In life, our actions influence the outlook of what role we will have in our next life. If we are deceitful and cruel now, we will accumulate bad karma; however, if we are kind and loving both inside and out, we will have good karma and possibly become a human being and have the ability to make moral choices, unlike animals and gods, that may one day lead to liberation. This ties into the story we read about Shiva. When Shiva was boastful in regards to his power and treating others as if they were lesser than he, he was only hurting himself by building up unpleasant karma and as the other god pointed out to him, he would probably become an ant in his next life and have to burn off his bad karma. This message applies to each and every person in Buddhism. “Unwholesome actions will produce unpleasant results; wholesome actions will produce pleasant ones.” (Snelling 1998) All of the mistakes we make are necessary however, because the soul must reincarnate over and over until it reaches perfection and reunites with the Divine.
I have learned a great deal through many different experiences in the 19 years I have lived as the human being that I currently am. I am intrigued and curious about the world and want to see as much as I can. I am young in this life and feel that my soul is youthful and full of energy and although I feel so young in spirit, I think that in one my past lives I gained much wisdom through pain. I find pain to be beautiful and more expressive than anything else I can imagine or have ever felt before.
I constantly feel blessed to have material possessions such as warm clothes and the textbooks that are required for this excellent college that I have the opportunity to be attending. Emotionally, in the past year I feel that I have had many “tests” on my emotional and spiritual strength. In the past 12 months I have lost more friends than ever before. Through these difficult and tragic losses, I think I have gained a lot of knowledge from the...