Domino effect

We haven't any control over the world around us. Causes and conditions bring us to various points over which we have no say, nor any means to change. But we do have control over one aspect of all this: ourselves, or how we choose to respond to these events.

I lost it on the phone yesterday with a customer service rep from the car share service I use. I found an additional $50 charge on my debit card and when I called the service, I was told I was being charged a late fee for returning the car I had rented a few days earlier an hour late. In short, I was sure I had rented the car for three hours, and I used the full three hours returning the vehicle right on time. No, I was told: I had only rented it for two hours.

The service rep refunded the fifty dollars, but with the insinuation - at least to my mind - that I had made the error and should be more careful. I should have been happy enough with the refund, but I was annoyed about a $23 insufficient fund charge my credit union charged me as a result of the late fee from the car share service, and annoyed too over the continued implication I was in error. I lost it.

"I rented the car for a full three-hour block," I insisted. When she insisted otherwise, I admonished her not to argue with a customer.

I was in a lousy mood after all that; no doubt, it didn't do much for her frame of mind, either. The point, of course, is that - whether it was my fault or not - I could have handled the entire situation differently. I didn't need to lose my temper, but my ego was under attack ("I didn't make the mistake!") and I needlessly took it out on the woman at the other end of the line.

On another note, I have been dealing with depression for the past few years. When you're depressed, it's difficult to make reasonable judgments about what you need to do. After the first really difficult bout, and an observation stay at a local hospital, I seemed to be feeling better. I was hit again several months ago. The impact on my life - though less dramatic - was profound. I ended up cutting back my class schedule, and eventually dropping out of school. However, I also began therapy.

When the therapist asked what I wanted to get out of the experience, I told him I wanted to learn to identify the triggers that set off the depression. To continue reacting - poorly - to circumstances I can't control is not only pointless but the consequences, I've learned, could also be fatal. The therapy is helping me to recognize some of those triggers. But Buddhism also teaches us to do the same, and I find myself drawing heavily on my experience as a Buddhist.

"Be a lamp unto yourself," Sakyamuni said on his deathbed.

Shan-tao wrote: "Know yourself to be a foolish being of karmic evil caught in birth-and-death, ever sinking and and ever wandering in transmigration from innumerable kalpas in the past, with never a condition that would lead to emancipation."

While we can't change the conditions that bring us to certain points, we can change how we respond, and that has the power to foster new, better karmic conditions. As Buddhists, we are taught to look within ourselves. Indeed, we are the only things we truly have the ability to change.

I have no idea whether the woman at the car share service was able to let go of the feelings she had after our conversation. Karma brings with it a perverse sense of generosity, entangling everyone in its tendrils and leaving marks on all of us. Had I been more aware of my own feelings - of my ego - when I was speaking with her, I probably would have been more flexible and less likely to react to perceived criticism. The only way to break the karmic bonds is to know ourselves and to make the changes we need to make, ourselves.