About This Teaching
Do good, get good; do bad, get bad: Ajahn Chah built confidence in kamma on this familiar Thai saying. Lay people often doubted it, seeing good people go unrewarded and bad people prosper. He replied that good results are not worldly good fortune; giving with a wish for return is not true giving.
He said he had never had a bad result from a good action, because the good quality of mind was strengthened at that very moment. If a friend you supported never repays you, your kindness was still your reward and his ingratitude is his own affair; taking it into your heart is foolish.
He also described a manager or headmistress who works hard yet meets only gossip. Good results appear immediately only when the action, place, time and people allow it, just as a good seed in poor soil or drought may not grow. The law itself does not change; wrong thinking keeps us from seeing it.