Category: General

A good self-help program can be at my reach, a good motivational speaker can be an inspiration to me, a good family can be giving me all the support, a blessed spiritual friend can share everything what she thought is best for me – yet, whether it is the one thing or a thousand over approaches, if I am not willing to understand what ideas am I holding on, I may not be experiencing what they are sharing with me.

My wife showed me a wonderful clinical handbook on mindfulness this morning and while going through it with her, I found the materials informative. And it got me pondering. What is the difference between someone having right information approaching that material and another not having any information at all. Information in term of understanding how the mind works. If I do not know how the mind works and start working on mindfulness, the end result will defer from those who already have preliminary understanding of the working of the mind. Here lies the irony. Everything in the world I perceived is not exactly what it is.

We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are
– The Talmud

If I am wearing a color glasses, I am not seeing just the color of the glasses in whatever I see, I am seeing colors with a mix. In other words, if my views are strongly rooted in a certain belief, the way I look at things will be supportive of my belief. Let me share a simple example here on the precept of abstinence from killing found in Buddhism. The first of the five precepts says I take the precepts to abstain from taking life.

There are three parts to it. There is a “I”, abstain, and taking life.

At a glance I may take it for granted to mean I shall not kill. Now, that is an unquestioned new idea I am blindly accepting from a already-existing-idea in my consciousness that makes me see it that way. What happens when I have this idea? I will see killing as bad, as wrong, as against my religion. When I see it as wrong I will judge those who involve in killing. I will see the world as wrong, so to speak. When there is wrong, there is obviously anger in me.  When I don’t kill I will see myself as right and good. Doing so makes me think I am right and others are wrong. From being wise I become arrogant – all starts from this tiny mad idea which I have unquestionably accept.

If I do not give attention to the word “abstain”, I am meaning it to say “must not” which is entirely a different meaning all together. And even that idea will make me righteous or guilty depending where I am at.

Now if I ignore the word “I” from that statement, which I normally do as I have taken it for granted, that missing “I” will create a big difference in how I interprete the precept. I will see wrongness in others when they kill. But the precept has nothing to do with anyone else except me as that is what I undertake. I can’t undertake for anyone for that matter and thus it is not my business to judge what others do.

One sentence is enough to change the way I look at life. How many meanings come to my head in one moment, not to mention the uncountable meanings that I am picking up in a day. If I am not aware and precise in my observation, I am drowned in ideas that binds me away from what is, from Truth.

Am I misguiding myself frequently? I am not doing justice to religion, to all the past Masters.

The world what is now, is what I am.

Welcome to a new era of movie-screening, where there is no need for a special room with total darkness for projection. Neither is there a necessity for special sound effects to make it real. Everything is here on-site wherever you want it to be, right in front and around, over and below you in 3D reality without needing a big screen effect. The holographic experience makes you feel there is no separation between you and the movie. You can either be a spectator of the movie or in the movie, identifying with everything around you – from the ground you are standing on, to the props around you and the cast that is acting out the scene.

Have you seen Avatar lately? If you give attention to the cinematography and the computer graphics involved, you will observe that each new movie that comes along is getting more realistic and mind-blowing. The animation part is no longer robotic. The computer graphics and the real actors can’t be differentiated, they seems to be one with each other, seamlessly. There is no flaw for you to recognize that one is real and the other unreal. It is like standing between the door of the dream and reality. You can’t distinct them anymore. Their flow of movement is so surreal.

The new era of movie will be such that you can change the scene whenever you get involved in it.  Each time when you identified with the moment, the scene changes adapting to your thoughts and emotions. As such the movie will be real-time, changing according to your imaginations, feelings and thoughts. The scene is continuous and there is no ending to it. You practically eat, breathe and sleep in it. Even when you are asleep, the movie continues on in your dream.

The movie technology develops further and takes on a new level, allowing you to feel, touch and sense practically everything around you. In the beginning, you can’t differentiate whether it is just a movie or a reality. Overtime everything is forgotten. You took on a new position – the movie becomes your reality, and the reality that you have been in before no longer exist in your space. Overtime you become one with the movie.

This movie is in realtime and never-ending, dictated by your emotions and thoughts. It changes according to your perceptions. You eat, bathe, swim, play, everything you can do – with the movie. You no longer realized it is a movie for it becomes your reality. You don’t even have the slightest idea that you have switch from reality to illusion for the transition between them is seamless. That is what birth and death is, to many.

