Emotions - The Way Out

As human beings we experience various types emotions throughout the day. Sometimes we are happy, sometimes sad, sometimes joyful, sometimes blur etc. 

On one level, when we are unconscious, we act according to our emotions and that in turn fuel more of such actions that bring about the emotions. For example, whenever there is a feeling of fear or anxiety, some tend to eat or cry or go exercise to escape from the emotions and hopefully other pleasant emotions will be experienced. So in a way, we are led by our emotions.

I notice that about myself when there is no awareness, things can spiral downwards very easily with non beneficial consequences. A month ago I got a parking ticket and I did not pay it immediately. It remained as a nagging thoughts so 2 days ago I decided to go online and made the payment, feeling rather pleased with myself. Then I went out to run some errands and parked my car in a housing area. When I came back in 45mins time, I saw I had another summon flapping on my windscreen and the amount was RM100. Arghhhhhh :(

The first thing I notice was anger arising and thoughts of self accusation and poor me run through the mind. I sat in the car observing the gamut of emotions and thoughts and when there was relatively some calm, I decided that I will go over to MBPJ and just settle it. While driving there, I kept making the wrong turn eventhough WAZE was guiding me. That is when, I noticed that there were anxiety on finding the place, the embarrassment if people found out and anger and frustration for not being careful. 

I stopped the car as I know the mind was experiencing wrong attitude and view hence its suffering under the view that I am not a good person because I have broken the law. When this is seen, the emotions settled down and I went into the parking to find a spot to park and lo behold someone infront of me, just pulled out. The whole process of making payment was quick. But I notice, what slowed me down me was the fact that I was reacting with aversion to what had happened hence creativity in finding solution was automatically out of the window.

Hence, its not the situation that makes me angry, more true is the thoughts and views that I am believing in that are making the anger/emotion arise. If there is no awareness, I would be lamenting that what happened to me is bad luck or I am being punish for something I did wrong. Its very liberating when emotions are not seen as the enemy but as a friend that encourages us to be aware so that it finally wisdom shows another way of living. 

Waiting For Life To Happen

Am I living my life or is my life being lived?
As 2013 comes to a close, it is indeed a time for me to ponder and reflect.

I must admit, many a times I am not here .... Meaning that I am lost in thought, thinking of the past or planning for the future, worrying about stuff and reacting to things that happen in my space. This clearly indicate that there is a lot of times that my life is being lived by all the old patterns and conditions that made up this life.

What does all this means? All I know for now is that I am still following old conditions as oppose to being aware of them. Somehow, old conditions seems to be like a comfortable old shirt that I have worn for years and though it's torn, faded and tattered, I still prefer it because I know how it feels when I slip into it. Basically, just looking for comfort zone instead of being aware of what is happening.

What is it like when I am living my life? It's one that is conscious of what is being experienced, knowing clearly what is happening, knowing the emotions, thoughts that goes thru the mind, the desires to take action so that I can feel better. This seemed like being passive but this is most active because constantly there something to be aware off. It's about knowing what is making this 'being' tick.

In a way, I can make my own life really miserable when I just go about it like a headless chicken. So tomorrow is another day and this moment now is just a new moment. Let's get back on the horse of being conscious!! Happy New Year !!!

Being True

How true are we to ourselves ?? In this world, everyone of us wants to be loved and to belong. I was shocked to read in a recent book by Dr Brene Brown titled The Gifts of Imperfection, Love and Belonging are actually on the opposite continuum. Many a times, when we want to belong, we will do what it takes to ensure we are accepted by the friend/partner/ family/colleagues etc. We perceive that when we act, think, look, talk like what is deemed appropriate, then we will belong and be loved. However, many a times, we will have a dilemma where we know the way that is seen as "correct", so as we can fit in, is not something that feels right in our gut. So the question is do we go against the norm or follow the norm?. There are many instances in families, community, schools and workplace, that we will "sell out" so that we can belong and do not rock the boat. We easily sacrifice what is authentic within thinking that is not what is called for to be loved.

Recently, I was observing the mind, speech patterns and action and realised that many a times, I could not act or express authentically even to my own self. For example, I am feeling tired out and wanting to rest but when a phone call comes, I will proceed to chat and support the person eventhough what was real for me is to rest. I was afraid I would offend the other person. So when the person asked if I can chat ... I said YES when I could have said Not Now.

