Karma

I've been in a distraught in the past few days.
It seemed like it, but truthfully speaking,
I have no idea why.

I guess I'm just lost.
Had somewhat of a bipolar disorder.
One minute I'm happy,
the next minute I'm cold and aloof.
One side of me is sad,
and the other is laughing away.
Hysterical.

I didn't know what I want.
Nothing is clear.
I drowned myself in games,
and songs.
They were great,
except they had a side-effect.
I was getting more and more unresponsive,
or maybe it would be understood better if I labelled it as being anti-social.

I fell into the abyss,
one fresh one that I have never encountered,
or perhaps I have, I just haven't fallen this deep before.
I struggled to get out, and in the process,
didn't know what I was doing.

Signs weren't around either.
Taking a vacation probably.
So here.
I found this.
Everytime I searched for signs there,
I would find this very story.
It's intriguing.
So now I'd like to share.

The Wife-beater

I've thought of another story. There was once a family which raised a donkey and put it to work in a granary. The donkey's master felt it worked too slowly, and he beat it every day with a broom. The donkey worked and worked grinding grain until it died. It was then reborn as a man. When the donkey-beater died, he was reborn as a woman, and the two of them were married.

What do you think their marriage was like? All day long, the man beat his wife. He beat her with chopsticks--with anything he could find. He beat her and he screamed at her; nothing she did was right.

One day Master Chih Kung passed by and the woman spoke to him. "My husband beats me every day," she said, "and I don't know why. Old Cultivator, you who have the Five Eyes and the Six Spiritual Penetrations, please take a look and tell me the causes and effects involved. Why does he beat me?"

Master Chih Kung said, "I will tell you the causes and conditions. In your last life you were a man. You continually beat the donkey in your mill. You beat it every day with a broom made of one hundred stalks of bamboo. Now you have been born a woman, and the donkey has been born a man, and he beats you every day just as you used to beat him. Since you now know the causes and effects involved, I'll give you a method to bring them to an end. Hide everything in your house except for a horse-hair whip. When your husband sees that there's nothing else available, he will grab the whip and beat you with it. Since it is made of several hundred strands, your debt will be paid. Then you should explain to him the former causes and latter effects clearly, just as I have explained them to you, and he will not beat you anymore."

The woman did as she was instructed. When her husband came home, he looked for something to beat her with. Seeing only the horse-hair whip, he picked it up and started beating her. Normally, she would try to run away, but this time she just sat patiently until he finished.

Finding that strange, he finally asked her why she wasn't trying to escape. She related her meeting with Master Chih Kung in detail and explained the causes and effects. Her husband thought: "In that case I won't beat her anymore. If I do, she will only come back and beat me again in my next life." And he gave up beating his wife.

So you can see that everyone has a relationship to everyone else. You never know who, in a previous life, was your mother, brother, father os sister. Causes of the past bring about the present effects and determine the relationships of the people who surround you. If you understand the principles of cause and effect, you should change them; improve them by refraining from evil actions.

Excerpt taken from The Vast, Great, Perfect, Full, Unimpeded Great Compassion Heart Dharani of the Thousand-Handed, Thousand-eyed Bodhisattva Who Regards the Sounds of the World. (with the commentary of The Venerable Tripitaka Master Hsuan Hua.

Interpretations are important.
What I understood from this story was,
karma.
A chained reaction.
What this story was trying to convey was,
do good,
no matter how a person treats you.

What I couldn't interpret was,
why this page, this passage, at this time?
(which was also the reason I said 'Signs was taking a vacation').
From the story in the passage,
it also said,
when you have had your debt repaid to you,
enough.

The question.
Have I repaid my debts?
Have others fulfilled their obligations to me?

Or shall I wait patiently, just as how the wife sat quietly fulfilling her debts without running away.

Ah.
Escape?
Was I escaping?
How do I face it then?
Or am I already facing it?

Or have I completed all my obligations?
Am I fed up?

So many questions.
So little answers.
So difficult to find.

Teach me, Ernie, teach me.

...and in an unserious manner,
I'm asking for help from Ernie,
because dear Ernie was given to me by Master Sam.
To me, Ernie is like ...
God.
(symbol guys, symbol)