Uncomfortable Silence

 Silence

The weather in the past week has been really crazy. There was a cyclone on the Indian ocean, south of Java, bringing in strong winds and torrential rains in the past 5 days or so. And just as the cyclone was ending, another one was forming southwest of Sumatra. So it was continuing again. Thankfully the rain has stopped since Friday. So did the strong scary winds! They were really strong and loud.

The past few days have been a pretty restless ones thanks to the crazy weather. I was thinking of the greenhouses (which some were damaged by the wind -.-), and also I was worried of landslides because non-stop rains would usually cause landslide in parts of my hometown. The winds were really strong so it was pretty noise outside with the sounds of the gushing winds.

Yesterday it didn't rain at all. Neither did the strong winds blow. Yet the silence felt both comforting and scary to me somehow. It's weird isn't it. After days of strong winds and loud noises, the idea of having a quiet day seems very un-comforting for me. When it should be the opposite.

It reminds me of our minds, in a way too. 

Just like our minds, we are too used to being bombarded with thoughts and emotions. And when everything settled, we are uncomfortable with the silence that we hunger forever. 

And the only way we can be comfortable with it is to me, through the process of meditation. I think this is from Sogyal Rinpoche's book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - he once mentioned that the reason to why we are very restless when we begin to meditate, is because we are uncomfortable with the idea of spending time alone with ourselves. Like... Who are we? 

We are uncomfortable with the idea of spending time alone with our "mind". Because we don't recognise it fully yet. Our ego, the constant flow of thoughts and emotions, and so on, they kinda block our mind. And we don't know what's inside it. So as we sit down, keep quiet and be still, we feel very uncomfortable to be with this "stranger" we've actually been living with forever!

So yeah. On one hand, we are seeking for this quiet. This silence that would bring us peace and calm. Yet at the same time, we are uncomfortable with it. I'm not sure why either. But after three years of meditation, I am learning how to bring my mind to this quiet place together.

Painters

Continuing from the previous post...

We are all great painters on this great canvas of emptiness.

With impermanence as our paint.

And time as our brush.

A few years back I wrote something along this line. But it was more towards words. I think I wrote: We're all writing on our book of life with time as our ink. So we gotta write as many stories before we run out of ink. I think that's pretty straightforward haha.

This is some sort of extension to those words. I think by painting things with impermanence as our paint, we'll be reminded of the idea that whatever we create will one day disappear too. That we're gonna leave everything behind. This is pretty much Buddhism-related. Emptiness and impermanence.

In Buddhism, we're taught to see the empty nature of reality. That everything in life has a mark of emptiness. We're born into this world, into this life, which also bears the mark of emptiness. And whatever things we "put" into our lives, will one day disappear because they're impermanent in nature.

Most of the time we fail to see both of these things. We don't see the empty nature of phenomena and we believe that things are permanent. Permanence is quite a dangerous state. In bad times, it will lead us to believe that we're stuck in a horrible state forever. In good times, it will lead us to an illusion that everything is perfect. Once we see impermanence, we'll also see emptiness.

So this canvas of emptiness coexists with this paint of impermanence. The idea that we'll understand, whatever we put into this world, this canvas, will one day disappear. Our thoughts, feelings, pride, and everything else, they don't stay forever. Does that sound comforting to you?

Impermanence doesn't mean that it will appear and disappear forever. As a colour subsides, another one appears. And they are all in constant motion. And as I said in the previous post, our ego are struggling to keep these colours intact. They refuse to accept the impermanent state of these colours but eventually, they still subside. If we don't kill our ego, we'll eventually be tired of trying to keep these colours to remain. As their nature is to eventually disappear in this canvas.

Train your mind. You'll see these colours appear, and subside, and appear again. See through the illusion of permanence and let impermanence create the most beautiful art you'll ever see.

We are the great painters, 

of this great canvas of emptiness.

With impermanence as our paint

Places We Wander

So I came up with this line last week....

Often times, we let our mind wander
to places it shouldn't be in.
As our ego quietly whispers
"Stay here, this is where you belong"

I was inspired by the idea of meditation. How a lot of times, we let our mind wander everywhere. And the purpose of meditation is to train it so it doesn't run like a wild baboon in Africa. When we are not meditating, we're not really aware of where we our minds are. We let them go everywhere too. Sometimes in places that it shouldn't be in. And I'd like to equate this with suffering. 

And then there are times where our mind arrives in a place it should be in. But we don't want to leave, and I'd like to equate this with desire. A false illusion.

So yeah there are times our mind is in a place it shouldn't be in - when there are other far more beautiful places that it can be in. But as the Buddhist teaching of impermanence goes, these beautiful places don't stay forever either. When we don't want to leave such a place, although we know that it's not gonna last forever, that's when our desire kicks in. If you get what I mean.

At the same time, these places are actually created by our minds. It's like a projection of places that we create for our mind to travel to. Naturally, just like everything else, these places are impermanent. And our ego is trying really hard to keep this place intact, so that our mind can stay here as long as it wants. But as our ego struggles hard, the place dissipates and then we're awake from that illusion.