However, there is another component of being authentic and true that was highlighted to me by a friend. He said in the Buddha's teaching, there must be wisdom to know when to act and what is the appropriate way and time to express. I understood what he was getting at. So I realised that with awareness and wisdom, we can recognise what we need to be authentic about and how and when to express it is also important for the good of all.

Holding Presence

Recently I am coming more and more into the realization that when we hold presence for what is happening in our inner world or for someone else, something beautiful comes out of it.

I used to think that being silent and just listening is holding presence but that is not entirely it because  many a times, there are still a lot of chattering in the mind and I was thinking of how to respond, what can I say next etc.

I was away in a workshop and in it I was paired up with another person and all I had to do was allow the person to speak and I just listen...... In the first practice, all I notice was I was so self conscious and I hardly could be present to what the person was expressing and at the same time wanting to give an empathic answer.... And hoping it will be right....it was very stressful and I did not feel connected to the other person at all.

In another practice, I set the intention of just being present and let nature takes its course, this time the experience was very different. I could just sit silently and pay attention. There was no discomfort or urgency to respond. And when I made a response, there were not many words needed. The feeling of being connected did not require much words to express. I noticed the person who I was holding presence for looked relaxed and I am guessing she felt safe emotionally too. I just felt gratified when she mentioned that she felt empathized.

When Everything Is Enough

Everyone of us have experiences in every moment of our lives and how conscious we are will determines whether we react or respond to an experience. Recently, I had the pleasure of hosting a few loved ones in my home and I find myself spending a lot of time preparing meals and ensuring that they are comfortable. Though I was enjoying it, I did not realized that at a certain point I was overextending myself and not taking care of myself. Of course not far behind was feeling of tiredness and anger . The interesting thing is, emotions are our warning light so to speak but it is so easily forgotten and instead we wallow in it and start to make others wrong for whatever reason. The more unconscious, the more drama and thoughts will snowball to labeling self as inadequate, not enough, unworthy etc.

As I was sharing this with a friend, it dawned upon me that even when in such throngs of wallowing, if there is a just a spark of wisdom, a person can actually just realize that what is happening in their life at the moment, is just as it is. In other words, everything is just enough. If I can only be this able to handle myself..... It's enough. If  I need to cry a bit, it's also enough. If I need to take a break, it is also enough. Recognizing this will bring peace back because constantly, when we are feeling lousy/uncaring/unpleasant, we do not allow ourselves to feel that and we try to fix it because it is deemed that all these emotions are indication we are not enough. In actual case, it does not. The awareness of the emotions is actually telling us we are enough. This is for me a paradoxical learning journey that needs constant reminder.

Insanity of Wrong Ideas

In a recent retreat that I was helping out with, the theme was "Ideas Attract Situations" and it was interesting to just see how each idea propel us in a certain direction hence attracting the situation. Just today when I had the idea that I am not loved, immediately feelings of sadness and thoughts that gather evidence that "i am not loved" started to sprout.  Hence started the insanity or the drama of wanting to be loved. While being aware of what is happening in the mind, there was awareness that the conditioning is such that, this was the experience that is being experienced.

I notice and also reflected that this drama can be played out in many ways in our lives like :-
a. I could go all out and do pleasing things to others so that they will appreciate and love me
b. I could ask another person to validate that they love me.... which is a strategy that is used very often in movies. But if the person do not validate and invalidate instead .... the drama will get bigger and worse
c. I could do weird actions like scolding the other person and nit pick in the hope that the other person will see the follies of their way and love me for being so wise ..... but this is definitely a strategy that brings about more negative response and the chances of getting what I want will be lower :D
d. I could give the person the silent treatment until the person acknowledges me or concede defeat.... again this is the cold war strategies which most women are familiar with....and result is also not good

So, I decided to take a different route of just being with the drama in the mind and watching the mental states when it believes the story. The question that popped up was that, what is the deeper underlying idea that is not being known so far to have caused this situation. Is there an idea of wanting to be special ? worthy or unworthy ? to be important ? wanting to win ? righteous ? dissatisfaction ?

