Spring Cleaning the Home and the Heart

I never thought too much about spring cleaning until I had a real yearning recently to clean after months of living comfortably with the ‘stuff’ that was neatly stacked in strategic corners of my house.

It seems to me that animals weren’t the only ones who needed to hibernate and feel a need to store up during the colder months. Winter brought with it lethargy, depression and…hoarding.

Spring Cleaning the Home

Then spring comes. There’s something magical about the first few days of spring. Like the light at the end of a tunnel, the warm sunshine brings relief to the months and months of winter chills. The sun cheers up our moods, energises us out of hibernation, and opens our doors to the adventures of the great outdoors again. It makes us see the world in a different light – including our own homes.

So with much enthusiasm, I diligently went through each pile and each piece, rearranging things into their new homes or throwing them out if they were no longer needed. There were times when I hesitated and asked myself, “Should I, or shouldn’t I?” However, after seeing the piles of stuff I had kept “just in case” I might use it one day, but then not really using it anyway, I realised that if I hadn’t used it in the last six months, I wasn’t going to use it ever.

If I chose to keep a particular item, I would store it somewhere to create that sense of order. If I chose to throw something out, then I would do so without hesitating.

Surprisingly, each time I decided to throw something out, I actually felt glad to be ridding it from my life. I didn’t feel a sense of loss, but more of a sense of lightness. After all, the material clutter that surrounds us translates to a mental clutter within us.

Spring Cleaning the body, mind and spirit

Reflecting on this experience of letting go of the unwanted things in my life, I can see that we carry so much useless ‘stuff’ with us wherever we go.

Our bodies are in a continual state of tension and tiredness from the stress that we impose on it. I believe that many of us have forgotten what our bodies feel like when it’s truly relaxed because we have become so used to it in its tense state.

Our minds hold a lot of ‘stuff’ too – worries, fears, anxieties, daydreams, memories (good and bad), and that voice in our heads that is forever commenting and judging.

Finally, our hearts become a safe filled with hardened emotions and emotional baggage, some of which we may have even forgotten we deposited in there until it shocks us when it decides to resurface.

How to clean within

We can use the same clearing process of the physical home with our inner home.

We need to take it one piece from one pile at a time. We can start with any recurring thoughts or feelings that we do not find useful, or even harmful. We need to begin by seeing those thoughts or feelings objectively, because we can never clear anything if we still see it as ‘ours’. You then need to make a conscious choice: ‘Do I want to keep this, or do I want to throw it away?’

If you decide to keep it, then at least you know you have made this choice and you can then ‘store’ it in a place that is comfortable for you. If you decide to throwing it away, then you can visualise yourself letting it go with a triumphant smile. If it helps, you can even write it down what you are trying to rid and then erasing it or throwing the piece of paper away as a symbol of discarding those useless thoughts or emotions.

Surprisingly, we don’t only hoard material things ‘just in case’ we use them one day; we also attach onto a lot of emotions and thoughts in the same way as well. For example, we may hold onto a particular expectation or hope, believing that if we don’t then we would lose sight of our goal or lose our motivation. We may hold onto memories, for fear that should we stop replaying the scene in our heads, the moment would be lost forever. Memories, thoughts, emotions, play an important in our lives. However, if they begin to overcrowd our lives, then it’s a sure sign we need a spring cleaning to de-clutter.

Finally, one of the reasons I need to throw things out is because if I don’t, then I won’t have enough space to bring in anything new. In fact, by being conscious of the limited storage space at home, I become more mindful and vigilant in what I decide to buy. So before I make any impulse buys, I ask myself whether it’s needed and whether I am willing to sacrifice valuable storage space for this item.

Likewise, people fall into an emotional rut or an endless daydream when they are stuck in their old thinking styles. Until they can alter their way of thinking and open up their hearts to change, then it is difficult for anything new to enter into their lives in a profound and moving way. If we can think in this way, the next time that we choose to keep a particular thought pattern or negative emotion, we can consider what valuable space we are sacrificing that could be used to accommodate positivity instead.

Then, like a breath of fresh air in an early spring morning, we can experience a piece of calm and lightness, where our burdens no longer hold us down.

Mindfulness and Multitasking

Before I embark on this topic, I first want to introduce some terms, and the best way is by way of an example.

If you are you reading this article whilst chewing your meal, listening to music, or chatting online with friends, you are multitasking right now. If you have to read this sentence again because your mind has already wondered off somewhere else, then you were distracted. Finally, if you are fully here reading this article, then that is mindfulness.

I think this is an important distinction because in the literature I have read so far on the topic many writers have mixed up multitasking and mindless distractions, and then implied that multitasking is “bad”, while mindfulness is good. To them, multitasking and mindfulness can’t go together hand in hand.

Being Present

When I was a first-year law student, I recall sitting in the classroom listening to my lecturer whilst I madly scribbled down notes like everyone else around me. Then one day, the lecturer said to us, “For today, I want you all to put your pens down and just listen to me.” Throughout the class, there was no writing allowed. I remember a slight anxiety creeping up as I kept thinking to myself, “How am I going to remember all of this?” I looked around me and saw other people fidgeting too. One girl even reached out for her pen, only to drop it down sheepishly after she got a “look” from the lecturer.

It took a while, but eventually I just listened. Surprisingly, it took a lot more effort than I thought would be needed to just listen, because my mind would wander and I had to continuously bring it back into the classroom to really focus my mind on what the lecturer was saying. I had to understand what she said, rather than just writing down her words. I had to appreciate each moment I was there because if my mind wandered away, I wouldn’t be able to follow her subsequent logic. After class, students were complaining and even I didn’t find value in it. I felt I didn’t retain much of the information, compared with when I was taking notes.

