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Not many people can leave the places they're used to, the people they've befriended or the surroundings they've become accustomed to living in. It's because of this that many people transmigrate again and again back into this world. Because at the time of death, they desire nothing else but to continue doing what they've left behind, to continue living further and making more money, making more friends or having more wives or the like. And whatever you desire at the time of death, you'll get. After you finish your "death sentence," you'll come back again. It's very difficult to leave what we're used to.
There's a story about a person who went in search of a stone that could turn everything into gold. They called it a touchstone. If you found that pebble, everything you touched with it would turn to gold.
So this person who heard about it from someone obtained a secret map of where the pebble was supposed to be and went in search of it. On the beach, there were millions and billions of pebbles that all looked alike, each like every other one. Except that when you touched the real touchstone pebble, it would be warm, while the other stones were all cold.
So every day he would look for that one pebble. And when a pebble was cold, he'd throw it into the sea so that he wouldn't make the mistake of picking up the same one again. He was very patient. Every day, he picked up a lot of pebbles and felt each one. When it was cold, he'd throw it into the sea, and he kept throwing day after day until one day he found a pebble that was very warm to the touch, but out of habit he also threw it into the sea.
That's the force of karma. Karma means habit: Whatever we keep doing again and again bears consequences, and then we're forced to do it again and again. That's why it's called karma, and that's why people transmigrate all the time.~~Next Page
The Only Way to Develop Supreme Wisdom