From a discussion with B, I realise that aversion of something or greed of something is like the glue that is feeding the feelings. But what I was not recognising is that an idea has taken root so it must run its course as in its just nature... But the fact that I wish to fix the situation to my advantage, the ability to just be awake to the situation was not there.... hence drama continues. But once awaken, drama stops as mind recognises that its just nature.

In Love with What ?

I read some time ago of how support groups are formed so that people who suffered similar diseases could get together and support each other but there were cases where the support group itself became a means for a person to perpetuate their condition.

There was a woman who was in a support group for an illness and as she got better, the leader of the support group told her that she is now cured and need no longer be in the support group. She got very upset and accused them of being unsupportive and mean. However, what has actually happened is that she was going around wearing a sort of invisible badge telling everyone that she is suffering from a disease and hence deserved to be given attention and preference. So if she was cured, she would no longer enjoy the attention and preference. So, in this case, it was clearly that she was in love with the illness that she could not live without it though her initial plan was to be cured of it.

Now, how often do we hold on to certain beliefs or ideas for dear life and defend it to death ? I have been doing that many a times unconsciously where I defend some ideas or belief and later realising that it was unnecessary as it create additional stress in my life. I felt rather foolish later. Like the movie title "Rebel without a cause". Come to think of it, it was rather funny, when I realised that I defended a belief because I did not know what else to believe. So its also a case of familiarity breeds ignorance.

So, I have been observing what triggers me and observe what is the belief that is underlining it. Its interesting for me to observe that when I believe something, all actions are to support it.

Grey Area

Recently, I have been noticing how I have been viewing life in clear distinction of Black and White. What I mean by this is that when an experience happens, there is only 2 ways to see it, its good or bad. There cannot be a maybe .

Because of such a mindset, I will not be able to see a wider scope of a situation or experience because i have capped the experience. If I view an experience as "Bad", unpleasant feelings would be felt and mind would go into a spiral down thinking pattern fraught with worry and apprehension.Because of such exclusivity in the view, there is no way that I could see that MAYBE.... what is happening.... is for me to learn something from the reflections

I noticed because of "maybe", I get to see beyond the experience. For example, I have been chatting with a friend lately and he was sharing about his experiences with his bosses that were not pleasant. I notice, during the sharing, there was an immersion into the experience and perspective that they are "bad", "unkind" etc, there was no way that he could see beyond that. And even if he could see that there were some "good" , it was very quickly flooded over by the "bad" stuff. It was easy for him to see that his misery is all due to them.

It dawned to we that, if he went down this path, the logical thing to do was to leave the job. But after talking awhile, I slowly prompted him to see a little beyond the experience and look for the pattern in his experiences. He could see that it was repeated in almost all his employment where the bosses were perceived as prosecutors and him as victim. As we dive in deeper, it did seem that there was some other issue that were causing all his unpleasant experiences which was a view he had of himself.

So from this experience, I could see that if we learn to see something in the Grey Area or what I call the "Maybe" space, we could look deeper, inquire more and be curious as oppose to just seeing situation as BLACK and just react to it negatively.

Merry Christmas

Its been a while since I blogged. Just spent 4 weeks in a retreat out of Malaysia. I wondered this time would I miss home. Strangely the moment the next experience happen, I hardly think of home. I noticed that I think of home when conditions are less favorable that what I experience at home. Looks like the mind is constantly making comparison and judgement.

As I see more n more of daily scenes in the place that I went, I notice an acceptance or a settling in to see what the world I view then is the norm. I came to accept walking bare footed , people spitting betel nut juice in the road, walking around wt sarong and is norm.

When I touch down in LCCT n saw rain, the mind was so happy as it had not seen rain for 1 month.

What I know for this moment on Christmas Day is that I choose to give myself a present of being in the present moment. Merry Christmas !!!

When The Conditions Are Right

"Everything fell into place" so to speak when I was out with H. We were at an exhibition and made a pact to leave in an hrs time to go for another appointment. As we went round we found something that we were looking for and started to inquire more. After a while when I saw that time has run out and we are late for the next appointment, the thought started the ball rolling and mind started to get agitated as it really wish to move on. With this, the condition is now right for anger to arise and for accusations to fly if there was unconsciousness.

