For a while, many people have been feeling like we are living in a world gone mad. Covid, Chinese expansionism, the Ukraine invasion, recessionary fears, have not only caused convulsions, but continue to threaten global wellbeing. The ongoing dire newsflow out of USA is not only traumatising to its own citizens. It leaves the rest of us in liberal democracies wondering how we are going to cope with the rise of authoritarian regimes when our own team captain is at war with himself.
As if things aren’t difficult enough, the media that most of us consume, sometimes obsessively, serves up a relentless 24 hour news flow appealling to our worst impulses - fear, greed, prurience, schadenfreude.
And on an individual basis, as ever, when someone close to us is diagnosed with a serious disease, goes through enduring emotional turmoil, or develops a destructive addiction, we become painfully aware of the limits of our influence.
Is it any wonder so many people are feeling so very helpless?
When faced by samsaric overload, Buddhism offers many useful antidotes.
These include the power of meditation dramatically to reduce our reactivity, making us less susceptible to the roller-coaster going on in the world outside us.
Also, the recognition that there really is no such thing as objective reality. Even without a full grasp of the teaching of shunyata, we can appreciate that the way things appear to us are at least partly a product of our own mind. If they weren’t, we would all agree on the challenges we face, and how to resolve them - and, incidentally, anti-depressants would be pointless! Only once we take ownership of our own, personal reality, instead of seeing it as immutably external, can we begin meaningful transformation.
And then there’s karma, and the teaching in a parable which I’d like to share today. From a Buddhist perspective, what we perceive going on around us is nothing other than the playing out of karma. We are unable to prevent others experiencing the effects of causes already created. What we do have control over, however, is our own karmic status.
We alone are in charge of our karmic destiny. No one can inflict their negative karma on us or steal our merit. And it is our karma that forces us to perceive reality the way we do.
Importantly, our ability to influence the karma of those around us is also a lot greater than we generally suppose. The story of the great Indian Buddhist master Vasabandhu, illuminates this beautifully.