Relative Reality & Shifting Thoughts

Monk Enō
Monk Enō
Jul 10, 2017 · 4 min read

Relative Reality

Continuing the analogy, nice calm and sunny days are only one of the choices at the beach. We all know that the tide can be high, the waves unpredictable, the clouds thick and the wind cold.

The thing about karma, like the ocean, is that it has many variables. So many in fact, knowing them all is not possible, thus, making predictions is precarious at best. Yet, like our beach analogy, at any moment you can look and see what is going on. It is high tide, getting cloudy and the winds are picking up.

It is good to be a wanderer if you live with the ocean. No matter what position we have taken, the wave action is always changing. We do our best to build structures to contain and regulate the oceans activity but to no avail. Over time wave action changes along with the wind and tides, threatening all the water edge positions. High swells close the entire beach and water activity. Hurricanes come by and topple the man-made fortresses pushing swells beyond the beach. Tsunamis come and impact many who were not even aware they were part of the ocean ecosystem.

It is beyond our imaginations in America that our tsunami may be to become a refugee or prisoner of war. Our personal hurricanes may be disease or death and our swells may be job loss or divorce. We are more familiar with our high tides in the daily grind of our life. Even though less predictable, rouge waves still come from time to time and upset our apple cart.

Shifting Thoughts

One of the hardest lessons to embody regarding karma is that it is neither good nor bad, it just is. You have no way to tell if the action occurring is a resultant of previous events or is the setup for something to come. The reality is, it is always both.

By now we have all likely heard the story of the man who finds a wild horse; a reward for good living he thinks. His son gets thrown trying to break the horse and becomes a cripple; if I would have never found that horse he thinks. The army comes to conscript his son, but doesn’t take him because he is crippled, good news he thinks …. it goes on and on. There is no good or bad, only how you perceive and label events over the course of time.

If you can let-go of good and bad there is room for curiosity to arise. What is this about? Is there something to learn here? Like the ocean analogy, can I surf this? am I to get in it? am I to play with it? am I only supposed to watch it? does it require distance or a fortress? The goal of this writing is to shed light on these questions and empower you to take a more informed active role in your life.

Another thing that is hard to wrap your head around is that we are all entangled, all the time and in ways we can never imagine. At the same time, we all have our unique experience of events and take our own actions. Two sides to the same coin; as is said, the human and the being.

To continue the ocean analogy let’s say we sign up for a power raft tour of the Nā Pali coast of Kauai one of the most beautiful untouched part of the world. When you arrive, they show you the raft and it looks big, there are lots of ropes and hand-holds and the requisite safety gear. What they do not tell you is that there are commonly 20’ rollers out on the open ocean; taking you up and down about 3 times a minute. The ‘big’ raft fits nicely on the face of a roller and now doesn’t seem so big at all, but you now understand the need for all those ropes and hand holds.

So here we are 30 strangers in a rubber boat with a couple big engines on an endless roller coaster ride looking at one of the most beautiful natural sites in the world. We all survive, we have a common bond. The experience however is not the same, one person is totally exhilarated and asking about other trips offered while another is still miserably ill. Most are feeling both ill and exhilarated; 30 people, 30 unique experience. To twist the analogy back toward entanglement, while we were on the boat we all were exposed to the bird flu. A few weeks from now we will all see our entanglement, as suspected carrier monkeys in 12 countries on three continents. The entanglement never goes away; it just rarely manifests in a way that you can see it.

It’s All HUI

It has been my experience of the past two decades that stories and lessons from other people’s journeys and glimpses into their lives….. (next)

Thank you for reading! Please follow Everyday Karma and check out my other publication The Zentrarian.

If you do not want to wait for the entire series the starting draft is Here on Kindle.

May your life go well.

Everyday Karma

The Five Ways to Work with Other People’s Karma

Monk Enō

Written by

Monk Enō

Zen Monk | Transformation Facilitator | Technology Integrator | Pubs: The Zentrarian and Everyday Karma | www.fiveranks.org

Everyday Karma

The Five Ways to Work with Other People’s Karma

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