Do You Have Karmic Affinity With Another? The Daily Enlightenment Buddhist Inspirations (since 1997)

Change your mind to
change your actions to
change your life.
– Stonepeace | Books

Karmic affinity is a relational connection through being linked in karma. How do you know if you have karmic affinity with another? In this giant web of interdependence, having been reborn so many times in countless possible inter-relationships, we must have prior karmic affinities with everyone we encounter in this life. This is true even if we do not know a person well, immediately or in this lifetime – because there must be prior causes leading to the effects of our present encounter. Even bumping into a stranger is not by random chance, but has a karmic cause. For all encountered, it is just a question of what depth of connection there is.

Even a distant movie star has some karmic affinity with us, or we would not see the person onscreen! We also have karmic affinities with those we have not yet met, or might never meet. Think our collective karmic affinity as (victimisers and) victims of the climate crisis, having have to suffer from extreme weather conditions together, albeit to different extents, depending on location. Think our use of the light bulb invented by Thomas Edison, whom we will never see again, who goes unrecognised if reborn among us. Thus, our innumerable interconnections via our actions and interactions are indeed wide and varied. Everything we intentionally do (and not do) creates karmic causes with potential effects later.

Is being in a relationship or married to someone due to karmic affinity? Yes, of course, or that particular strand of hay in the haystack would not be encountered and chosen over billions of others. Yet, this does not mean the chosen is definitely an ideal life partner – because that person might yet to be known in depth (in this life), and even if so, people do change. Karmic compatibility is thus in the moment only, for better or worse! E.g. Some are in unhappy relationships, though some can turn things around. Some have blind match-made marriages with ‘happily ever afters’, though some can fail later too. At no point are we destined to be stuck in any doomed relationship.

According to what we choose to do and how another responds, the nature and depth of our affinities, be they positive or negative, change. The attributes of every relationship are dynamic. We are not fated to have a super-good or super-ill relationship with anyone. Even an already very good relationship requires maintenance, management and upgrading to remain good! It is precisely the lack of mindful relating to one another that people become distant, with lack of communication (that can lead to miscommunication), and lack of connectedness in relevance to one another’s life over time. People are always changing, but we can change for the better to help better one another!

The Buddhist practice of relating to others is to transform all affinities to positive and even pure ones, via the Four Immeasurable Minds of loving-kindness, compassion, rejoice and equanimity, as guided by wisdom, and forgiveness, should there be a need… instead of letting any relationship remain negative with nursing of their opposites – hatred, cruelty, jealousy and partiality, along with grudge-bearing. Although effects of karma are impermanent, no karmic affinities can be permanently severed; they can only be transformed. Since this is so, why not transform negative affinities to positive ones? After all, in the criss-crossing web of many lives, all paths will cross again… many times too.