Soundtrack of Life

Ever walk down the street and hear a familar song playing as you walk pass? Does any of these ever happen to you?

• You hear a song that reminds you of something or someone, and that song has now become conditioned to trigger that memory. As you’re walking along, your mind immediately spins down memory lane.
• You hear a song from a movie, perhaps a soundtrack. You start adopting a new persona, maybe one from that movie.
• You hear a song that you really like, and immediately break into song or dance. If you’re driving, you’ll probably speed up. If you’re sitting, you’ll probably go tap tap tap. If it’s a favourite song of yours, you’ll instantly feel energetic and happy.

We are also more inclined to like songs we have heard before, or beats that are familiar.

This applies to our other senses as well, such as taste and smell. The effects of perfume and fragrance on our emotions and memory are very well researched. So both music and scent changes our moods, and also our attachments.

Horoscoping about Astrology

Sometimes horoscopes are more like horrorscopes. At one extreme, you can become addicted to it. You know you are a horrorscope addict if you:

1. Need to read your scope everyday, earnestly, noting every word on the page. Sure sign: your diary is filled up with colour-coordination of all the good and bad days.
2. Read your scope obsessive-compulsively. Sure sign: you carry a miniature horoscope book and flip through it at regular 10 minute intervals to make sure your interpretation of the words on the page still fits with your present reality OR more accurately, to make sure your present reality still fits with the interpretation of the words on the page.
3. Are so certain the scopes written (and printed mass) are directed at you solely. Sure sign: you interpret the fact that you went to work from 9-5, came home for dinner, showered, TVd and slept as falling very accurately in the scope that said you would “have a day of fluctuating ups and downs where life takes its rhythms upon you to create a universe in which the Crossmostic star will cross paths with Saturn.” What in the universe does that mean?!
4. Base important life decisions on scopes. Sure sign: you tell your Prince Charming boyfriend on bended knees to wait a sec cos you need to speed dial Mystic Meg to find out if he’s the one and if this is the right time and place to accept a proposal (cos if the Crossmostic star is crossing paths with Saturn your love child will turn out cross-eyed).

Ok, a bit exaggerated and hopefully funny. But to a lesser extreme, i wonder how swayed we are by these sorts of stuff. For myself, i am guilty as charged with no bail or parole for being interested in horoscopes, zodiacs, fortune telling, tarot, palm reading, and everything in between. It doesn’t mean i believe it or follow it blindly. But if there’s a read nearby, i wouldn’t mind a sneak peak.

This brings me to the main point of this entry. (Yes, there is a point despite the long tangent at the beginning – i was having too much fun coming up with those scenerios.)

For those in between the extreme fanatics and extreme sceptics, what kind of attitude do we adopt in relation to divination? I think it’s one that reads it, takes it on board, but doesn’t get too carried away by it. One where it’s still there at the back of our minds, but not the driver at the front. With this attitude, I wonder what is the point of horoscopes besides a self-fulfiling prophesy?

For example, a long time ago, i had my fortune read by this Vietnamese man who prayed to Guan Yin, Jesus and an old Vietnamese general. Anyways, he said i was going to get into law school, no matter what (this is obviously a long time ago). Now, i didn’t come out of there going, “Great! I don’t need to work or study hard anymore cos i’m gonna get in no matter what!” No way. I still studied till the cows came home and had babies to make sure i got into law school.

So…did that fortune telling change my life or my actions in any way? Nope. It made me momentarily curious, then momentarily relieved, and then momentarily blase. I find greatest joy when what was fortold happens because it means it had come true! Wow! But that’s after the fact. Not to mention all the things that didn’t come true, which is something we don’t really care about now is it?

Then there are those fortunes that fortell how crap your future is gonna be (or worse, what a crap person you are). You didn’t pay $150 to hear how crappy things are gonna be (or to be insulted). You might go through a whole process of denial: “Oh this fortune teller’s full of crap. I don’t believe in all this crap anyways. That’s crap that he thinks I’m crap.”

