CrankyBuddhist   the learning never ends …

I see this written around the metaverse all of the time. Can someone send me some good karma? Throw me some karma, or sometimes people ask for good karma to be thrown at them, sent to them, or hey, just drop it on my doorstep.

Karma is not something that can be handed off from one person to the next. It’s not like donating or loaning money. Karma, both good and bad, has to be earned, accrued, and spent by the individual that earned it. And it tends to follow that individual around – from lifetime to lifetime even. Everything you have experienced in your life is related to your karma.

It bugs me when people ask for some karma.

What they should be asking is that folks send out some good thoughts. Thoughts are creative. Thoughts can turn a bad situation into a good one, or at least made to be not so painful. Thoughts can be sent and given and loaned. You can return good thoughts. Everything that has been, and is, created has started with a thought.

So, go out into the world and think well!

I don’t always have access to cable, but over the summer I had a housesit with OnDemand. And demand I did. I caught up on every cable show worth watching – and a ten episode marathon of the first season of Dexter was the highlight of my summer.

For those of you that don’t know, the short story is that Dexter is a blood splatter analyst for the City of Miami. He is also a serial killer who was raised by a policeman who, having sensed Dexter’s tendancies when he was but a tyke, decided to teach him how to kill without getting caught. One of the ways to do that is to kill only within a set of very rigidly defined rules, the main one being that he can only kill someone who is very bad, like someone who got away with murder.

What is it about this show that can make a CrankyBuddhist understand the mind of a serial killer? Dexter is a twisted fuck, yet ever so lovable. Witty and charming. Maybe it’s because I know he won’t ever come after me that I can look upon his questionable actions only as questionable. I can’t judge him because it’s not my place and he is going through the process of doing that for himself.

Yet the guy *is* a serial killer.

As I watched the series I was horrified to find myself falling for the guy, the show, and the premise. But I couldn’t help laughing at his witty remarks and sarcasms. This absolute horror and delight was being experienced at the same time within me, and I couldn’t tell if I was reacting to the show or reacting to my feelings about it.

So anyway, killing a living being, no matter how awful the being was in the first place, is a no-no in Buddhist tradition, as well as most world cultures. So to answer Dexter’s question in his terms, I’d just have to say he’s a bad person doing bad things. But to answer it in my terms, I’d have to say he is just human.

Thank The Universe it’s just a television show.

The next season of Dexter starts on September 30th and airs on Showtime. You can also view Season One via Netflix.com.

I’ve been wiping down the counters in the kitchen and killing quite a few ants in the process. I wish they would just listen and go away when I tell them to. But no, they just keep marching from the point of entrance to the kitchen counter top, steady, on their misison. Is it their mission to get wiped off the planet by me?

Ant karma …

Again … After those last two posts, my head is swimming with tangents to follow, limbs to go out onto. It’s like a spaghetti fest of blog posts in my brain.

That mother and her bagel obsession has become somewhat of a trigger for me. So maybe she did do her job …

Manners. I was raised to have impeccable manners. And I always assumed that everyone else was raised with them too. Open doors for people. Make people a cup of tea when they don’t feel good. Clean up after myself so that others don’t have to live in my crap. Help friends when they need help. Listen to what people are saying. Pay attention. Say Please and Thank You. Don’t talk with my mouth full. All of them. I have them. I don’t always use them. But they are all stashed in my brain. I pull them out when necessary. And the French love me for it.

Merit. I don’t help people so that I can accrue merit points with the karma police. Merit is an odd thing. It’s like doing something only because I will be paid to do it, not because I see that it just needs to be done. I help people because I happen to be there in the moment and I can. It’s just my nature.

Compassion is developed by using Manners and thinking about accruing karmic Merit. True Compassion in a person arrives when doing something for someone else is done just because. There is a need for something to be done. I have the means to do it. So I do. I did not need to pull either the Manners or Merit folder out of my RAM. Merit has a place as a learning tool, but at some point it’s not an issue. True Compassion flows without intention.