Then I graduated from law school and became a junior solicitor. One day, I went to court with an experienced barrister, and during his cross-examination, I was again scribbling like mad to ensure I got down all his questions and the witness’ answers. At one point, he kindly told me to put down my pen and just listen. So I did. This barrister got out very detailed information from these witnesses, including dates, times and places for when things happened. He didn’t write a single word down. At the conclusion of the case when he was addressing the jury, he recalled everything in great detail all the evidence to support our case. I was amazed.

Now when I run my own cases at court, I still scribble notes here and there, but the most valuable times are those when it’s just me being present with the witness. Not only do I recall the information later on, I also pick up on body language and the subtle facial expressions that I otherwise wouldn’t have seen if I was too busy scribbling away like mad.

When I reflect on it, I realise that my pen and paper are like my safety nets for fear that my memory will fail me, and they were like an anchor point so my mind doesn’t wander off too far. I now realise why it was so difficult for me as a first year student to just listen: I hadn’t trained my attention, memory and mindfulness. Over time, by exercising my attention and memory, and practising mindfulness meditation, I began to develop this invaluable skill of listening and being present to each moment that arises.

I won’t be surprised if readers find my ‘pen and paper’ story outdated, because by my last year of uni, pen and paper were steadily replaced by laptops. Laptops are probably a more difficult distraction to overcome than writing. Sitting at the back of the class, I can see students flipping between their Word Document and Solitaire game. (This is also before UNSW had wireless internet available to all students, so I can only imagine what students do now.)

When I was studying, I would find myself just checking my email, reading the news, chatting with friends – basically finding a distraction to occupy my mind each time I was bored. In my chill-out time, I would be able to chat to three different people at once online, reply to my emails, pay bills online, and sometimes even clean my room in the process, with music playing in the background. I used to think I was making the most of my time by multitasking.

Multitasking

If you look up the definition of “multitasking”, you will find that it is actually a computing term, in which the CPU executes various diverse tasks concurrently or in interwoven execution. A secondary definition of the term describes a person carrying out two or more tasks at the same time. So the term “multitasking” was first used to describe the function of computers, not humans.

I remember in my uni days I used to argue that humans were capable of doing a few tasks at the same time. Others would argue that the mind can only do one thing at a time. I still don’t have the definitive answer to this, but looking back I realise that we were actually disputing different things (typical bored students) and I now think both answers are essentially correct.

This is because I can do tasks simultaneously (multitasking), but when I do this, I am actually undertaking one task at a time in quick succession. So I am able to listen to the radio while I drive, and file my nails while on the phone. However if I slow down the processes, I can see that my mind is only attentive to one thing at a time. This became clear to me during meditation, when the level of distraction is diminished and the level of awareness is heightened.

With this view in mind, I don’t think that multitasking and mindfulness are at odds with one another. After all, multitasking has become a fact of modern life and as Thich Nhat Hanh would say, “There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.”

To illustrate this further, let me share a Zen story with you. A Zen master used to tell his students to be mindful of what they do, and his instructions are simply, “When you read, just read. When you eat, just eat.” One day when his students came down to the breakfast hall, they saw their Zen master reading the newspaper over breakfast. One horrified student approached the Zen master and asked, “Master, how can you read the paper while having breakfast? You always teach us, ‘When you read, just read. When you eat, just eat’?” The Zen master smiled and said simply, “When you eat and read, just eat and read,” and then went back to reading the paper over his breakfast.

Hindrance of Multitasking

Even though it is possible for multitasking and mindfulness to go hand in hand (and later I will discuss how mindfulness enhances multitasking), multitasking can become a hindrance to our mindfulness training in our initial training stages.

This is because multitasking hinges on jumping from one thing to another, and if this is done repeatedly, it becomes a habitual tendency. Our mind – which is very delicate – then is used to short bursts of attention before it moves onto the next object. We become less patient with what is difficult and boring. We become less-inclined to follow through with long projects to their end because we give up in search for something else.

In time, excessive multitasking and distraction–seeking can erode our ability to concentrate on one object at a time, and finally stillness becomes seemingly impossible to achieve. After all, stillness only comes if we allow the mind time to settle without attaching onto the next distraction to keep itself preoccupied. Lao Tzu once said, “Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the mind is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?”

Mindfulness achieves more than Multitasking

If we think multitasking makes our life more fulfilling in being able to fit more into it, or make us more productive, then I think mindfulness practice is more effective in allowing us to achieve this.

When I am chatting online with three different people, the quality of the interaction is very different to if I was only talking to one. If I was reading a book with music in the background, the quality of my reading (or listening to music for that matter) is different to if I only read or listened to music. If I was racing down the motorway to get to my destination, I am likely to have missed the whole journey.

To me, it is possible to experience many things at once, but the fullness of each experience is lost. The subtle nuances of life aren’t heard, nor felt, nor understood. We race through life, without really experiencing it completely. In that sense, even if we fit more stuff into our day, what we get out of it is much less.

As an exercise, next time you are dining with someone, give them your whole presence and then take a moment to give your food your full presence. Observe any changes in the quality of your experience.

As for productivity, if we have too many things happening at the same time, we are likely to miss out on something or forget something. As the Buddhist saying goes, “When busy, go slow.” After all, when you are busy, you don’t have time for mistakes that are made by hasty action.

