Litter and The Law of Karma

Early this morning, I took a walk in Forest Park with a friend we're visiting. Along the way he began picking up litter, and soon we found a trash can and he unloaded. He repeated the process, and I pitched in, picking up what he missed. We had the customary discussion about the level of responsibility fast food outlets take for their immediate environs (some do and some don't), and the kinds of people who consciously litter. It made me think of the law of karma, that for every intentional action, there is a reaction. Wholesome actions result in wholesome reactions, just as surely as planting a mango seed eventually results in a tree that bears a mango fruit. But the key word is "intentional." Intentional littering will result in an unwholesome result in the lives of all these litter bugs. I think we were also patting ourselves on the back for picking up some of the litter, even remarking that if every visitor to the park picked up a half dozen items, the park would be clean continuously. The litter people toss out and leave never goes away by itself. Someone has to pick it up.

There seemed to be an unlimited supply, and I wondered how much we'd pick up in an hour's walk. It made me think of beach walks at home, when I'd pick up litter until both hands were full, then I could walk past the rest, since I had no way to carry the stuff. When we walk at low tide, we are 150 yards from the points where cans are placed at the end of each beach access path. As a practical matter, you won't pass one of them until you are headed home at the end of your walk.

When my friend picked up an empty bag that held those parmesan-garlic flavored croutons, he said he wished the fat and calories consumed would head straight to the hips of the person who discarded them, and settle there. I suggested the law of karma might just produce such an effect. I offered to go him one better and wish it all went straight to an artery in the heart and produced a heart attack, pointing out a dead litterer no longer contributes to the problem. I decided we had better retract those wishes; as such unwholesome thoughts on our part might bring an unwholesome effect on our own selves. Secretly, though, I'm hoping karma can sort some of this out and send some unwholesome effects on their way to the army of litterbugs we have developed, maybe not as cruel as a heart attack, but, something appropriate, like maybe an unsightly rash.