Whenever I got something, I got two gifts out from that something. I never truly got that thing except the two gifts. What two gifts? My pleasant and unpleasant feelings over it, depending what idea I have about that something.
If it is something that I like, according to my idea, I will feel joyful. That is my first gift. And yet behind that gift there is another gift – the fear of losing it or the need of having more.
If it is something that I dislike, according to my idea again, I will feel unhappy. That is my first gift. Behind that unhappy gift is another gift – the wish to get rid of it or to wish to have other than what is in the now. One is a feeling, the other a thought. And behind all is the idea.
This is truly my inheritant, what I thought I got is my illusion. I have never got them at all, except probably a chance to interact with it. Everything I possess, I owned nothing out of it except my experiences behind that owning.
The same with this body. I don’t have ownership over this body except a chance to interact with it. What I owned is the mind that is accompanying the body.
The mind is my inheritant and yet that is not true too. If I am able to see through the illusion of the mind, all its perceptions and feelings, even the mind cannot be said as mine. What is in the world, not excluding the mind, is not my inheritant.
Who am I then? “Who am I” is a question post towards the idea of “I am”. If there is no idea of “I am” where then is the need for question? In that letting go, freedom is understood.
Tuck Loon, as I was reading about the first few paragraph in your writing above. About being pleasant and unpleasant, it remind me of the current issue I have about being right in a discussion with my neighbour.
I can actually visualise the mind will expand when it’s a pleasant thought or feeling. When you said we wanted another gift to have no fear of losing the pleasant feeling it is a collapse of the mind. I see that in my practice that the greed to hang on to pleasant will even make it worse and the mind collapse deeper into another level. As the greed gets more and more to grasp pleasant feeling, the void is getting larger and larger and collapse and imbalances the duality. In addition, other defilments comes in, the gift to “kill the unpleasant’ by being rightous makes another further collapse. Eventually the mind is not balance and I suffer. So if I surrender to the expansion and collapse of the mind space, when there is expansion and it will collapse to give a balance rhythm of nature. There is no chance for it to create a larger void of collapse that needs lots of feeding to do ( that makes us suffer). Then I realise if I let things be without being right, there is peace.
the mind expand when it is not contaminated with wanting or not wanting.