Because of the awareness that the conditions are already set so to speak, I walked ahead as i know it was just conditions working its and attacking H abt being tardy with time would not help matter. Because anger is running its show then, all I could do is to be aware of the show. Because of this lack of interference, the mind state could change to a calmer side quite fast with just residue of anger left.

Because there is residue and less vigilance, a new condition arised when another incident happen. In this incident, the disappointment with myself for making a decision earlier from fear of not getting something, from greed of wanting something and from not trusting myself but trusted others opinion, all this accummulated with me feeling unhappy and upset because I thought I mad a bad decision.

But when the mind saw again that a condition has arised and is doing its work, very quickly peace returned. I had to laugh because there was no wrong decision or mistake. The action taken fr the space of fear, greed and not trusting was exactly the perfect decision and no other decision could have happened. So what is left is not about correcting the situation for what's done is finished. All there is to do is to make a choice for the next moment.
With that freedom is again experienced.

Missing Permissions in Life

Last weekend I attended a workshop in Singapore that was specifically for identifying beliefs that I had unconsciously absorbed within 0-7 years of my life and because of this it has been like a default program that is running my life.

For most people, it would be something that they are not even conscious about because it is just taken as it is. For example, if a person gets sick more often than others, we would put it down that the person is weak and fragile and therefore easily get sick. So what the person will do is go and see the doctors, take supplements, exercise, stay in a more conducive area and etc..... It may seem with all the changes made, the person falls sicks less frequent but this does not mean that the person is not healthy. From the course, I learnt that the person can take all those action but the program that he has incorporated from 0-7 years old may be one that does not give him/her permission to be well.

So in other words, the signs of the person being sick frequently are just indicators for the person that there is a program inside that working against the person (so to speak), so until the person clear the program, he will constantly be having health issues.

The same is about phobias..... if a person has a phobia of water or insects, each time they are near water or the particular insect appears, they freak out or they avoid. In other words, there is a lot of emotion felt when the phobias situation arises. For some, they do not even know when the phobias started. Some said that it may be from past life but whatever it is .... it produces intense emotions. So, if the person has this phobia, their lives are limited so to speak whereby they may not go swimming, or be in the outdoors etc.

Being logical does not help because the program of the phobia is already running. What we can do is to clear the emotions around this. There are many ways to do it from Past Life Regression, EFT, Hypnosis, Timeline therapy etc.

However, I discovered that an important recognition tool that is needed is actually mindfulness because with mindfulness, we are aware of the signs and the non interference way of collecting information through mindfulness, allows us to see the reactions. For some, through, mindfulness, the phobias can also be cleared. The same I guess is with clearing defective programs in our lives. :) 

Tunnel Vision

I have been observing how often I have tunnel vision with regards to experiences in my life. This tunnel vision phenomena happens when I'm in a state of not conscious of myself or in another word... in automatic pilot. Tunnel vision also happen when there is not stepping back from an experience or emotion resulting in being stuck to the experience hence only old ways of reacting is happening. Tunnel vision also happen when the mind wish to be right or its being righteous hence its my way or the highway :)

I was out with SS for dinner a week ago and I was deep in thought as I was walking along a path to the shop. As the path normally has sales people selling titbits there, I normally just tell them NO. Though deep in thought, there is still an awareness of 2 women standing at the side holding something that looked like food. As we walked passed, they said " Would you like to support single mothers?" and immediately I said NO and continue on my journey. I was able to observe how the mind suddenly had a feeling of guilt for answering NO so quickly. When we sat down at the restaurant which was just a few doors away, I started to laugh and told how tunneled vision I was in the incident with the 2 ladies and how the mind jumped into conclusion that they were the same as previous experiences.

So, I checked that I would like to support the single mothers ..... ( well ... its based on an idea that they need help) but because there was no wisdom present at that moment, it could only be aware (that is why my teacher often mention that "awareness alone is not enough" ) hence old patterns continue to play up. This shows to me the mind will do its own stuff in its own way as if "I" am not there ...... so where is the "I" in all this ?


Interestingly, when there is mindful, the mind has clarity, is alert, is curious, is inquisitive, is in wonderment..... the possibility of tunnel vision is less likely to happen because the observer is constantly observing and checking the attitude and the ideas that are fuelling the actions, speech, thoughts and feeling.

