Losing my "mind"

"... and my 'reflection' finds it back"

"Sitting still and do nothing" (i.e., meditation) for 25 to 40 minutes a day helps me to re-charge. It helps me practice 'awareness', and enable me to take 'precaution' or 'preempt' it to prevent it from affecting me. I had a few challenges last few days and dealing with them helped me gain new insights into what other effect 'meditation' could have.

Last Friday was one of those few days that I worked till quite late in my office. It was until about 7.30 pm that I left my office, after realising all my days' hard work to install CPLEX on the Linux OS still didn't work out quite well. It certainly didn't feel like a productive day. That night, I still tried and do a bit of meditation, though it was cut short to only 10 minutes, since it was late and I don't like to have my dinner too late. Anyway, I didn't feel my level of concentration was good, though it didn't affect me to large extent, I kind of feel 'something not right' throughout my meditation

On Saturday, i.e., the following day, I still felt I could 'do better' in term of the focus of my mind. Saturday should not be considered as a 'bad' day because I was getting on with my other research and it actually made progress. In addition, the weather was good. Saturday was a bright sunny day, and the more I should feel 'brighten up', but I didn't. After some reflections, I conclude that I was perhaps still held 'in the past' on my Friday's work commitment to the software installation, which failed. I was 'held back' to the extent I still hung myself in that and not moving, though not necessarily mean I would be stressed up. It is just that I had not 'let go' of it. My mind was as if in a 'stagnant' state. Other than that, constantly replying and looking out for students' emails during this period, arising from the examination, also put me off thinking in term of 'living the present moment'. This was because I was at times shocked and angry with students' excessive demand of what they want from me. And that didn't help.

As I began to see what's holding me back, I began to see that I should learn to 'let it go'. I guess I missed out one important step when dealing with myself over the matter, and that is 'acceptance'. My theory is that, due to the lack of 'awareness', I failed to see 'what's missing' and acknowledgement and acceptance were being pushed out of the way. As I began to "see" this in my meditation today, I then slowly channel my thoughts and focus onto the present moment. For example, feeling the joys (at least inner joy) of the good weather and involvement of housework routine, which are all good experiences. I learnt that if my head is occupied with something, I would immediately lose touch with my surrounding, and is even harder when I subconsciously occupied with things that was not to my knowledge. Therefore, constant reflection in daily life does serve some good purpose. And this has worked well for me today! :D

Foothold

When I was not communicating with my inner world, I found myself losing on my foothold. No mater how well I deal with the outside world, "something" remains missing and it seems that the wider the gap expands, the more stress it adds on. However, the process of filling that gap is an interesting one and worth the effort to find that out.

I continue looking for the "flow" in my daily life, which is quite a challenge to do so in the first semester of the University's calender, as I came to realise that, the relatively heavier workload for this semester actually is the source that distort that "flow", so I must get that back. A little rule that I used to restore the flow is to make sure, amidst the busy schedules at work, I made sure I fulfil all of them in satisfying fashion of an acceptable quality based on my own standard.

Today, an incident while swimming reinforce the importance of 'communicating with my inner world' in me. Lately, swimming didn't feel quite well 'flown'. I had a bit of a "bad back" and that hurts when you try to catch the breath to float when you swam. I sorted that out a while back, by going back to my basic mediation technique, focusing on my breathing. Today's incident was a different one because I no longer has the 'bad back' problem. It was, however, I rushed to swim fast, and that lost all the fun for me, and more so when there was also another swimmer in the lane, and that urge me more. As I didn't quite feel my momentum like in my usual swim, I was urgent to want to move quick and it didn't work.

Then, I started to focus on my speed and pace and forgot about the other swimmer. As I found my "comfort zone", which was me swimming slower than normal, I stick to it. I go with the flow and let myself go slow, and when later it became clear that should be my foothold, I gripped it hard and I was in control, I began to swim in an acceptable pace, which gradually became faster and faster. I was amazed by this rather unique "self-discovery" experience which was a bit of a personal growth for me, and should have an impact on me, whenever I  looked into myself in my 'inner world', looking for that much needed foothold.

Experimenting 'Less is more"

"Feel it. Experiment it. internalized it."

The following poem written by Leon Basin, was titled as 'Life with Tao and Zen"

Fight without fighting
Learn without learning
Experience with the experience
Worth trying
Worth feeling
Worth denying
And worth killin’
Ego that binds us
Do not erase it
Hold it from overtaking you
Simplicity of no words can describe on how to go about it...

I like this poem because in a similar way, it seems to be what 'less is more' is meant to be. i.e., without doing 'too much'. The use of words, "fight" versus "fighting"; "learn" versus "learning". The continuous tenses of those words appear to imply a sense of actions or activities, which is unnecessary because fighting and learning happen all the times in us. It just happens and it is the way it is.

