Contemplating Bad (I think) Karma

Well, Gentle Readers, it's heartening to check my stats just now and see that this tiny blog gets read, even though I haven't been around much.  I've been awfully busy dealing with that statin AE (I started writing about it back here), and not back to myself yet.  Not driving because the right foot and calf are still numb.  And I don't know if I ever will be.  Even if I get back to that norm, I've lost three+ weeks of my life, days that can never be recovered, and so has Tom, taking care of me full-time.

I wish I thought someone could learn from my experience, but does anyone ever learn the easy way?  Do you?  I remember vividly learning the wrong thing at least once.

Plenty of time to think propped in bed, icing the ankles alternately.  How to handle the "friends" who didn't come through.  Keep?  Discard?  Express my feelings to?  Put them on Most Unwanted posters in my study?  Vow every morning to remember what they did or didn't do?

I don't know yet.  I do know I've revised my concepts of several people and of our relationships.  It's given me lots of practice in restraining my impulses, especially speech and online writing.  And I've had difficult spots when my raft kept bumping against rocks of vindictiveness, for even sweet old ladies are human.

I feel wronged by a lot of people, most of all Big Pharm, which campaigned vigorously to get doctors and citizens alike to believe statins (think Lipitor) work, and to minimize the incidence of horrific side effects.

Buddhism has lots of guidance on these issues, such as "Hatred is never overcome by hatred, but by love alone." That doesn't mean I have put away the idea of litigation.  Somebody has to use the courts, or the legal system wouldn't work at all, as opposed to just being a travesty, or at least a muddle. (However, I'm glad to live in a country that has one.)

How is other people's carelessness overcome?  Every mother and manager deals with this all the time.  It's one thing when it's your kids or employees, but what if it's friends and family?  This whole thing has demanded I work overtime on these questions. 

I am also putting energy into having compassion for myself in this sorry mess of a life as the designated scapegoat in an abusive alcoholic family.  This is crappy karma (I think), and you know what they say about karma.

All these years later, and most of my family dead, I keep tripping over alcoholics and addicts.  They take a lot of forms, you know.  There are many who buy the marketers' picture of the good life and are worn out partying and travelling and consuming arts and entertainments and more stuff and stuff to organize it in and expensive food and wine.  Naturally, Wun resents that other people are out doing all this while Wun sits home in a bathrobe too sick and tottery to shower, but in fact, it calls for compassion.

Perhaps fortunately for the world, this illness coincided with an opportunity to begin working with a Zen Master, which feels somewhat like the hand of God throwing out a lifeline. Every Zen Master I've met or corresponded with embodies kindness, and that's the goal.  I keep remembering that every goddamn rotten painful thing that descends on you is a chance to learn, to correct your course. I couldn't tell you how helpful it is to be on a Way.  But if you're reading this, I bet you know.

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