Remaining Stuck to This Reality

If you take a close look at how velcro works, you will see tiny hooks on one side and strings on the other side. When the hooks catches on the string, they become stuck together. This example came to me while I was having a conversation with GG.

The fact that I believe this reality as REAL, I am  unconsciously hooking to all my experiences, thoughts, feelings, actions and ideas. The more hooked I am, the more I view this reality as the only reality that I will experience.

Hence, it is not hard to believe the world is a scary place for myself and I guess for many people. However, I notice, if there is an acceptance that the ego likes to hook on so that it can perpetuate this reality, there is actually a form of stability created in the mind to just watch it as the nature of ego. This will in a way, slowly and surely has an unhooking effect. Though I still experience the thoughts, feeling, action and experiences as real but the wisdom kicks in with appropriate questions that helps me to unhook. A new question that recently popped up in my space that helped me not to be so identified with this reality is  "How is this incident/experience perpetuating the hold on this reality? " Answering this question has been fun.

An incident that happened recently where I had not had enough sleep and had to be up early to fetch my mom. Due to the tiredness, I started to act snappy towards her and see wrongness in the way she does some things. Though there is awareness of the anger but because the attitude is not right...... hence the desire to be snappy continued. After snapping several times I decided to keep my mouth shut. When I asked the question, normality returned to my space but when the mind goes back to the wrong idea, it goes back to wanting to be snappy. So I told my mom, pls ignore me for awhile as anger is rearing its head now and I went out to take a walk to pay some bills at the post office. As I walked there I asked the question again and then allow it to be. By the time I got home, clarity/sanity has returned. 

Some of the hardest ideas to unhook are those that are deep seated and has a lot of righteousness invested in it. These are super velcro ideas that may take a lot of gentleness and also patience for understanding to arise.

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

My nieces came over to stay with me for the last two nights as they expressed that they would like to spend time with me during this school holidays. I notice that I started to give them conditions to their stay.... must make their bed, remember to switch off the lights and fan when not in the room, blah blah blah....

When I check the mind, it was because I wanted to experience them in my own way....I wanted to have a tidy house, I wanted to save electricity etc ... all these wanting is not allowing me to experience them for who they are maybe because I am scared I may not be able to accept behaviours that are out of my boundary of tolerance. So when not conscious of these ideas, I was criticism them about not switching off the lights etc. But when I was aware, I will still ask them to switch off the light but its done in a gentle way and not in a reprimanding way.

It is very true we do things based on our ideas and intentions. I was making pizza dough today and after it was done, I placed it to rest for 30 mins and it doubled in size. I could see the mind was very happy. When my niece wanted to help, she immediately took the dough out and flatten it...... The first thought that came in the mind was "Oh No... there goes the dough" ... of course I told her she should not have done that and immediately she retreated back to the living room to read her book. Again, it was based on an expectation that the dough should be of certain way that I got upset.... When I related this to her, she was relating to me that was exactly what happened when I cut some embroidery string for her a different way from what I did earlier. She told me that she was upset because of her expectation. Of course, she could not see it when the incident happen but when we were talking about it later, she could relate the example to me.

So, I can really screw myself up with I am not aware which idea is operating currently.

Giving & Receiving

I was with my study group and we were talking about the first chapter of the book Non Violent Communication. One of the activity was to share an incident where we were giving from the heart and how we felt and vice versa when we did not give from the heart and how we felt.

As everyone started to share their story, I was seeing that in instances that they genuinely give from their heart, they feel very nice and I could see it on their face. However, if they give or did not give after some thought, there seemed to be a different look on their faces. I find it facinating.

One thing i found interesting in each of us seem to have the mentality that we can give to those that is seen to have less than us but we cannot receive from those who we perceive have lesser than us. For example, its ok for us to give to a beggar but its not ok for a beggar to give to me because it would be deemed not right.

Another interesting thing I realised that a lot of times the giving is thwarted because of a thought that came in after the intention to give. In a way we thwart our own compassion with logical thinking

A thing that struck me very clearly last night was that each moment is different. For instance, when a person wants to give something to us, we can make the giving complete by receiving but because of a logical thought, we stop the receiving from our end and the giving is not complete.

