Many Obstacles Due to Karma
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student who had experienced many personal obstacles. The student had nearly died in a car accident and her son had also nearly died in a motorbike accident. She was depressed because she had practiced Buddhism for many years and she felt that Buddhism was failing her.
My very dear Elizabeth,
Regarding your comment about Buddhism failing you, this is just because you are thinking only about this life, so you are not thinking correctly. There are various karmas created in this life, without even mentioning previous lives.
For example, even killing a tiny insect creates karma that you will experience. Even if you don’t actually cause another person to have a fractured skull in this life, for example, what about your past lives? Karma we experience does not just relate to karma created with other human beings, it can be karma created with a tiny insect.
Then there is karma created by breaking samaya. For example, regarding the first geshe who was at the center, I am not sure if you took him as your guru. If you did then you would have created so much heavy karma, because if I remember correctly he brought a photo of one Rinpoche to the gompa, his root guru, and maybe you didn’t like that. There were other difficulties with that resident geshe. If you took him as your guru, then so much negative karma was created because you didn’t like him.
What has happened to you and your son is nothing if you think about hell. This is still liberation compared to the smallest suffering in hell.
You also need to remember that any action done with virtue can be destroyed or lessened by having anger, heresy, ill will, pride, etc. This lessens the virtue. If the virtue you have created was not dedicated to achieving enlightenment, then it can be completely destroyed. Even if the virtue was dedicated to enlightenment and performed with bodhicitta, it has to be sealed with the emptiness of the three circles of action, subject and object. Only then is it safe and cannot be harmed by heresy, anger, etc.
Even if you have collected merit, it doesn’t mean that you will experience the result of happiness. You have to remember how to make it safe. If you don’t know all the details of how to protect and preserve virtue, even if you have done many virtuous actions, it will be difficult for the virtue to last and also difficult to experience the result of the virtue. Especially if a person is very angry, heresy arises a lot, and there is a lot of ill will, etc, then even if that person does many virtuous actions, the virtue degenerates.
You also have to think about not just this life, but other lives, and the various negative karmas collected with your body, speech, and mind.
It is not only a matter of creating virtue, there is also the karma created by breaking the pratimoksha, bodhisattva, and tantric vows. This not only refers to breaking them in this life, but also past lives. Even if you practice purification, there is still negative karma collected during beginningless rebirths.
You also need to think that sooner or later we all have to die. Even Shakyamuni Buddha left his holy body. There is no-one who has been alive from the beginning of time, even from one hundred and fifty years ago, there is no-one who has not died. There is no-one from the very beginning of time who is still alive.
These problems and incredible hardships that happen remind us that we are in samsara. These problems, accidents, pains and the suffering of body and mind warn us that we should be liberated from samsara. They warn us to practice the path to liberation and enlightenment. That means we have to learn the path and actualize it.
The best thing is to use whatever has happened, what we recognize as bad, and transform it into the quickest support—a means to quickly achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. This is the greatest, most beneficial support to use on the path.
Think, “I have received all the sufferings of sentient beings. I have succeeded in my tong-len practice, which I have been praying for every day, for so many years, to receive sentient beings’ sufferings on me. Now I have succeeded. I am the most fortunate person, who will achieve enlightenment the quickest, by experiencing and receiving all the sufferings of sentient beings.” In this way, using it for tong-len practice, please do this a few times every day, as much as you can. Receive all the sufferings, and think, “I am experiencing all these sufferings on behalf of all sentient beings.”
You should not lose faith in Buddhism. Buddhism is not the thing that gives you trouble. Buddhism is to be practiced. You create the cause for happiness, to achieve the path, to cease wrong concepts, karma and delusion, and it is you who can achieve liberation, everlasting happiness, by ceasing the subtle defilements and achieving full enlightenment.
It is very important to think that many people in the world are in a much worse situation than you. There are many people suffering so much more, people who are not dead but can’t function, or who are suffering incredibly. It is not good to think you are the only one in the world who is like this. To think like that is a big mistake.
Please think about these things.
With much love and prayers...