New orchid blossoms in my garden, but it brought back bad memories.

The weather has suddenly turned very hot and uncomfortable. But the air was much lighter in the countryside with occasional breezes. I didn’t notice these tiny yellow orchids till the following day when I had to water the plants. The tiny yellow flowers looked very dainty and fragile to me. The heat had made these orchids looking tired and dehydrated. My gardener told me that they came out last week, I missed seeing them at their best.

My old friend gave me this one almost five years ago and this was the first time I saw these yellow orchids. I had already forgotten the name of this one; I should send my friend a photo to enquire about its name. I haven’t met my friend for quite some time. The orchids and flowers in my garden kept reminding me of my old friends who gifted me these plants. I thought this was a good way to remind friends of our old friendships and the good time we had shared together in the past.

It seemed as we got older, we tended to have less time for getting together with old friends. We seemed to have more burden or things to keep us more occupied and stressful. The long lockdown has certainly made people becoming more like hermits and more accustomed to being isolated from others. Once we had been conditioned to be stuck in our houses for safety sake, we became used to living in isolation. It took me quite a while to break out of this conditioning and started to make effort to visit some old friends who lived quite a distance from me.

Looking at my orchids, I seemed to be living like my orchids. Each orchid liked to stay independently from other orchids with ample space for personal development. Orchids weren’t like ‘social animals’ that depended on social cohesion for their survival. Yet life is a movement of learning from relationships, so I had to find a nice balance to maintain a healthy lifestyle and to be able to survive in this complex world.

It would be nice if one could forget all the memories of bad experiences in one’s own family. Once the glass has been broken, that glass could never be the same. The cracks were too deep and long. I never thought I had to enter into a long fight for my stake in my father’s will. It was a sad and painful victory, as my siblings committed criminal acts according to the law and they had to settle the case before things got worse. I felt betrayed by my siblings as I had helped them in times of troubles in the past. They were already quite well off while I was the poorest, that’s probably why my father redressed the his past actions by giving me the big chunk of his wealth in his will. My lawyers told me I didn’t take my fair share and left them the majority of the shares. I wanted a quick settlement with as little arguments as possible for my mother’ sake as she was unwittingly used by my siblings. My lawyers said I took less than one-tenth of what was mine legally; I only had enough to start a new life. The rest would be at the Divine’s plan for me.

I would have shared my windfall with them had they asked me nicely. I became isolated from all my cousins and relatives as my siblings spread bad words about me. I had no time to talk to people who couldn’t think critically for themselves or didn’t have an inquiring mind. I had to learn to be patient like these orchids which could take years to blossom. Now I could appreciate the whole saga as a blessing in disguise. It was meant to happen as that’s the result of my bad karma from my past life.

A learned monk, who I used to consult frequently on old Buddhist texts in Pali language, told me that my past karma caught up with me. I had been aware of some episodes in my past lives; I often dreamt of myself fighting in battles on horse backs and elephants. My dreams made me doing research on Thai history and my interest in old temple ruins. I was probably a high ranking soldier whose troops had fought and plundered many towns in neighbouring countries. It was common practice that the victorious side would collect all valuable items and all captured people back to their land. Most of the treasures would belong to the commanding officers while captured people would become labourers in the fields.

The monk told me that these captured labourers who lost all their wealth and families had put very strong curse on me. They swore to revenge me and to take their wealth back in the future by being born into the same family. In this way, they could have their sweet revenge from within and betrayed my trust forever. This sounded very probable to me, as I couldn’t think of any reasons my siblings would betray me like that. They all owed me one or two favours since childhood. I had saved my brothers in two separate accidents. One could have lost his eyes had I not taken the right action. The other brother could have bled to death had I not seen the big piece of glass sticking on his back.

My mother knew that I had a special ability to solve difficult problems; she told me ages ago that a famous old monk- astrologer told her about my strong astrological aspects. Other siblings also needed my help when they were in difficult situations. So, I thought they would be grateful to my kindness and personal sacrifice. That’s why the whole treacherous act came as a shock to me. But I was glad I had good lawyers and had the chance to repay my debts to these souls I had wronged in the past life. I had returned all the wealth I had taken from them in their past lives.

In this way, I could start a new chapter of my life without the burden of past negative karma. So, I was very thankful to my siblings for acting spontaneously from their deepest layer of subconscious which led them to concoct a plan to steal my inheritance. I had learned so much about karmic law and karmic consequences on my life path. I had no bad feelings towards my siblings but I felt sorry for them as they couldn’t overcome their vengeance and learn to forgive. Letting go took quite a while as my heart was broken for I loved my family very much.

These yellow orchids had very faint fragrance. I shouldn’t have tried to smell their fragrance, it certainly switched on the brain stem of deeply buried memories. The astrological aspects during the solar eclipse might have added to this strange recall of the past. I just hoped and prayed for them to find light and refuge in Buddhism so they would have peaceful lives. I was still quite concerned about their well beings during the lockdown and the possibility of vaccine injury in their families. They would never talked to me again in this lifetime so I couldn’t warn them about coming chaos and financial crisis in the near future. The old monk told me to let go as I had already done a lot for my family. That’s probably why I wrote my side of the story so that one day someone in my family might stumble on my blog and learn about my life and my thoughts. All the nieces and nephews were told to ignored me and I was banned from family funerals.

These unexpected happenings taught me a lot about karmic law which I had to accept without any negotiation. My understanding of Buddhism has been enriched and my practice has become more meaningful. There seemed to be more peaceful joy in small things and in being in natural surroundings. Life has a different meaning and purposes. My pursuit has veered towards more spiritual aspects and the materialistic side has turned into the need for survival in times of upheavals in our society.

I ought to check my old friend who gifted me with so many orchids. The last time I phoned her was to enquire about her brother who was diagnosed with liver cancer. I was glad that all the supplements and medicine I initially bought for her brother had worked beautifully. The doctor was delighted that my friend’s brother was free from liver cancer within six months. He was a pilot so he was required to take four shots of vaxx. The whole family took the shots despite my loud warnings for three months. They thought they ought to listen to the doctors; several doctors, nurses and professors had died of lung cancer this year. But they blamed the micro dusts in the atmosphere. Things are getting more intense in a very quiet way which seemed to disturb my peace. I could smell something uncanny and threatening in the air. It’s time to do more prayer and meditation to sweep away all the unwholesome energies.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.