So there is a need for wisdom too in the giving and receiving. A giving that is sincere, is felt by the giver and the giver wants nothing in returned from the giving except the receiving. If the receiver is in doubt they can always be open by asking the giver their intention. The problem is that, we never ask, we make up some stories in our mind and act according to the story. If the story is about us being indebted to the person or its not right to receive from someone deemed having less than us, we shut off the receiving quickly to protect ourselves.

Same goes with receiving. We can receive from the heart and know nothing is expected in return or we can receive from the space of doubt and suspicion. Either way, only we will experience it.

I came to an interesting personal conclusion is that what is actually important was how the mind is relating to the cycle of giving and receiving. Meaning here is that what is the idea that is present in the giving and receiving. Is it coming from wisdom or ignorance

Self Deception

Recently, I was observing an interesting phenomena in myself after it was brought to my attention while in a conversation with someone.

I've noticed how I layer ideas upon ideas to guide me in operating in this world and because of this layering, I seem to have an idea to run everything.
For instance, if i have the idea that "others needs are more important than mine" or "to be a nice person, I must give in" or If I don't get what I want, its just my destiny."  or " wanting things is wrong or its selfish" , I will take action and speak according to these ideas.

With these thought, if I were going shopping with a friend and both of us like the same item, I would most likely not to express my like for the item when my friend has expressed her like because it would seem that I'm not nice and to make myself feel better I would layer another idea on top of the first idea like "its only a material good, its not permanent" . This will seem to put the mind to rest but am I really ok ?

From my observation, its not ok because I have shut out the possibility of seeing how the mind relates to all the wanting or desiring and to learn about the nature of it. By putting ideas as Band-Aid, I shut the case up very quickly and this disallow me from learning more about the mind. In another words, I'm not learning, I'm just fixing things so that I can maintain my seemingly peace of mind. In other words, no wisdom is grown. What is grown is just tolerance. If there were no big issues, I could well operate my whole life like this.

Having the ideas are not wrong. The ideas are what I call first level information for us to train our mind with some information for us to ponder and use our intelligence to apply it but as we progress in our practice, we must also look into this information to see how its operating in our system to learn from it. Unfortunately, we take the information given as the ultimate truth and regurgitate it in the situations that we experience. We are not learning to observe the relationship we are having in the mind with regards to the information.

As the Buddha said, we need to let go of the raft once we are at the opposite shore. Hanging on to the raft just hinders our progress.


  

Unnecessary Suffering

I came back from helping out and also participating in a 4 days retreat over the weekend till Tuesday. One of the thing that was discussed was the work of Byron Katie and on the 3 kinds of business. My business, your business and God's business. I was reflecting that when we are in our own business, there is less suffering and I had the opportunity to see then while having a conversation with a loved one. I'm sharing my take on her experience because it makes me see myself.

She was sharing with me how inconsiderate her MIL was to ask husband to fetch them back to hometown after arriving late from a holiday. And they had to take her car as his car had a flat tyre leaving her to take care of the flat tyre the next day before she goes to work. I could hear the pain and accusation she is in as she could not understand their action. It struck me there and then that she was in their business and also there was no acceptance that it was their nature to be like that because that is the behaviour they were displaying. Its just that their nature is not her nature.

I reflected how often I do not accept nor see other people's for their nature because its different from mine. Because of this I suffer ONE time. In my mind I want them to be different to fit my view of how people should be. This becomes my SECOND suffering. And I try to change them to fit my view by persuading, threatening, etc. This makes up my THIRD suffering. Isn't it wonderful how I wallow in suffering and blame others for it.  Because of this focus to change others, the mind is totally closed.

I shared with my loved one that if she accepted their nature, she will have more peace and if she can see that she has a choice to also  leave the punctured tyre car for her husband to come back to repair, she could easily have asked for a ride from a colleague or take a taxi to work saving her all the suffering. So, my learning from here is that we cannot see any strategies if we are totally embroiled in our suffering. In the end, our relationship with our spouse would be affected and if we do not come back to our own business, our relationships suffers because we carry the anger and resentment forward.

So, its true that suffering is optional !

