Cause and Effect Never Forget

📖Master’s Reading

We often think cause and effect a fearsome punishment, but it is in fact a balance of the cosmos. The Rinpoche teaches profoundly: "A debt must be repaid, a killing paid with a life — this is karmic retribution." This is not a threat but the logic by which all things run. More importantly, the Rinpoche points out: "Cause and effect are a memory that can never be erased, only forgotten. Wherever one has walked, a trace remains." All our arising thoughts and actions are precisely recorded deep in the soul and have never vanished.

There is no chance in life; the circumstance you meet now is an "effect," and the effect forms because of a "cause." Some retributions come fast, some slow, but when the time arrives the trace left in the past appears. The Rinpoche reminds us that whether one's luck is good or not lies entirely in the "choice" of the present. If, meeting adversity, one will not change old habits, one only repeats the saṃsāra of suffering.

Understanding cause and effect is not to make us live in fear, but to see through the nature and learn to brake at each arising thought. When we understand that "what cause you plant, that fruit you get," we can transform fear into wisdom and all the more cherish each chance to choose kindness. To make the right choice in the present is to create for oneself a future with no regret.

🌱Reflection for Daily Life

• Brake at each arising thought and create for yourself a future without regret.
• Understand that cause and effect are memory; wherever one walks, a trace remains.
• Notice that circumstances are all effects, all formed by past causes.
• Meeting adversity, change your habits and make the right choice.
• Brake at the arising thought, turning fear into wisdom.