Expert: Alex Wilding - 3/25/2011

Question
Hi Alex
I hope you will be able to answer my question. I have suffered more 'crap' in my short life than anyone should endure in a complete lifetime (childhood abuse, addiction, death of a partner, serious assault x3 etc.) I'm not writing this as a 'woe is me' letter. I've managed to cope with previous problems very well. My question is this - were all those bad things related to my karma from a previous incarnation, my pay back for being a bad person in a previous existence or have they been pre-destined in order for me to learn from them and ultimately help others, being able to offer sincere empathy on a wide range of issues. I am finding myself being drawn more and more towards using the negatives of my life and turning them around into something positive eg. training to be a counsellor to help people with addiction issues as I understand what it's like to be addicted to something, in my case alcohol. Thank you for your time.
Kind regards
Craig

Answer
Hi Craig,
The traditional answer is quite clear, though some people do tend to get attached to a fatalistic idea of karma: you can't tell! The interconnections of karma are said to be so complex, that only a fully enlightened Buddha can understand them.
Maybe they are some kind of payback; maybe you somehow sought them out in order to reach out to people; maybe they "just happened". Karma from past actions is only one of several factors that affect what happens to us.
If you can use your experiences positively, that is wonderful - you don't need me to tell you that. But the teaching is that, while we can speculate about what we might have done in the past and its effects on the present, it can only be speculation.
Good luck!