Life Purpose

I have always wondered what is my life purpose. From young I thought life purpose is to be happy and with that I need to get a good education, be financially secure, have a family, insurance and a good retirement plan. As I embark on the spiritual journey, I realised that all the above that I use to guarantee a happy life is not IT. Looks like I've bark at the wrong tree.

Recently, I was re-aquainted with the practice of H'oponopono and it has brought out the fact that everything that comes into my space is my responsibility. And my responsibility is to clear the data or misperceptions that I have about things.

TL sent an email to me this morning and one paragraph of his email really hit the nail on the head when he said that "the only meaningful purpose of life is to clear all the garbage,baggage of memories that makes me come back again and again" And all we want is to return "HOME"

Coincidentally,while driving with my mom in the car today, I expresses that each person in life or a day can choose to do nothing, do something good or from wisdom or do something from ignorance. Whatever we choose, the moment or day or life will still be happening. But when we choose to do something from wisdom, which is in this case to clear the garbage, we allow nature or the divine to guide us. In a way, in my understanding, when I clear,  "I" get out of the way and let nature run its own course.

But we do not do that because of fear of the unknown, so we spend a lot of our time at work, or with family or doing what we think is the ultimate. I do not believe it is now because though we have work, family etc, they are actually mirrors for us to see what we need to clear. For example, I cannot want a happy family because wanting something is not going to get me what I want, I need to work on the cause..... meaning that I have to clear all the data or misperception and then when its clear, things will flow. So its not about getting something or going anywhere, its about clearing and all will come into play.

What a paradox of life. I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you , I love you.

Uncontrollable Hearing

I was having breakfast with mom today at a coffee shop and fortunately or unfortunately we were sitting next to a table of 3 taxi drivers having their teatime. I could not help it but to hear their conversation which was abt SEX and their encounters with women in the flesh trade. I was watching the mind n was aware of a mix of emotions like awe, tickled and shocked that saw the judgement that people was not suppose discuss such stuff in a public place.

So at a point the mind was relating go it with dislike. Once I saw that, I posed a question to the mind, " is it necessary?" and the attitude immediately changed.
The interesting realization is that I cannot control the sound that comes and it's just my perception that makes it unpleasant. Hearing is just hearing n peace returns.

My mom made a remark that we should not have sat near then and the taxi drives are disgusting people. I reflected on that and you know what, they are just being their own nature and they did not ask our opinion on their conduct. So who is disturbing who ? The answer? It's just the mind doing what it does.

In the end of the day it's just nature happening .

Shining Light on Suffering

For quite sometime I have been observing the repetitiveness of life where a person has to wake up, eat, work, sleep, pass motion etc. I remember commenting to SS that what would it be like if we do not have to eat? I think a lot of the world's problems will be solved. I could see that in a way all that we do daily is in the service of sustaining this body of ours. I felt trap in this cycle thinking of the meaningless of all this. I know that I can enjoy good food and different type of food but the crux is still that the eating has to happen to sustain this body or else it will die.

At the same time, there is a constant living in a state of stress where we are upset when we don't get what we want or when we are in pain or the constant wanting of thing to be the way we want it to be. Basically, every uncertainty triggers a barrage of feelings and fear. 

In a way, life feels like a prison but I have learnt to decorate my prison to make it look less like a prison by buying stuff, by eating different type of food, by going on holidays, by playing safe etc. But whatever I am doing or wherever I am, I still have to eat, sleep, pass motion and feel
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Recently learnt that there are Dukkha of Feeling, Doing and Being. Strangely, when I see life as meaningless, I am reacting in anger. If I keep looking for something new in my life, I'm actually operating from Greed. And if I view that life is actually like this, its good and no need to change then I am deluded. So, in a way, I'm constantly in Dukkha. Is there a way out ? If there is, I have not found it yet because I'm still embroiled in the feelings and the drama of life.

From a sharing by TL & LF,  there is a way out and its through Wisdom. So, now there is an urgency for me to continuously be aware, to step back from what is happening, to collect data so to speak until wisdom is able to see the futility of the cycle and see the way out.  Its like the situation where we would not hold on to a hot potato once we know its hot, we would drop it. If we are ignorant, we will hold on to the hot potato though its burning our hands but with wisdom, we would drop the hot potato because its not beneficial for our life. I look forward to dropping the hot potato :)