Gain or Loss

I was at Tesco with my mom and happened to check out the money changer and realised that i've bought some foreign currency at a higher rate last week. The next thing i know is i had thoughts of self punishment like why did i not wait till this week to buy and felt guilty because I told my husband that we should buy last week as the trend was the rate was going up. With guilt and and self punishment being predominant, I could feel a sense of anger. I then reflected that my life had been lived from the fact if i felt that I've gained, then I'm happy and if I viewed I've lost (money, views etc), then I have unpleasant feelings. When the moment i felt that I've lost, i felt like a victim. But a victim of what ?? I was the one who made the decision. So did i victimize myself ???. I also observed that in that moment, i never call up to mind the times that I've gained and there are a lot of times. At that moment, nothing came up to mind. What a joke !!
I also observed that if i viewed I've lost, then someone had gained. So in this case I am not good enough because I've lost to someone else..... see how the mind tricks me!!!

I remembered in the Buddha's teachings that we are always influenced by the gain and loss, fame and defame, happiness and sadness etc. This dual conditions pulls me like a puppet on strings. Then my life is always about getting the upperhand but as we know what goes up must come down.
The avoidance of the pain or the down side has made me tread the world safely hoping not to experience the downside too much.

I realised if i live my life like this, I'm not living at all. So the idea is of course to accept things as they are. Even with this idea, acceptance is not simple. Because i may be able to accept at this moment and what happens in the next moment ? This question has been mulling around the mind for quite some time and one day maybe a spark of wisdom will throw some light into it!

Feeling Blue

I went to sleep with a heavy head and woke up today with a heavy head. Of course the first reaction "I don't like this and I don't want this". With this comes a lot of feelings of self pity and "poor me". I have thoughts that say.... "I should be feeling better, more cheerful, energetic".... all the "shoulds" haunting me.

After wallowing in bed for awhile, I then had a thought, a spark of wisdom, "why shouldn't I be the way I am now?" When this popped into the mind, suddenly, i could see i was resisting what i'm experiencing now wanting something different. So what's wrong with feeling unwell ? With just this one thought, there is a sense of acceptance of where I am now is exactly Where I'm suppose to be. Most of the irritated feelings disappeared and a quiet acceptance is experienced.
I got up to dress and have breakfast. The head is still heavy but there is less judgment on it.

I skyped with Tuck Loon this morning and told him that i did not want him to see my face because i think I looked terrible.: ) He pointed to me his blog today which was on "All experience is of me , not to me or for me". I read it and found it very profound. If i can see all the experiences I am experiencing is of me, I'm just experiencing the me at the moment.

I made a comment to Tuck Loon saying if a person can be mindful 24/7, a person would slowly but surely have the courage to shine light onto the dark parts of their life to open themselves up to the experience and see the experience is just of them. Nothing to run away from.

Dreams

Two days ago i received an email from Yoke Mei telling me that she dreamt she was scolding me because I missed out her name for a retreat i was organising at the end of this month. She remembered vividly being very angry and demanding a place be given to her as she was one of the first to register. I thought it was very funny that i was in someone's dream. So i asked her if she was underpressure or having any conflict with someone the day before.

Strangely, in the afternoon when I reminded Angel to update the participant's list and also to confirm that payment has been made, I discovered that we both could not find information of Yoke Mei paying for the retreat... it was like oooops and it got me thinking maybe her dream was going to become a reality : )

So, i called Yoke Mei and she mentioned she remembered sending the proof of payment about a month ago.... so it got more strange. Thank goodness she was really nice about it and resend the info to me again.

This incident got me wondering about the power of dreams. Do dreams tell us something or warn us of something? I remembered a meditation teacher of mine mentioning sometime ago that when we are living mindfully during the day where we are aware of our thoughts, feelings and actions, the ego had no chance to play its role. So it plays its role when we are asleep.

But I also believe sometimes dreams are the results of our intuition becuase when we are asleep, we sort of got out of our own way i.e being controlling and just allow the intuition/message to come thru.

I will definately take notice of the dreams i have and see which of the two category it falls under.

Seeking Approval

Today i was asking my husband for an opinion and he looked at me, smiled and shrugged his shoulders. So i ask him what he meant by the shrug. Then this got me to thinking and reflecting. Why did I ask him for an opinion? and how would I take it if his opinion was different from mine ? I pondered and had a revelation that i was actually hoping to get him to give me an opinion that is similar to mine so that I can feel validated. And if he did gave me a reply that was different from mine and insisted i follow his opinion..... I can just imagine a different scenario and definately the start of a long argument. The beauty of the shrug is that it made me realise the freedom that comes with it. So any action if seen from a different perspective looks different : )