Bad Karma Is Like Failure: It's Not a Finality

This morning I was doing my morning chanting of nam myho renge kyo when I was reminded of how many people in the U.S.A. think of karma.  One way is seen in our daily lives, we have heard people say, tweet, and comment, "Karma is a bitch!" whenever a horrible act is greeted upon someone who is known for partaking in similar disreputable activities.  Case in point, when Suge Knight was shot, that was the response of people in light of his history of violence.  The other way is when people hear the Buddhist perspective of karma in which one's current effects are a byproduct of causes in one's past and past lifetimes.  Upon hearing that, there are many who react with ire or defeatism.  I did the former for a long time.
I will focus on the second U.S.A. view of karma.  As I grew to understand the benefits of chanting nam myoho renge kyo, one of the benefits that I was told by seniors in faith (those who have been practicing since the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s) was that I could change my karma.  Eventually through chanting and study (not for intellectual purposes, but for understanding), it sunk in that obstacles and difficulties are opportunities to change one's karma.  Understanding that was groundbreaking for me, being someone who prefer things to go smoothly and securely with the least amount of resistance possible.
While my karma has not totally changed, I notice a transformation comparing where I am now and where I was a junior at Norfolk State.  I notice a transformation comparing how I felt about high school back in 2014 and 2017.  Had I not picked up this practice, I would have been destined to devolve deeper into self-loathing, addiction, and eventually self-destruction.  I was destined to be like Phil Spector (before the Lana Clarkson murder): famous and lonely egomaniac. Nichiren Daishonin wrote in his letter "On Prayer": It makes no difference if the practitioner himself is lacking in worth, defective in wisdom, impure in his person and lacking virtue derived from observing the precepts.  So long as he chants Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, they will invariably protect him.  One does not throw away gold because the bag that holds it is dirty;one does not ignore the sandalwood trees because of the foul odor of the eranda trees around them; and one does not refuse to gather lotuses because the pond in the valley where they grow is not clean."
You might look at your current karma and think that it's some shit. (It's okay.  I did it before too).   However, through chanting nam myoho renge kyo, you will change your karma,  If you chant nam myoho renge kyo diligently, you will look back on this day and realize how you had changed your destiny for the better.  Bad karma is like failure.  If failure is not final, then bad karma is not final.  Therefore bad karma is not final.

Things Fall Apart

By intuition, I bought Iyanla Vanzant's book Peace From Broken Pieces.  I'm not finished reading it, but so far the book has caused me to assess my own life.  What I now realize was that my life did not fall apart in 2013.  It began to fall apart in 2010, the moment I confronted the reality that I was attracted to the same sex.  Through my parents, and their circle, I had been given the message that to be gay was the most contemptuous thing to ever be.  To be gay was like being a leper or an untouchable in a caste system.

 For years, I believed being attracted to the same sex determined what I could or could not be.  I believed that I could not remain the same young man who loved country music, because country music talked about love and family; and I had been conditioned to believe that love was between man and woman and that family was having children, biological or surrogate.  I believed that I could never make my parents proud ever again, because I had been conditioned to believe that no matter what amazing things people did, to love the same sex was like an ink splotch on a white tapestry.  I believed that I would never become happy, because 90% of the narratives of homosexuals that I had heard of either died from AIDS complications, was murdered, or assaulted in one way or another.

With that message, which really wrecked my self-esteem, I began to devolve, with every slight and with every tragedy. Now add to this, an adolescence of being shamed, bullied, and physically and emotionally abused.  My behavior at Norfolk State began to go South.  My maturity level stalled.

That is how I went from a 19-year-old promising young man going off to college, to a 23-year-old man still living with his mother and with not much to show the years he had been in college.  (Talk about peeling back layers).  And while my life hasn't been fully rebuilt, I can truly say that I love this new foundation.  This new foundation is nam myoho renge kyo.  This new foundation says that life s worth more than gold.  This new foundation is built on the awareness of being a part of Myoho-renge-kyo, and being Myoho-renge-kyo.  This new foundation is built on the dragon king's daughter proving that one can attain Buddhahood (becoming truly happy) in this lifetime.  This new foundation is built upon the knowledge of an infinite connection with the World Honored One that has spanned lifetime after lifetime.  This new foundation is built on changing poison into medicine.