Can it get Worse?

Question: Yesterday you wrote about changing destiny for the better. Can we change it so it becomes worse?

Response: Yes! Yuan Liaofan and his wife dedicated themselves to helping others and thus improved their current lifetime. If they had instead decided to act selfishly and do whatever it took to get what they wanted, they could have changed their difiicult lives to even worse ones.

By coasting through life, our lives will turn out as we destined them with our past karmas. But we are creating our future with our current thoughts, speech, and actions. if we focus on doing good, we will pull our destiny in one direction. If we focus on doing what is wrong, we will pull our destiny in the other direction. 

It is this ability to change our future by changing what we do in the present that makes understanding cause and effect so important. Every second, we are creating out own future.  

How Could He and Why Can't Others?

Question: I've been listening to your talks on Changing Destiny and reading how Yuan Liaofan was able to change his destiny by practicing good deeds. Why was he able to change his future when so many other good people have not been able to?

Response: Excellent question! Having had his future predicted and then having seen it unfold exactly as he had been told it would, Yuan Liaofan gradually quit worrying about what would happen to him. He already knew! So he planned and worried less and less, and began to practice meditation. One day, he sat in meditation for three days with a Zen master who asked how he was able to do this. Yuan Liaofan honestly replied that since he already knew what would happen there was no need to think about it.

The Zen master said that Yuan Liaofan had done nothing to change his future. To this Yuan Liaofan replied that he didn't know he could! So the master taught him how to change his future for the better by performing good deeds.

Since Yuan Liaofan was so good at focusing his thoughts, when he did a good deed he sincerely focused on helping the beneficiary of the good deed. As his good fortune increased, he and his wife did not enjoy their good fortune, rather they passed it on to others through their good deeds.

So, first, Yuan Liaofan's ability to control his thoughts enabled him to not think of himself or of self-benefit when he was acting to help others. Many people do not have his ability to do this, or perhaps even realize how important it is that they do so. It also gave him the ability to not be distracted from performing the good deeds. He and his wife did not decide to take a day off from their dedication to helping others. They were so dedicated that they both counted how many good deeds they had done that day. And they did this every day.

Second, as Yuan Liaofan's good fortune increased, he and his wife passed it on to others instead of enjoying it themselves. This in turn, further increased their good fortune to such a degree that their lives improved in their current lifetime.

Yuan Liaofan, who was not destined to sit for the imperial exams, ended up passing the county and regional examinations, and then placed ninth in the provincial examination. He received promotions far above what he had been destined to receive. He died at seventy-four when he was supposed to die at fifty-three. He and his wife had two sons when they had been destined to be childless. It is rare to have someone change their destiny this soon and so dramatically.

Third, we actually never know how people are changing their lives because we do not have the ability to know what those lives were supposed to be like. For all we know, the people we think are not currently reaping the benefits of their self-sacrifice may well be doing so. Perhaps what they were supposed to endure was to have been even more difficult.

Our difficulty in sorting out causality and destiny is that we see such a tiny portion of reality. We cannot remember the past nor see into the future. But at the very least we do know how we feel when we do something wrong or something good. So even if someone is still unsure of destiny, much less of changing it, we can still decide how we want to feel for the rest of the day.

Pay Attention, Do Good

In one of my classes in Elkhart, Indiana, I gave a short talk on paying attention and on doing good. During the discussion, one of the attendees—a wonderfully kind woman—told of an event that had happened years ago when her daughter was young.

Preparing to leave the supermarket, the mother was focused on getting her daughter safely back to the car. While still in the store, she noticed another woman who was trying to check out but who did not have enough money to pay for all the groceries. Absorbed in what she was doing, the young mother realized—too late—that if she had not been so wrapped up in what she was doing, she could have offered to help pay for the other woman's groceries.

Years later, this oversight still haunts her.

As I said, this woman is wonderfully considerate and thoughtful. But in a moment of inattention, she was not mindful of what was happening around her and thus missed the opportunity to help someone.

How easy it is for each of us to do this as we become so involved in our own lives that we fail to notice what is happening in the lives of others. And so, not paying attention, we miss an opportunity to do good.

The Fish and the Turtle

Once upon a time there was a fish. And just because it was a fish, it had lived all its life in the water and knew nothing whatever about anything else but water. And one day as it swam about in the lake where all its days had been spent, it happened to meet a turtle of its acquaintance who had just come back from a little excursion on the land.

"Good day, Mr. Turtle!" said the fish. "I have not seen you for a long time. Where have you been?"

"Oh", said the turtle, "I have just been for a trip on dry land."

"On dry land!" exclaimed the fish. "What do you mean by on dry land? There is no dry land. I had never seen such a thing. Dry land is nothing."

"Well," said the turtle good-naturedly. "If you want to think so, of course you may; there is no one who can hinder you. But that's where I've been, all the same."

"Oh, come," said the fish. "Try to talk sense. Just tell me now what is this land of yours like? Is it all wet?"

"No, it is not wet," said the turtle.

"Is it nice and fresh and cool?" asked the fish.

"No, it is not nice and fresh and cool," the trutle replied.

"Is it clear so that light can come through it?"

"No, it is not clear. Light cannot come through it."

"Is it soft and yielding, so that I can move my fins about in it and push my nose through it?"

"No, it is not soft and yielding. You could not swim in it."

"Does it move or flow in streams?"

"No, it neither moves nor flows in streams."

"Does it ever rise up into waves then, with white foams in them?" asked the fish, impatient at this string of Noes.

"No!" replied the turtle, truthfully. "It never rises up into waves that I have seen."

"There now," exclaimed the fish triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you that this land of yours was just nothing? I have just asked, and you have answered me that it is neither wet nor cool, not clear nor soft and that it does not flow in streams nor rise up into waves. And if it isn't a single one of these things what else is it but nothing? Don't tell me."

"Well, well", said the turtle, "If you are determined to think that dry land is nothing, I suppose you must just go on thinking so. But any one who knows what is water and what is land would say you were just a silly fish, for you think that anything you have never known is nothing just because you have never known it."

And with that the turtle turned away and, leaving the fish behind in its little pond of water, set out on another excursion over the dry land that was nothing.

~ The Buddha and His Teachings, by Maha thera Narada

Smiling for Peace

As someone who writes a blog, I'm always looking for inspiration for entry ideas. Occasionally, I find something that so perfectly expresses what I feel that I'm delighted to share it with you. I was reading Pondering the Myriad Things a few days ago and found this entry. Thank you Theresa!

It's amazing how the simple act of smiling can change everything in an instant. Smiling and mouthing "sorry!" when you accidentally cut someone off in traffic can diffuse an potentially ugly road-rage situation. Smiling and waving at your neighbor increases 'community' sentiment, even if you don't say a word. When we were talking about this, I thought about the phrase "guerrilla gardening" - the practice where people go ahead and plant flowers and edible plants on vacant lots, boulevards, or wherever a bit of dirt is available... It occurred to me that we could all be practicing "guerrilla smiling" as well!

Lately I've been waving and smiling at oncoming drivers on the country roads I take on my way into work every morning. When we first moved here, almost everyone waved at everyone else this way, but it has sort of dropped off over the past couple of years, as more people moved into the new acreages that were being built. I've decided to start doing it again, because it's nice and I like it.

So, this morning I just raised my two fingers in a peace-sign looking greeting and the lady in the car coming towards me broke into a big grin! I have no idea who she is, but I know that both she and I felt better in that moment than we did the moment before!

As Theresa concluded, "Smiling for peace - that's something we all can do!"'

Picture courtesy this flickr site.