Everything Leans

From the Fey Tarot, Justice; from the I Misteri della Sibilla, the Ten of Diamonds:

This being, that becomes;

From the arising of this, that arises.

This not being, that becomes not;

From the cessation of this, that ceases.

—the Buddha 

The Buddha's quote is often illustrated with two bundles of reeds that are upright and leaning against each other. Each bundle supports the other; if one is taken away, the other would fall. The point Buddha was trying to get across is that everything and everyone coexists in a relationship (everything is interdependent). As Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel explains, this has important repercussions:

• Nothing is self-defining. Everything leans. Everything depends on something else.
• Because everything is leaning, everything we do must matter.

Justice is all about protecting what matters. The Thief (Ten of Diamonds) is just the opposite. He (being completely self-centered) rationalizes what he does in order to deny any wrong-doing. Yet he creates for himself 'karmic propensities,' or reflexive habits that will create suffering. Karma is simply an activity (thoughts, words, or behavior) that will produce an effect - like a seed and the fruit (vipaka, the result of intentional action) that ultimately emerges from it. Buddhist psychotherapist Miles Neale states, "Karma is how we subjectively experience reality based on how we have acted in the past." What we do matters, not just because it may harm another, but because it causes us to suffer as well.