Why Mindfulness Practice is so important when Multitasking

Multitasking is life in the fast-lane, while meditation is a time for you to slow down and recuperate after a busy day of running around, physically and mentally. With a fresh mind, you are able to tackle the busy day that awaits you the next day.

Further, mindfulness practice is also about being aware of what is happening in this present moment and seeing things as they are (vipassana). Even if things are busy around you, you are neither subsumed in the workload nor drowning in your own anxiety or stress. So much of our mental energy and time is wasted on thoughts of self-doubt and unproductive mental chatter. Imagine if you could just watch the raving thoughts and feelings without getting caught up in them – how efficient can you be! Externally, say studying, you can focus your whole presence on your studies, without being distracted by the internet or Facebook.

Finally, with the joy that comes from mindfulness, hopefully you can enjoy each moment of your life with equanimity and gratitude for all that is happening right now. Even studying! It takes a lot of favourable causes and conditions to allow you to have this time to study and learn, and pursue your life accordingly. So I hope each of us can fully embrace our mindfulness practice in our lives, so we can stop the computing process and become more human.

 AWAITING PUBLICATION IN UNIBUDS SACCA – WINTER/ SPRING EDITION 2011

(Word count: 1,900)

The Quarter-Life Crisis Rain Pour

“It’s not about who is or isn’t in your life but how you relate to them;

It’s not about what is or isn’t in your life but how you relate to it;

It’s not about what will or won’t but what you do with what is.”

- Tina Ng

For months, I walked around with brooding clouds hanging over my head. It clouded my perception, and enveloped me with a thick uncertainty and misery that made me doubt myself and my life direction. When I was in the thicket of the rapidly-forming clouds, I didn’t realise just how embroiled I became in it all and how deeply unhappy I was with what I was doing with my life.

It began with few bad cases at work, a few betrayals and a few too many seeming failures in helping people help themselves. This snowballed into a long reflection on whether this is what I want to devote my life to. After all, what is the point of helping those who simply don’t want to help themselves and who bite the hand that feeds them? All this was coupled with watching all my friends doing jobs that seemed less stressful yet earn many times my salary. I began to think, well if I’m no longer in it for the passion, maybe I should start thinking about being in it for the money? My fishing line of thoughts was thrown deeper into the future: what can I do with this life to make it a meaningful one, one that I can be proud of when I look back one day to be able to say that this truly was a life well-lived?

Ironically, as I went through this process, feeling utterly alone and not understood, I realised that I wasn’t the only one who was going through these clouds of thoughts – I have friends who had gone through this ‘phase’ and even some going through it right now. I was told I’m just going through a quarter-life crisis, which is the Gen Y version of the mid-life crisis. I even looked up the definition online, but it didn’t seem to apply to me at all. It did, however, make me think about this whole quarter-life crisis phenomenon. Of course, I’m no expert in it all, but I think the quarter-life crisis has come about because this generation has the freedom to choose from seemingly endless possibilities, as well as the luxury to pursue these possibilities that aren’t based on simply choosing the job that puts the food on the table (hence so many Gen Y’s still live with their parents and are more focused on social development and travel). Our most recent ancestors only had this luxury when they got to their late 40s – 50s after a long life of hard work, and hence their existential crisis only occurred when they were in their mid-life. That may also explain why Gen Y’s quarter-life crisis takes them travelling overseas, while Baby Bloomers’ mid-life crisis takes them travelling in convertibles with the roof down blowing what hair remains on his/ her head.

Looking deeper still, I realised that these ‘crises’ were brought about by two things: the power of choice coupled with a deep sense of dissatisfaction and discontentment for the present. Now I’m not talking about discontentment with the superficial and material; often these people are in quite a comfortable position in their lives to be able to act upon choices that don’t involve money/ survival as its focus. The discontentment I’m talking about goes to the very core of one’s being, the heart of one’s life. The Baby Bloomer races down the freeway in a flashy sports car because he thinks, “What the hell, life is short, I’ve worked so hard all my life, this is my turn to live.” Similarly, the Gen Y travels around the world thinking, “What the hell, life is short, I’ve got the rest of my life to work like a dog, now while I’m young is the best time to live.”

It is true. Life is short. In a roundabout way trying to find their core, find their home that gives them real happiness, these people deal with their crisis by living life in its moments. Others find their way through other avenues, but I think (and remember I’m no expert at this) at its very essence these crises exist because these people begin to appreciate their mortality and the urgency in making the most of this life.

As for me, I didn’t rush out and buy a sports car or travel three times around the world to find myself. But I did look within in an honest moment of reflection to figure out what all this angst was all about.

In my meditation, I watched the clouds hanging overhead, and I watched the way they gather and the way my thoughts stir them up. I watched how my mind schemed to try to find its way to a clear day (and a new job) and how turbulent my emotions were in response to all of this. Then it rained. It poured. I realised that I could not fully control how my future would be shaped, which was something I had been trying to do in my way to create direction for my life. I felt hopeless, and I felt the spark that always kept me going through difficulties extinguished by the rain.

If you’ve ever watched rain fall, you would realise that ever drop is unique: it has its own shape, own speed, own direction in its drop to the ground. If you ever just sit until the rain stops, you can hear a profound silence that rings so loud.

That rain that poured on me was like that. It seemed like the thoughts were just streaming through in an endless barrage to find a solution. But each thought, like each rain, was a singular thought with its own quality, its own direction, its own nature. It was only when I stopped the chain of ruminating thoughts that the rain finally stopped, and the profound silence ensured. In that silence, the answer came, not in words, not in thoughts, not in pellets of rain. A sense of knowing that made so much sense to me. I still can’t verbalise what the answer is, but yet I know the answer so well.