Ego forms the source of all the "actions". The truth is, there needs not be any 'action" and also no need to erase the existence of those 'actions'. It would be just enough to simply 'hold it' and not being taken over by it. We just need to practice some awareness

And yes, we can try feeling, denying or even doing all we can to kill the egos, but we cannot 'forget' it or erase it because it is there. I think, like water, ego in us should flow, that is why it is still worth trying or be experimental about it to feel it for yourselves, that way you could make it useful/constructive for you. Have fun!

Deep, Deeper and Deeper Still

 ".. Meditation slows down your thoughts..."

Not all admit that we do have a 'darkside' in us. I would have thought this should not affect anyone too much. It is only the 'quality' of life that would have an impact. It's whether we want to face it.

Since buying the desktop PC, some traces of thoughts seem to have left in my head, and keep holding me back to re-evaluate this purchase decision. It probably related to the issue of 'value' of the product underlying the price, etc. It's in my sub-consciousness to the extent I cannot get rid of. This purchase experience leads me to believe that what I perceived before and after about my purchase decision should remain consistent. This purchase experience has also helped me understand myself more. I don't want life to be too complicated, that includes technology, which may explain my phobia towards it. Perhaps contentment is built on having things 'just about right', and not being overly 'obsessive', that way we remain as 'ourselves' rather than 'losing' it. Perhaps I just lost myself in my pursue of the 'quality' of PC I was after, which could end up me looking for something more than I need and then overpaid it. This is perhaps someone who prefer or promote a 'minimalist' style of life should avoid? The purchase of this PC gives new insights about my desire on other possible things in my life I am after, and should help with managing expectation in the future.

I want to end my 'attachment' to the thought of this Desktop PC, but how best should I end such thoughts (wasteful thoughts, perhaps?). Today I found an answer. I attended the BK meditation workshop on 'Deep, Deeper and Deeper Still". It discussed few aspects of meditation to help deepen the experience. Some rather insightful messages were conveyed. I especially related to the idea on "acceptance, experience and being' as the three levels of sub-conscious minds likely to take place in us in our daily life. Using the Desktop PC as an example, then I suppose I have now accepted that I perhaps might have overlooked the issue of "quality" in the purchasing process, which should then be something I must remember next time if I were to make similar decision. It reminded me each time my mind rehearse the few events where I had experienced that when thinking to buy the Desktop PC. Now as I began to accept this, it becomes part of me. It is being part of me.

As I dwelt on this a bit deeper, I would imagine meditation could have helped in the process. Meditation slows things down. My buying decision was urgent because my then laptop was broken and I wanted to get a new one quickly. It is true that I can afford to buy it, but still coming to the issue of 'value', now that I think of it, it still needs some consideration. Now that this has happened, I could not turn back the clock, but I should look at the positive side of the Desktop PC. My sub-conscious mind needs to get rid of the 'negative' thinking attached to the PC. Just like what was said during the workshop, "A glass of water, no matter how light, is not the weight, but how long you hold on to it that matters". Indeed, our energy needs to be channelled in the best possible way to help us to feel light and free anytime, in order for us to fight the our inner 'demon'.

My Introvert Experience (1)

".. these are just observed human behaviors, which can always be reclassified in different ways."

There is something that occupied my mind in the past few days and I found hard to make logical sense of it. It was an article about introverts that I read. I just could not make up if I were more introvert or extrovert. I seem to exhibit both signs at different occasions. I could, however, associate with quite a number of points raised by Ms Marti Laney on her blog on coping with being introverts. For example, I don't talk a lot during meeting at work, yet, I could not engage long term letter writing to large extent to keep a friendship (that explain why I could not make friend easily on facebook if I had not known them in person before) I need occasional meet ups to feel real, and this is quite an extrovert trait.

According to the book, The Introvert Advantage, only 25% of the people are introverts and if so, then that explain why there is always an interesting focus on this group of people, In fact, there is even a book about "The Introverted Leader", showing how much this group of people had intrigued both writer and readers leading to development of general interest.

It is interesting how the human mind process information and stimuli they received when they took in information. Being introverts or extroverts will process and took in information differently with different effects on them. I am thinking that we are all borne into a human body that has memories of its own, in which we have no choice, but we have control, control how we want to react and act upon. However,  introverts and extroverts are observations by Carl Jung about human behaviours. And human being is just too complex to have simply one way of classification. Therefore, if we relate all behaviours to the root, which should be the working of the mind, and where the maintenance of a peaceful mind could often be helpful (through meditation, for example) and can help one to be happy and build strong healthy self-esteem which sometimes introverts suffer. This obviously could slowly address some of the weaknesses issues appropriately, without having to feel "let down" because we are introvert. That way, extrovert or introvert will all be on equal footing or strictly speaking, no longer relevant, as it will be the mind that we are all focused on and make the best of it for us all.

A Value-Added Life (3) (The end)

"...removing wasteful thoughts..." 

I went to a "Positive Thinking" course recently and was introduced to the concept of "wasteful thought". Natalie, the speaker, spoke about four different types of thoughts we would daily engage in. These are, ordinary, positive, negative and wasteful thoughts. Example of wasteful thought include spending too much time of one's look in front of the mirror. Personally, I find positive and negative thinking are our responses to outcomes in life. Wasteful thoughts are instances where we are in a situation where we "over-indulged" unnecessarily. One other example will be spending too long on the bed, or some may say, waking up slowly (Obviously, we should not take life that seriously, but let's admit it, we overdo it sometimes).

