Others' Karmic Obstructions Work Through Our Own: Entanglement Among Colleagues of the Same Generation and Role

Other People’s Karmic Obstructions Work Through Our Own: Entanglement Between Colleagues of the Same Generation in the Same Role

I. Entanglement Between Colleagues of the Same Generation in the Same Role

Everyone is an enemy to everyone else. Relationships among peers will only cease to be an involutionary rat race when communism arrives. Until then, this remains one of the roots of the existential crises experienced by exam-trained achievers, university students, and the petty bourgeoisie.

This is also a classic example of what I discussed in the earlier piece, “Connection vs. Entanglement: Our Relationship with the World.”

II. Other People’s Karmic Obstructions Work Through Our Own

The natural reaction is: How do I respond to karmic projections from colleagues of the same generation in the same role?

First, my “spiritual adept” ego pops up. I wonder whether my qualities as a “spiritual adept” can handle this, whether my level of realization can “win them over.” Of course, I know that the “spiritual adept” mindset and ego are dangerous in themselves, further provoking the other person’s karmic obstructions. And that “spiritual adept” ego is itself a karmic obstruction that has been triggered.

Karmic projections from colleagues of the same generation in the same role may arise, and some of my own karmic obstructions will very likely be triggered. Of course, I allow this. Allowing karmic obstructions is also progress for me.

Besides, I now have far fewer personal issues to work through, far fewer karmic obstructions, and much greater awareness, much more often. I have also passed through the bottleneck of existential confusion as a white-collar worker who moved to Beijing to make a life there. I have never had particularly serious issues with peers; I have always followed a relatively distinctive path grounded in my own agency.

Then I realize that other people’s karmic obstructions work through our own. Ultimately, the cause of our distress is our own karmic obstructions. Suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path.

Our karmic obstructions also attract the other person’s projections, because those projections can have an effect, and may even provoke their projections and entanglement.

From one perspective, when people frantically project their karma, they are seeking a savior who can accept their crying and tantrums, an adamantine vessel, a strong mother—a pathological idealization. And many “spiritual adept” egos are obsessed with saving others and proving themselves, so this ordeal is theirs to undergo.

A crucial part of karmic entanglement in the family of origin is parental role reversal: parents break down emotionally and wait for their children to care for them, while the children develop a compulsion to save their parents and blame themselves.

III. The Radiance of One’s True Nature: Let Things Take Their Course

When there is light within us, the other person’s projected karmic obstructions are like a stone cast into water, a dazzling light cast into a mirror. Neither hold on to what leaves nor reach out to welcome what comes.

Our own light brings us into connection with more light, more stability.

We are also powerless to fight karmic obstructions and unawareness. Fighting is itself a karmic obstruction. Let things take their course.

It is also through one relationship after another that we see our own karmic obstructions and the radiance of our true nature. We see the lava within us.

In the *Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp*, the Fourth Patriarch instructs Master Farong of the Oxhead school: Your true nature possesses innate wholeness. All afflictions and karmic obstructions are, from the outset, empty, still, and insubstantial. All causes and effects are like dreams and illusions. There are no three realms to escape, no awakening to seek. Simply let your mind move freely with circumstances. There is no need for visualization or spiritual practice, nor any need to force the mind into purity and clarity. Open and unimpeded, move freely in every direction. Walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, everything you encounter is an opportunity, always the wondrous functioning of the Buddha. Simply follow your mind freely, without deliberately managing or dealing with anything. This is called the ever-abiding Dharma body; there is no further transformation beyond it.

IV. Envy of “Purity, High Energy, Growth, and Awakening”

For many people undergoing spiritual growth, people from their earlier relationships, former colleagues, and even some social media followers and consulting clients may envy and deny the purity, high energy, growth, awakening, and rising momentum in worldly life that they have experienced.

They will acknowledge, flatter, and coax out the “spiritual adept” ego. On the one hand, this can make you push harder and strive harder to prove yourself, giving them more energy. On the other hand, your own “spiritual adept” ego and exertion also accumulate karmic obstructions. Combined with their other forms of karmic entanglement, this brings you into a lower state, satisfying their need to look down on and belittle you: What a relief—you’re nothing special after all.

This is probably a trial that many spiritual practitioners and people living in purity must go through. As Jung said, the radiance of your true nature will dazzle some people’s eyes. “Unmoved by the eight winds, yet a single fart sends you across the river.”

Such is the complexity and darkness of the karmic obstructions in the human heart. Many people are not even aware of it themselves. They feel that they acknowledge me “very sincerely, from a place of sophistication,” that they are “asking me for help,” and yet I am “nothing special after all.”

That is why we need to be selective about whom we socialize with, cultivate purity, and draw our energy inward.

V. Why Children Are So Lovely

Children have fewer karmic obstructions, more light, and innate wholeness. Fewer of our karmic obstructions are triggered, and more beautiful connections arise. Children experience role reversal: they ought to be cared for by adults, yet they often serve as vessels for adults’ breakdowns and karmic projections.

I am grateful to my nephew because he is a beautiful, pure energy. In this relationship, I am illuminated by light and also feel the beauty within myself. But watching helplessly as he is swallowed up by the family’s karma has intensified my savior personality and added to my karmic burden. This is the other side of fate’s complexity.

Unruly children are annoying because their karmic obstructions, mostly inherited from their parents, frustrate our expectations of beauty, like mud inside a strawberry cake.

Appendix: “Work Buddies: Partners in Saving Ourselves, or Emotional Dumping Grounds?”

*Liezi*:

Bohun Wuren said: “Enough. I told you before that people would come and gather around you, and now they have indeed done so. It is not that you can make people gather around you, but that you cannot keep them from doing so. Why must you display signs of being different and make them so delighted?

“When you move others through extraordinary displays, they in turn will inevitably disturb your true nature with their delight, and there is no benefit in this. Those who associate with you cannot explain this principle to you. All their clever, subtle words do nothing but poison the human heart. No one can awaken through them, so how can anyone learn from one another?”