Nuggets of Wisdom from Retreat : Action without/with Wisdom

There was an interesting incident while I was in the retreat where I observed that there is a tendency for everyone to just follow the actions of others without really questioning it because the mind is not alert enough to question the wholesomeness of the action. Its like the saying " Monkey see, monkey do". This comment is not to degrade anyone because I noticed that it applies very much to how I just follow others without questioning too.

The incident that popped this insight is when I observed that there were some people following the teacher around on his alms round in the village. While the teacher was receiving the alms from the villagers, some of those following were giving out sweets or biscuits or corn to the village children. I can see that the giving can come from the perspective that these villagers do not have much and they should be helped. On the surface level, it seemed all innocent and perfectly compassionate because its a good deed. I do question in the mind on "What could be wrong with this action?". I did not see the other side of the situation until it was pointed out to me that the people in the village comes out to give alms to the teacher when he goes round their village out of their faith in the teachings.

But when we follow and give to the children food constantly without the permission of their parents, it seems that we are teaching the children that when they see foreigners, there is expectation of receiving some form of goodies from them. Hence their attention is no longer in the alms round but on the expectation of goodies.

From this, I pondered deeply that there are many occasions that I do things because "I" think its correct and wholesome in my perspective and not even bothered to question or look on a wider perpective. Sometimes, I know this is because the wisdom in the mind is not present and also because there is not enough information or just too driven by the desire to do good.

From here, I realised that its important for me to know my intention when I wish to do a good deed and see if the intention is from wisdom or ignorance.

Nuggets of Wisdom from Retreat : Experience is just Experience

I have always put a lot of attention on an experience I am experiencing seeing that as the most important thing in the world at the moment for me.

However, in this recent retreat there is a shift in understanding that actually experience should be treated as just an experience, there is no need to personalise the experience to oneself. I remembered I've read or heard something that Byron Katie said that if a person were to hit her, its over. However, because of thinking in the mind, we hit ourself over and over again though the actual hit was just once. This is because we give so much priority to the experience, be it good or bad and hardly give attention to the workings of the mind who experiences the experience .

Just with this foundational information to see all experiences as just experiences, which the teacher mentioned that we have to constantly remind ourself of it, there was a loosening of the grip towards overly identifying with an experience.There was an incident that I had a conversation with a fellow yogi and she was making nice comments and being very grateful for my help in translating her needs to the office people as she did not speak English. I observed that there was feelings of happiness listening to the comments. Normally, the mind would hold on to this nice feelings and play the comments over in the mind in later time. This time after saying good bye to the yogi, I turned to walk to where I wish to go and I observed that the mind was not thinking of the incident and all I could sense was a residue of the happy feeling. It was truly experiencing the experience as just an experience. And once its over its over. It was quite interesting because the mind was stable and clear and knows that there is no need to hold on to the incident and that it was over. This is truly wisdom at work.

Nuggets of Wisdom from Retreat : Judgement and feelings

I was away for a retreat for the whole month of December 2010. This is the longest retreat so far I allowed myself to experience. At first the days seemed to passed slowly but in a blink of an eye, one month had passed and I'm back home again.

I realise I came away from this retreat with a lot of learning experiences. In this retreat, it was very clear that when an experience happens, there will be feeling and thoughts of like and dislike. Normally, there is a tendency to get carried away with the like or dislike. And this makes them grow into more desire or more aversion.

As I was meditating, there was an awareness the each time something happens and a dislike takes place, it was easy to get carried away if a person awareness is weak. But if the awareness is strong coupled with the right attitude in observing  what is happening, the feeling of like and dislike did not seemed to grow, in fact, there is a tendency of it not staying very long. This result in a more balance view. Every time there is a judgement or strong feeling, I would turn the attention inwards to be aware of the feelings and thoughts. I find that sometimes, just the mere act of accepting that something unpleasant or pleasant has happened, the mind do not stick to the experience so much.