The classification of these thoughts made it interesting and also easier for one to discuss its impact further. There are ways to deal with negative thoughts, as was discussed in the session. However, little was said about wasteful thoughts. I asked Natalie how should we go about reducing wasteful thoughts. She said it should be all down to our observation, which I totally agree. It looks like the central idea about observation could achieve a few things at the same time. This includes not only converting negative thoughts into positive, but also reduce the impact of wasteful thoughts.

Putting aside positive and negative thoughts, wasteful thoughts are less obvious and talked about. The perception of what is wasteful and why and how this should be removed was also not obvious. The fact that when a thought become "wasteful" give enough rationale and motivation for one to want to remove it. This certainly has an effect of "adding value"..However, coming to the conclusion about "something" being "wasteful" needs some efforts. It can only be achieved if we practise constant "observation" and being awareness as much as possible in our daily life.

How much do we waste? what have we wasted and still wasting? are we doing something about this? Does this affect us to considerable extent?Big questions, but address appropriately should "add values" to one's life. Enough on this topics, I should end this here, with those questions as food for thoughts to the readers to think about later.


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Feed-forward

"It keeps my mind alive..."

A friend on facebook posted an interesting article about "habit, routine and integration" which I had enjoyed reading, and which brought me to think of my experience of developing and keeping good habits in life, such as blogging, which was not doing too well recently. It's been quite empty for a while since the last post beginning of March 2012. I actually evaluated about blogging lately, not that I wanted to give it up, rather seeking an identity to be related and associated with, as in asking again the question, what purpose it served and how it represents me. Yes, this blog is about listing down observation and reflecting about life, but it must be more than that. I supposed I am re-thinking about the motivation of blogging.

I have been observing lately my mentality when I was not blogging. I sense that my observations slowed down and my awareness became weak too. There is of course certain degree of focus when I was at work. But it lacks a degree of continuity after work. It became a bit listless and aimless after hours, as if waiting for tomorrow to come and start my work again.This certainly didn't enrich my life and become meaningless later.

Though i didn't blog as much, I keep up with my meditation's practices, which I found myself to have made some progress. I made a trip down to the Raj Meditation session on Tuesday evening and once again fascinated by Natalie's inspiring speech about keeping calm and peaceful. I then remembered she said before that meditation is sometimes like a re-charge. There must be something one can attain out of meditation and this good feeling feed-forward to our daily life and in turn this supports our meditation practice and make it better for our well-being.

I am beginning to think blogging can bring me this good and yet different impact. Now that I had a chance to "live without blogging for a while", and as I reflected upon the "non-blogging" days, it made sense to see blogging as a form of re-charge too. It is becoming more and more believable. If writing a blog is the outcome of my daily observing and reflecting, then it keeps my mind alive, apart from being peaceful. This certainly has the positive "feed-forward" effect, just like meditation. The mind is a world of its own and certainly it can be enhanced and be enriched, it's the quality of the observing and reflecting, and of course, the blogging that matters. This seemed to make sense.

I am focusing again

".... my mind was wandering all over the place..."

I was not "feeling too well" in the past weeks. Something was "blocking" the way in my thoughts. I could not get rid of it entirely. I was not flowing. It just kept lingering about there in the head. It is not depression. I did feel I can function well and fine. I thought maybe it is work loads, and to be honest, there were some "loads" recently.

I know for sure I will "get there" because I have been there and feel that sense of  "freedom" before. I guess it is a feeling that I lose touch with myself. It felt lost. Work goes on as usual. I felt that I could enjoy a bit more, but I didn't. I still carry out tasks as per normal. My work hours were quite flexible in this second semester, and I only teach 2 hours a week. In fact, I worked from home two times a week.

I swam as usual, but it felt more of a routine than an engagement. The feeling of involvement was not there. I sense that something is missing. I then try and "do nothing", i.e., meditate. My mind was wandering all over the place when I try to do that. After a few practises it comes back to it's "normal behaviour", i.e., it settled down and it began to observe again. I then become more aware of what's in me. It helps me to look into the "issues" more in details. At the end of it, it is still the "focus" issue that haunts me all the time. It seems that it is the workload that is the "root cause". I guess I become a little drained and wanted the pace of work to be a bit slowed down (but thankfully, it is all about research related workload, not teaching) and just felt a little restless, especially having the thoughts of having to do the work over the weekends, it's felt like an daunting tasks.

As I then began to indulge in addictive computer games just to escape those "daunting tasks", which does not help at all on focusing one's attention, it only made matters worse. As I slowly took a step back, I began to see the issues better and have gained baby step success in resolving them. I guess I must now monitor how meditation helps me with my daily life. I may be easily disturbed by external environment, but somehow managed to find my focus back. I am sure this will happen again, but the point is to put meditation in the picture and learnt to see how it helps in the process. I am sure the more I practised "focusing", the more I will carry on meditating or see how this will help me with my  life. Going on at this pattern, hopefully one day, meditation will become integrated into my daily routine and become a very good habit that will come naturally and effortlessly each time I want to do it.