So I haven’t quit my job. I haven’t given up. I haven’t become just another jaded worker. In fact, externally, I haven’t really done anything different.

Yet internally, I have moved mountains and slowly the sun shines through the thinning clouds.

I don’t know what the future will hold. I can’t be sure that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. But you know what? It doesn’t matter.

At least I can say that at each moment, I know exactly what I am doing and I’m finding meaning in it. Sure I might not be able to help everyone, but that’s an impossible aim anyway. Sure I am in the line of fire and need to protect myself from the very people I reach out to help, but that’s just about being smarter in my interactions. And sure I’m not going to be a millionaire, but I’m hopeful that I will have a million reasons to smile one day and know that I have lived a life well lived.

The Rhythms of Life

This blog is not deserted! I know it’s been about three months since my last post, but rest assured, dear readers, I’ve still been writing in the meantime.

I’m pleased to announce that some of the pieces posted on this blog have inspired me to collate them with some new stories and poems into a book, which I have entitled “The Rhythms of Life”. It has been quite the journey, each story like a small part of me being shared with the world. There’s been some writings that didn’t make the final cut because I didn’t feel they met the required standard to be published, and more importantly, because they didn’t fit in the whole book, which I have arranged by themes. So instead, I will share them on this blog: Celebrating Clay and Mr and Mrs Wright.

I anticipate the book to be published sometime this year. Watch this space to get your own copy!

THE RHYTHMS OF LIFE

and other spiritual short stories and poems

By TINA NG

Here is a collection of stories and poems that portray the different rhythms that compose our dance through life. It is a creative expression of key universal themes from the Buddha’s teachings through stories, poetry and textual commentary. The themes explored are interdependency, impermanence, attachment, truth, practice and enlightenment. The creative pieces are thought-provoking, as the reader peels away at the different layers of meaning, finding potentially new depth each time the reader embarks on this journey within.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TINA NG was born in Hong Kong, but grew up in Sydney where she continues to reside. A lawyer by profession, she aims to apply the principles of Buddhist morality and practice to the field of family separation and child protection. As an English tutor for over 7 years and a Primary School scripture teacher, she has a real interest in educating the new generation to think widely and deeply about the life they lead. She is an active member of the Buddhist community, having been involved in organising monastery retreats, curating exhibitions, editing dhamma books, writing and performing in Buddhist plays, and even had her couple-of-minutes of fame on television. She gives dhamma talks and has been published in Buddhist and non-Buddhist publications. The Rhythms of Life is her first book, drawing on some stories she had written for her blog.

*Photo courtesy of Chiang Hiang

Learning to love again

Following on from my last post on “learning to feel again“, I thought it appropriate to discuss how to open our hearts to feel again, this time to open our hearts to love.

Whether we want to open our hearts to romance, to intimacy, to friendship, or to our family, the principles to do so are similar.

Often the reason why we can’t open up is because there is a blockage. For those who have been hurt previously, they may be quick to raise their protective barriers every time signs of what had previously hurt them reappears, for example when intimacy arises. For those who have never experienced love before – whether it’s a teenager with his first crush or the spinster who’s turned 50 – their self-doubt may be their impediment. Whatever the reason, the recognition of the barrier is the first step to successfully maneuvering through the obstacle.

For those who are afraid of love for fear of its loss, I can say that it is only once you are courageous enough to face possible heartbreak will you then be ready and open to love. Every relationship will inevitably end – whether from human or natural causes. If the fear of its loss stops you from beginning it, then you will never take the opportunity to love. However, if you can acknowledge that parting from the one you love is part of the package of a relationship, you can accept this fact and focus instead on the time you do have with your loved one.

For those who feel they are a stranger to love, I encourage you to befriend it the way you would befriend someone you admire. You want to develop in your own time trust, openness and tender care. Even if you aren’t sure how, if you sow the seeds of kindness and honesty for the other, then love will grow very naturally. If you encounter difficulty or setbacks, take them as fertiliser that makes your love grow even stronger as you work through the challenges together. As with all areas of life, relationships aren’t perfect and will inevitably run into difficulties.

Finally, for the jaded pessimists who believe true love is a fiction created by Hallmark, I hope you will give love a chance. I’m sure billions of people in this world can attest that love doesn’t belong in fairy tale castles, but walks our modern streets every day. You see it in the smiles on people’s faces as they think of their loved ones, the hugs held between people, and the acts of unconditional kindness that breaks all barriers of selfishness and self-centredness.

Love is real. Love is possible. It can defy all odds and all logic; it can cross oceans miles apart and warp time as if any time apart was non-existent and insignificant. All you need to do is believe it’s possible, and that you are deserving of it. Even if you think you don’t have someone to show your love to, or no one to love you, I can tell you that there is always someone who needs your love, and who you can love in return. That someone is you.

So embrace love in all its forms, and learn to trust its power and miracle. Start now, because it all begins and ends with you and your ability to accept and love yourself.

Learning to feel again

One of the distinguishing features of humans, as opposed to say a table, is that we can feel. We can feel happiness when something joyful happens to us, and feel sadness when something upsets us. From the highs of love to the lows of depression, comes a range of feelings differing in levels of subtlety.

The range of feelings are there, and yet often times we aren’t even aware of them until we act upon them unmindfully and unskillfully. Then we see the product of the feeling, the reaction we have to the feeling, but we still may not see the initial feeling. For example, we may see our possessiveness but not see the jealousy; we may hear our angry words being spoken but missed the frustration that had built up within us. In time, these feelings grow untended in our mental garden and one day they blossom to become a feeling that is even harder to tend to: anger over time produces the fruit of hate; seeds of desire flowers into discontentment.

