Karma and Compost

Lately I have had occasion to reflect on how fortunate I have been in this lifetime. At some times I might not have thought so, but I have a different perspective now, a particularly Buddhist one. Furthermore, this American holiday of Thanksgiving encourages one to think about how fortunate one is.
Over my whole lifetime, even in infancy, I have been on the verge of dying although I may have often regarded myself as a hail and hardy fellow. To the Western mind so many close brushes with death and the consequent medical procedures and sometimes rigorous therapies and protracted recoveries are inexplicable. Or else they may be regarded as curses of fate or of some deity. However, for me as a Buddhist it is simply a matter of cause and effect, Karmic causality. In some previous lifetime, perhaps even several, I have done things for which these things are the natural result. These Karmic seeds may have followed across centuries, but they definitely took root in this rebirth.
Furthermore, the conventional thinking I was taught in our Western culture and even that in much of Eastern cultures would regard all these “travails” as “curses,” “bad luck,” or some such undesirable circumstance. For me, however, they are the most fortunate of circumstances, because they “burn up” all of that “negative karma” rather than having it continue to follow me through still more rebirths.
On the other hand, I can also see the positive Karmic seeds that have also come to fruition in this lifetime. I have a “precious human life” with all of the Eight Freedoms and Ten Endowments. I was not born in the Hell realms, as a hungry ghost, as an animal, in a place where teachings are unavailable, as a long-life god (always content and therefore has no motivation for progress), with wrong view (no understanding of karma, and no understanding of past and future lives), where no Buddha has appeared, or lacking the capacity to learn anything. I was born as a human being, where there are teachings, possessing five senses, not having committed heavy negative karmas, able to have confidence in and devotion to the Triple Gem, where a Buddha has appeared, where a Buddha has taught, where the Dharma teachings flourish, where there are followers who enter the pure path of Dharma, and where there is support from the kindness of others, including the spiritual master.
When I was sitting in the room with the relic collection of the Maitreya Project Heart Shrine Relic Tour, I had to reflect that I was fortunate enough to have been with the relics twice already in my present lifetime and on both of those occasions I was there as a volunteer for the whole weekend. Furthermore, at that point I merely had the aspiration to attend once more as a volunteer over the coming weekend. As of this writing, it looks like that aspiration may actually be fulfilled.
As if these were not enough good things to come together in my present lifetime, I was sitting there not only in the presence of such precious relics, a physical manifestation of the great compassion, loving kindness, and other spiritual qualities of Shakyamuni Buddha and these other Buddhist masters, but also as a beginning monk given the immense, incalculable, wondrous responsibility of giving blessings with the very relics of Shakyamuni Buddha. Sometimes my eyes filled with tears and other times it felt as though my heart might burst because of the powerful emotion I felt as well as the enormous energies perceptible in the room and from the relic stupa.
I commented to several people that weekend, and since then, that it is as though all those negative and positive karmic seeds came together in this particular lifetime and landed in compost. They have all born fruit abundantly!! So much negative karma has been burned away and continues to be burned away! Even at this late date in this lifetime, I have not only found the Dharma, but I have been able to devote myself to it and to its service as a monk! I have found a Lama who can guide my spiritual life with enough patience to put up with me and not give up on me! I have had the good fortune to meet not just one but two mahasiddhas in this one lifetime already!
Over the course of the cancer diagnosis, cancer treatment, and the recovery from the treatment, it has been amazing how far a tiny bit of the Dharma has carried me. In spite of the persistence of some of my bad habits, with the guidance and patience of my Lama, I actually am making a little progress, enough that I can perceive the change in me. On the other hand, I remain aware that I am still just a baby Buddhist and a baby monk and the least Drikungpa of all. Nevertheless, there are ways that I can be of service to others and to the Dharma. Nothing I have ever done is totally wasted. Either I have learned skills which find application now to serve or my misdeeds give me understanding and compassion for others. Everything that I do now needs to done with a view to benefiting all sentient beings. That is where its true worth lies. I am most thankful that some little bit of what I do stands up to that test.