Discover your strength the fun way

".... Okay, Let's look at how animals behave.." 

I love horoscopes. I read a lot about horoscopes. I even try to guess other people's horoscopes and sometimes I got it right. I have a book  that tell me each and every fact about the Chinese horoscopes, the yin and the yang, the effect on the 5 elements and more interestingly, the cross over with the western horoscopes and the characters descriptions.

Being interested and believing in horoscopes could be a sign of being fatalistic, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, This is because I had fun in the process. Some people told me not to be too obsessed with this, as in this is a bit of "self-fulfilling" and could misguide oneself. I only know I would choose to believe in the "good" things that say about the horoscopes and ignore the "bad" one. This could motivate you if applied properly. At times, I get so "analytical" in it that I even use it as a guide in my human relations, as I slowly observed people along the way, helping me keep an interest with people and enhancing the relationship with them. Who can say horoscope does not serve any purpose.

I was borne in the year of Dog. I do make an conscious effort to think about the Dog's characters and relate that to myself. Yes, I can hear some said I should "hold life in my hand as it is my destiny", but sorry, I am not fighting this. I am following "what's there" and make the best of it. Certain things in life just won't change and in a good way, it should help move people in the positive direction, if managed well. The skills can be learnt.

If I am looking on the "good" side, then I should be thinking about the strength of dogs. One ability and strength of dogs are that,  dogs are capable of nursing their wounds. Applying this in my context means that, I would "move away" if I am aware I am "uncomfortable". This does not necessarily mean that I am physically hurt, but may be "emotionally unwell" too. Knowing and aware of this help me "nurse" it better and ensure they are sorted and gave me a chance to re-charge. In fact, I have been having a "time out" this few weeks, which explain why my blog was empty for a while.I am thinking there should be a couple of weeks within a month that this could happen and it needs some "nursing" and private reflection.

Knowing ones strength is important and knowing a bit about horoscopes help support oneself soul searching and identifying area that perhaps needs improvement and others which are the strength that can be tapped upon and use more often. This is an interesting alternative other than sourcing for "self-help" mechanism. It works for me.

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont

"Have you thought of who would you like to be by your side when that day comes...."

In the end, Mrs Palfrey passed away on the hospital bed, next to her faked grandson, in "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont", a story about the friendship between a 80 year old woman and a young writer. If time flow like water on a river stream, throughout one's life, then at one's old age, one would have reached the ocean as the water gradually flow and ended up. Ocean is deep, accepting and take on anything that eventually reached it. It is only the weather that stirred it up, but its nature is still peaceful, just like Mrs Palfrey.

Mrs Palfrey moved into a retirement hotel, the Claremont in London, just to be nearer to her daughter and grandson, so that she can be in touch with them frequently. One day, on her way back after helping Mrs. Arbuthnot (another hotel resident) to get the book she borrowed from the library, She had a little accident and on that chance encounter, she met Ludovic Meyer, a penniless young writer and struck up a curious friendship. She then  invited Ludovic for dinner at the hotel and they agreed a date, without even taking note of Ludovic's address, Mrs Palfrey left him. Later the day, upon Mrs Palfrey's returns, everyone at the hotel was excited that finally Mrs Palfrey would bring her grandson for a meal and they were all looking forward to that. It gave Mrs Palfrey a little trouble here, as she didn't correct the residents about the mistake they made, and so she asked Ludovic to be the "faked grandson" and the latter agreed! This then led to both opening up to each others about their lives, and a very heart warming friendship developed between them. It also then became clear that the relationship between Mrs Palfrey and her grandson and daughter was "emotionally distant". They hardly return her calls and kept her waiting, but then Ludovic kept her company, which Mrs Palrey was happy about.

The movie was powerful. It's not only about friendship, but what's thought-provoking was the moment of the last day of Mrs Palrey, that adds significance to this friendship with Ludovic. He was by her side, reading her poems day after day till the last. Nowhere can we see the real grandson, only the faked one. I began to wonder, does this matter to anyone at all? if you are on your last day, who do you wish to be by your side?

Actually, Mrs Palrey seemed not too troubled not having her own grandson around, even though it would be the best to have him. There is a certain degree of intellect/openness that allowed Mrs Palrey to engage with people better than others. I am thinking as people of my generation, who are relatively more educated, become old age and ill and laid on the sick bed one day, how would we feel and who would we wish to be by our side on our very last day? Perhaps those who we can connect with would be important to see on those last few days. Those people may or may not be our "closed" family members and it does not matter.

Ludovic narrated the following as the movie came to a close, "There are people that cross our live in tiny fraction of time, in the briefest of encounters, and yet they leave an indelible mark in our hearts, in our minds."  and I guess this summed up everything. Those whom we met and could connect with, may be the people we met only for five minutes. They remained the  most important, especially towards the end of our live, in our old age's days.

