Among the sacred objects that rest upon my meditation shrine, one looks a little bit out of place and yet is one of my favorite things to meditate on.

Standing vigil and watching over the Buddha is an action figure of The Flash. There is a story behind this and it’s a perfect example of Karma and Tonglen energy I would like to share with you.

For my employment, I’m a security guard on weekends and it’s not the most exciting job in the world. It mostly entails my being alone in a large building for hours on end with not much to do. One day while making my rounds I spotted a couple of Superman action figures decorating the workspace of an employee who I didn’t know.

The mischievous part of my brain went to work.

I’ve accumulated more action figures over the years than I should ever publically admit if I ever hope to have a girlfriend and a great many of them are Superman figures. Most are still in their original packaging because that’s how I roll.

I decided to take one of these figures to work and leave it on this person’s desk as a surprise. It was just a simple random act of kindness between two geeks.

For some reason I can’t explain…I kept doing this. Once a week I would leave a new Superman figure on this stranger’s desk and after a few months he had an army of Supermen.

Then one day as I was dropping that week’s figure there was a note on his desk addressed to the person leaving the Superman stuff.

Naturally he asked who I was and why I was doing this. He also wanted to know how he could repay me (some of the figures I left were rare). I left a note explaining I could tell him who I am but it really wouldn’t shed any light on the situation since we were strangers. I was just doing a random act of kindness and suggested he pay it forward.

He did.

He started leaving small gifts for co-workers anonymously and suggesting they pay it forward as well. Within a year so many people were doing this managers started asking security (me) if we knew anything about it. I played dumb and denied everything.

The Flash is my favorite superhero and I often wear my Flash baseball hat when I’m at work.

One morning when I showed up to work there was this brand new, still in the box Flash action figure with a post it note saying:

“Have a nice day Darren. I hope your shift goes by in a Flash.”

It had come full circle back to me. Even more interesting is it had come back to me in almost the exact same way it started.

What you give you get.

Try it for yourself. Smile. Laugh. Love.

May all sentient beings be free from suffering.

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Assistant Editor: Dana Gornall

Photo Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/JD Hancock