When the Dalai Lama was sitting on stage this week, during insufferable heat and very long speeches, people were throwing flower petals onto the stage to honor him. I watched His Holiness look carefully among the petals. He reached down and sifted through the floral offerings and began to pick up several bugs, one at a time. Each time he turned and offered it to a monk behind him to take outside. It was as if there was nothing more important to His Holiness than to make sure the bugs were taken care of. No speeches, no dignitary, no accolade was more important to him than the simplest of creatures.
It struck me that if you pay attention to your karma on a small scale, your frame of mind will be such that you cannot help but to mind it on a large scale. The old British saying goes “Mind the pence and the pounds will mind themselves.” If you mind the bugs, literally watching your interactions and intentions with the smallest creatures and getting into a habit of compassion for the little things, then your interactions with the larger creatures around you will be smoother. Mind the bugs and your interactions with people will take care of themselves. The atmosphere of kindness and compassion you will have cultivated in your heart will have become a habit and you will interact with everyone in the world with more grace and ease.
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