Session 017: Instant Karma

Banner Photo Source by SHAH Shah on Unsplash

Instant Karma? Like instant gratification and instant coffee? Almost? Read the article or watch the video to find out what I mean!

Talk:

Guided Meditation:

Ocean waves video by Ruvim Miksanskiy from Pexels.

Handout

This week we have a 3-page handout. It is posted below as blog content for you. Plus, you can download it by clicking on the button below:

Instant Karma

Talk + Guided Meditation Session 017: Apr 29th, 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin

Introduction

There is a shop in Asheville, NC that sells arts and crafts from Asia and they also carried our meditation CD at one point. This shop is called Instant Karma and it always made us giggle. In a world of instant coffee and instant gratification, it was appropriate that we would also have instant karma!

It turns out that beyond being a laughing matter, instant karma is actually a thing! Now, I don’t mean that you are to expect things to happen instantly because of instant karma. Not like you write a check of a $1000 for a charity and then expect to 10x that with an instant monetary reward. Or if you said something in anger to a loved one and then someone  instantly says something with anger. Now both those things can happen but that is not to be expected. In last class, we talked all about expectations and how that is the thief that lives within you who is stealing your peace and calm.

There is something else about Instant Karma that is worth paying careful attention to.

Instant Karma - Paying Attention to What Is

So let’s talk about instant karma. First, are we all clear on the term Karma? I have a couple of blog articles on this topic which you can explore more, in this article here and in this article here. In short, karma is the law of cause and effect that governs life. Whatever you are experiencing right now is a result of past Karma or past actions. Every moment offers a new opportunity - to create new good karma and eradicate old bad karma.

Each moment appears. Each moment dissolves. It reflects the fluid nature of life which is in constant state of flux. One can say that you as an individual are  like a painter’s canvas or like a theatre stage or a movie screen. Within you a complex array of thoughts, emotions, sensations and perceptions take form.

Things happen in life. Flowers grow. Trees fall. Birds fly. Bees buzz around. Tornadoes happen. People are born. People die. Your friend gets a promotion. Your child gets married. Disagreements happen. Moments of peace and harmony happen. Love blossoms. People move apart. Friendship grows. Challenges come up. And prosperity and well being emerges.

The question is: how are you going to face all of this when it comes to your door? How are you going to respond? What thoughts and emotions will arise in you? What actions will you take? How are you going to chart your next step, your next word, your next action? How are you going to deal with the feelings that arise in you?

Whatever is taking place in your life, is a result of past karma. How you experience things is a result of past karma (not just this life, but also from many lives past, according to Buddhist understanding of life). How you respond now is what will create your future karma but also be experienced in this very moment as instant Karma.

We will come to that in just a moment. But here is a quote for you to reflect on:

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”
― Eckhart Tolle

How Will You Respond?

So how will you respond? Just look at your past. You will respond how you always have. You will respond based on how you are habituated to respond unless you are mindful and aware. How do you become mindful and aware? You practice. You practice in daily life but you practice more specifically in your meditation.

Meditation practice gives you the space to practice mindfulness. You practice being mindful of your breath or whatever the meditation object is. You practice allowing your thoughts to arise and fade without following them or without instantly taking action on whatever the thought says. You practice being aware of your sensations in your body. You practice being aware of your feelings and emotions. You practice cultivating not just mindfulness. You practice cultivating being kind to yourself. You practice cultivating compassion and loving kindness both for yourself and others, as well as gratitude and mudita - selfless joy for others success/wellbeing. So in your meditation practice you are breaking old habits of restlessness, doubt, ill will, craving, lethargy and slugghisness. You are building up the brilliance of the mind - or as Ajahn Brahm would say you are allowing the light of mindfulness to open up the lotus petals one by one.

So with that practice, each time you are deepening this skill - the mental skills of mindfulness, of awareness, of compassion. And through meditation and reading books, you are also getting familiar very closely to understanding the nature of life - understanding impermanence, understanding karma, understanding the eight fold path to enlightenment. 

This is your preparation. This is your training. Now when life shows up and things start to happen. You are prepared - prepared to act with generosity, patience, loving kindness, wisdom. And now the thing that happens in your life is again practice ground for you to apply all that you have been learning and cultivating and all that training now can come to use.And if you can respond to each moment with love and embrace it with open arms, you are no longer suffering. You are no longer a prisoner of your mind or circumstances. You are free.

That’s the dance of balancing your spiritual work with daily life. There is no difference. Daily life is spiritual work.

Peace,
Sophia + Cristof