One day, a serial of questions arose in you for reasons you are not apparent to. What if what I am going through now is not real? What is it like to be out from this reality? How do I go about it seeing that possibility? And hence begins your journey out from it. You start taking little notice of what is around you. You become more and more aware of the flaws that is found in this reality that is not congruent to your observation. The movie that is influenced by your thoughts and emotions flow according to your suspiciousness. Each time you are in doubt, the flaws are no longer seen as flaws. And each time you wake up from it, the flaws become apparent.

You start to observe a salient differentiation between your awareness and doubtful states, define by the apparent changes in what you are experiencing. You begin to incline more and more to the wakeful states, like a detective looking out for flaws, yet at the same time, not acting out the play so as not to be deceived back into the movie. You also observed that you have to give attention to the wakeful state consistently or else the movie takes you over.  Recognizing your wakeful states becomes your anchor. Your attention is now given inwards rather than what is out there – the movie. While anchoring yourself in wakefulness you continue searching for flaws that is blocking you from seeing the reality that you begin to trust. You need to remember the movie is close to perfection and thus seeking for flaws only makes the movie more real.

And so you learn to relax into the movie, without doing anything, awake in a state of being, of non-involvement and full acceptance, while observing the ongoing processes that is making the movie real. The more you observe, the more unreal the movie is; the more you see the irrelevancy of the movie.

By now you know for certain that there is a bigger truth “out there” beyond the movie that you are in. Your interest in ending the movie is real and yet you can’t hasten. You just continue your wakeful state and observations. And soon before you know it, you have arrived at the Reality. You are Home.

Metaphorically, to express the journey in a linear way, enlightenment and ego-centric stands at the opposing sides of the pole, with common similarities in nature but vast differences in experience. To begin with, before the meaning of the journey came to my understanding, I am one with the ego, identified totally with it without me even questioning or realizing that potentially there is a way out of that space. I am one with it, so to speak. Due to a certain conditioning that is beyond my knowledge, a tiny wise idea pops up in my space showing me the possibility of freedom from this dis-ease, which, in the beginning, was not perceived as a dis-ease at all – for there is no questioning why I was suffering, or rather, I was not even aware I was suffering, taking it for granted as part and parcel of life.

With that tiny light of possibility shined upon me, I begin to be more and more aware of the identification with the self or ego. The wise idea slowly grows in me, showing me glimpses of the possibility of detaching from the ego. Slowly, but surely, developing the skill of observing, I learned to observe impartially with acceptance, thus experiencing the ego rather than being the ego.  From being the experience I am now being the observer of the experience.

The journey slowly took on a phase where I see the potential of moving out entirely from the ego into a space that is free from ego. Throughout the journey, the experience is all about observing and understanding the presence of ego, and in doing so the ego is undone. Awareness is key. With awareness, unawareness is replaced. Seeing the contrast of these two experiences, the wise part of me inclines towards awareness, which over time becomes my nature. In the past unawareness was my nature. From the egoic space of unwareness, the mind inclines towards the wisdom space of awareness. Each moment of undoing the ego, is a moment of wakefulness, awakening from the dream state of ignorance.

Momentum naturally increases as the interest towards wakeful state grows. At this point, the experience seems to convey the ego is opposing my journey. It is like the analogy of a stream. When I am looking towards the flow of the stream I am flowing with it. When I turn and look against the flow, the current seems to be against me. Such is the way of contrast. In fact, the perception of the ego opposing begins when the step of observing mind is taken, but it only grows in intensity when the journey gets closer to the other pole, liken the gush of the stream gets stronger from the origin. Thus when I finally arrived closer to the the gateless gate of freedom, awaiting there is the illusion of the stronghold of ego, in the final phase of crossing. This is exactly the metaphor of Siddhartha facing the retinue of Mara prior to his enlightenment.

Being aware it is just a conjuring of the mind, I continued developing wakefulness until arriving at the other shore where I am one with what is there. To say “I am one with” is incorrect as “I am” only exist in the egoic state.

At the end pole of enlightenment, there is one with what is – unidentified. At the end pole of the ego, there is one with what is – identified. At the beginning of one end there is a tiny mad idea, at the beginning of the other end there is a tiny wise idea.Closer to enlightenment, ego is seen as a threat; closer to ego, enlightenment is seen as a threat. Each has awareness and unawareness opposing each other. On one end, the “I” is created; on the other the “I” is uncreated. One is manifested, the other unmanifested. The world is conditioned. Enlightenment is unconditioned.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
– Rumi