Skillful Actions and Karma

Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them. - Will Rogers

A layer below the obvious humor here, there is a sublime Buddhist truth.

A Buddhist will say that things get better or worse depending on our skillful or unskillful actions. Too often, despite our best intentions our unskillful actions hinder improvements.

Mindfulness and concentration provide insight into the present moment, and of how you continually contribute to your present experience and to those in the future.

For example, when others cause us pain, we're intensely aware of what they are doing.

However, often we're not looking at what we're doing which is influencing their painful behavior.

Many times you can't avoid the way others are behaving toward you -- it's past karma. But with mindfulness you can avoid the unskillful ways you're reacting to their behavior. You find that the way you are reacting to the situation feeds back into the situation, influencing what those around you are doing, and making a painful situation worse.

Therefore, the goal is to respond to this moment with mindfulness, and work just with that moment with skillful actions and attitudes. By doing this you are creating new karma to both help the current situation and to feed into a better one in the future.