The better tellers will tell you, “Oh don’t worry, just do more good karma and it’ll be fine.” No shit, Sherlock. Though this is a great incentive for people to better themselves (or if there’s a donation box nearby, a good way to do business).

That all being said, one thing i have gained from horoscopes is not so much predictions, but what they say about your personality based on when you were born. I don’t take this as gospel, but it has allowed me to look at myself and others from another perspective. I just hope it doesn’t become a self-fulfilling prophesy, where we become the description because we think that’s who we are and who we’re supposed to be just because the Crossmostic star was crossing paths with Saturn when you were born.

Hopefully you didn’t come out cross-eyed!

Chicken Shit

Some of my favourite analogies i heard from Ajahn Brahm comes from his own teacher, Ajahn Chah. One is the analogy of the donkey and the carrot. Another analogy is the chicken shit analogy.

Which one do you wanna hear about? (Think about it and scroll down)

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You have chosen the chicken shit analogy, probably cos of it’s name. If you didn’t, our mindwaves must have got mixed up. Please click here to get it cleared up.

Ajahn Chah used to say: “You go through the chicken fields and instead of picking up the eggs, you just pick up chicken shit.”

Quite crude, yes. But it makes a good point. Here’s my understanding and extra thoughts to it:

We go through life stupidly picking up chicken shit instead of eggs. We spend so much of our time gathering the bad memories and holding onto all the negative criticism of ourselves (not to mention how many times we replay them). We have habitual tendencies to see the worse in other people or our situation. We really need to struggle to see the best in others or what’s happening sometimes. We spend so much time and energy pursuing things that are not sustainable and contributory to our happiness. Just grasping onto fleeting and short-term pleasures, without realising the harmful long-term consequences. In summary, we pick up chicken shit all our lives and think that’s the right – and only – way.

We do all this while neglecting the real purpose to our lives, just like we forget the real reason why we went to the chicken fields in the first place – to pick up chicken eggs. We forget the real meaning of our lives – to be happy and to be a source of happiness for others. We get caught up in what we are doing and our obligations, and forget the real obligation in life. We spend so much time working to make money and build a career. Now this is fine, but don’t forget why you’re doing it for. It maybe to sustain yourself and others materially and comfortably, or to provide the conditions for further spiritual growth. Just don’t confuse the means as your end.

Another egg we keep forgetting to pick up is all the positive things in our lives. Some people are so used to a mind that criticises and is never unsatisfied they find it so difficult to be accepting and contented. They think that this will make them give up on improving their life. I personally find that acceptance and progress aren’t oppositional but complementary. We can only progress by accepting that we and others are imperfect. We can only really improve by holding a mind that is loving, patient and understanding to ourselves, others and our situation. The greatest teachers teach with compassion, not by putting their students down. The greatest advisers are those who can turn a seemingly disadvantaged situation into one that is favourable. And to do that, one must believe in one’s ability and the possibility that there are chicken eggs out there amongst all the chicken shit.

Donkey Carrots

So you wanna hear the analogy of the Donkey Carrot? Ok, here goes:

Humans invented a really smart way to get donkeys to go forward. They would tie a carrot to the end of a rope attached to a stick. The carrot would dangle in front of the donkey, measured so the carrot would be in the donkey’s sight, but not reach. The idea was the donkey would chase the carrot. The faster the donkey went, the further the carrot would go.

This is similar to the momentum of our lives. We are constantly chasing after one thing or another. We want things now, so what do we do? We act. Even when there is nothing we can do really, we are still acting – in our minds. We stress, we worry, we may even lash out. We are constantly doing doing chasing chasing…and we can’t ever seem to catch the carrot of happiness.

We think happiness lies in the things we buy, so we spend so much effort in getting it. Then we get bored of it, or find out it’s not as big as we’ve made it out to be.

We think happiness lies in relationships, but then get disappointed when our fairytale fantasies don’t happen no matter how many times the clock strikes midnight and how many stinky shoes we lose.

