Good Karma Music Stories

Sitting in the car for 16 hours you don’t know what to expect when you reach a stop. Your body is exhausted, but you want to run laps everywhere and anywhere. This is how I felt when I went on an Oregon retreat to Buddha Root Farm. It had to be the most amazing experience of my life. Before coming to the retreat I have to be truly honest, I was not a good kid. I had straight A’s and I respected elders, but I argued with my parents and fought with my siblings. In just one week of meditating, listening to Master Heng Sure when he gave lectures and read sutras, I became someone else. It’s not that I have changed completely or that I have become brainwashed, but after realizing my faults I understand life a bit more. I don’t burst into chatter as how I would before and I see things in a new perspective. I’ve read Buddhist books and once coming home from the retreat I hugged my parents tightly and thanked them. I apologized for everything I’ve done to sadden them. I’ve learned to appreciate. I would usually go to a Vietnamese temple every Sunday, but I admit that I never understood most of what they were teaching. Once going on the retreat I finally understood the basics of Buddhism; knowing human kindness. It was that simple yet I didn’t discover that until now. I guess my story is to just explain to people that when you realize all your mistakes, it’s not to late to fix them and become a better person.

This isn’t a story so much about my own act of kindness as it is about a group of boys who made a difference. I am an English teacher at a small school in rural Missouri. Though teaching is my first love, I also am the assistant high school football coach. Last year during the first day of football practice, we had a small, quiet sophomore boy come out for football who had never played an organized sport before. I had taught this boy in my English class the year before, and he was a delight to have in class–inquisitive and knowledgeable about a wide range of subjects. His years of inactivity had not prepared him for the pace of even our warm-up drills, however, and he told me during the first water break that he wanted to quit. I told him that I would make a deal with him. If he could make it through one practice, I would make sure that no one on the football team would ever say a word to him about quitting the team. I He didn’t want to, but he said, “I’ll try coach.” He made it through the rest of the drills that morning, until we started on our conditioning sprints at the end of practice. After the first one, he fell down and was sobbing that he couldn’t do anymore. I went to him, and I told him I would run them with him, and he said OK. We ran six or seven more together. Then something happened that changed this boy’s life. His teammates, who had finished already, got around him and ran the last three with him, encouraging him. When they were done, the team captain said to all the players, “When one of us needs help, we all step in and help. You’re on the team and you’re one of us.” The little sophomore came back that night, and finished the year.

I just read the story about returning a wallet outside a bookstore, and it reminded me of the same thing -just at Border’s instead of Barnes & Noble. Just like the other story, I took the wallet off the sidewalk and brought it in for the store to return to the owner.

My mother had a an operation for a degeneration of the macular holein her eye. On discharge from hospital, she was required to sit athe table at home and barely move so as not to upset things. I did the cooking cleaning and other things. after all I put her through and her bringing me back, it’s the least I could do.

When I was at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in June, I remember helping an elderly nun transport some gardening stuff in my car…she was so sweet about it, asking why I was at the City and what I was doing there (I often asked myself those same questions:). She had placed some plastic bags in my trunk, so her ‘gardening dirt’ wouldn’t get all over my car. She was also seemingly surprised that a stranger would help her out like that, yet wanting me to see her garden and informing me how much work it was to keep it up. And I thought, gosh, her life is so simple and beautiful at the same time. I don’t know why, but I was touched by the simple beauty of life, that our soul and spirit could be nourished by such intangibility and purity.

living in nyc i myself start living in my own world as many of my fellow neighbors do… Off to work, to lunch, to dinner, to somewhere and normally not stopping in between. Not being available to others as I’m either listening to music or eyes only looking at my path. Most of the time as I’m on my run I’m not bing present for others or really myself…As there are angels in the world one has to have his or her eyes open to see. My act of kindness was smiling at a person who I didn’t know was lost and felt able to approach me… I was able to give directions, but her warm and welcoming smile back was such a gift as it brought warmness and happiness into my journey. I know this is small, but it really was so big as I do try to be present while living in this big amazing city.jp

After steps on the path of transformation,and feelings of anger and frustration.Pointing out my finger to the world,due to not being able to cope with the hurt.I have decided to change my ways, I let go and I give praize, to all that comes to my road, with very little material things I float.Between darkness and bright, I try to be always close to the light, I hope that this time I do it right. For a tiger doesnt really fight. No need to fear, I live inside…..