Have you ever experienced that uncomfortable feeling you get after you're angry about something? Usually you felt it for hours, or even days. This is when your ego is trying to keep this "angry palace" intact inside of you. And it's pretty tiring isn't it. And then after a few days you felt okay again, and you learn to let things go. That's when your "palace" is destroyed and your mind is off to somewhere new.

However when you learn to train your mind, your mind will be equipped with the idea of impermanence. Your mind will know which places to go and which places to avoid. And when your ego tries to convince your mind to stay, your mind naturally leaves because it knows it is up to no good.

We are all great painters on this great canvas of emptiness.

With impermanence as our paint.

And time as our brush.

To be continued!

Happiness And His Friends

I think we all have a love-hate relationship with happiness. It is something that everyone talks about, and wishes for. We all want happiness and we don't want suffering. But weirdly enough also, I feel that we all feel confused and angry when our happiness is taken away. We don't know what to do and we feel like it's the end of everything heh. But not really, we just don't know how happiness works.

2016 is without a doubt a very challenging year for me. But it is through all of these challenges that I learn so much about happiness. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I'm even learning not to rely on happiness to make me... Happy. Across the years I've learned that happiness is never something that we chase and look for. It is something we create. But like everything in life, we have to understand that nothing lasts forever. The best way to feel is to really feel everything while they're here.

My meditation days have also taught me a lot to ponder about happiness. When you ask people, how do you define happiness, I am pretty sure everyone will come up with a different definition. To me happiness is a state of bliss where nothing is lacking from you both in reality wise and also psychologically, mindfully and emotionally. And I feel everyone has a different "state" of bliss.

How do we measure this state is what measures our happiness level as a human. The more we crave, the unhappier we become. I remember a saying from the documentary "Our Mind Is Bigger Than All The Supermarket In The World" which I caught at THIS Buddhist film fest 4 years ago. It says we feel unhappy when our mind doesn't get what it wants. And vice versa for happiness.

To me meditation helps to train your mind in this sense too. It is quite challenging to instill gratitude to people in materialism-wise. Can you imagine instilling gratitude to people's mind? I think it's impossible haha. How we can stop craving for thoughts and emotions that are not beneficial to us.

Across the years we've been lured to live in a "definition" of happiness, where actually in reality, we are the only ones who can create our own definition. I'm starting to do this, because really, no one is in charge of our own happiness except for our own self! Not even your parents or friends. 

Since we feel too many unnecessary emotions, we don't realise that we've been wasting time being unhappy. I came up with these lines this year... And I think it helps me a lot.

"At the end of our lives, on our deathbeds, I think we will all be laughing at the amount of time we wasted being unhappy. So hence, be happy. Because one day we will no longer be able to be happy."

Wings Or Walls

April is here! Can you believe it. It's the 4th month of the year and time is flying very very... Alrighty. Well March went by pretty okay-ey in my opinion somehow. Anyway yes I am still determined to write 10 posts every month so another new month, another new challenge! But bring it on baby, we can do it. Today was a rainy Saturday. I really really wish I can see some blue sky and sunshine. Was reading the news about how March will be a very wet month, and April will mark the beginning of the dry season. Yes about the first part, not sure of the latter!

I just hope that last year's dry spell will not repeat itself. It's very very annoying hah.

The weather is as predictable as life. So, it's super unpredictable haha. Also added with global warming, the weather can be pretty weird. I really have a love-hate relationship with the weather. But like what I learned last year, it's best to keep the weather as the weather, and work around it. Instead of feeling annoyed and stressed about how weird it is. Because mother nature knows best.

Today I came up with a thought that's kind of interesting. 

"Our mind is a beautifully terrifying thing. 

It can give you wings and set you free, 

or build walls to keep you imprisoned."

Sometimes we believe in something so strongly, that we seem to forget every other thing and really keep us imprisoned with that belief. That thought, keeps us away from knowing the truth and keeps us away from the revelation of other things. On the other hand, sometimes we believe in a thought that sets us free, that become a key to open doors that are closed for a very long time. 

Our mind is a very powerful thing, and I've experienced this in my 24 years of existence. How a person's mind can shape his/her world. And I think this is the whole purpose of meditation is to train our mind. For an untrained mind will create wings and build walls as and when they want, but a trained mine will do so at the right place and at the right time. Mindfulness, is the key!

Isn't it scary when you think about how some thoughts will never leave your mind? They are being trapped inside with nowhere to go. And at the same time it's wonderful to know that some thoughts can set you free forever. So be careful with your thoughts, and your mind. They are beautifully terrifying.

Paradigm

I came across with this word back in Sec 4. I can still remember it was in my English Prelim paper for comprehension, under the vocabulary component. We were asked to define paradigm in less than seven words and I really didn't know the meaning. If I'm not wrong I wrote it as thought, or lesson. Or did I even leave this question blank? I forgot. But yes, it's a powerful word indeed.

