Karmic Affinities

One day, when the Buddha entered a village with his assistant Ananda, he approached a poor woman to share his teachings with her.

However, the woman disliked the Buddha so much, that despite his magnificent and pleasing appearance, she could not even stand the sight of him. Wherever the Buddha went, she would turn away. When he went to her right, she would look left. When he went to her left, she would look right… Even when the Buddha used his supernormal power to levitate above to catch her attention, she looked down and refused to look up.

However, when she saw Ananda, her attitude became the reversed. She was naturally drawn to him, and happily listened to the Buddha's teachings related by him, which she found to be beneficial. This is very interesting as though Ananda almost resembled the Buddha in form, he was still not his equal, and especially not the same in compassion, wisdom and skilful means. How is this outcome possible then?

In a distant previous life, the woman once lost her child and was consumed by much grief. A spiritual practitioner passed by and enquired after her. After hearing about her misfortune, he replied somewhat 'indifferently', that there was no need to grieve as death is natural. As he seemed detached, his words felt cold and hurting, which gave rise to her aversion.

When another practitioner came by and enquired similarly, he kindly offered his condolences, before sharing about the truth of death.

The first practitioner was the Buddha-to-be and the latter Ananda-to-be. Due to these karmic affinities formed, the woman developed a 'natural' disdain for 'the Buddha' and a 'natural' attraction to 'Ananda'.

As such,positive and negative karmic affinities can be carried not only from one moment to the next in this life, but also from one life to the next. This is a crucial reason why we ought to be mindful of the impact of our fewest words and slightest gestures, or even the lack of them, as they can affect present and future relationships for better or worse.

Although the Buddha, with his great wisdom, already knew the outcome of his approaches to the woman, what he demonstrated was the importance of doing our best in connecting to others, with as many skilful means as possible, before deciding the next skilful means is to step back, to let the 'next better player' try.

The inexplicable 'first' impressions we have towards total or near strangers are often due to affinities formed in past lives. As these perceptions are not always rational, and often result from emotional bias, as in the case above, we should learn to manage all relationships anew, to form updated and thus truer perceptions of people as they are now. Feel-good vibes might not always turn out good, just like feel-bad vibes might turn out unjustified. Unless proven 'hopeless' for the time being, all deserve second chances – including ourselves. Remember, if you believe any affinity to be beyond hope, you are fatalistic with dishttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifbelief in the dynamic nature of karma, whose power you always hold!

For true skilful means to arise,
true compassion and wisdom must arise
to create skilful karmic affinities too.

- extracted from The Daily Enlightenment

Life Lessons

Here is a very good site that talks about Life Lessons - lessons that you wished that you had learnt and that if you could do it, you would go back to the past to give these advices to a younger version of you.

In the old days, many of these life lessons were passed down and inculcated into the younger generations through the parents, grand-parents and other older, wiser relatives.

It took a whole tribe to raise a child and therefore, the child benefited from the collective wisdom of the tribe, each member sharing her memories and lessons that she had learnt to the small child.

However, with the advance of civilization and technology, our society has started to loss this collective wisdom.

Many children are now raised in a small family, with limited access to the grand-parents and other relatives.

So many children are now the product of divorce or come from single family due to the untimely death of one parent.

Even when both parents are there, it is tough to find the time to spend with children given the pressure of daily life, the long commute and the challenges of earning a living.

Therefore, it is good that there is a web-site that collects all the collective wisdom of the people so that they can be passed down to the younger generation.

Check out the web-site : -

Everyday Life Lessons

You may also learn something and pick up some gems of wisdom youself too.


Here is a sample of what you can find : -


What has life taught you?

Think about all the things you would love to tell yourself if you could travel back in time to give your younger self some advice about life.

Here’s a sample of 111 life lessons that were recently submitted to the site:

1. Spend more time with those who make you smile and less time with those who you
feel pressured to impress.

2. Never tell someone their dreams are impossible. You’ll feel like a fool when
they prove you wrong.

3. No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still
way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.

4. Pursuing happiness by acquiring material things (fancy cars, expensive
jewelry, designer clothing) is like jogging to the grocery store on your
treadmill: it won’t get you anywhere.

5. Laugh at stupid jokes. Apologize. Tell someone how much they mean to you. It’s
the small moments that make life grand.

6. At 79, I regret the things I didn’t do far more than the things I did.

7. Life is way more enjoyable when you stop trying to be cool and simply focus on
being yourself.

8. Start by asking yourself whether each of your relationships drags you down or
lifts you up. Surrounding yourself with positive, loving people is half the
battle of living a happy, successful life.

9. When the ‘want’ gets stronger, the ‘how’ gets easier.

10. Too often we judge people on too little information. Instead of judging
someone for what they do or where they are in their life, figure out why they
do what they do and how they got to where they are.