I remember sitting at a dinner party in my mid-twenties. My sister was regaling the table with the story of my subway accident.  The person sitting next to me at the table turned to me and said, “You have bad karma.”

Karma, in Sanskrit, means “deed” and is the Buddhist and Hindu concept that a good or bad deed has a cause and effect.   So, according to my dinner companion’s reasoning, I was dragged by a subway in senior year of High school because I made fun of Caroline Burgher in 6^th grade for wearing plain Pocket jeans.  I of course hope this is not true, because I struggle to think of anything I did that could warrant my husband being killed on 9-11 or breast cancer, or any of it.   My religion is “shit happens”

That said, I like the concept of karma when it applies to other people.  I take solace in the idea that karma will serve as my personal vigilante and enact revenge on people that have hurt me through the years. I like to imagine that the ex-friend who wrote me the e-mail that made my stomach drop, will wake up with a festering boil on her upper lip on her wedding day.  I hope that the greedy people who took over my organization, opening my mail and accepting invitations without my knowledge will wind up in permanent stand still traffic on the L.I.E.

During a heat wave.

Without air conditioning.

With windows that won’t roll down.

Karma’s a bitch and so am I.

The Miriam Webster dictionary version describes Karma as

“The force generated by a person’s actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person’s next existence” Which means I have to wait a whole other lifetime for my ex-friends to wake up with a boil and get stuck in traffic. The good news is that they could come back as a cockroach or a stinkbug and that gives me tremendous comfort.

On the flip side, what if I I have come back for someone else’s bad behavior.  When I was diagnosed with breast cancer after my book was cancelled and I ended my wedding engagement, I stared at the sky and yelled “Was I HITLER in my last life???” This made me feel better and feel less like I was being punished.   When I was in the MRI machine, my breasts dangling into two cups like a cow ready to be milked I would distract myself by imagining my last life as Hitler, or at the very least his girlfriend, Eva Braun.  We have a lot in common after all: we both did gymnastics, we both like skiing and we both have big breasts.

As much as I don’t like the idea that I am paying for the behavior of an ugly man in a moustache, I do like the idea of coming back in a next life simply because I can’t fit all the things I want to do in this one.  I am hoping to come back as a giant African American woman with a voice that makes people’s hearts skip.  I don’t even need to be the lead. I’m not greedy.  In fact, I would be thrilled to sing back up with two other women just like me. We will swing our hips; wear glittery dresses and sing, Ahhhh Oooh when needed.

In Theosophy, karma is the “cosmic principle of rewards and punishments for the acts performed in a previous incarnation.”  Whenever I hold a door open for someone, I like to think that there is a big, fat Buddha sitting on a cloud, tabulating my good citizen points like some cosmic accountant.

But I openly admit I use karma for my own convenience.  Blaming my bad luck on another life is an excuse for not accepting responsibility in this one.  Recently, my brother had his heart broken “I think it’s because when I was a warrior in a past life, I abandoned her with our two year old child,” was the way he justified it.  Yes, he was serious.  Karma, like so many aspects of religion can seem like a rationalization for all that goes wrong in life.  It’s God’s will, bad karma; Allah’s will, beshert, theological determinism.  Call it what you will, but it always lays blame in something other than our own behavior.

The truth is, if you follow karma and the concept of what comes around goes around how do you explain those poor bald cancer kids from St Jude’s that make me cry every Saturday morning?  Surely, they didn’t do anything life or their last one for that matter to warrant such suffering.

The reality is, you can’t get through life without being hurt, hurting others and everything in between no matter what choices you make.   I can hold doors open until my arms go numb but I will still lose people I love, get sick and get stuck in traffic.  The reality is you should hold open the door because it’s a nice thing to do. It makes us live in a pleasant society and not question what grand mistake Buddha, God or Allah made creating this fickle mess called humanity.

To hell with Karma. The truth is, even if I was Eva, Stalin or Mussolini in my last life, I like my life a lot.  In spite of what that dinner guest said all those years ago, I have good karma.  I am blessed with loving friends, creativity, a wonderful family, and a hilarious son. Yes, I have been through a lot and I have met others who have been through even more.  Life leaves a lot of scars, baggage and a thicker skin.   Even Buddha himself knew that “We ourselves must walk the path.”

            Personally I like to walk mine with some red wine and a bit of chocolate and I will gladly hold the door open for any of you who want to join me.