Doing "anything" is easy except doing "nothing"

"...... If you know how to do "nothing", one day you would find that you could just do "anything"......"

"How many of us actually sit and do nothing for at least five minutes a day in our daily life?". Natalie asked that in the first session of the meditation course I attended last August. The practice of the Raj Meditation is simply "sit and do nothing and keep a peaceful" mind. It's a very intuitive way to encourage people to start doing some forms of mediating. Since finishing the course last October, I have not been doing much meditation. I made doing "quality" meditation as my new year resolution. Even if we are "doing nothing", the mind may "wander" about and hence need some controls to stay put.

In order to motivate myself to do more meditations, and to remind and assure me of the positive impact, I should practice more often.  I first identified a time that I would need meditations, for example, in between doing two different tasks. Today, I meditated for 10 minutes. When I finished my two hours revision lecture, my lunch and some friendly nice chats with colleagues, you really need to "settle your mind" before the next task, so I switched myself off and "do nothing", just close my eyes and let my mind wander, not necessarily an empty, but peaceful (enough) mind.

I read an article, doing nothing, which says, "...... when doing nothing the prefrontal cortex is quiet…the human brain moves to a deeper state where thoughts and sensations come through without being controlled, judged, or censored" It looks like the state of mind of "doing nothing" is like in a "relaxed" state, where the mind is free of being controlled or judged.. I guess our mind is constantly being processed to think, evaluate, control or judged, simply because of the abundance of information. Therefore when no information are available when "doing nothing" (meditation), the mind becomes restless, instead of "resting". The mind wants to do things, but is finding it hard to "rest" and so end up "busy doing nothing".

I am finding that, though I am not doing a lot of meditation since beginning of the year, the frequent practice does help me develop a habit to remain calm in my mind. Meditation is like an anchor, holding me back and safeguarded me in time of "storm", help me keep calm as best as possible. It certainly needs a lot of practice and should bear fruits some days..

Who need anymore "time"?

"... When the right time is NOW...."

Steven Spielberg once said that, he loved what he do so much he didn't feel like he is "working" a single day. I often wonder what does obstacles mean to him? Has that ever made him think of the future and worry him? But perhaps it is the idea of "living in the NOW" that carried him from one day to the next? The fact that he enjoyed what he do seems to justify that. This interestingly mirrored what was advocated in a book that I recently read, "The Power of NOW" by Eckhart Tolle.What appeals to me in this book is the writing style, the sometimes poetic way to discuss the importance of the awareness of  NOW. I have not finished reading it yet, but I can see what the writer had written so far, was aimed at "describing" the process of living in the NOW, rather than "explaining" the importance to do so.

The author used two time frameworks that human mind adapt in daily life: psychological time frame and clock time. Psychological time is where the human mind brought the thought back to the past or into the future. Clock time is the time indicated by the actual clock time, i.e., the NOW. Explaining the rationale to live in the NOW, the author wrote "... if you no longer want to create pain for yourselves and others, if you do not want to add to the residual of the past pain that still lives on in you, then don't create anymore time...." This implies that the past or the future would cause a stir in your mind and living in the NOW will help you become peaceful and calm. This is not about avoiding the past or the future, just as a mean to see the way forward. Someone who know how to deal with "living in the NOW" should be also able to handle their psychological times as and when they need to

The author also related the issue of  "time" to "death", an issue that I wrote about a few times in my recent blog. He wrote "..... You will know it at the latest when you feel death approaching. Death is the stripping away of all that is NOT you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" - and you find that there is no death..."

The "stripping away" is such that before we die, no matter how rich or poor we are, we are ourselves, we face ourselves, not our possessions, not our  physical self or our friends and relatives, as they are NOT us. At that point, things in our life we genuinely try to avoid or ignore, for example, will come and haunt us. Haunt us because we are reaching our "exit" (i.e., death) and like a huge storm, we will be drown by it totally and so, we will have to face it. It is good to know what these are before we die, so that even if we may not overcome those issues we face, we at least address it. To do that, we need a calm and peaceful mind, to live in the NOW, learn to make sure our past or the future does not disturb us the slightest. That, I think, explains the power of NOW.

Inspirations and Resolution

"....What your mindsets said...." 

Another day about to go by, then it will be the new year. How time flies! People look back their life this time of year, so what did you find? For me, I need inspiration so I can keep going and move forward. This forms the basis of my resolution for 2012. Here's my inspirations and resolution.
INSPIRATIONS

I was inspired by Tersesa Hsu and Ben Breedlove in the last quarter of 2011. I had also gone to "hell and heaven" at work in November 2011. These are opportunities, however,  for me to reflect and take a step back. and learnt about my strength, which are all good and useful experiences. I also learnt from others. I read about the life and death of Tersesa and Ben, both of which inspired me. Strangely, I see subtle similarities between what they encountered and faced, when compared to mine. I think if we can train ourselves to face whatever we encountered in our daily life like facing the last day of our life, maintaining peace and calm (which is attainable through meditation) we are going to do many great things (benefit self and others, obviously i am not there yet) while alive.

