I was a great Certified Nursing Assistant in the classroom, and at my CPR test. I even did ok folding the sheets and smoothly moving the dummy from the Hoyer lift into the bed. Yet I only lasted one night of my practical training, I didn’t shy away from what needed to be done, but in the moment I couldn’t handle the fact that my confidence did more harm than good. That was my last night as a CNA.
When the old man’s colostomy bag exploded all over me, was it an expression of my karma or his? Or did it just explode because an earlier shift had neglected to tend to it and it was too full?
Just that.
There is only one possible answer to this metaphysical question: just clean up the shit.
If, when you see pain or illness or accident, your first thought is about whether the injured/murdered’s karma had anything to do with it, you may have missed an important reason for getting out of bed today. You have, confident in dharma, added one more layer of distance to suffering. It may work for you, reinforce your sense of yourself as a realist, or give you more incentive to convince yourself you live in bliss and wisdom and are above the messiness you finally have the tools from which to escape.
Indifference no more means detachment, per the Four Noble Truths, than suffering means life is nothing but pain, illness and accident.
Change, loss, death: suffering.
Change, loss, death:
facts to resist, or facts that can motivate attention to what is in your life for time that is allotted; it. They may also inspire a realization that the person in front of you loves their life as much as you and all of us face more events than we can ever fully understand.
We know that the Other is not just the immigrant, the foreigner; the elderly, disabled, those whose opinions are different, those whose sports teams are not the same as ours, also inspire juicy fantasies of eternal punishment or ridicule because they don’t share what we see (need?) as passionate evidence of our purpose in life.
We also surely know that there are a lot of times in our lives when we are the Other to ourselves.
I still don’t know what to think of the Hindu Omniscient Guru thing, but Ram Dass himself was deeply human. He wrote a lot about feeling like a fraud for still being unable to let go of his scientific distance even well into his fame as Mr. Love himself. He taught a constant process of learning with gratitude. He wrote so much about not fearing death, of embracing loss as part of the path, but when he had his stroke he was scared shitless of dying. So he knew he had more work to do, and he, grudgingly, embraced the challenge and the latest blow to his sense of spiritual achievement.
Enlightenment, let alone bliss, has given people the false hope they can escape the messiness of life. I think being enlightened means having no illusions about that mess, and trying to help yourself and others navigate the pain, and share the gratitude of things going well.
Just like the idea of karma can give some people a reason to be indifferent to suffering, feeling bliss all the time can be a way of BS-ing yourself into thinking you’ve won the battle over suffering and pain. The people who cling to bliss are not being true to themselves in a way. I think those who feel truly blissful are blissful about feeling blissful at the moment, not permanently. But when it goes away you can remember that it was there, and can come back or, at least, add that potential to your idea of what it means to truly be alive. It is very cool information, and a very silly cocoon to try and live in.
To the Buddha there was no Other. He certainly believed in and taught about Karma in relation to rebirth. But I think his compassion was shown in his efforts to have us focus on what happens now, what effects are set loose in the world now, and to not worry so much about cosmic answers.
This compassion was expressed explicitly.
…in the Bodhisattva.
We will never see a Bodhisattva because she is doing her work in the dark, without fanfare, but with a sense of what needs to be done. Likewise, you will never meet someone who was a bastard in another life and our universe of elements and energy pooled their money to ensure he has a shitty time of it in this one. The Bodhisattva is just someone unafraid to help; the “Bodhisattva” part of things may just be a nice add-on. The person in front of you suffering may have karma going back eons; you literally have no proof of that, aside from the relief you may feel as you walk past without helping. She doesn’t give a shit about that person’s karma; only their need.”
Words and concepts trigger all sorts of endorphins that reassure or rile us up, distract us from the work that needs to be done. That can include words like “piety,” “karma,” eternity.” “Punishment,” “Bodhisattva.”
A person in need is a transmission beyond the scriptures,
With no use for words or letters,
Who points directly at you
At your buddha nature which seeks to help all beings.