Month: February 2010

It is interesting that a friend of mine sms-ed me, commented that I sounded bored with life as reflected in the last two entries. Yes, I have to admit that life is a little boring. “A little” is an underestimation. Probably I am the only one around her who is bored with life.

But hey! Isn’t we all bored with life? Or more precisely, the nature of the mind is always bored, seeking for new stuff to be entertained? Ask ourselves these questions – what are games created for, and what about movies? What about theme parks, entertainment outlets and many more that need no mentioning? I guessed it may not be possible for one to understand what I am writing if they are preoccupied with the world, consistently seeking new challenges, oblivious to what the mind is going through that compels one to seek. As Lonnie Swantek commented in one of the entry “If I would have read this a few years ago, I’m not sure what I would have thought… but today I agree with everything in this post.”

Let the discerning man
Guard the mind,
So difficult to detect and extremely subtle,
Seizing whatever it desires.
A guarded mind brings happiness.

– Buddha

Have you ever relate to the mind? How consciously do you ever connect with yourself? It is pretty shocking when I start to know the mind, the very mind that I am living with. In the past it is about excellence, self-improvement, positive thinking, and many more other mind control stuff, but little do I realized that what I am doing is actually inflating the very ego that I am trying to transcend. I have never kn0wn the mind except increasing its egoic power.

To truly understand the mind, I have to be aware of it rather than using it as a tool for my own means. And awareness is about taking stock of the mind, not entertaining, not identifying with it, but rather taking a step back and just observe the nature of it. It is only by doing so can I get a clear picture of what this mind is all about.

In the past, fear is the main factor for me to excel in life, for me to get what I want, and also as a mean for me to control others. I am still doing it unconsciously, but as long as I am aware, I would prefer to choose love and understand instead.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you will kill you.”

– Yeshua

hiding in this cage
of visible matter

is the invisible
lifebird

pay attention
to her

she is singing
your song

– Kabir –

I wake up each morning to a new day, except that there is nothing specifically new to each day. The daily chores of waking up, meals, work, relationship, bills, money, health, then back to sleep again – plagues my whole entire life as far as I can remember. Probably I would have less of these chores when I was a kid, but even that, the routine evolves around waking up, eat, play and back to sleep again.

I have never left any of the routine behind. I tried doing something different each day, but that something turns out to be just another perspective of the routine – different wrappers of the same stuff. Meeting new friends, going new places, taking up different hobbies, starting new venture, eating different food, playing different games – all evolves around the same theme – challenges motivated by boredom. I never see it as boredom in the past as I always thought it has something to do with my creativity, of wanting challenges, until I stopped and observed – in a very authentic way why am I continuously chasing – not what I am chasing but rather why the need to chase.

There’s nothing wrong with improving my life. There’s nothing wrong by doing new things. What is not right is when I don’t questioned intelligently my incessant need for change, my inability to be at peace with myself, ignorant to the fact that I am suffering silently.

We all have similar routine – what is different is our storyline, the drama that evolves around the routine. My drama may be different from yours but behind the facade of all these dramas, we are all doing the same old stuff – routines. I am like the bird in the cage or the fish in the bowl – seeing different things each day – oblivious to the fact that I am frustrated in my own trapped in my own prison of conditioning.

I look at the bird in the cage, forgetting that I am in another cage, albeit an unseen one. I am turning round and round the cage, wanting to be free, but I totally ignore my inner crying, my inner song, but instead occupying myself with newer and newer stuff, as a way to numb my pain – each experience a cry for freedom, a cry for love.

What is life if I don’t gain deeper understanding from these silent calling? What is life if I don’t question the repetitive upsets I am experiencing whenever I am being triggered? What is life if I don’t stop to ponder why the need for more which I am never satisfied? What is life if I don’t start seeking the meaning of all these repetitive cycle of conditioning that has and will never end until I start inquiring.

I am not sure about you, but for me, life is as dead when I don’t question the whole purpose of these incessant grasping, of wanting; and also not wanting to look deeper into my own dis-ease at this present moment. Why am I not ever peaceful, why am I restless?

When am I going to start looking inward, O Weary One….

I was feeling bored this afternoon doing nothing awaiting the arrival of the Lunar New Year. The mind just can’t accept doing nothing – just simply in the state of being – but instead wanting to do something to bring “usefulness” into the picture. For that it felt restless and irritated doing nothing. The mind just want to occupy itself, at least something it defines as useful so that it does not feel guilty doing nothing.

That is an incessant addictive mind of wanting to do something, all the time – the state of grasping as what the Buddha defined. Like a hamster on a treadmill, the journey of grasping has no meaning except meaninglessness. The addictive mind never see the benefit of simply being in the moment, making peace with the present. It has an ingrained idea that doing nothing is simply wasting of time. If I fall into its trap I will be unconsciously lead to do something unbeneficial, probably switching on the tv and watching something to occupy time. That too makes me feel guilty as it wanted to do something “beneficial”.

Simply being in the present moment with awareness, observing this addictive mind, in a non-doing state, is therapeutic and peace itself. The mind can be wanting to do something out of doing nothing – both are the opposite sides of the same coin – but so long as I am aware of it, I can just be with it, without identifying with it. The nature of the mind is constantly in doing. The nature of awareness is in being. The work of wisdom is to allow both to take place without fixing or stopping the incessant doing. Wisdom allows the dance to cease itself rather than trying to stop the dance. It is impossible to stop the dance of wanting as what it does is only inhibiting the force, not totally annihilating it, making the next arising even stronger.

There are moments where the mind defines boredom of doing nothing as meaningless. But wait a minute – it is not the true meaningless that is coming from the space of understanding or wisdom. It is a meaning the addictive mind gives to doing nothing and wanting to do more – and when it could not do further than that, it gives a meaning of meaningless. In other words, the meaningless is derived from “wasting time”. But that is simply an aversion to what is.

If I have not being clear in noticing it, I would have been tricked or lied into thinking I am observing from wisdom. Tricky eh? The path is laced with lots of imitation, of egoic pattern of trapping me in the incessant desire for existence – the addictive mind that is in constant state of withdrawal syndrome, the grasping state of wanting more and more.

There are two ways of viewing meaninglessness – either as a response or a reaction. Both have different result. Wisdom responds to the incessant wanting to do something, as meaningless. Whereas ego reacts to the doing nothing as meaningless – it is a meaning it gives to doing nothing, compelling me to do more. One work on the cause, the other effect. One comes from the space of peace, the other from the space of addiction.

Awareness with clear mindedness is key in differentiating both.