My decision to take up Meditation is one of the most important I made in recent years. This step forward opens up new doors for the cultivation of a better self. I knew about the Brahma Kumans Meditation locally and attended the entire full course. Basically this school of thought about meditation (yes, there are a few ways to meditate, each based on individual belief and philosophy) preaches the importance of a peaceful mind as that is where the purest soul supposed to be. This approach is interesting, because it has similarity with Buddhism in the way it preaches its belief, but it starts with the emphasis of a peaceful mind, while Buddhism may start by stressing the importance of being kind, compassion (the Buddha's quality) and then a bit later meditation, at least that is how I was taught back in my school's day. I didn't find this contradict with my Buddhistic belief (you have to attend the whole course to understand why) and I am finding constant practices of meditation has benefited me slowly.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTION

I didn't find myself practising meditations as much as I would like to. Meditation is not as easy as it seems, as it appears. The important question remains, are you convinced this is going to work for you? I guess I can see the importance of being a peaceful soul and also to develop it as a habit. However, you also want to make that a "good quality" habit. For example if we learnt to develop brushing our teeth before sleep every night as a habit, we still could brush our teeth the wrong way, that won't make it better. If we then develop meditation as a habit, we still could do it wrong. While, attending drop-in meditation sessions may be a way to help enhance and improve on our meditations, seeing the benefits it gives is also a good motivating force to drive one to continue meditating. So far, meditation appears to me like an anchor, just like the breathing technique suggested by Ross Harris's "The Happiness Trap".

Mediation gives me a space to be on my own and kept silent for at least 10 minutes a day, and then after that, I get on with my daily routines, and it did make me feel like the 10 minutes had helped me take things a little easy and focus as I carried out each and every task during the day. I supposed that is what meditation is meant to be, and perhaps if now I meditate a bit longer, the effect on my thoughts would be different? It will be interesting to find out. Meditation is empowering. I must change my mindset towards meditation to get the most of it, still making sure I take one step a time, hopefully that help me effectively dealing with the up and down of life  Happy and Fruitful New Year 2012 to all. :D

Not afraid of death anymore

 

 "..... Still I respect life....." 

Today is 18 year-old Ben Breedlove's funeral. Ben has become popular on the internet after he posted a video detailing his fear of death until he felt he has overcome it. He died on Christmas Day from a complications of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), an abnormal thickening of the heart's walls, which he was suffering from. I watched his video (posted here). You can tell he no longer had fear over death. He was so calm and peaceful. Underlying his calmness are the the easy-going style and the courage he portrayed in the video. They appeared effortless and just flow, and unfolded itself through his facial expressions. Understanding how he suffered from the disease had not prompted him to take his own life, though he did admit tried "cheating deaths" a few times.

Ben showed a certain degree of respect to life, which is an understanding of what cannot be changed and how it finally made sense for him to be "inward looking" to develop strength from within, which is the peace and the calmness that he eventually developed to help him cope with the challenges of the disease. Ben's gesture of calmness and peace might be similar to preparing or "getting ready for death" (at least in the mental state). Yet, we all can be calm and peaceful in all aspects of our life, not just when facing death. Being calm and peaceful is a way to deal with uncertainties in life, job losses, relationship failure, etc. We are just not perfect and need to be constantly reminded about being calm and peaceful.

The calmness and the peacefulness of the mind are powerful because they act like firewalls, and  cultivating and building them from within one's self, could deter external "threats and harm", such that over times, it strengthened the highest level of one's spiritual self, and not easily to be defeated, even though the physical self may be invaded. May I wish Ben experience peace and calm wherever he goes.

Passed away at 113 year old

".... death is not about what you cannot bring with you, rather, it is about what you left behind..."

Tersesa Hsu, an 113 year old social worker from Singapore passed away. All her life, she contributed to the welfare and the care of the old aged who are stick and ill health. She continued to support the old and needy even after her 110th birthday. For someone like her, who spent her entire life devoted to such duties, one would wonder how's her family looks like, how is she going to be looked after. One would have hoped that given her kindness, she should have a good family or at least people will be pleased for her if this was the case. However, she instructed that no claim is to be made on her ashes and that no ritual or ceremony to be held for her.

Reading about her choice for a low key funeral made me wonder what actually went through her mind at those last few moments. What was she thinking? If I may try and interpret her style of living then I would get some ideas. A report claimed that she drank juice daily since 1947 and keeping a good habit of daily mediation and keeping a peaceful mind. Amazingly she learnt yoga at the age of 69. How extraordinary was that? I am thinking the fact she can even started to do yoga at 69 year old, not only is a sign of determination, but also about a positive attitude, i.e., taking thing one at a time until it is completed, which involved lots of patience, so it is not hard to understand how meditation had trained her. Her caring for the old aged showed her compassion, but also that she could put herself in others' shoes and care for them the way they desired.

