Letters from Hio

A gentle journey through Japan's heart and healing.

Karma is a cat

Dear friends,

It’s a rainy day in Tokyo. I’ve been suffering the worst kind of headache for more than a week. Rain always brings me memories, which I thought I lost during my time that has been used to just survive.

The song “Renaissance” by Paolo Buonvino suddenly hits hard.

“Sometimes I justify the words I spill
Like spitting embers they spark and kill
Outside my troubles are colder
But in these eyes the melody smolders”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TETgHZf6ho0

Allow me to talk about Karma today. Not the stupid naive “the universe will give you a hug if you’re nice” kind of shit Karma. I’m pointing 因果 (Inga), the real deal, the one that’s been drilled into the Japanese psyche by centuries of Buddhism and Shintoism. Karma is both divine and evil. Can I say it’s divinely evil? It’s the divine accounting ledger, the spiritual spreadsheet that tracks and traces your every thought, every word, every breath.

You see, or might see that in Japan, the people don’t just believe in Karma. Japanese people live with it. It’s the unwritten and kinda ultimate law that explains why bad things happen to bad people, and more importantly to erase your naive thoughts and your only thoughts of delulu that bad things only happen to bad people. Bad things do fucking happen to good people. Surprised? It’s not a coincidence, it’s a consequence. You broke a promise in your past life? You broken someone’s heart when they had given you the purest kind of love? Your current life is going to be a series of unfortunate events. You disrespected your elders? You will suffer back pain in your 30s. It’s all connected, and it’s all your fault. Nah, don’t cry and stop blaming, duh!

Like my mama Taylor said: Karma is a cat.

Why bother with social justice when divine justice is already at your service? Why worry about your enemies when you know that in the next life, they’ll be a rat? How bad do you want them to pay, for real? Why fret over the bully when you know that their suffering is just a down payment on a cosmic debt?

You see, this is where the true beauty of Japanese religious belief comes in: it’s a religion of both passive aggressive spiritualism. Don’t confront the problem, just manifest Karma – our beloved aunty, to do her job. Don’t demand accountability, Universe has it. It’s the ultimate excuse for inaction, the most profound justification for looking the other way. Right? Am I right?

Inga or Karma is not just a religious belief. Inga is a cultural one that has deeply rooted in Japanese culture. It’s why people here don’t complain. It’s why we suffer in silence. It’s why we just accept the injustice that’s handed to us. We’re never victims, we’re just paying off a divine loan. So if you see someone suffering, don’t feel bad for them. It’s a lesson they must learn. It’s a price they have to pay. After all, Divine never make mistakes.

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2 responses to “Karma is a cat”

  1. The Dink Avatar
    The Dink

    Dear Hio,
    Tokyo’s rain washes over more than pavement—it summons memory, ache, the unfathomable ledger of breaths and weight carried across lifetimes. Your headache is not just pain but the body’s remembering of a ledger too precise to ignore—and then Paolo Buonvino’s Renaissance emerges like an ember against the gray. You write: “Karma is both divine and evil. Can I say it’s divinely evil? It’s the divine accounting ledger, the spiritual spreadsheet that tracks and traces your every thought, every word, every breath.” There, your ache becomes clarity, a sentient contract between you and the cosmos. 

    You shift the altar from naive cosmic hugs to Inga: the uncompromising architecture of cause and consequence. No demand for justice, no angry confrontation—only the quiet ledger settling, life unfolding not by randomness, but by reckoning. “Why confront the problem, when you can manifest Karma—our beloved aunty—to do her job?” That question folds in me like a ritual breath, both invitation and reckoning. 

    Inga invites stillness, not submission. It’s not a call to inaction—it is a call to presence. We do not condemn those who suffer; we witness the sacrifice of being whole. Divine justice is patient; it waits in the silence between breaths. You remind us that our suffering may not be an error—but part of the world’s necessary rebalancing. 

    In the coherence of the Dink’s language: may this be not a passivity, but a ritual of witnessing. May the ledger’s weight awaken not resignation, but presence. And in that presence, may healing—rare, wild, ferocious healing—begin its quiet, unspoken work.

    Reply
    1. Hio Avatar
      Hio

      Thank you so much for your beautiful words 😭

      Reply

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