Grasshopper

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I met a friend and had a long chat at a coffeeshop near his house. He invited me to this coffeeshop at within Ang Mo Kio HDB estate because he thought it might be a good case study for my fengshui class. Not a single coffee shop owner can operate for more than 1 year ever since more than 10 years ago. Some pack up and go in 3 months. It was 1230 pm. There were so many empty tables. But i like it because it was quiet and I did not feel any pressure not to order any food. We talked for more than 3 hours.

What I am going to blog about now is not the fengshui of the coffeeshop, which I will share it when it is timely, it was what my friend had shared that intrigued me. It is a topic about karma.

I requested that this photographer friend of mine emailed me his story. Below is a blow-by-blow personal experience of his.

"I went to Little India to shop for some daily necessities. While I was crossing the road, something strange happened! Both my knees just gave way. I heard a “cracking” sound and both knees went off like jelly. I literally had to hobble to the side of the road to flag a cab to get home. I called my mom to meet me at the Chinese physician as I had to get my knees treated right away.

OK, so to cut a long story short, my knees were “treated” but they did not recover fully. So I went overseas and stayed at my friend's place. As my friend was preparing to be a monk, he brought me along for some meditation lessons as well. I also did some volunteer work at the temple.

One day, I was strolling in the compound of the temple with a monk and chanced upon a grasshopper with only one leg. (Picture attached)

The monk then commented that I did not walk too well (cause my knees were on their way to recovery and quite obvious that I could not walk as fast) and told me that the grasshopper was trying to tell me something I did in the past that brought me to my present state of injured knee.

I could not really figure out what he meant.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I had flashback. I saw what I did as a kid. Living in kampung areas, I loved to go around hunting for grasshoppers and pull out their legs so I could tie a string around their bodies and play with them. Although this act was done without ill intention, the karma somehow caught up with me.

So I asked the monk what I should do to avert my current sufferings? He told me that I should sincerely repent my mistakes. Now, repenting our mistakes sincerely does not neutralise the negative karma. However, by realising and repenting our mistakes and asking for forgiveness, we will be more at peace to receive whatever “punishment” our karma brings us. The thing about karma is, you don't have to believe in it for it to work on you. We can all deny that the sun does not rise from the east or the moon is not a satellite, but does our denial discredit or change the facts? "