Notes from a Karma Virus
Tibetan Teachers and Monks discuss the generation of love for all beings at Kamalashila, Tilba Tilba.
I’ve been around for longer than you can possibly imagine. Like you with your many lifetimes, I’ve waltzed with royalty and finery, and known the scourge of the darkest of ages. Sometimes I spring unannounced from one felt extreme to the other. It may seem startling to you. I may even scare you. It’s when you find me hard to deal with let alone hard to shake, that I really sink in my claws. It’s when you accept me for all my faults, like yours, that I feel that perhaps we can get along? I have so many faces. As do you. I’m complex yet so simple to work out. As only light can be visible from the shadows, it’s with your most open perspective, from love not fear, that we can both benefit greatly from our relationship.
Your acceptance means a lot to me. Like the incoming tides of the ocean, the more you push me away, the closer I strive to be. I need you to know me, feel me, be one with me. Some say I have a capacity to spawn. It’s stated as if I’m a contagion of evil. Yet all I desire is to wake us both up from our perpetual miseries. Does it not make sense that by amplifying your suffering that you can learn of it’s nature? The less you accept me the more I’ll taunt you. I’m trying to say wake up! My message is to highlight for you this wrong path you’ve chosen. My way is to strip your feet bare so you can feel the wounds of your soles, pressed hard with each step against the sharp rocky way. Let the pain from your bleeding feet be your tonic to find softer ground.
Ironically when you really ‘see me’, I’m much less conspicuous in your life. I can be like your on call lover, as long as you remain present with me and give me the respect I deserve. The suffering of going the other way slowly diminishes and eventually becomes nothing more than scar tissue. Just enough to keep you in check. In divine union we can roll around in the soft meadow grasses. You’ll find the sunshine, warm breeze, and coos of nature abound. This is our happy place. It’s gentle, and serene. You’ll know it as peace. Even though I’m such a big part of this, you’ll not notice me so much, because we’re together as one. That whole universal interconnection thing. Did I mention love!
Awareness in the here and now is our environment from which we can thrive. But it’s only with the elixir of your positive intentions that we can truly recognise our most profound potential. Move your toxic thoughts from fear, anger, bitterness and overall negativity. That is how we roll best. Intentionally manifest what you hold as your most highly valued. The things that your instincts speak to you of being ‘so right’. Even in the midst or your naysayers stand tall but without judgement like those that want to knock you down. Place your hands to your heart, become all of the energetic transmission that you ever dared believe could exist. You deserve nothing less. This is in you, moving through you, what you came from, where you can go, and everything that you are. For all of us. Be happy, be peaceful, be well, be kind, be generous, be wise. Be all of these things for everyone. This is how we really spread our impact.
I am Karma Virus. You are me. And I am you. We are one and the same. We may be feeling worn and weary at times. Things can get tough. But together we can practice feeling all the feels, including the good! Learn from the challenges and feel the abundance of growth. We deserve that. Place us in that practice of love, and see the light shine through. You’ll be amazed how fast the shadows fade. Only fear what you’re not prepared to face!
Foot Note
When this whole deal started to kick in around Autumn last year, my teacher Khenpo Ngawang Dhamchoe put out a message to all his students. “The virus is a sentient being too”, he wrote. “Have compassion for it too”. Wow I thought, how the fuck do I have compassion for a virus? A little snotty nose virus, maybe…..a wipe the human population off the face of the earth virus….hmmm pretty tricky!. From the Buddhist perspective we wish for all beings to be free from suffering. We wish for all being to be happy. Virus’ included. In seeing the interconnected interdependent nature of us all, and placing our intentions in the betterment of others, through the strength of these thoughts, words and actions we manifest a new paradigm - a paradigm that isn’t us and them, me and my illness, or good and evil. The paradigm is one of love, light, connection and positivity. What more could we want?