We think happiness could be found in our jobs, but how many contented employees are there? How many successful business people are truly happy?

We think happiness existed once in the past, or will exist one day in the future. But far too often we do not think happiness exists right now, at this very moment, in this true reality.

Yet we still keep chasing that carrot that’s dangled in front of us, set up by society, our community, our family, but mostly, by our own expectations and greed.

So is it ever possible to catch that carrot? Yes there is.

There was once a dhamma donkey who cracked the code. This donkey ran, but it did not chase or grasp. It ran and ran, fastest and hardest he can. Then when he has given it all he got, he stopped.

The momentum from his speed coupled with the physics of him abrupt stop made the carrot sour even further from him. But he did not despair. The carrot went up up up, then with even faster speed, it swung back, down down down, right into the mouth of the happy dhamma donkey. (I’m still not sure whether he choked.)

Happiness does not come from the momentum of our lives, but the momentum of the world in which our lives exist in. Happiness does not come from unsatiable desire and chasing, but from learning to do our best and be patient for the seeds we have sown to bloom in full. Most importantly, happiness is not gained from chasing the past that is gone or the whimsical future of dreams; happiness exists in the here and now if you just allow yourself to believe that.

If you are tierd of chasing, why not try what the donkey did and stop. Who knows how many things will come to you? After all, if you don’t stop, how will the good things come to you?

Quote of the Day

Live life, don’t just think about it.

Love for Dummies

There are lots of self-help books out there, and volumes of it are about love – finding it, getting it, keeping it, and ridding it.

Books on how to date, how to flirt, how to…all the way from planning the perfect wedding to childbearing to divorce.

Then there is the long-standing question of: “What is love?” Many have attempted to answer this, and it’s helped sell lots of CDs that’s for sure. Here’s some views:

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“Love has no awareness of merit or demerit; it has no scale… Love loves; this is its nature.” – Howard Thurman

“Love is like war: Easy to begin but hard to end.” – Anonymous

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” – Sophocles

“To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia.” – H.L. Mencken

“Maybe love is like luck. You have to go all the way to find it.” – Robert Mitchum

“Love stretches your heart and makes you big inside.” – Margaret Walker

“Loves makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.” – Zora Neale Hurston

“Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” – Mark Twain

“Love is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day.” – Nicholas Sparks

“Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.” – Peter Ustinov

“Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever.” – unknown

“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” – Erich Fromm

“In the final analysis, love is the only reflection of man’s worth.” – Bill Wundram, Iowa Quad Cities Times

“Love doesn’t make the world go round, love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” – Elizabeth Browning

“Once you have loved someone, you’d do anything in the world for them… except love them again.” – Anonymous

“The body, she says, is subject to the forces of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.” – Saul Bellow

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting this down.” – Woody Allen

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So what is love? Is it subjective, dependent on interpretation? Dare I add to this pile of definitions? If I had to write my humble definition for love, i would define it as this:

“Love is a feeling. Like all feelings, it comes and goes. Like all feelings, it can be strong and enduring, or insubstantial and fleeting. Most importantly, like all other feelings, it is a source of motivation and action.

If that love is self-grasping, then what follows is a desire to satisfy the needs of oneself. If that love is selfless, then it is a love that is liberating. It is a love that moves beyond personal satisfaction to a higher realm of personal development. This is because such love allows one to endure, to be patient, tolerate, forgiving, caring, empathetic, generous, truthful, and genuine. It allows you to exist beyond yourself, and to encompass another fully and completely without expecting or wanting anything more from them.

True love is liberating, not grasping. No suffering comes from it. The greatest act of love is to let go. Whether that is letting go of the person because the conditions requires it, or letting go of your own selfish desires and expectations. Importantly, you let go with wisdom and understanding, with joy in your heart and peace in your mind.”

Sounds impossible? I don’t think so. Because it happened to me. And if you like this definition, I hope it happens to you too.