Count Your Blessings

I like to count my blessings.
I'm not sure why.
Maybe because I have so many.
Surely there are many people with more stuff than me. But I'm not sure anyone is more blessed with good fortune than I. No one could ask for a better childhood...loving parents who are still together...a brother and sister anyone would be proud of. I still see my first friend regularly. I've known him for over 47 years.
I was still a child when I met my wife. We've been married 31 years, and I'd do it all again in a New York minute. We have two sons, both of whom I am very proud. They never gave us a minute of trouble, and they are kind, compassionate people.
How can life be so good to one person? Is it karma? Did I do something good in a past life? Or is life going to dump all the bad stuff on me all at once?
Sometimes I wonder, but not usually.

Cause No Harm

It's easy to say but not so easy to do. Legend has it that the Buddha saw farmers working in the fields with hoes and forks. He saw worms and insects being cut and killed by the tools and realized that harm and suffering were everywhere. So going through life without hurting something is pretty near impossible. As careful as we may be, there is always the possibility that what we are doing is causing or will cause harm to someone or something. Maybe harm is the wrong word...maybe we should say cause no discomfort. All beings want to live comfortably. Even a flatworm will avoid an unpleasant stimulus. To a flatworm, comfort means food and a cosy place to live. For a dolphin, it means food, a cosy place to live, and friends to play with. For a human, it means so much more. The more complex the peephole we're looking through, the more difficult it is to find comfort. So for a flatworm, harm or discomfort would involve a lack of food, or the cosy place to live, while for a human, it could be almost anything.
So causing no harm is not so easy to do. Generally, animals have no intention to cause harm or even discomfort. They have no ability to look ahead and see the consequences of their actions. So if a lion eats a person...the intention is probably to survive. We, as humans, have a responsibilty to look closely at what we are doing. We need to look ahead to see the possible outcomes of our actions. We need to think less of ourselves as individuals, and think more of the overall comfort of the One Thing of which we are all a part.