Of course, this doesn’t only apply to unwholesome emotions. With every drop of kindness, the great ocean of love is formed. With every moment of peacefulness, the heart and mind naturally falls into contentment and wholeness.

Often feelings past us by unnoticed until our subconscious acts upon them. When we do notice them, we react to them by desperately grasping onto the positive feelings and disdainfully pushing away the negative feelings. In doing so, we are always reacting to feelings; we never really understand them. As drivers of our life, it is so important to be able to recognise, appreciate and utilise our feelings, as they are what makes our human existence so unique.

Sometimes I feel in life we spend too much time on the practical matters of life, intellectualising and theorising it. We look without, and forget to reside within. We spend little time getting to know our own self, our own mind, our very own heart. We numb ourselves with stimulants such as intoxicants or television. We entertain ourselves to escape from the boredom of life, and we chase one thing after another in the vain hope that we gain happiness once we attain that thing. But happiness never comes when we are chasing. It’s only when we take the time to stop, to reflect, and to truly appreciate the abundance that exists in this very moment right here…it is only then that we can experience a feeling of joy and peacefulness that is as unconditional as the sun’s rays and as purifying as the rain from the heavens above. It is only then that we realise that all the feelings we experience aren’t obstacles to our path of practice, but part and parcel to our human condition.

Know thy self

Will you take off that mask? Can you?

~γνῶθι σεαυτόν gnōthi seauton~

From the philosophers of Greece, to the astrologers of the ancient world, to the esoteric practices of India, to the modern day psychologists…the time-honoured search for who we are and why we are here has continued in different forms, but still left unanswered.

In our contemporary society, knowing thyself comes from reading Self-Help books, doing Personality Tests forwarded to you via email, reading your astrology profile online, and ticking forms that ask you for about your age, sex, marital status and the like.

We don’t think twice when people ask who we are; often we instinctively think of ourselves in terms of the roles we play in life, particularly our job position. If someone comes up to you at a party and asks you, “What do you do?” I would imagine most of us would answer our occupation, e.g., I’m a lawyer, I’m a student, “I’m not working at the moment.” That seems to be the socially-acceptable thing to say. If I answered with, “I’m a daughter and a sister to three brothers.” They’ll say, “That’s nice, but what do you do with your time?” In which if I said, “I talk to people all day, I teach whenever I can, I learn about everything that interests me, I counsel people when they are down and inspire them to continue doing the good things they are doing. I love to laugh, but know when to cry, I am passionate about life……” The person is likely to have walked off by then. One would get a similar answer if replying, “I’m a myrid of things depending on whatever circumstances I find myself in and whomever I am with. I’m a lover of life, and an observer of the world.” Wierdo…

So in our mad dash through life, we only have brief moments of reflection, and often don’t go anywhere near the core self. There are so many things obscuring our understanding of who we are, that our true identity becomes buried and forgotten.

Below I will outline some of the things obscuring our vision of who we are, and in the next blog post I will discuss the importance of seeing who we are, and how we can do this.

Obstacles to knowing thy self

1. False mirrors: it is usual that we rely on something exterior to ourselves to reflect back to us our self-image. These mirrors may take the form of a generalised personality analysis, or astrology reading, etc. It may even be the people around us reflecting back to us who we are. At times, these may be the only clues we have of ourselves, and sets a basic start to our self-discovery. However, these are always generalised and inaccurate. When it comes to others’ perceptions of ourselves, they are always biased and will only be a perspective of us that is tainted by their own preconceptions and feelings about us, as well as tainted by the image we have emulated to them about us. It is biased because our friends are likely to see the goodness in us, and our enemies exaggerate our faults.
2. The masquerade party of facardes: there are so many facets of ourselves, so many roles we play, and so many identities and fronts we put up to the world outside. In a way, we need to. We can’t show our true self all the time, firstly because we don’t know our true self, secondly because exposing our vulnerabilities to those who are untrustworthy could cause great detriment to ourselves and others, and finally, because a certain level of mindful restraint is required so we don’t act out of anger, ill will, greed, fear or delusion. However, with all the facardes we put up, how many of us are aware of them? How many times do we put them up and don’t (or can’t) take them off? How many of these facardes have merged into reality and taken by others and ourselves as who we are?
3. The greatest illusionist…is ourselves: The most dangerous lies are those which are closest to the truth, those taken to be the truth, and those which have become so embedded into our consciousness and perceptions that even we believe that the lie is true. We lie to ourselves all the time, whether subconsciously or intentionally. We see only what we want to see. We ignore vast amounts of information every day because it doesn’t fit into our paradigm of the world as we understand it. Likewise, we see ourselves in a particular way, and we choose people as our friends because they see us in that same light. We dismiss and dislike views contrary to what we believe of ourselves. Ultimately, we are the one who is the hardest person to convince of our own identity.
4. Playing hide and seek: Our identity and portrays of ourselves are in constant flux. It changes depending on who we are with, what we are doing, the circumstances we find ourselves in, the emotions and drives that are in play at that moment in time, and of course, the external mirrors and internal filters. When we feel we can lock down who we are, the self eludes us in a game of hide and seek. The more we grasp onto the self we saw, without acknowledging its ability to change and have its own agency, the further we are to acknowledging the ‘self’ as it is in that point in time.
5. Self-protection of our ‘self’: For those practicing Buddhists, you would be familiar with the Pali word anatta, translated as ‘non-self’. The greatest illusion created by the self is itself, and it protects this image for its survival. The Buddha had taught in the Anattalakkhana Sutta that the dependence of the ego on the myrid causes and conditions that brought it to fruition means that it is subject to change and impermanence. As it is impermanent, it is unstable and therefore lacking in consistent unity. That is, it is non-self. Ironically though, to understand non-self, it is vital to first understand the illusion of the self, so as to break through this illusion and our attachment to this fictitious self.

