In light of the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech last week, I think it is only natural to ask why did this happen and what meaning is there in this event?

The Rabbi Harold Kusher wrote the book, “Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People” in 1981 as a reaction to personal tragedy–his son Aaron had premature aging, which he died from. This provoked a crisis of faith for Kushner, who is a rabbi. He wrote this book for people “who have been hurt by life”, to help them find a faith that can aid in getting through their troubles, rather than making things worse. Kushner looks at different causes of human suffering. He covers random, circumstantial suffering, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some suffering is caused by the workings of natural law. For example people die of disease. Some suffering is caused by the actions of evil people.

People who follow the monotheistic faiths of course have the problem of why God would allow a tragedy to happen. Of course from the Buddhist perspective we look at acts like the tragedy at Virginia Tech as the result of both karma at work and also at the law of dependent origination at work. The law of dependent origination basically states that everything in this phenomenal world - whether acts of violence, or the existence of things - all are the result of causes and conditions. We are not meaningless beings in a Universe that is govern by random occurrences.

The Buddha said, “Because this is, that is. With the arising of this comes the arising of that. When this is not, that is not, with the ceasing of this comes the ceasing of that.” He is basically saying that things and events are the result of causes - that they don’t just happen without a cause.

Now, we can only speculate about why the gunman chose to go on his murderous rampage. It could be genetic, or it could be because of an abusive childhood, or it could be because of mental illness - which seems the most likely. Of course we may never know the exact cause, but there was a cause.

I think the more important question is what meaning or what can we learn from this tragedy? Yesterday at the Children’s Retreat “Mr. Matt” had the children paint the limbs of a jeweled tree they were building. Then he had them go outside and collect trash. After they came inside he had them attach the trash they found to the limbs they painted earlier. He told them that they were turning something “bad” into something “good.” He further instructed them that as they attached the trash to the limbs they were to make a wish for each piece of trash they attached. So it truly became a wishing fulfilling gem tree. I am sure you saw it when you came in today.

I think the same is true with the Virginia Tech tragedy last week. I think there are many lessons we can learn and we can turn something that was bad into something good.

First I think back to the Amish in Pennsylvania last year who taught us about unlimited compassion. Hopefully, we can gain a larger perspective for the gunman of this terrible tragedy and extend our compassion to the gunman’s family who surely must also be suffering.

This tragedy makes us more aware of the importance, value and preciousness of every human life. It makes us realize how tenuous life is. We realize that death can come in any moment. So, from the Buddhist perspective we should make the most of every moment for none of us knows when death might occur. We should do our best to always respond to every situation with kindness and compassion.

And I think this tragedy also makes more aware of the important of not harming self or others through body, speech or mind. We should try to bring compassionate and healing intention to all of our thoughts, words and deeds.

As the children taught as yesterday at the retreat it is possible to transform something bad into something good.

So, this coming week try to bring mindfulness to these lessons: The tenuous of human life, the preciousness of every human life, trying our best not to harm others through, thought word or deed and finally to bring compassionate and healing intention to every situation.