Do you believe in karma?

When I was 7 or 8 years old, my family just moved out from a restaurant in town to stay in a house surrounded with gardens and trees. In our new neighborhood, there were a few families with kids my age. These people rent our row houses which located in the same area with my home. The kids were born there and grew up in a rather strucggling life and lacked of money. They didn't have toys or dolls to play with, but they did had senses to survive using all kinds of free gifts from the nature. Yes, they stole fruits from others' trees after eating rice with only chilies. They were good at climbing trees to pick up fruits or to spend time hiding away in the shade. Moreover, they loved to hunt. They seemed to enjoy killing small creatures such as dragonflies, butterfly, ants, bees, and other animals they could catch. I had learned a lot from them. They opened up a new world of playing to me. The worst thing about these kids was that they were so familar with rude words, cursing, swearing and impolite conversations. That was why my parents didn't want me and my siblings to hang out with this group of young gangsters. My parents allowed them to pick fruits in our garden when they were ripe enough to eat. This reduced their desire to steal as well as exciting feeling when trying to hide from the owners of the garden. They would move to steal from somewhere else, not for the sake of eating but for fun.

I went with them once or twice and I couldn't go on because my mother punished me for doing that. Later on, I had to stop playing with them since my parents decided to pull down the row houses and kept the blank space for our family to play badminton after my father came back from work. Anyway, it was a little bit too late, the hunting instinct was already grown up in my mind. I liked to catch dragonflies for fun. I always caught them and stored them alive in a plastic bag. No, I didn't want to kill them. I didn't enjoy being a murderer. At that age, I found that catching the dragonflies made me happy but what else I could do after that. A very creative idea came to my mind, I pretended to be a doctor who cured the sick insects with acupuncture. I prepared a lot of small needles from the coconut leaves and held up each dragonfly, pressed the needles into its part. Some got one, some got two and I let them fly away!!! I didn't mean to kill anyone. Poor little insects, they carried the small needles with them and tried to escape as fast as they could. I said good-bye to them nicely as a doctor would do to her patients. Well, no one came back to see me again. I did that for a few times before my mother caught me abusing the poor little creatures. Last time, I did put two needles into a dragonfly and they crossed as an X shape, my mom forced me to take them out but I insisted that I did it to cure the sick insect. "The needles would help it to be able to fly straight" I said. I couldn't remember what she did but I finally stopped doing this again.


Several years later, I was operated by a doctor in Siriraj Hospital. He was an orthopedic expert who cured my legs. I got sick with Polio since I was five. When my mom and me saw the x-ray he showed us, we were so shocked. There in my left foot, two small pieces of metal about 3-4 inches long were put as an X shape. The doctor told me nicely that I had to carry these metals in my foot until they were rejected by my body. It may take some time but I would be OK. Yes, it took me a few months before each piece of metal was pulled out of my foot. They were there secretly, silently, but surely confirmed to me day by day that karma really exists. I had to walk with some pain inside, quite sad and miserable for myself and the dragonflies I had hurt. After each one of the metal pierced from inside up to my skin, reminding me of what I had done again and again. I went to see the doctor and he took them out.

Nowadays the metals are still with me as an evidence of bad karma I committed to the poor insects in my childhood. Not only, that metal in my foot, now I have to wear boots with metal up to my knees just to help me walk straight. I have been wearing this kind of shoes for many years and I may have to wear them until the day I die. I really believe in karma since I saw that particular x-ray, but more and more events keep coming to remind me about other karma. I am really afraid of bad karma's consequence. How about you?