In understanding and seeing the above obstacles, we can start to unravel the security blankets wrapped around our ego. You may fear that in taking down the layers of self-protection, you will be exposed and left vulnerable. In my next blog entry, I will discuss the methods to doing so, as well as the reason and importance of breaking down the barriers blocking our true self from shining with confidence, acceptance, tranquility and love.

In-Decision

Life is often compared to a journey on a road with twists and turns, bumps and potholes. Unsurprisingly, on this road there are also crossroads in which a choice needs to be made. Some respond by continuing on with the road that looks less threatening, while others may take the road not taken before (like Robert Frost). Some may sit immobile staring at the choices confronting them.

We may need to choose between the known and the unknown; the profitable or the preferrable; the lesser of two evils; or even a choice between “me” vs “us”. Often, it is a struggle between the matters of the mind and that of the heart – the logical and rational conclusion created by the mind vs the instinctual tugs of the heart-strings.

In those times of indecision, we may experience feelings of helplessness, frustration, stress and worry. The more we attempt to gaze into a crystal ball to see the consequences of the choices before us, the more it seems to add to our frustrations because the future is uncertain and incalculable. After all, what we are doing is leaping into the future because we are dissatisfied with the present. Yet what we really need to look at is the dissatisfaction itself and whether a change will solve that dissatisfaction or whether it is intrinsic to us. On the other hand, if a change is required, we should be bold in discarding our security blanket as wallowing in self-pity and lethargy is equally toxic as the situation we are in.

So for those standing at the crossroad of life, give yourself the space to be present to the choices before you. The answer will come. Sometimes the choice may lead you to where you want to be, other times it may lead you to an even better place. It may lead you to a totally different path or even a dead-end. At least, you keep moving.

Don’t get bogged down by indecision and the anxiety for the future. A well-known Buddhist quote is “If you can do something about it, then do it. If you can’t do anything about it, then why worry about it?”

As for those who find themselves in a tricky ethical situation, I would like you to consider this dilemma:

You pass by a live fly trapped in a spider wed and you see the spider making its way towards the fly. Do you (1) rescue the fly, which means the spider would then lose its feed and go hungry, or (2) you leave the fly, which means it would get eaten by the spider.

This was an actual scenario at a Unibuds Summer Retreat at Wat Pa Buddharangsee a couple of years ago. I still remember that we had a discussion about this there, and a ‘senior’ Buddhist had said to me, “I think we should leave it as it is; we humans are always intruding in nature thinking we know what’s best. I believe that things will unfold the way it should.” The fly wasn’t rescued, but the question remained unsettled in the retreaters’ minds.

Later on, this scenario was posed to the speaker Rod Lee at a Unibuds dhamma talk. Rod’s view was that we should save the fly. He reasoned that where the spider may go hungry if the fly is gone, it will not die but can wait for the next sucker. On the other hand, the fly not rescued is sure to be eaten and that would be the end of him. As to what role we have to play in this interaction as a third party, Rod said that when we encounter a situation, then we have been made a part of that situation whether we like it or not, and therefore we should make a decision to act accordingly.

Come to think of it, the passive response of the senior Buddhist is filled with as much hubris as that of the ‘intruders’ she was referring to. After all, the view that if we do nothing then we can’t do wrong is merely our way of absolving ourselves of responsibility. In reality, however, we do have to make decisions and our ability to solve problems – particularly abstract problems – is what distinguishes us from other species.

So if you ever encounter a problematic situation in which your intervention is required (as opposed to where the best action is really non-action), you may choose to turn your back to it or leave it up to others to resolve – like leaving the fly to fend for itself or for someone to come along and save it. Or you may save that fly because you recognise that you are in the position to do so. This may come at an inconvenience or even sacrifice to you, but I am a real believer that with every sacrifice will result in an immeasurable gain.

Whatever decision you ultimately make, make no mistake that it will change where your path will take you, and equally important, it is a telling sign as to what your priorities in life are.

Thinking so, I hope this inspires you to move from indecision to place yourself in-decision: to be fully present to the decision-making process and to realise that you are a part of the decision whether you participate through action or lack of. After all, the world moves through the changes created by the individuals and their efforts.

Life is indeed a journey in which we are all travelling on. Although some may feel sheltered by the vehicles they are travelling in, the road will inevitable change to force one to walk on their own to feel the solid ground beneath their bare feet.

Making Compassion Cool Again

I know a lot of people think compassion is overrated and outdated; that compassionate people are pushovers, likely to be religious and most certainly insane to a certain degree. Compassion, it is often thought, can’t be sustained in this world of competition, egoism, and where the ends can justify any means. It goes against the way society works, and arguably also against our natural human tendencies to strive for survival over and above everything else. It is then concluded that if you want to get ahead in life, it’s competition over compassion, assertion over passivity, me over you.

