The Cause
May 15, 2007
Venerable Wuling in Anger, Karma and Causality, Suffering

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Anger, hatred, killing, war—there is just so much today. And it is getting worse. Even our environment is being effected by our anger. Our world is literally becoming warmer. We may think that this is the result of climatic changes and pollution. We are right about the cause being pollution. But we are wrong about its underlying form.

The underlying cause of the world's pollution is the pollution in our minds. We are collectively feeling so much anger that we are literally heating up our world! If we do not stop and change ourselves now, we will destroy ourselves and our world. There will be no future for our children.

We must realize the enormity of this. We cannot afford to sit back and say that the hatred has nothing to do with us, that the killing is happening in another part of the world. The anger and hatred are affecting every inch of our world. Nothing is worthy of anger. Nothing is worthy of hatred. Nothing is worthy of killing. Nothing.

When we came into this life, we brought nothing with us but our own karma. And when we leave this life, we will take nothing with us but our karma. Selfishness, intolerance, hatred, killing have no place in our true nature.

We can resolve that we will react differently the next time we become aware of our anger. When we see that person who upsets us so much and feel ourselves giving in to anger, we can realize that our antagonist is also suffering and unhappy with the situation. Then we can let go of the anger. We can also let go of the past, of unhappiness, worries, and problems. If we look back on the day and feel that we have made mistakes, we can ask what we did wrong. Then we can decide how we will do better the next time.

 

Article originally appeared on a buddhist perspective (http://www.abuddhistperspective.org/).
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