I have always dislike being bitten by mosquitoes when meditating. So each time the sound of the mosquito buzzing around, there was anxiety and irritation and of course the thought was " please don't come near".
I must admit that I took a swipe at a few mosquitoes in anger and secretly, there was a feeling of happiness, if they got whacked. However, one day I changed tactic, when I hear a mosquito buzzing around, immediate, the radar was turned inwards to be aware of the feelings ans thoughts....... the mosquito then landed on the arm and started to have its meal. Though out the whole experience, the awareness was on the feeling and thought. In about 1 minute, the mosquito flew off and I just dab the bitten area with some saliva and continued to meditate. Strangely, there was no itchiness from the bitten spot and very soon the whole experience was forgotten.

So, the mere practice of acknowleging the feeling and thoughts, I was more relaxed during the sitting meditation and was not bother with the mosquitoes and insects . I also practiced this with unexplained sensation that the body sometimes experiences. This practice, helps me not to get too carried away by the feelings and judgement/thoughts.

Willing to Love ?

There are times when we are feeling out of sorts and its like the world is upside down..... nothing seem to be joyful to do. All that is there to feel is listlessness, stuck and unhappy. So what to do when in such state? Battle it out ? Swear ? Blame others? Scream?

When in this state, it just feels like the spiritual journey is a difficult journey because of the knowing that whatever is happening is just effect of a cause which at the moment is not visible to me yet. So while still experiencing the effects, there are a lot of uncertainty on what is the best way to handle it.

 Of course applying the "Do Nothing" approach is a good one because whatever I choose to do from this type of energy would be disastrous. For now, I choose to be aware of all the uncomfortable feeling and thoughts. At the same time wondering what it is all about.

I had a conversation with TL about it and he mentioned that its may be some old issues that has cropped up and it seems that I'm tolerating it therefore making it hard to gain understanding about it. I can see there is a lot of truth about what TL said because when issues come up, its normally an uncomfortable time and there is always a wanting to get rid of it instead of loving what has come up.

For me this is the hard part..... Would I be willing to love the part of me that seemed so unlovable? Would I be willing to be gentle with myself and also with what is coming up? This calling to be willing to love what is unlovable is really a paradox because normally, things that are unlovable are just fragmented or cut of from our view..... sort of like shutting it away in a dark dungeon.

The uncomfortableness of loving an uncomfortable part of ourselves is really something interesting because it require a lot of willingness to constantly be aware of the changes that is happening. At times, it seemed to easy to love the unlovable part and at times,it seems like there is no way to love the unlovable part because of the extreme swing in the emotions. I remembered in a scene in the movie "Matrix" where one of the person on Neo's team met with Agent Smith and requested to be plugged back into the matrix because being in "Reality" was really difficult and he wish to go back to the "Dream" world.

Though it looks like life is easier just by being mindless, in actual case its not because somehow or rather, I have to take responsibility for whatever that is happening and work with it to gain understanding for my higher good.

Mega Sale and the Mind

For the last few days, I was observing feelings of being out of sorts, like spinning out of my axis. As I reviewed what I'm doing the past few days, they were things that were not done normally by me like spending hours at a shopping mall and in spaces where there is a lot of people. If I was not in these situations, I would not have seen how the mind works in a mega sale situation.

Anyway, I must admit that I'm a bargain hunter, spending hours at end in shopping malls or shops or online trying to get the best deal. This time around, I was observing the mind and saw that the mind that wishes to get a bargain is actually a mind that is also trying not to lose out.So if I got a bargain, then I win, if not, I lose.  For instance, if I'm shopping with my mother and we managed to get things at a bargain, we would feel very happy but if not, we felt cheated. But who is to say I win or lose? The funny thing is that it is I who says it based on the perception I have. Because of this perception, there is always a doubt lingering in the mind after a purchase and this can really be very disconcerting because the experience does not seem to end.


I have also pondered why is it that high end malls can exist and why is there people who choose to spend loads of money on branded stuff when the money can be put to better use...... Just looking at this trend of thinking, it is very clear that there are still abundance issues in me because I'm viewing the world from the point of scarcity and moralistic judgement.

