I am not Catholic, but some of the Catholic ideals have been passed down to me through nurture and blood. I blame myself. I guilt myself. I punish myself. I don't pass out forgiveness to myself as much as to others.
I can see your point there. Why punish the one person I can never ever escape? Why be so mean? Why never forgive faults or weakness? I am too hard on myself, and it doesn't motivate me. It's not a positive sort of tough love. It's the demoralizing sort. It's likely that battle between the depression and myself. The trouble is I can't see where the one ends and the other begins.
I guess that's as good a place to begin the journey as any. I just don't know, after all these years, where to begin filtering. Still, Buddha Box, words to take to heart as always.
not in the middle of the ocean,
not in a crack in the remotest
mountains--there is nowhere
to go where karma will
not find you.
That would be one of the Teaching Tales cards.
Well I'm not quite sure what to tell you, Buddha Box. This one is a little obvious. Karma is one of those soul energy, cerebral, ethereal things. Of course you can't outrun it, and of course it can find you anywhere. It's not so much a thing that exists outside yourself as it is something you carry around inside of you like Divinity. It's probably part of the Divine that gets lodged in us all. No matter how hard you try, you really can't escape yourself. You can cover it over with masks and force it down and dress it up to go out dancing, but it's under all of that somewhere, Cocky accent and dirty nails and everything. It remains the way it was under all the trappings.
I'm not saying that chance is impossible. Change is. People change. I think that people change a little each and every day based on what happens and who they meet and the choices they make, but they're not those drastic changes. Not typically. They're usually the smaller changes, the river eventually wearing through the stone sort of changes. Little alterations that you maybe don't notice until a few years later when you look back at something and you don't recognize the you that was then anymore. It's strange to explain. I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of it, either.
What are you trying to get through to me now, Buddha Box? I'm getting a little tired of you preaching to me about karma. I'm starting to feel as guilty as Hitler, as marked as Cain. I think I live a good life. Good enough. I try to go through helping others rather than harming, though I know my words and my wit can be caustic. I try to let people know I don't actually mean it. Unless you're chiding me for being mean to myself, which I suppose doesn't make my karma any better, either. That's hard to let go, Buddha Box. I am not Catholic, but some of the Catholic ideals have been passed down to me through nurture and blood. I blame myself. I guilt myself. I punish myself. I don't pass out forgiveness to myself as much as to others.
I can see your point there. Why punish the one person I can never ever escape? Why be so mean? Why never forgive faults or weakness? I am too hard on myself, and it doesn't motivate me. It's not a positive sort of tough love. It's the demoralizing sort. It's likely that battle between the depression and myself. The trouble is I can't see where the one ends and the other begins.
I guess that's as good a place to begin the journey as any. I just don't know, after all these years, where to begin filtering. Still, Buddha Box, words to take to heart as always.
