No kidding karma

My Tibetan goddaughter Tashi is a perpetually practicing Buddhist who seems just as devoted to the practice of revising my habitual world view. If I report with complaint that somebody stole the plant off my entry ledge, she will tell me that's good news because it means an obstacle has been removed on my path to success. I should be grateful for the theft. When I tell her Rinpoche says he's proud of me, she insists I forget I heard that and stop being attached to praise or bad things will come from my pride. So last week I figured I'd throw at her a karma puzzle I couldn't solve.

Two summers ago, a lifelong Maine lobsterman who I'll call Joe promised to produce four fresh lobsters for my teacher, Thrangu Rinpoche, to release back into the sea in a specially arranged Life Release ceremony. Rinpoche and his entourage were down at the water's edge ready to go when Joe putt putted up in his boat and handed the wiggling crustaceans over. I tried to put money in his hand but he pushed it away. "Keep it," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "I need the...what do you Buddhists call it...good karma."

So, I asked Tashi, how do you explain good karma when two months later lightening struck his house and blew out everything electrical? How can you possibly consider it good karma when six weeks after that, because of lightening damaged wiring, his house burned to the ground and he lost everything?

She shot me her reproachful "duh!" look. "Come on," she said. "You should have figured it out. You told me the lightening struck at night when he and his wife were home, right? And it didn't harm them, only the electricity, right? And then you told me that when the house actually did burn down from the lightening damage, they were both away at work, so nobody got hurt. Well that was the merit he earned, the good karma. The fire didn't happen when he was in the house. Because of that delay, he wasn't hurt or killed. He came out fine."

As it happened, the next day we saw Joe's adult son and I couldn't help but tell him what Tashi had told me about his father's good luck. "Do you think so?" I asked.

"Oh yeah," he said, nodding vigorously. "Definitely. It was awful for my parents losing everything they had, but the truth is that old house was crumbling and dark and my mother absolutely hated it. She was always praying something would happen to get her a new house. And then it did. She is so happy now in that new place."

Tashi shot me her best "I told you so" look. Amen.

~Sandy Garson"Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
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