When my baby brother died at three months old, the priest told my mother, “It was God’s will.”
She nodded, broken.
I didn’t.
Standing there in a black dress two sizes too big, I made a silent promise: If this is God’s will, I don’t want anything to do with Him.

After that, I started noticing how often people throw their pain into the sky and call it “fate.”
The neighbor’s son was born blind – “God’s plan.”
A girl in my class failed over and over no matter how hard she studied – “She’s not chosen.”
The rich family down the street treated everyone like trash – “They’re blessed, you’re not, just accept it.”

Every time I heard “heaven decided,” something boiled inside me.
So some people are just born to suffer so others can post Bible quotes and say, “Stay strong”?
Where is the justice in that?

For years I kept that anger like a stone in my chest. I still went to church on holidays for my mom, but inside I rolled my eyes at every “God is good” slogan. If He was good, my brother would be annoying me right now, not buried under cold dirt.

Then one day, a friend dragged me to a small pagoda on the edge of the city.
“I promised to bring flowers for my grandma,” she said. “Come with me, it’s peaceful there.”
I almost said no. Pagoda, church, temple – to me it was all the same: people begging some invisible power to fix what life had broken.

But that night changed everything.

Inside the temple, it was quiet except for the soft crackle of candles. There was the smell of incense, a golden Buddha statue, old wooden floorboards polished by hundreds of knees. I must have looked as tense as I felt, because an elderly monk in an orange robe walked over and sat down next to me.

He didn’t ask if I believed. He just asked, very simply, “Why do your eyes hate the sky?”

And just like that, I broke.
I told him about my brother. About the priest. About how unfair it all felt. About rich people who hurt others and still get everything they want. About kids born with illnesses who never even have a chance.

He listened without interrupting once. No “just have faith,” no “God knows best.”
When I finished, I was shaking.

Then he said something that still echoes in my head.
“In Buddhism, child, we don’t blame a god. We talk about karma. Not punishment… just seeds.”

He explained it in the simplest way.
That every action, word, and intention is like a seed we throw into the soil of the universe.
Some grow fast, some take lifetimes.
Some seeds become blessings, some become suffering.
We don’t remember planting them, but they still belong to us.

“Your brother,” he said softly, “did not suffer because a god wanted to see you cry. His life was a very short chapter of a very long story. The reasons are deeper than this one lifetime. But you… right now… you are writing the next chapters with every thought you carry.”

I asked him if that meant my brother did something “wrong” in a past life. The idea made me angry again.
He shook his head.
“Right and wrong are too simple. Karma is not a courtroom. It is a mirror. Every being is just meeting themselves again.”

We talked for a long time. About people born with strange talents. About children who remember places they’ve never been. About why some animals survive for millions of years while empires collapse overnight. He didn’t demand that I believe him. He just invited me to look at life as a long, long journey instead of a single unfair moment.

When I left the pagoda, my brother was still gone. The pain didn’t disappear.
But something inside me had shifted.

For the first time, instead of screaming “Why did God do this to us?”, I whispered,
“If my future self has to inherit everything I’m doing now… what kind of life am I preparing for her?”

That question scares me more than any idea of divine punishment.
Because if it’s all “God’s will,” I can throw up my hands and say, “Not my fault.”
But if it’s my karma, my seeds, my story… then every little choice suddenly matters.

So now, when I’m about to say something cruel, or ignore someone who needs help, or choose comfort over kindness, I see my own face at the end of the road, inheriting it all.
And I ask, “Do I really want to be the one who has to live with this?”

I still don’t know exactly what I believe.
But I know this: thinking of life as karma instead of fate hasn’t made me feel trapped.
It’s made me feel… responsible.
And somehow, strangely, more free.

What about you?
If your pain isn’t “God’s will” or random bad luck, but a seed you planted long ago…
does that idea make you angry, or does it make you want to start planting differently from today?

Tell me honestly in the comments. 🧡