Changing Karma (Jan 26, 2010)

As I continued to read up on “karma” after my blog update on January 24th, I came across the following words by Dr Daisaku Ikeda, where he cautions us that the duration of time it takes to change our situation depends on the nature of the causes we have made. He says: It takes a great deal of time and effort to overcome sufferings of a karmic nature, whose roots lie in deep causes we made in the past. There is a big difference between, for example, the time it takes for a scratch to heal and the time required to recover from a serious disease. The same applies to changing our karma.

In another passage, he mentions, “There is no other way than to dramatically transform your own life condition. When you change your state of life, your environment will naturally start changing as well.”

When we experience the effects of negative causes we have made, we suffer greatly. And, what I gather from Dr Ikeda’s words above is that the only way to stop the suffering is to focus on feeling happy in spite of the suffering. That may sound very hard to do, but when we are able to achieve that, the environment around us shifts to reflect our own state of mind, and our situation begins to change – slowly but surely.

To know that we are the masters of our destiny, and responsible for changing our lives for the better can be perceived as a burdensome responsibility, or a tremendous opportunity. I definitely prefer to view it as an opportunity.