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