Month: April 2010

Yesterday morning a heavy downpour interrupted my plan for a walk up in Mont Kiara. Nevertheless we went ahead after Lai Fun suggested that we could walk anyway, with an umbrella – indeed a brilliant idea. Unlike the huge crowd that usually throne to this hill on weekends, today’s scene was deserted with only a handful of people making their journey. On my way up the slope I met two friends – an unassuming encounter which embarrassed me.

The first friend whom I met during my walk was one who stays much further away from the park compared to my very own distance to the park. She took the effort to walk despite raining cats and dogs, with an umbrella. It was refreshing to see such initiative and yet, at the same time, I could not help hearing the familiar chattering mind in my head commenting about the excuses I gave for not walking this morning due to the rain. It was a self-admonishment of sort – judgments and punishments.

A kilometer further from where I had my first encounter, my second friend called out my name. I reciprocated by expressing my wonderment of his commitment to his regular weekend walk despite the rain. His reply indeed surprised me and made me seriously pause and ponder – “rain is part of nature unfolding so why would it deter me from walking?” It woke me up from my own unawakened state. I saw the rain as an obstacle – which in reality was simply an excuse, by giving my power away, of what I am not willing to be responsible for – an attitude of complacency.

There are two interesting lessons here for the mind. That in every situation, there is always an opportunity for awakening, provided that I encourage self-inquiry to what I am experiencing. The first encounter triggered my unworthiness – an opportunity for me to reclaim power from the meaning I gave to myself. Embarrassment and guilt. Was it true? What was it that unraveled in me? Was it necessary? What ideas was I having at the background of the mind that was fertile for such negative thoughts to arise? Why am I subscribing to those thoughts? There are much room for observation to what arrived at the mindscape when I allowed myself space to stay mindful and alert throughout the entire processes. It is so much easier to be aware when I am alone, more so in the midst of nature. It is this reason that I forgo having friends around during my walk so that I could listening silently to what comes up in my mind.

The second encounter triggered wisdom in me – that I have forgotten to see everything as nature, instead of threat. How easily it is to fall prey to the old patterns of conditioning where we expect the world to subscribe to our needs first before we embark on journeys that are essential to our well-being and growth. Behind the façade of these excuses are habits of procrastination, of not seeing priority in wellness. Many a times I too hear comments expressing that meditation is a luxury “hobby” and can only be afforded after one retires from worldly gain. Obviously those who made such comments have misunderstood what meditation is. But what is more true is that we trade peace for security. Ironically there is no security when there is no peace. We see worldly gains, instead of a healthy mind, as a passport to a safer and secure life.

Rarely are we being taught that peace is found within instead of without and that wisdom when developed is the cause of our security rather than the possessions which in truth, make us more insecure and vulnerable, instead of safe and free.

The journey is personal and my choice is wisdom over anything else.

It’s either I am awake or I am not.  I am not referring to the conventional awake state when I get out from my sleep, though that is a precise metaphor of what I experience when I am awake. You see, I can be asleep in my wakeful moments, drowning myself in thoughts instead of being fully present to what is in my space. I had mistaken thoughts as my reality. I have exchanged my present experience for the chattering mind, the judgments, the ideas, and the complaints that go on in my head. I am drowned in my own world, so to speak. Seldom am I present to this unawake state, as I am constantly being stolen away from my ability to stay alive to what Life is offering me.

To stay awake in my wakeful state is a constant challenge to my day to day living. In fact this is the one and only vocation I find truly meaningful if I am to live fully each day as it comes. The mind is in constant lookout for something of the future, rarely grounded in the present. In fact I am being ingrained to think that the future is more real than what is in the now. You will get what I mean when you start observing yourself the very moment you get up from your bed in the morning. It is about what’s next – work when brushing the teeth, planning while having breakfast, what’s for lunch in the midst of meeting, rushing even in a conversation – as if we are living two realities at one time. The constant rush to stay ahead makes me miss the point of living, for what comes my way at this moment is totally left unnoticed in my experience.

Imagine the mastery I have done – training the mind to be ahead all the time to the extent that the mind is running on its own auto mode – it has a life of its own, so to speak, and it does not know anymore how to be present. But wait a minute, where is life as Life breezes through us? It is like going for a movie and yet oblivious to the screen that is in front of us. What’s the point then to live, if we are not present to Life?

Staying ahead creates an illusion of reality – that we have to plan, to live. Yes, and that is what our inner Life becomes – planning to live rather than, live – as Life breezes through us. As if without planning, life has no meaning, and that life does not exist without planning. Irrelevant whether we plan or not, life passes through us, like water in the river, like day and night, year after year.

But wait a minute, what is life without planning? Life will surely become meaningless. What’s the point of living then? “A-ha!” Do you hear this ancient voice jumping out of your head so very often that makes you keep seeking for the future, endlessly, like a headless chicken roaming aimlessly? Isn’t the voice telling you the truth that you are not listening – that life is indeed meaningless and that you have to do something to make it meaningful? Have you ever questioned why the need for meaningfulness to cover up the reality of meaninglessness? It is like a farmer ignoring the fact that the soil he has is not suitable for any planting and yet he tries and tries to grow something on it with the hope that the soil will get better one day. What would a wise farmer do? Address the soil instead, before the need to plant anything. When we don’t address what is within our mind, we are covering up the truth, forgoing the weak foundation with a grandiose empire, ending up with a feeling of emptiness instead, in whatever that we have finally achieved – and yet whatever achievement that is, is always not final! There is always something more “out there” to conquer.

Thus the first step to a wholesome living is to address the meaninglessness that is within our system and to take the courage to probe within, with wisdom, instead of giving in to the ego of fear. Only when we come to peace with it can a new way of living come into being. Only then can my life be meaningful, with wisdom as its foundation instead of ignorance.

Would I still need to plan? Yes, but it won’t be me that plans. Wisdom takes the lead. Wisdom plans with Life instead of me planning for life. Wisdom recognizes the nature of causal relationship and thus work on the cause for the result to take effect instead of targeting the future, the effect.