Karma

Two of the more telling Sanskrit translations for Karma are 'action' and 'effect', with a third less useful translation being 'fate'. Action and effect are very much in line with the Karmic notion of cause and effect, but I think we do ourselves a great disservice when we cast this as fate and view all of the causes as occurring in our previous lives, and, as a result, view all of the effects in our current life as predestined. It would be much more useful to understand Karma as a way of knowing what your life is going to look like in the future by examining your thoughts, behaviors and actions today. This is as opposed to examining your circumstances today, which are, by definition, a result of your thoughts, behaviors and actions from yesterday, and, therefore, not a predictor of your circumstances tomorrow. There are many ways to change your thoughts - meditation, introspection, motivation, education - but this is where it starts, and then behavior follows, and then informed action, and then circumstances change, not magically and not by some action in a previous life, but by our actions in this life.

The Perfect Life

Have you ever randomly picked up a shell as you are strolling along the beach and marveled at how beautiful and perfect it is? And then picked up a similar shell a few moments later, with similar dimensions but completely different patterns, and marveled at how it, too, is beautiful and perfect? What, then, is 'perfect', and how could two similar shells with completely different patterns appear be so? Perhaps it is because their perfection is not in reference to some comparative pattern, but, rather, self-contained. What, then, is a perfect life? I would venture a guess that, for most of us, a perfect life is in reference to some predetermined notion of a perfect life, and, further, that, for some of us, especially those who have not graduated to acceptance, the difference between our actual lives and our ideal lives is a source of frustration, sadness and despair. Imagine searching for the perfect shell, according to a mental image of same, and continually being disappointed by the search. We might lose touch with the experience of strolling along the beach, in the sun, with the sound of rolling waves, and the feel of warm sand. We might, instead, be so singularly focused on sifting through shells, partitioning the ones that have been examined from the ones that have not, in search of a pattern that matches the image in our minds, without fully grasping why we have the image in our minds to begin with. Without going through the trouble of trying to understand the root cause behind our idea of the ideal life, what if we were to simply eliminate it, and commit to seeing the life we have at this very moment to be perfectly perfect? When a pupil approaches the Zen master and asks how to attain enlightenment, the prototypical response from the master is "you already have, but you simply have not yet realized it". It may be our realization of who we already are and the life that we are already living that can be the source of true happiness, not the attainment of a new self or a new life. If our souls are as timeless as we hope they are, then perhaps we should assume that our lives are a manifestation of this timelessness. 

Origami Exchange

I had a great 'origami exchange' with a elderly woman on my flight today. I gave her a butterfly in a small envelop. She was so thankful, but, after a few moments, I had to advise her that the gift was not simply a pretty rectangle. She opened it up and marveled at the butterfly. From the corner of my eye, I could see her examining it closely. After about 5 minutes, she asked if I could make her another one. "Sure", I said, "do you want a different color or something?". "No", she said, "the same color would be nice", and then she showed me a rectangular piece of paper which had previously been the butterfly. "I tried to figure out how it was made", she admitted. "No problem!", I replied, and then I countered, "I just hope you did not have a puppy when you were little" :-)

The Self-Interested Ecologist

In my opinion, only self-interest and economic competition can drive us towards an ecologically sustainable global community. We cannot legislate it. Even if we priced hydrocarbons out of existence in the US, the total global carbon footprint would continue to rise, albeit at a slower rate. We cannot rely on global accords. Every 3rd world country trying to balance reducing greenhouse gasses vs fighting for its very survival will undoubtedly tip the scales towards the latter. If we could see our way clear towards making the right investments and policy compromises to, for example, build enough wind power generation in the plains states such that we can run factories, produce goods, transport them and consume them (even) at a fraction of the cost, then the rest of the world would have to follow suite, as a matter of survival rather than good intention. Of course, there are other avenues to this kind of result. My point is that we cannot rely on good intentions to solve this problem :-/

From a Sharing Economy to a Caring Economy

In a sharing economy, the idea of ownership gives way to the efficiency and practicality of use, as many people use the same asset sequentially (or even concurrently) to drive from one location to another, or stay overnight at one place or another (probably not concurrently - wink, wink), but there still needs to be an owner of sorts to look after the efficacy of the asset, which could very well be the manufacturer or some other third party company that essentially gets a return on the asset through a series of micro-leases. This is great, in terms of the efficient use of assets, but I sometimes wonder if it is going to create the same level of carelessness that other such 'shared assets' creates today. Just look at the way we have treated all of the shared resources that we do not pay for directly (even if indirectly), whether natural, public or other such resources where our direct use of same is transient. How will we treat the car that we only intend on using to get from point A to point B and never intend on using again? How will we treat the pay-per-use appliances in our home? We need only look back on our history to understand the negative consequences when we calculate that our actions have no direct consequences on ourselves, especially in today's throwaway society. I think that it will be very important for us to instill the notion of a 'caring economy' in lockstep with the emerging 'sharing economy', or else risk trading inefficiency for ineffectuality.