Paradigm is defined as mindset. Or the way we think about a particular topic or matter. The second time I came across this word is in one of Stephen Covey's book about the 7 habits of highly effective people, under the title "Paradigm shift". Which is a change in mindset. I think paradigm is a powerful word. It somehow shapes our thoughts, our way of thinking, and eventually our character.

Today I came across a thought - how a simple change in mindset about a particular matter can change the situation we are facing differently - for better or for worst. And hence I came up with this line:

"The distance between heaven and hell, is a mindset"

I am inspired by a Buddhist saying that we are the creators our of our own heaven and hell. And that heaven and hell is actually in our mind. Which is kinda true. I think we depict heaven as a beautiful paradise where everything is full of wonders and just simply nice. And hell as a horrible place to be where we suffer endlessly. Well I think heaven and hell is simply as a mental state that we face after we do something. And yes, it can be either a beautiful or horrible state to be in.

Say we did something bad to other people - we feel bad right? This is our "hell". The guilt, anger and hatred we face and we create, is basically the hell we enter. And if we do something good to other people, we feel awesome and nice! This is our "heaven". So it's true when they say you'll go to hell if you do bad things and heaven if you do good ones. Where we go after we die, nobody knows. But hey, heaven and hell already exists in our current life! So don't be afraid, we'll have a taste of them.

And heaven and hell, doesn't just revolve around actions. But it goes deeper into our thoughts. Say we suspect someone of stealing our stuff. We will feel annoyed, worried and suspicious of the person until we know the truth - this is our hell. But if we just let go and simply wait for the truth to suffice, without suspecting that person, we feel free and relieved - this is our heaven.

I feel guilty sometimes, for "disliking" someone just because they did something bad to me in the past. To an extent, whatever they do don't seem right to me. Which is totally ridiculous because this kind of feeling is totally unnecessary hah. And this is mindset. If we have a negative mindset towards someone, we'll go to our hell. And if we cultivate positive thoughts towards them - we go to heaven.

Happiness can be reached with a simple change of mindset. I used to be (or am still) a paranoid person. My friends know me the best about this. I used to feel scared and worried about things that have not happened. And sometimes it's killing me inside. But as time goes by, I learned to let things go. I learned that worrying about something doesn't help me in any way - but they torture me instead.

So yes, try to change your mindset a bit sometimes. You'll take an elevator ride straight to heaven from hell when you do this! But be wary too, that a change of your mindset might send you straight to hell.

Two Kinds of People

I am generally a positive person. Or maybe I am one. I am definitely someone who always looks on the brighter side of things, and try to seek out the positivity in everything. Unless being positive is taken out of context of the situation. Many of us think, or feel that the world consists of two kinds of people. Some will say it only consists of men and women, some say money-minded and non-money minded people. And if you watched Swing Girls, there's a quote there where it says that the world is made up of people who swing, and who don't.

To me, the world is made up of two kinds of people: positive and negative people.

In my 22 years of existence, these two groups of people exist in my everyday life. I've known a lot of positive people, who always look on the brighter side of things, who are happy-go-lucky, who are calm when it comes to facing problem. And there are negative people too. Always looking on the negative side of things, or more like looking for the negative things, and definitely people I don't want to spend my life with, or even my time with.

There's a simple way to see whether someone is positive or negative - when they're making assumptions. For me, I always make "positive" assumptions about things I don't know. For example, when I go to a restaurant, and my food takes a long time to come, I'd think that the kitchen is super busy or maybe they lack in manpower, instead of thinking that the waiter who took my order forgot about it. See? Thinking of the positive and thinking of possible scenarios (positive ones) instead of jumping right away to conclusions.

Another example: when I realised I lost something in class, I'd think that I either left it at home, or dropped it somewhere instead of thinking that someone stole it from me. There are a lot of examples. But I think you should get my point. In my opinion, positive people don't jump to conclusions (or worst, negatives ones) but come up with positive assumptions and different possible scenarios of a situation. And I think it's not a difficult thing to do.

Of course there are instances where I jump into negative assumptions. Say I found out that someone stole my things with proofs. I wouldn't go "all nice" to this thought. I will feel disappointed and sad. But then again, what's on my mind would be something like "there must be a reason to why he stole my things, maybe he needs help and I should help him". But of course, I would tell him that you shouldn't steal people's things even if it is a way to help yourselves (and others).

I think the world will be much better place if we all start making positive assumptions first, rather than negatives ones. Because I think it is a win-win situation too, it's not something of a disadvantage to do. Okay lets say we go back to the first scenario. You go into a cafe, place your order, it's been 30 minutes and your good hasn't arrived yet while your friends are tucking in, and you ask the waiter where is your food. Before you ask, in your mind, you think that "oh maybe the kitchen is busy, or maybe there's a problem there". And then the waiter came and apologised "oh sorry I left out your order, I will get the kitchen to cook it right away!"

Okay you'll have to wait longer. But now you know your food is coming, and well... What else is there to be upset about right? Unless the waiter told you "haha I forgot your order so you won't get it".

So yeah, the world is made up of two kinds of people: positive ones, and negatives ones.

What are you?