Last night, at the group meeting at Reading Priory, somebody asked a question about karmic consequence. The example used was of a woman who had been waiting at a bus stop in London. She had cursed the bus driver for not stopping to pick her up. The bus was, shortly afterwards, blown up in the recent bombings in the capital. We generally pondered the conditioning effects actions; of body speech and mind have on future acts. One can only offer merit to this woman who most likely feels both, glad the bus didn’t stop, as well as badly for having cussed somebody so close to his bus being blown up and many of the passengers being killed. She might, after all, have been one of them.
Footnote: The young boy travelling beside me on the train informs me that the driver of that bus survived the blast. He was in such shock that he wandered for some miles before finally checking into a hospital for treatment.
It is now all the more poignant to hear, from a fellow passenger travelling on the train, that there have been more bombing in London this very morning. This news leaves me numbly gazing out of the train window at Cornwall as it’s green rolling fields and lush green trees flash past. These bombings certainly bring to mind impermanence…and the need for nurturing compassion in the world.
In the news around the time of the bombing there were a number of stories of people who for one reason or another expressed regret. Regret for not helping somebody in need choosing to run for safety instead. Regret for even surviving when so many were hurt or died as a result of these bombings. I can’t help but think of the people on this train, many of them got on in London, they could have taken a latter one, they could have been caught up in to-days bombings. These are the kinds of thing that passes through ones mind. The realization that physical life can be so easily, and quickly, ended.