Yet again and again compassion is the tried and tested method of success for me, whether it be in my professional or personal life. This is because underlying all human existence is our connection with other people. And the secret to connecting with those around us requires three things:

1. An understanding of “me”: self-awareness of how my mood, my behaviour and my personality affects the people who interact with me, and consequently upon myself;
2. An empathy for “you”: the ability for me to see things from your perspective (putting aside whether I agree or disagree with that view), to understand your motivations and attitudes that is non-judgemental or clouded by my own prejudices of you, and to genuinely care about your wellbeing and;
3. A respect for “us”: creating a connection to close the gap that separates us emotionally and psychologically.

Unfortunately, too often we are missing at least one of the above in our relationship with others, therefore creating a rift between ourselves and the other. As a consequence, we have unnecessary ills such as miscommunication, competition, alienation, disrespect, vindictiveness, power struggles and selfishness. It gives rise to negative and unproductive emotions, such as anger, jealousy, blase indifference, fear and other forms of negativity.

Yet if we truly understood what compassion is, we can see how important it is in building the rift between people. Compassion requires an ability to recognise and then empathise with someone else’s misfortune, and from there develop a genuine wish for that person to be free from that misfortune. Following from that, we should then act upon our compassion to do what we can to free that person from their suffering.

It is easier to practice compassion on those we like, and on those who are vulnerable.

It is harder to develop compassion for those we dislike, and for those who we believe has created their own suffering for themselves.

A good example of the former is young children. The suffering they bear is usually not because of something they have done intentionally and willfully. They get sick on their own accord; they get abused and have no ability to defend themselves; they get upset because they cannot understand the complex adult world they find themselves in.

An example of the latter is criminals. It is easy for us to see their crimes as the only attribute of criminals that we can understand and hence judge them on. It is so easy for us to forget that they are more than just someone who has committed a crime, that they are also a son to a mother, possibly a mother to a child.

To illustrate, I will steal one of Ajahn Brahm’s ideas. Have a read of the following poem, and guess who wrote it:

AN APPEAL FOR PATIENCE AND KINDNESS TOWARD ONE’S AGING MOTHER

When your mother has grown older,
And you have grown older,
When what was once easy and effortless
Now becomes a burden,

When her dear, faithful eyes
No longer see life as they once did,
When her feet, grown tired,
No longer want to carry her as she walks —

Then give her your arm for support;
Accompany her with gladness and joy.
The hour will come when, weeping
You will accompany her on her final walk.

And if she asks for something, then answer her.
And if she asks again, then speak.
And if she asks yet again, respond to her,
Not stormily, but with gentle calm.

And if she cannot understand you well,
Explain everything to her joyfully.
The hour will come, the bitter hour,
When her mouth will ask for nothing more.

So, who wrote this poem:

(a) William Blake (famous English poet)

(b) Ivan Milat (serial killer in Australia)

(c) Adolf Hitler (more than a serial killer!)

(d) Paul Lynch (current Minister for Aging)

If you guessed (a), you are wrong.

The correct answer is (c). Yup, although we often associate Hitler with the Holocaust (which killed between 11 – 14 million people) and WWII (the deadliest conflict in human history with over 70 million casualties), Hitler is less known for being a mummy’s boy. In fact, we may be more willing to accept him as a murderer, than to accept that he had a tender side and that what he did was in his eyes for the good of the Aryan people. I’m certainly not condoning what he did, but it is interesting how concrete our perceptions of people can be.

To come back to what I was saying earlier about developing compassion for those we dislike, let’s analyse why this may be so. At the core of our blockage is the space we have created between ourselves and the other person. I emphasise that the space is created by us, so don’t bother blaming the other person. Sure they may have done something to make you react this way, but it certainly is you who is maintaining this rift. This rift may then be filled with anger, hatred, jealousy, indifference, frustration, or other negative emotions in reaction to the other person. As a consequence, you have come to disregard the other person as a person, you have dehumanised them by seeing them as merely an embodiment of trouble, an obstacle to your peace and advancement, or an unimportant puzzled to be overlooked. You may also feel this way because you feel this is the only way to deal with them, or because it empowers you when you withhold your compassion for them. It may also be because you feel it is easier to understand the world in a black and white way, and changing your views about this person is simply too difficult (e.g., Hitler is bad FULL STOP. Don’t complicate things by telling me he’s a nice guy as well as being a bad guy).

Yet what I find again and again is that there is always a reason to be compassionate for someone who is suffering. If a person is being derogatory towards you, it is because they lack the self-confidence and fear to see you as their equal. If a person is being selfish, it is because they lack real contentment in their own lives and require the external world to provide them with comfort. If they are duplicitous, it is only because they are not comfortable with the person that they are. If they are stubborn, then they will never learn nor progress. If they don’t want to connect with you, then they are only left with loneliness. If they are rude and aggressive, it is only because they do not know tenderness and love. If they are arrogant and obnoxious, it is only because they have not been touched by the wonders of the world to be moved to true humility. If they are angry, jealous and full of hate, then they are burning in the fires they embody.

Seeing this, what other reaction can you have but to be moved with sympathy to extend your compassion to them? In doing so, any negativity you hold would naturally dissipate, as you realise that no amount of negativity you give to them would be worse than what they give to themselves. In releasing your own negativity towards them, you free yourself from the bonds of suffering too. In time, your empathy would close the rift between you both, even if it takes years, and even if that rift will always be visible. At least when the rift is close enough, you can reach over to give him or her a hug.

Compassion isn’t only for hippies and the religious. It is not something we should talk about but never do: it is the language of the modern world. In a world that emphasises so much on communication, sociable networking and our ability to work with different people from different walks of life, one would think that anything that would bring people together in a real and solid way would be embraced by society. There is no time in history when compassion is needed as much as now, and ironically, it is now that compassion is the most misunderstood. In essence, compassion isn’t going against the workings of the world; it is the way of the world.

