Some Great Thoughts

Karma:  A concept of action, word, or deed and its effect or consequences; the good or bad emanations felt to be generated by someone.

Good, good, good . . . vibrations . . . . 

When you are confronted with trouble, do whatever you can to overcome it, but if it's insurmountable, then reflect on the fact that the trouble is due to your own actions in this life.  Understanding that suffering comes from karma will bring some peace as it reveals that life is not unjust.  Otherwise sorrow and pain might seem to be meaningless.  Life is fair, as a general rule.  Most of us get a lot of good stuff and an understandable amount of bad stuff.  I'm luck I don't get what I deserve or I'd be in some deep doo-doo.  Really, the concept of karma must be bullshit or I'd be dying a slow, horrible death as some loathsome blood-sucking parasite.

Initially a problem can seem solid and intractable until I investigate its true nature.  In the same way as I manage my contact with fire - which is by its nature hot and can sear my flesh and cook my food at the same time - I can learn how to work with suffering in my life.

I need to consider trouble from a broader perspective.  I need to learn how to reframe bad circumstances as forces assisting my spiritual development.

When I'm pissed at someone and wish that they suffer bodily, mental, and emotional harm or am overcome with jealousy over the advantages that someone else has (or I perceive they have) I should reflect on their attributes instead of obsessing on their shortcomings (or what I perceive as their shortcomings).

Thus spake the Dali Lama: "Many phenomena cannot be said to be inherently good or bad; they  are better or worse, only by comparison, not by way of their own nature.  Their value is relative.  From this you can see that there is a discrepancy between the way things appear and how they actually are."