Some people like to claim that life is a dream, as in, all of us will die one day and hence no need for us to go after fame, money and power. I began to wonder before she closed her eyes and passed away, has Teresa thought about her "lose", perhaps she has got nothing much for her to feel any lose. Secondly as all sufferers of old aged would, she would have battled with pains from organs failures. The best way to deal with pains is to let it be painful and not fight it. Feel the pain as it would pass, though a bit differently compared to when one was alive and healthy, but it would pass, that was what I thought Teresa might have in mind.

Teresa was spiritual and she showed great focus and devotion regardless of her age. Yet life is not about how long one lives, but how good it's been. But if life's been good (as in you find meaning in what you do and love it, like what Teresa has found when devoting to doing social work), the more it should be longer and the longer the better. Still, nothing is forever, one day it will end and we will all face that. If that day arrived, then it is not about what you cannot bring with you, it is, however, about what you left behind to other people. Teresa has left behind an inspiration to many and also to me.

Flow

"...... until it gives you a sense of irresistible calmness..."

I had the chance of catching up with a few of my friends during my college days. Some of them were quite close and we discussed a lot of things during those times, exchange a lot of opinions on matter about life, future and career. They matter to you because they had an impact in some ways in your subsequent thinking. I was lucky to be able to find this college senior on facebook. BC was one of those senior during my JC day, even among us, we call him "granddad" because he is so knowledgeable and like a very reliable parent and we won't hesitate to contact him if we had any things to discuss, and he will be so patient to lend us his listening ears. He is a good man. When BC had a browse on my profile on facebook. He commented on my interest that I am into religion, and I told him I am more into Buddhist's thinking, while he said he was more into 老子. He read my blog and asked me to read more, and he also said there is a lot in our Chinese Culture, which I can not agree more. However, I also told him there is no boundary in my thinking, now that I tend to "go with the flow" given my situation.

I guess sometimes people like myself can easily found we tend to be "in the middle", stick somewhere. Not very Chinese, also of course also not English. Many things in life is not by choice, but by chance. The position I am in makes me look like "an outsider", the bad thing is I don't "belong anywhere"; the good thing is I can observe and can easily be empathetic if need be, since I "don't belong", I don't feel "involved". Inevitably, in an environment of a different culture, one can't help being influenced by the way of thinking and behavior. Still, I am often being challenged in term of people I choose to be close with. I do believe whatever our environment, we choose our friends. To do so, it needs sometimes to see beyond the layer of cultural difference between you and the other person, and then to treat them as who they truly are and be their friends, or simply as their colleagues. It's a steep learning curve, and no one says you know it all from day one.

This reminds me what we discussed in our meditation class on Tuesday. Something about the cycle of time, that there is a world drama cycle, in that, whatever we do, we no longer attained the peace that long ago it used to be, we forget how to make the good use of what we have, and make the best of it, we simply influence by our environment. We forget how to be good "Actor", as in acting from within, acting from a peaceful mind. Surely, considering my environment, I can only make the best of it, and not affected by whatever that is "enforced"on you. I think the idea of being an actor is to "feel involved" in a situation, with an element of focus along the way. You must feel you embrace the situation and feel the situation, the here and the now, as you observe with your senses. All so clear and crisp that bring to you a state of irresistible calmness.

This actually feel like the flow of water, as my forever inquisitive cousin brought it up the other day. Yes, it's an emotion that diffused in a situation, widely spread throughout, like water that flows if you pour it out slowly. It's the inner strength that emerged, as your sense of peace and calm took over you more and more. This helps to give you a sense of power as you would realize, the more meditations you practice, if you believe in it, of course.

Accepting and Understanding

"...... but which one comes first?"

We discussed about Karma in the Raja Meditation class yesterday. Karma is not a new topic to me. I had learned that during my Secondary School time. Last night class however bring me some new insights which I will share on this blog.

Marion, our instructor for last night asked, which one come first? Accepting or understanding? She said, there are things in life where there can be no answer at all because things do happened, I was the one who answered her first. I said, we understand and then we accept. All I had in mind was being empathetic, once you put yourselves in other people shoes, and see what they see, you understand and then you begin to accept. However, what Marion explained later was the reversed to what I said to her. She said, when bad things happened, what we tried to do was to try and understand by questioning the "why". This cause anger, stress and frustrations. We could have channeled our thinking to more productive thought. Indeed, as she so rightly mentioned subsequently was doing good deeds, sowing the seeds of good, and this will come back to us in good vides, just like the ripples one sees when throwing a stone into the water.

When the cause and effect are not complete all at one go, like when a drunken man drove his car and had a car accident, it is easy to point out the cause and the effect, hence the karma. There bound to be things that we could not trace back the "source" of it or the "cause" of it, where there are far too many in our life. For that, the only cure is to "accept" it and keep doing good deeds as this will eventually come back in good faith. Practicing meditation, cultivating a peaceful mind and soul help one accept things more readily, and with that bring good thought which could initiate good deeds and hence bring good karma. This makes perfect sense to me. :D

Re-discovering the blue sky!