A Mountain to be Conquered

I once stood at the foot of a mountain, and looked up at the enormous task before me. The top seemed an impossible destination; I didn’t even know where to take that first step.

“Go on,” my mother smiled encouragingly at me, “I know you can do it.”

“What have you got to lose?” My father chipped in.

“We’ll be right here to catch you if you fall.” My brothers sang out.

I took my first step. I slipped.

“Try again,” my family urged.

I did. I climbed and climbed. I looked down, they were still there giving me the thumbs up. I laughed, and continued on.

The more I climbed, the better I got. But now and again, a sharp edge or a large impediment would stop me in my tracks. I would try to figure it out on my own, but at times, I would just be stuck. Miraculously, there were always some other climber ready to help me through. All I had to do was ask.

Some climbers were also finding their way up, and their companionship was an ease from the tediousness, as well as a motivation for me to excel with my peers. Some climbers were experienced climbers who had already made it to the top, but who had the benevolence to climb back down to help those climbing up. While climbing, I promised myself that when I got to the top, I would always remember those who had helped me, and the lessons learnt from all the challenges I have endured and overcame.

Some of my fellow climbers continued with me for parts of the journey before we took our separate ways, while others stayed with me much longer.

The further I climbed, the better climber I became. I eventually surpassed those who had helped me, climbing faster ahead. I would linger a while, but we knew eventually I would have to leave them behind.

Days turned to months. Months to years. I watched the shades of the seasons envelope around me one after another in a ceaseless cycle of wonder.

Every so often I would stop to appreciate the view before me, the journey awaiting above me, and the history below me.

Yet the higher I climbed, the more anxious I was to reach the top, and the more infrequent it became for me to stop and enjoy the achievement I had attained. I was too busy reaching for the finish line. I was tired; I was ready to trade the sacrifices I had made for the jews of comfort. I also stopped looking at what was below me, for fear of falling as I now had much more to lose.

The further I climbed, the less climbers I encountered. Those I did encounter was similarly too focussed on their future attainment to stop and help those passing by. At times of tiredness and frustration, I would imagine stopping and never climbing again. I imagined just sitting on the ledge to watch the beauty of the sunrise blend with each sunset, as the days and nights being the only indicators of time, where nothing needed to be attained as all there really was existed right there in front of me.

Yet, I never did stop. Deep within a voice argued that the sacrifices and efforts I had made was to get to the top; not to give up mid-way. So I climbed, and climbed. Each sunrise did melt into each sunset as the days rolled on top of each other in a meaningless cycle, only I wasn’t sitting on a ledge to witness it: the sun shone on my back, and my face was focussed on the face of the mountain in front of me.

I climbed and climbed.

I always imagined that when I arrived at the top I would spread my arms out and shout, “I made it!” I imagined that moment again and again in my mind as I climbed. I imagined how content I would be, and imagined how life would be so effortless after that. I imagined that moment as the turning point pivoting my life’s meaning.

Yet when I arrived, I could only collapse against the flat ground in exhaustion. A relief. I didn’t even have the energy to say “water”, let alone shout out, “I made it!”

After I regained my strength, I explored the world I had entered. A feeling of discontentment set in, followed by a quick shade of anger. I could hear myself saying, “Finally I’m here, what an achievement, blah blah blah.” Yet my heart was crying as I asked myself over and over silently, “Is this it?”

I got used to the life at the top fairly quickly. It was quite mundane, but at least it wasn’t as strenuous as the climb. After some time, the memory of the climb itself started to fade, and I would watch in disdain the new climbers struggling to the top of the mountain huffing and puffing.

“What’s all the fuss about?” I would think to myself, “Surely if I could do it, they should.”

Some of my fellow climbers finally arrived. “About time,” I thought.

Some of the experienced climbers returned. “Ready for retirement,” I thought unkindly.

Then my brothers arrived. I greeted them warmly as I had missed them dearly. I looked around for mum and dad, wondering where they were.

“Where’s mum and dad?” I asked.

“They’re still at the bottom.”

“Why didn’t they climb up?” I asked.

“They were too afraid to leave.”

I felt anger arise in me. Here I had climbed this huge mountain because they had urged me to do it, and they couldn’t even bother doing it themselves? Here they had told me to overcome my fears and worries, yet they couldn’t do it for themselves? Here I had accomplished this task and they weren’t here to see it? Here I had finally made it and they are not here for me to share it?

“What could they possibly be afraid about?” I gasped in frustration.

My brother gave me a hug and whispered, “They were worried about you. They were afraid that if they left, then no one would be there to catch you should you fall.”

That was the moment when I realised that the greatest mountain I needed to climb wasn’t the mountain I was standing on, but the hubris surmounted in my mind.

That was the moment when I looked down the mountain for the first time since I had reached the top, and saw the friends and mentors I had left behind. Some were struggling without anyone by their side, some were joking and taking their time, some went back to help those who had fallen behind, while others had perched themselves on a ledge to enjoy the rhythms of each sunrise and sunset.

At that moment, I realised that I could only be standing where I was because of those who had helped me along the way. Sure they may still be below me on their journey up the mountain, but that was because they knew that the mountain is not an object to be conquered for happiness, but one that provides the myriad experiences and viewpoints that allow us to conquer the most imposing threat to our happiness: our hubris.

I hugged my brother back, and said, “Come on, let’s tell mum and dad that the top isn’t as flash as everyone makes it out to be.”