I was having a conversation with SS about this and mentioned to him, even if I had a windfall of money and has a free hand to spend all the money, there will be a lot of guilt there because of the old program I have of being thrifty and afraid of being cheated. So how can I spend money without guilt, fear and envy? This is an interesting question that I posed to myself.


I was quite surprised when I had this understanding that I was actually evaluating each experience instead of being in the experience. And what is it about being in the experience ? .... its about giving myself the chance to touch and feel the product, its also about giving the sales person a chance to do his sales pitch, its also about allowing me the chance to ask question and clarify doubts about the product. And throughout the experience, be mindful of the mind that is constantly drawing conclusion about the experience. I realised that whether I bought the product or not was not the main thing, it was the way I'm choosing to experience the experience was the main thing. And strangely, nowadays whether I buy or don't buy the product, there is still an appreciation of what the experience brought.

Being Communicative

Recently I made an interesting observation while watching 2 person communicating with each other. We humans communicate all the time either verbally or non verbally. Because of the meaning we put into the word and action, we will respond accordingly. Interestingly, while we think we are communicating with another person, in reality, we are only communicating with ourselves.

This is because we interpret whatever the person is saying or doing through our own paradigm/filters/perception. If so happen that the perception of both parties seemed the same, then the communication is then has an agreeable outcome in the eyes and ears of both parties.

However, if what the person says is seen as disagreeable to our perception of how things should be, then an unpleasant situation will occur. So, if we never took the time to investigate what is triggering us and hence start to see the perception we hold, then we would constantly be reacting to the triggers and blaming the other person. We would hold on to our view that the other person is a monster, uncaring, stupid, moron, etc. The normal tendency is to give up in communicating with the other person all together. And if we do still need to communicate with the other person, the communication will carry the energy that the person feels for the other person. The result is even more mis-communication.

I realised that is just so so so easy to stay in our perceptions because it makes us right but it does not give us peace. Like Byron Katie says "Would you rather be right or be free?". Most of us in moment of non conflict will say that we choose to be free but when a conflict happens and if we were unconscious, we would choose to be right.

Making to choice to be right, automatically puts us in a reactive mode as well and gives us tunnel vision. I've seen how a relative choose to be right in his communication and each time he ended up feeling angry, victimised, misunderstood and blames the other person for being stubborn, unkind etc. What a painful way to live life. 

I wonder is the satisfaction of being right so great that it totally obliterate the possibility of seeing a situation or person in another light.... and hence a way out from pain ?

Being in Integrity

I have been having lessons on integrity coming up in my life lately. There were situations that I had to express to someone a definite "NO" for their request because it is not what I would want to be involved in. Hard though it was to stand in integrity but it was a relief to express out the truth of the matter rather than avoiding it.

Another incident was also in the recent training I was conducting and I told the participants that I would like them to come back in time after the breaks because I would like to fulfill the time allocated for the training as promised to the organiser. Interestingly, when I have integrity about time, the participants were almost always on time.

So I wondered why is integrity so important? In my pondering, I realised that having integrity is not about being stubborn but being clear about what resonates with our inner being and what does not. And the best part is there is no faking it because integrity comes from a space of honouring ourselves and not selling ourselves short.

Many a times in the past, I would have easily given in to others because I wish to appear as a nice person or am afraid of not being approved by the other person, but I realised when I do that, I'm only hurting myself because it chips away a part of me.

Another incident that clearly I remember is when D called me up to chat with me about the problems D was having in the office. He told me about subordinate who went on leave without informing him first and then left a load of work for him to complete. Through out my conversation with him, I noticed that I was being triggered by what was happening though at the beginning I was neutral. I wondered why was I triggered. The answer that came to me was that there were still areas that I am not standing in my own integrity resulting in me being pulled into the drama of the other person.

If someone were to ask me if I was standing in full integrity.... I can safely say "NO".... I am still on the journey