Do you believe in karma?
“Action is superior to inaction.”
— Bhagavad Gita 3.8
The little monk sat beneath the tree, staring at the lines on his palms.
“Master,” he said, “I think people have told me many things about karma. But perhaps some of them are not really karma at all.”
The sage remained silent and listened.
The little monk began counting on his fingers.
“People say, ‘Karma will punish you.’ But is karma really a punishment? Maybe an action simply produces consequences, and those consequences give me another opportunity to understand what I am doing.”
He raised another finger.
“People say, ‘What goes around comes around.’ But life doesn’t always return the same situation in the same shape. Sometimes the same lesson comes through a completely different person or circumstance.”
Another finger.
“People say, ‘You are suffering because of your past karma.’”
The little monk frowned.
“How can I know that for certain? I may not even understand what caused my present situation. If I use karma to explain everything, I might stop looking at what I can actually do today.”
The sage nodded slightly.
The little monk continued.
“People also say, ‘Good people will always receive good things, and bad people will always receive bad things.’ But life doesn’t seem to work that simply. Good actions do not become a guarantee that everything will happen according to my wishes.”
He looked at his palm again.
“And another one: ‘Your destiny is already written.’”
He shook his head.
“If everything were already fixed, why would my choices matter?”
The little monk became quiet for a moment.
“Maybe the biggest misunderstanding is thinking that karma means I should sit and wait for something to happen to someone else.”
He smiled.
“That isn’t karma. That’s waiting for revenge and giving it a spiritual name.”
The sage finally laughed softly.
The little monk laughed too.
“Perhaps karma is much simpler and much harder than people make it.”
He opened both palms.
“I act.
My actions have consequences. I experience those consequences. I learn—or I repeat the pattern.”
He looked toward the sage.
“And if the same lesson keeps returning, perhaps the question isn’t, ‘When will karma punish them?’”
He tapped his chest gently.
“Perhaps the better question is, ‘What am I doing with this moment?’”
The sage smiled.
The little monk looked at his hands one last time.
“Maybe karma isn’t a cosmic scorecard keeping track of who deserves what.”
He closed his palms.
“Maybe it is the continuing movement of action, consequence, awareness, and choice.”
The sage nodded.
“And that,” he said, “is something worth observing.”
The little monk smiled.
For once, he stopped looking for karma in someone else’s life.
He simply watched his own actions.
“You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.”
— Bhagavad Gita 2.47
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