in Nirvana or in hell?

Sometimes our emotion does go through quite a number of changes throughout the day. I somehow tell myself this will change and will pass, so no need to be affected by it too much. Obviously it is not always that easy to practice. This reminded me of what I had learned in "Buddhist Studies" that I took as a Religious Studies when I was in the secondary school. It said that when one died, there are 5 possibles states that one could end up. Two of them are Nirvana and Hell. Nirvana is a state being free entirely from suffering, while Hell is full of suffering. When asked about how does being in hell or in Nirvana feel like? Buddha says that it is the way you live your life. Obviously, that explains how emotion change from one time of the day to another.Sometimes,when I am able, when I didn't feel things go right in certain time of the day, I know that is going to pass and I just take it a little easy and it affects me lesser and I slowly become free from it. This is a lot to do with our own cultivation and practice. But to be in Nirvana or in hell, perhaps it is also a state of mind.

Loneliness as an inner darkness

 "Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." -- Carl Jung

I was reading about the LKY's interview with the New York time couple of weeks ago and I cannot help feel sorry for LKY about his feeling and situation of life at the moment, having a wife suffering from stroke and who already cannot speak, but only able to communicate through body language, it is just sad. This interview was very different to all other interview LKY had in the past. It shows the softer side of him, a more human side of him. I feel at that instant, even the Greatest leader in the world or the founder of the Republic of Singapore can have moment of loneliness that perhaps only he understands, the moment he thought of the past happy memories with his wife, for example.

Reading this interview of LKY that shows the rare side of him leading me to think about our very own "dark side". The word "dark" does not sound very nice, but it is those "dark" side that allow us to "look into ourselves" and know ourselves a lot more, yes it is very lonely, but it does not matter whether you share with other people, because it could become so personal and fulfilling moment for you, as you also began to see the lights.

back to basic

As I begain writing blogs few months back, I also learnt the environment in which the blog writing platform works and I learnt ways to make it for me to allow me to get the best out of it. There is an interesting option on Dashboard that allows one to list out links that one likes to follow or be updated. This is good because it reminded you what had changed since the last time you visit those blogs. It is similar to checking the "inbox" for "new messages", so I am finding this helpful especially if you don't visit those blogs a lot and still want to ocassionally be informed of new article, for example.

Yesterday while I was on Dashboard, I found some new updates on lessoninlife.com, one of the site that I linked with. And it says, "the 3 words that solve 99% of your problem".I find this intringing and starts reading the article. This is actually a very thought provoking article. It says you can always solve the problem by "going back to basic". I guess when you are under pressure, you seriously "cannot think straight". Often, the way out of this is not as hard as you thought. As you begin to calm down, you get clearer and the obvious solution just finds its way out. It is simply calming down and clearing up your thinking process. For example, like I had read before somewhere, one would expect to be very nervous and find things "all over the place" when you came home one day finding your home has been robbed, but after a while, you know what's the best things to do, yes, report to the police. So, I am thinking what the article claim to be "back to the basic" could be a battle of mind over the heart, rationale fighting and winning over the emotion.

5 "mistakes" YOU should make

 "Some mistakes are just too costly! Oh No!" :(

Hey, no one's perfect. He who believe he made no mistake is the most miserable person in the world, let not the person be you. Happier people made mistake as they "find themselves" in those mistakes they made and become wiser. You can be one of them. So, there is this website that list out the 5 main mistakes. Here's 3 of them it talked about. 1) Totally embarrass yourself. If you dare laugh at yourselves. You are perceived to be of "a character". And you are just "so real" and people love you for that. 2) Be willing to fail - do something you love. It's important to follow your heart, because for whatever you do then, the passion in you supports you through, and while you may fail initially due to unexpected situation, you are likely to go on, so do those things you love.


3) Carelessly put yourselves at risk.  No one said you have to know 100% of the information before you go ahead, I am not saying you speculate or gambling. Rather it is when facing decision on taking a job offer or trying out a new hobby, etc. Like what the article of rightly put it, "most of the time, a high risk situation won’t kill you, because you are stronger than you think. And it’s never a bad thing to be reminded of that". We cannot avoid making mistakes, and don't want to "make mistake" for a reason, but some of the "mistakes" are not really mistake, it's just part of the learning experience, get over it, everything will be fine later! :D