What we can control, we need to.

What we cannot, we need to let go. 

Many things fall within our control, like our opinions, desires, and aversions. Controllable things are those we initiate and carry out. Many more things we have no direct control over, like others’ thoughts and actions, situations in which we find ourselves, or events we learn of.

Things we can control arise from our mind while those we cannot arise from others’ minds.

Theoretically, this should make life very straightforward. Why put time and energy into trying to manage that which is beyond my purview? The only hope I have to accomplish this is through being such an excellent example that I move others. How? By working with that which I can govern: my thoughts. My thoughts, unperceived by others, give rise to my actions, which are perceived by others. So by controlling that which arises from within me, I better myself and possibly help others.

But it all begins with controlling what I can and letting go what I cannot.

Problems arise due to 

our misunderstanding cause and effect. 

Although we may think we understand karma, or cause and effect, we really don’t.

Or at least not fully. Karmas, or causes, are good, bad, or neutral actions. Neutral means the activity is neither good nor bad morally. So these karmas don’t pose any problems because they don’t carry retributions.

Good karmas have retributions, but they’re good. No problem here, other than the fact that we don’t create enough of them.

Clearly, our problem is bad karmas. Then why do we keep committing them when we know they result in suffering? One reason might be that we don’t grasp the pervasiveness of karma. It does not pertain only to major actions. It is not intermittent. Cause and effect concerns everything, everywhere, all the time. Yes, we need to pay attention to major karmas, but our minor daily actions have consequences too.

And good, fortunately, or bad, unfortunately, they add up. 

Others choose how to act towards me. 

I, in turn, also have a choice: 

how to act towards them. 

How others act towards me is their choice, a karmic decision that entails results. I too have a choice. I can react automatically without considering the consequences. And yes, even though this doesn’t feel like a choice, it is.

We reacted from habit. Habits are formed first by opting to do something, and by then doing it repeatedly. At any point, we can choose to change our behavior. For the most part we don’t, so we end up reacting automatically without considering the consequences. Instead of choosing to act from habits, a saner choice would be to consciously discern the likely future consequences of my actions.

Sound too complicated?

That it will take too much time when action needs to be immediate?

The time we take carefully considering how to react is nothing compared to the time in which we will suffer the results of our having acted rashly.