Karma
Weblog April 3, 2008
By Chris DiGiorgio

Last night I attended a Zen Buddhist meditation service, after meditation the Buddhist priest talked about Karma. She started to talk about two primary Buddhist teachings that of impermanence and interdependency. Impermanence is the belief the universe or life is always changing. Interdependency is that all things are connected in some way. Now taking those two concepts, Karma is like cause and effect. She used an interesting metaphor that a Chinese Buddhist teacher used. If we take a fishing net and at each knot we have it encrusted with a diamond, then we move the diamond the surrounding net moves. This is like what Karma is. That for every action, there is a cause and effect. You move the net, the surrounding net moves.

In my life, this is an important concept because in my job as a Doctor, I deal with people. Dealing with a variety of people is a challenge and sometimes people can rub you the wrong way. Pema Chödron calls this phenomenon Shempa; she defines it as those actions from others that bother you or hook you. It has great relevance to me because of my spiritual disciple, I do every day. I ask myself all the spiritual work I do with my spiritual teachers and my daily meditation, how is it I get hooked? Why is it that I can so easily be bothered? Karma is the answer. When I do spiritual practice, if I am getting to the point in the practice when I can look at myself outside of my body, and be the observer of my actions instead of reacting to it that is the goal. So in Zen Buddhism, I am sitting in a specific posture and discomfort comes can I withstand that discomfort and look beyond that and actually see what the discomfort is. If I can do that, then the next time a person rubs me the wrong way I can be aware of that Shempa and react differently to the situation. Look at your actions and see if you can see beyond that initial moment.