During a recent presentation to a history class of 15-year olds, I brought up the concepts of karma and its corollary, transmigration. For the first time during the hour-long class, in which we mainly discussed the Iraq war, the students appeared submissive. Our prior discussion was highly interactive, with students spouting their various philosophies and realizations about when violence might be necessary and deserved. But when the subjects of karma and reincarnation were brought up they stopped thinking and began to listen attentively. They were absorbing these new concepts which explained how and why “bad things happen to good people.”