Two questions came up tonight. First, someone who had just been in an accident asked whether misfortune in life can come from the resentment of a karmic enemy from a past life. Second, someone relayed a fellow member's worry about a child who won't go out and earn a living, spending all day at home gaming — what could be done to help.

Can an accident come from a karmic enemy?

Yes. Just as loving-kindness affects people and beings in one direction, a current of hatred and resentment affects them in the opposite direction — making it easier for unwholesome states to take hold of the mind. Normally, people who aren't bound as karmic partners each have their own concerns and rarely clash seriously. But karmic partners — drawn together across lifetimes through the sense-bases, meeting as parent and child, spouses, employer and employee, neighbors, and so on — are different. There's a story the teacher once told: two karmic partners met again as employer and employee, close and affectionate at first, but later fell into a bitter dispute that ended in the employee killing the employer — even though in a past life the two had been close friends who simply grew estranged. The pull of that unresolved resentment drew them together again in this life. When the old merit that had bound them together ran out, the old grievance found its opening.

Everything has a cause. The pull that draws people together happens automatically, according to the law of karma — it cannot be avoided. What we did to someone in a past life, they do back to us in this one, going back and forth without end. So we should never harm anyone or hold resentment toward anyone, because unwholesome states usually start small — a minor falling-out, a small grudge — and then grow, fed by the bias that unwholesomeness keeps stirring up.

Can it be prevented or lessened?

Even though facing the result of karma cannot be entirely avoided, keeping Luang Pu in mind, or dwelling in merit — abiding at the center of the Triple Gem — can help. When we bring to mind our teachers and the Triple Gem, we place ourselves within the correct system, one looked after by the Triple Gem and protected from behind by nibbana itself. This means the pull that draws karmic partners toward us can't do as much damage. We may not be able to avoid the encounter entirely, but we will be protected and cared for through it.

Each accident arises from unwholesome merit within us reaching its moment to bear fruit. The unwholesome current draws various factors together at just the right, precisely-timed moment, leading us into that situation. The outcome matches exactly the force stored within that unwholesome merit — no more, no less. If we've never done anything to cause someone's death, we won't die from it either. But living within the system of wholesome qualities brings real protection: what would be severe becomes mild, what is mild is healed, and even in the worst case where death cannot be avoided, one goes on to a good place.

How to help a child stuck gaming instead of working

In this case, the child won't go out and earn a living, spending all day gaming at home. Even when the parents invest in setting up work opportunities, the child won't take them — though the child is willing to ordain as a monk every year. The problem is that when the family already has enough to live on, the child sees no real need to go out and take on risk. This is the nature of the neutral, drifting quality of mind taking hold, offering the reasoning "there's no need to." Parent and child simply see it from different angles — the parent experiences it as suffering, while the child doesn't, because the child is still being sustained by their own store of merit.

The advice is to help the child live within the system of wholesome qualities, because that system will protect and gradually draw the child out of the drifting, unwholesome pattern on its own. Money given to someone can, if the unwholesome side takes hold, end up squandered and lost entirely. A parent's hope that a child will live the way the parent believes is best isn't itself unwholesome — it comes from love and good will. But sometimes parents unintentionally contribute to the problem from early on — for instance, allowing gaming to become a habit in childhood — which makes it harder to change later.

Gaming, like any attachment, runs its own course — much like an addiction that a person eventually outgrows on their own. But how quickly that happens depends on whether the wholesome side of the mind has enough weight to outweigh the drifting, unwholesome pull. The essential tool here is wisdom, which is what actually solves problems. When someone doesn't see any real downside to what they're attached to, they won't want to let go of it — just as someone who doesn't see the suffering in the cycle of rebirth has no wish to leave it either. This calls for studying the Dhamma — starting with knowledge gained by hearing, developing into genuine reflection, and finally maturing into wisdom born of meditation that connects with the inner knower — only then can a habit truly change. This isn't something to blame the child for; the real question is whether, from childhood, the parents gave the child sound enough reasoning and information — because the wholesome side of a person's mind can only outweigh the unwholesome side when it has enough correct information to work with.