We all experience moments in life that seem impossible to understand. We fail an important examination, lose a job opportunity, or watch a meaningful relationship come to an end. In those moments, we naturally ask, “Why me?” Yet Buddhism invites us to look beyond immediate appearances and consider a much larger picture.
The Avatamsaka Sutra presents the profound image of Indra’s Net—an infinite web of jewels in which each jewel reflects every other jewel. Nothing exists in isolation. Every cause and every result, every encounter, and every consequence is connected through countless causes and conditions. While our ordinary perception sees only the present moment, reality extends far beyond what our eyes can grasp.
Buddhism also teaches the concept of alaya-vijnana, the storehouse consciousness, where the karmic seeds of all our actions and experiences are preserved. In the course of my own practice, I have often reflected that the storehouse consciousness may not merely preserve our karmic seeds. Perhaps it also functions within the unfolding of a larger flow of causes and conditions that our ordinary minds are unable to perceive.
For this reason, what appears to be failure today may, from a broader perspective, be a form of protection.
Imagine a student whose most fervent dream is to enter medical school. It is the dream of both the student and their family. They study harder than anyone else. Yet on the day of the examination, something unusual happens. Their concentration unexpectedly slips. They make mistakes they would never normally make, and ultimately fail.
To everyone involved, it appears to be a devastating disappointment.
But suppose that, had the student entered medical school, the path ahead might eventually have led to circumstances involving a tragic loss of life. From the perspective of the larger picture, that apparent early failure might instead have been a turning point that preserved a life.
None of us can verify such possibilities with certainty. Yet as we grow older, we often hear people look back and admit, “At the time I thought it was the worst thing that could happen. Looking back, I realized it was actually for the best.”
Ordinary beings see only what lies immediately before them.
“Why did I fail?”
“Why didn’t things work out?”
“Why is this happening to me?”
Yet Buddhism reminds us that what appears before us is only a fragment of a much larger tapestry of karma and interdependence.
I often offer a simple analogy.
Imagine that the Buddha and an ordinary person are walking together when they come to a fork in the road. The road on the right is broad, smooth, and inviting. The road on the left is narrow and uneven.
The ordinary person naturally chooses the road on the right. The Buddha, however, chooses the road on the left without hesitation.
Why?
Not because the left road looks better, but because wisdom sees beyond appearances. The Buddha already knows that further along the seemingly pleasant road lies an obstacle invisible to others.
Our lives are much the same. Sometimes our plans collapse. Opportunities disappear. Relationships unexpectedly come to an end. We experience unexpected failure. At the time, it might feel deeply unfair. Yet looking back, we may realize that those events spared us from even greater difficulties.
Of course, this does not mean that every disappointment can be explained in this way. No one can fully know the complete unfolding of karma or the immeasurable network of causes and conditions.
Buddhism encourages us to cultivate humility before the limits of our own understanding; not to judge our lives solely by the results immediately before us. What appears today as disappointment may, within a greater network of conditions, become the turning point that opens up an entirely new path.
We rarely possess the whole picture. That is why we should be cautious about calling today’s failure a permanent defeat.
I always encourage people with these words: “Do not look only at the result before your eyes. Within the larger picture, every set of causes and conditions may have its own reason.”
As Buddhists, we are reminded not to measure life solely by immediate success or failure, but by the wisdom to trust that causes and conditions often reveal their meaning only with time.
Today’s failure may become tomorrow’s way forward. Today’s disappointment may spare us from greater suffering. Even if we cannot understand it now, we should be careful not to conclude too quickly that our lives have ended in failure.
Perhaps the road we walk today, though we cannot yet understand it, is simply the road that allows us to keep walking.
Venerable Tanmyeong
Zen seeker on the path
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