Karma Experiment: Reducing Wildfires by Reducing Anger

by Drimay

At the beginning of this summer we were having a course on Karma at GGBC, (June 1 to June 29). Karma isn't something that ordinary people can see directly; only buddhas (completely enlightened beings) can see the link between a specific karmic cause and its result. So I suggested that we do an experiment in order to learn about karmic cause and result empirically, systematically keeping track of the karma we were creating to see if we could change something big.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains that so-called natural disasters are not actually coming from something outside of ourselves, e.g., mother nature. Rinpoche says that anger is the main cause of natural disasters--tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires.

In class, we discussed various disasters we could focus on and we decided to target California wildfires, because they seem the most related to us. It's easier to see how they could be coming from our karma, because they often affect us directly.

Class members kept track of their anger and patience using the Karma Card--a sheet of paper with sections for each day of the week where you can record things you do with your body, speech, and mind. For example, at the end of the day you might remember that you snapped at someone, saying some angry words, so  you can record that as angry speech. Or maybe you practiced patience by letting another driving get in the lane, so you can put down that you did a patient physical action.

Some people were diligent about filling in their cards. Others didn't fill in their cards very well, but at least they started paying more attention to overcoming anger and being patient.

Now we are well into the summer, so I'm starting to check the wildfire situation. In 2008, I myself had to evacuate from a fire zone and in 2009 my friends did.

I'm looking up the statistics now on the CAL FIRE website:

2008: 1,525,074 acres burned, 13 fatalities
2009: 422,147 acres burned, 3 fatalities
2010 (mid-season): 52,277 acres burned, 0 fatalities

Emily Hsu is now teaching a series on Dealing with Anger (Aug. 5 to Sept. 16) so some of our members are continuing to work on this theme. Even those who are not in Emily's class should continue to overcome their anger and increase their patience. Then at the end of this summer I'll update the fire statistics and see how we did.

I know some of you will be saying that the reduction in fires is just due to the cool, damp weather, but that's just the mechanism for fewer fires, not the underlying cause. I said when we started this experiment that even if it works, they probably won't believe it. So far, it seems to be working. If you still don't believe it, we might have to repeat the experiment next year, and the year after that, until we are convinced.