Month: January 2010

What is this thing call “feeling”? “To feel” is to experience what is been perceived. Imagine what life is when there is no such a thing as feeling? I guessed the word that comes to many is meaningless. Thus we equate feeling as having a meaning. No feeling = no meaning. But that is an interpretation of feeling, not exactly feeling as feeling. If I enjoy muscle building work, the discomfort feeling deriving from each moment of weight-lifting can be meaningful. I feel great about it. But to another, weight-lifting can be a torturous experience – an unpleasant feeling – more so if he is doing it reluctantly, and thus he will see the experience as meaningless. But that is not what feeling is, except our idea about it. In reality there is no such a thing call pleasant or unpleasant feeling except the idea we put into what we are experiencing. It is like a pot of soup – what I put in is the taste I get.

If I have a wrong idea that no one should be better than me in a certain field, that idea brings about a “feeling of jealousy” when I think someone is better than me.  My wrong idea is the cause of the jealousy, not what is out there. If I have a wrong idea that if I give the best to you, and you should return the best to me, I will be devastated and experience betrayal (feeling betrayed) if it turned otherwise. If I have an idea slim is good, I will see fat as wrong. My feelings is determined by my ideas. Ideas make my feeling pleasant and unpleasant. Ideas without feeling is just another perception, another thought. And yet do not underestimate ideas – it is an invisible prison that limits my potentialities. It is also the cause of suffering and freedom.

What is wrong and right in ideas? I will never know until I experience distress and dis-ease. Both can be triggered by resistance or holding on. Faith talk about doing good but good can come from right or wrong ideas. If I do good out of fear, out of obligation, the end result of that act is always dis-ease, for what is wrong in the beginning will be wrong all the way, until it is been rectified through recognition. Marching for peace is an example. A good act to many, but the idea behind the act is confrontation and frustration, not to mention expectation.

In truth, happiness is unreal, so is happy or unhappy feeling. Happiness or unhappiness is just a result of what idea(s) I have. Wrong ideas can bring happiness and so is right ideas. There is nothing noble about happiness. If right and wrong ideas can determined happiness, then seeking happiness is detrimental to my spiritual journey. But if I were to view happiness and unhappiness as part of my creation of ideas, then that is spiritual, for it brings about wisdom in undoing what is unprofitable.

To many, life is about chasing after happiness. Happiness is found in money, in property, in relationship – how can that be true? I can have anything in the world and yet unhappy, so long as my ideas are wrong. I can be seeking independency but if my idea is motivated from anger of my past, my independency is futile as I am never complete no matter how independent I am. I am pursuing a losing battle.

Everything I want from this world, I need to investigate my idea. Once ideas are recognize, peace is always present. All the meaning I give to the world is the meaning I give to myself. I am playing my own game. There is no other player in the field.

What is feeling for? Your ability to experience your ideas :)

Not by making judgment is one wise, but by investigating both right and wrong is one wise.
– The Buddha

You cannot make the weak strong by making the strong weak
– Abraham Lincoln

To differentiate good and bad in my own experiences is to make judgement upon myself – disallowing myself to see the good in bad and the bad in good. To ignore bad is to cover up what is nature, instead of trying to understand nature. Whenever I ignore the strong force of guilt in my mind, I am trying to make the guilt weak – which in truth increases its force. To suppress the bad as to wish the good will increase is to mean increasing the bad by making the good seemingly small. For what I focus on becomes my reality. The more I ignore, the more I am giving attention to it, unwarily. I can only ignore something that I already know. I can’t ignore anything that is not within my space. Each ignoring is increasing my knowing.

To want good is to don’t want bad. To want bad is to don’t want good. Both good and bad is not the problem – my wanting is the problem. For each time I want something, I am already indicating I don’t want the opposite. To see both good and bad as nature brings me into equilibrium. Instead of making judgment or conclusion to what is right and what is wrong, let wisdom investigate what both are as to bring compassion and deeper wisdom into the space. And in that space of sanity, wholesomeness comes into my being.

I cannot avoid judgments arising as that is the work of the ego but I can be aware of the judgment and make wise contemplation upon it deriving a realization that is supportive of my mental peace, instead of avoiding bad and chasing after good. In the space of mental peace, wisdom chooses what is essential and what is inessential. Neither is one good or bad over another.

Zen does not call anger the problem, Zen does not call sex the problem, Zen does not call greed the problem, Zen does not call aggression, violence, the problem. Zen calls the root problem desiring – and all other problems arise out of desiring. Cut the root, and the whole tree disappears.
– Osho

Everything I do, I do it for myself. I do it with the motive “what’s in for me” – irrelevant whether I am aware or unaware. “I like you” because your character suits me. “I don’t like you” because your attitude does not fit into me. Both has what’s-in-for-me, except the latter is removed from my space as to allow vacancy for another. And I keep seeking and seeking as to expand my space to keep me safe. I never know myself except what’s-in-for-me, next! The more I fill up my vacancies, the further I become – I lost myself in it. I have never questioned what what’s-in-for-me is, except to follow its order.

Another one comes my way…. I am selfish, so I have to learn to be selfless. Yes, to be selfish is what’s-in-for-me, to be selfless is also what’s-in-for-me! Anything I want to be I am already entertaining what’s-in-for-me. I can’t be selfish without being selfless, neither can I be selfless without being selfish. For both are just opposite of the same coin. When I am selfless, I am selfish to myself. When I am selfish to others, I am selfless to myself. Ego can’t get me wrong.

Oops! What about doing good? Surely there’s no what’s-in-for-me. I do good for what? To make someone happy? Isn’t that a what’s-in-for-me too – to make someone happy? What if that person is not happy with my gift? Probably I will not entertain him or her anymore as it does not fit into my what’s-in-for-me needs – I am opening up for vacancies… What about me continuing giving, irrelevant whether he or she appreciate my giving – I will give, and still give until it hurts. Isn’t that too, what’s-in-for-me? For I want to overcome my resistance of giving? I am not giving for anybody’s sake – but to fulfil my inner needs.

So what purpose is this what’s-in-for-me? Diving down into the abyss, I saw the needs to feel good – I am in constant hunger of wanting to feel good, rejecting all other opposite feelings. It is of no wonder I abhor pain and all discomforts. Ironically isn’t that is what in me that propels me to seek good feelings? If I am already where I am, why do I need to keep seeking further? I am in dis-ease, in suffering, trying to extinguish this unbearable feeling by seeking good feelings, ignorantly expecting to relieve myself from that discomfort. I am liken a person drinking salt water to quench the thirst only to keep it increasing.

I will do anything so long as it makes me feel good, feel worthy, fulfilling my need for approval. I will do it with a sense of what’s-in-for-me as that is what “I am”. I am is what I am – so long I am not awaken from this satire need for wanting. And when I am fully awaken to this addictive pattern I am what I am takes on a new meaning. I can be sure what I do is no longer for my own but for the highest good of many.

Truth are but lessons that  you failed to learn presented once again,
so where you made a faulty choice before
you now can make a better one,
and thus escape all pain that what you chose before
has brought to you.

– A Course in Miracles