Month: October 2010

There was a potluck party recently and the food brought by friends were delicious and mouth watering. Amongst those friends were a few who were in the midst of a spiritual fasting regime – spiritual in the sense that it is not for any physical purposes; though it is part and parcel of the fast; but more than that it is for the sake for one to face what comes up in the mind experiences during the fast – at least, that is how I view fasting from my personal opinion.

In the midst of that party, I heard the many voices of desire of those who initially considered replacing that day’s fast to another day just so to exchange for the good food offered on that particular potluck party. It sounded so familiar to me as we were all there before.

And I couldn’t help but remember those days when I was in the midst of fasting and friends around me were feasting with joy. During those occasions, I was constantly checking what was in my mind and was surprised by the non interest in the food served at that moment. That had made me ponder on the purpose of fasting.

Fasting is just a form of a deeper essence which many of us may have overlooked. As in anything, the form is always taken to represent the essence, which most of the time is not entirely correct. To see a person in a robe does not mean anything in reference to what is in his mind. Similarly to see a murderer does not mean anything as to what is in his mind or our minds too. We can never know what is going on in another’s mind, not to even mention our own ignorance. What is important is the unseen intention and motivation that embark us to do each action.

Hence, when we do fasting from an ill-informed intent, instead of bringing up something deeper and spiritual within us, the opposite may occur. The mind generates according to what we put in – negativity naturally begets negativity, and vice versa. Wrong intentions may seemingly give good result in the beginning but it is a matter of time before negativity catches up. The metaphor that came to mind is of a thief waiting patiently at the door where we think we are safe; until we are required to leave that place. Similarly when we do fasting without much wisdom in it, what we think had been controlled and purified comes back to us in full vengeance. We are only suppressing what is within instead of giving it a voice, and hence awaiting its time to return at any time. And that makes a difference between practising a fast with ignorance and wisdom. With ignorance, there is backlash; whereas with wisdom we give space to what comes up in us for us to heal.

Thus for me, the best fast is when we are consistently faced with the aroma of delicious food and the desire arising from it. Instead of seemingly killing the desire by ignoring it, or to some, moving away or avoiding those food places so that they will not be enticed by their inner demon to succumb to it; I would suggest that they allow what can possibly come up in them to arise. It is only in this way can we give what is within us a voice as an opportunity to address so that what is ignored can be faced and what is faced can be healed. This is truly the way of a spiritual practise, as it is not about running away or holding on to any set of views but through observation and understanding, those views releases themselves. What we hold on is what that holds us tightly.

It is good to remind ourselves to see every experience of life as a spiritual endeavour, through the doorway of the mind.

The disciples asked him, “Do you want us to fast? How should we pray? Should we give to charity? What diet should we observe?” J said, “When you go into any region and walk in the countryside, and people take you in, eat what they serve you. After all, what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, it’s what comes out of your mouth that will reveal you.”

–  The Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas

Letting go of thoughts

The mind remains undetermined in the great Void.
Here the highest knowledge is unbounded.
That which gives things their thusness cannot be delimited by things.
So when we speak of ‘limits’, we remain confined to limited things.
The limit of the unlimited is called ‘fullness.’
The limitlessness of the limited is called ’emptiness.’
Tao is the source of both.
But it is itself neither fullness nor emptiness.

[translated by Thomas Merton]

(taken in tibet)

They say beauty is in the mind of the beholder. And I define beauty as a view of the beholder – as there is in reality, no beauty out there except a conceptual perception of how and what things should be in a certain way. Yours and my perception of beauty are entirely different. Yes, while there are times when we are in congruent with what we see, but even then we never really know what is in each other’s mind.

Environment is an example. About two weeks ago, I was invited to view a house that was going out for sale. Being in that prestigious environment for many a times now, I was expecting to see another beautiful architecture coming into my view. But I was cautioned beforehand instead that the house for sale would not be what we thought it was. Being open to new experiences, and partially curious with what the seller was defining, I was keen to explore what’s in store for me.

We arrived early and waited for the caretaker to open the gate. The land being steep in terrain disallowed us to view the house from where we were standing. By observing what was around the gate we came to a conclusive idea that this house was unlike any usual design and I also observed that my mind was not in its usual comfortable state. Awhile later, the caretaker turned up and we were driven up to the house.

Being prepared for the unexpected, what I saw was not what I expected – the unexpected expectations, I mean. Being an architectural draftsman for over eleven years, the design to my opinion was shabby, disorientated and lack of aesthetic value. In short, it was not confined to my perceived idea of how a house should be like, hence there was no beauty in it.

As I viewed the house along with my friends, I could not help but be watchful of another unseen friend walking by my side; not spirit or ghost as you may think; but rather the internal dialogue going on in the mind. Whatever the mind saw, it saw with judgments – structure made of used materials, walls done up with styrofoams (yes, compounded styrofoams), unfinished walls exposing the bricks, mortar and rugged plastering. Beer bottles were cemented to a section of its wall, probably to create a signature of uniqueness, which to my internal commentator, was tasteless.

There was nothing that I could see beauty in. Being mindful of the judgments, I made myself comfortable at the open terrace that overlooked an unclean pond, with a few fishes in it. Somehow despite all those negativity of perceptions going on in the mind, the air exuberated a sense of peace and tranquillity. Here I started to look into my own ideas and came to an interesting observation and realization. People who are connected to nature would have probably view this house as a piece of art and for them to stay in a sanitized, clean and neat properly-designed concrete house can probably be a devastating experience to their inner soul. On the opposite, those from the modern society with luxurious homely experiences would probably not see this as a house, not to mention stay in it.

As I observed my understanding ravelled in that moment, I could see the judgments I had about the house earlier slowing fading away. In a very interesting way, like the movie Avatar, where the colours of the invisible world is much more vivid and contrasting, pale in comparison to those in the human dimension, I suddenly came to an awareness of the richness of the place. I was being opened up to the creation of love – that the house was created out of joy and love without being confined to a standard image of what it should or should not be. The housebuilder, I was told, built it without having any specific idea in mind, except a rough sketch of the defined areas the owner wished to have. Obviously, the owner himself trusted the builder without reservation!

It is a work of intuitive abiding and the builder himself carried his work without anticipating what came up in his way; without time and space constraint. Hence the work that I, in the beginning saw as a rundown house, suddenly transformed to beauty, in my mind. What I then saw again was no longer “wrong” but simply a magical piece of art, transformed from the act of love.

And all it takes was just a shift of perception. Did anything change out there? No. What changed was my view. Hence beauty is always in the mind, irrelevant how I define the world. What I defined is all here in me. Period.

It is a lesson of not to trust what the mind defines – and yet it is not about rejecting, pushing away or even holding on to what occurs in the mind but to be present and detached without giving any possible meaning or truth to it.