My Macbook’s power supply unit stopped working suddenly. It didn’t trouble me as much as it made me curious as to why it happened. (I’ll have to buy a new unit tomorrow though… expending time, money and energy) Just when I thought being a Mac convert would give me less software problems, my Macbook finally presented its first problem…. in terms of hard/firmware. Freaky karma expressed through electronics? Why not? Since karma has to be expressed through the very stuff of everyday life.
I later searched the net for Mac users with similar problems. This is a sample of what I found… ‘This is not an uncommon problem. The apple discussion boards are full of people complaining about their MacBook powering off randomly… there are great many people reporting that whatever Apple did to “fix” the problem didn’t work, or caused other side effects.’
Suddenly, the problem seemed less serious… as if everyone out there with the same problem magically helped to dilute its severity. This is a subtle but good example of what Buddhism would call ‘inverted thinking’ – the delusional seeing of reality in reverse; thinking the inverted is real. The truth is, the problem’s prevalence makes it more serious, not any less, because it affects more than just myself, plus I would still need to seek a remedy, even if it’s not an ideal one… as yet. The inverted-thinking is similar to the ‘Hey, we are all going to die anyway, so it’s not really my problem!’ syndrome. If the Buddha-to-be thought likewise, he wouldn’t have sought the path to transcend rebirth!