Retribution

One day a gentleman requested an appointment with me to talk about Kamma, the Buddhist belief about action. When the appointed time came, the man came to the temple and we talked. I started by simplifying the meaning of Kamma. Kamma is an action performed intentionally through the mind, speech and body. I then went on to explain more about how it worked. Kamma works like this, “Good actions produce good consequences and bad actions produce bad consequences”. He asked me, “If I am not a Buddhist, will Kamma still affect me?” I said, “Yes, absolutely! Kamma is not specific to anyone; it is universal. It is action. Therefore, if you perform actions, your actions never disappear. They will always follow you and have an effect on your life, according to the nature of your original action, when they are ready to bear fruit”. He said nothing and seemed to want more explanation. So I told him a story to further his understanding. Here is the story:

Once upon a time an old man was cooking up something. The pot in his kitchen was small so he went to his neighbour and asked to borrow a bigger pot and promised to return it the next day. A knock, knock came on the neighbour ‘s door the next day. The old man had come to return the pot. Later, when the neighbour looked in the returned large pot he found that the old man had forgotten his own small pot which was still inside the big one. Eventually the old man remembered that he had left his small pot inside the big pot and he wanted it back. The neighbour said, "No! I cannot return it to you because the pot which I loaned you got pregnant. Now it has given birth." For that reason the old man could not get his small pot back, and the neighbour was very pleased to have the two pots.

The very next morning, the old man knocked on the neighbour’s door to borrow a larger pot than the previous one. The neighbour happily loaned him the pot, thinking that he might get something more, again. A week went past and the old man had not yet returned the pot. One morning the neighbour and the old man bumped into each other at the bazaar. The neighbour asked, "Where is my pot?" "It’s dead," said the old man. "But how can that be?" queried the neighbour. The old man pointed out, "If a pot can give birth, then a pot can also die." The neighbour had nothing to say and accepted the loss of his large pot.

After listening to the story, the man agreed that the arguments, put in the story, had logic. How about you, do you understand Kamma? One thing I can tell you is to be careful and mindful of your own action, or Kamma. I advise you not to mess around with Kamma, because Kamma is very powerful in the sense that it can return to you what you do to others.