I have been attending the raja Meditation course for a while now.  I attended the course with prior understanding of some meditation "technique", I was not as receptive as some who knew none about this technique. Yet, I was open minded about it and want to give it a go. The session on Tuesday was quite a crucial one for me. It convinced me the rationale on which raja meditation preaches the way it did on it meditation technique.

I guess right from the start when I attend the raja meditation course, I was seeing similarities in the way the raja technique believes and what Buddhism believes in. I cannot see what is so distinctively different about this meditation. Tuesday' session talks about the 3 worlds that the raja meditation believe we all live in, the earth, the mind and the supreme world, where the soul is the purest! As suggested in Buddhism, we cultivate our mind to ensure we are away from pain and suffering, by focusing on the fact that things you owned in life won't last, and so desire, which form the route cause of pain and suffering, can be managed well and not let it go out of hand. In the case of raja meditation, it focuses on the fact that our soul is pure and lots of quality in us can be brought up and this gives rise to cultivating the quality of the human nature, that is the reason for the mediation, to allow us to see our quality and then attained the calming effect in the process.

On Tuesday session, Natalie also discussed about "observation" and "detachment". That in Meditation, one observes what is around him, and by observing, it is meant to make one feel "detached" because you "observe", you don't "get involved". You developed a more calm and peaceful mindset and able to see things in a better light. Then I go back to reading "The Happiness Trap" and I found a section that discussed the observing self, and it uses the analogy of the blue sky as our observing self. Here's the quote from that book,

"You can imagine the observing self like the sky, while thought and feelings are like the weather - constantly changing. And no matter how bad the weather, no matter how violent the thunderstorm, no matter how turbulent the wind, rain and hail, the sky always has room for it, and cannot be hurt or harm by it in any way. Even the hurricanes and the tsumasis, which may wreck havoc upon the land, are unable to hurt or harm the sky. And of course, as time passes, the weather will change, while out beyond the weather patterns, the sky remains as pure and clear as ever."

I thought that was beautifully written. In fact, "The Happiness Trap" gives a very psychological aspect on the logic of "meditation" and how it helps the mental health. It uses a lot of interesting and easy to understand analogies to help making the explanation clearer. I find these are all great stuff. All these information and techniques from the different sources all seem to come back altogether in one, in a coherent way. I am seeing the meaning in it and slowly internalized and digest them into my thought system, which will help me even more whenever I meditate.

Are you a peaceful soul?

 "... Habit will then be programmed..."

Today, I am a peaceful soul. So, this was the message Natalie was preaching. Natalie is the charismatic and charming instructor for the workshop on raja meditation that I have been attending for the past weeks. If I can be honest, I was not too unfamiliar with the various practices that she preached. I guess I just gained a deeper insights about some of those that I (or perhaps all of us) knew already all the while. For example, as I clarified with her the other week, I was told that meditation in this context is about reflection. It, however, requires one to have belief in oneself to be a "peaceful soul". It is all in the thought that goes through the mind and penetrated into our perceptions and make us see others to be peaceful.

Natalie kept emphasizing the importance of developing this as a habit. Yes, developing it as a habit and then as part of our life, which will then become easier to handle, just like brushing your teeth before bedtime, don't we all find it hard to learn this when we were young? Habit will then be "programmed" into our subconscious and as we are able to act naturally, we already enjoyed the fruits of raja mediation. I found this to be "familiar" too, as I remember I used to write diary when I was a lot younger  (12 to 16 year old, I think). I developed a thought system at that time which help me evaluate and analyze things, which becomes increasingly important following the problem in the family. My crowded mind found a safe place to "de-clutter". It certainly helped me see things better, calm me down too.

Not that I want to out-smart the instructor, just as she said today, we can experiment our reactions to an event and see that the way we act on it makes a difference, which reveals to us, it all begins in the mind. Therefore, Keeping an open mind will help here. This acts as a reminder and enable me to gain more understandings of ourselves.

Breathing is "healing"

 ".... it serves another purpose apart from keeping you alive"

I came back from Birmingham this evening, finishing my short but fruitful 3 days conference. I have email assess during this time and still able to receive messages from work colleagues. I received an email from AA yesterday about a feedback he was asked to give me about my recent application for merit awards. It kind of "stressed" me, as I am not sure how much more I need to change for this application. I know this is important and I want to do it right. I know myself, if something like this "stressed" me, then it will take up all of my time and unable me o be productive. Right in my mind, I now can easily relate to some techniques I recently learn from some books I read.

Yes, and I am talking about breath! do it 4 or 5 times, feeling the air enters and expand your body and later when you exhale, it tightens your abs and lower tummy. Observe the process. I didn't do this 4 or 5 times, I do it with music the background, and it lasted about 12 minutes.After that, that "stress" thought still lingering about your brains somewhere, but you have been able to get on with other work, so this has been helpful exercise for me.

I began to see why Ross Harris claimed Breathing has the effect of giving you an anchor. Like a ship withstanding a storm. In this case, it cannot stop the bad thought from lingering about, but at least, it helps you get on with daily life, which I had achieved it.