With Compassion and Equanimity Reflection it hinges a great deal on the understanding of the Law of Cause and Effect, the Law of Kamma. Each one of us are the owner of our own Kamma. To a certain extent, for any person who has a belief of past lives and rebirth theory, it's easier to work with this reflection. For people who don't have that belief, it's a little bit harder, but it's not impossible. OK? In order to help those who don't have the belief in rebirth, I encourage you to consider it as a possibility. You don't have to believe it fully, I don't think that Rosemary and I say during any of our retreats that you have to believe it fully. Take it, work with it, see what happens from there, but it's good to consider it as a possibility and never reject it.
Now, in considering it as a possibility, Buddhism says that a lot of what we get in this lifetime is due to our past lifetimes. Especially our birth. Buddhism teaches that the condition we're born into is due to what we have done in a past lifetime. Totally an impersonal type of Law, it's like a+b=c.
People who did a certain amount of good actions in a past life, get a good rebirth. People who did a certain amount of unbeneficial actions in a past life, get a not so favorable rebirth.
Yet for most of us it's a mixture, we get both. Every one of you here had a good rebirth, even though many of you may not have had a nice childhood, you may not have had a nice young adulthood, or middle age or whatever. But because you're sitting here in this hall, you had a good rebirth. It's as simple as that according to Buddhism.
Now when we wish compassion to other people who are at the present time in an unfortunate situation, people in jail, beggars, refugees, people being murdered, whatever, when we're wishing Compassion/Lovingkindness to them, in order to keep a balance and not go into sorrow, we reflect that each person according to the teachings at the theoretical level are receiving what they deserve. Now sometimes we can see people's unwise decisions reaping results in just one lifetime but many times we can't.
Why is it that 5 million Jewish people got slaughtered during World War Two? They weren't all bad people. Buddhism actually uses the term group Kamma. They just happened to be together in this group Kamma thing, it was just by Kammic law that all these people were gathered in the same spot and they were all supposed to get murdered. It sounds bizarre, but there's something else that's within Buddhism that's helpful to know. When the Buddha was questioned about Kamma, he said that if an ordinary person tries to work out Kamma they will go insane.
It's beyond our ability to figure out. Things just are. Sometimes we see the actions and we see the results. Sometimes we don't see the action, we only see the result. Sometimes we see the action, but we don't see the result. But it's not for us to think that we're God and we can understand everything. So in that way we rest more on equanimity, allowing Kamma to be whatever it is.
Now people who are strongly religious with a theistic religion have almost an identical way of looking at things to have a balance with compassion and equanimity. They simply say, "It's God's will." Sounds pretty cruel, but that's only if you think of God as a big man with a beard and whatever else. But if God is an ultimate law for the universe, what is it? Law of Kamma, same sort of thing. At some point we have to realize that we can't question this law. We can't really question why, why, why. Every time you ask yourself, "Why is that person in that situation, why did that happen to those people, why did that happen to me", every time you ask yourself, why, ask yourself a second question right after that, "Why not?"
I heard somebody quote part of the song, "Some people say that life is strange, what I'd like to know is compared to what?" Life is strange, that's just life's rule. If we can have more acceptance that there will be people with pain and there will be people without pain, then we can have more equanimity. We wish there would be no pain, but we don't want to be idealistic and think that the whole human race should be without pain, that's not the human realm according to Buddhism. According to the theory, this realm of being a human has both pain and pleasure. It's just the realm of human beings. We look at the animal realm and it's a lot more pain than there is pleasure. Supposedly in heaven realms there's a lot more pleasure than pain. But in the human realm there's a balance. This can help us to have more equanimity and not be caught up in the sorrow of a situation, as we realize that the person is the owner of their own Kamma and that we can't really question that.
Now, this person would like me to add on about ten times as much as I said, but I'll stop there for now.