身影

我剛才乘搭地鐵時好像看到一位側影相似Qin在MacPherson站下車。也來不及確認但心情絕對變得七上八下。不知道我是否錯過了與Qin見面的機會又或是我想太多，眼睛在跟我開玩笑...

Mind is No Mind. Mind is Luminosity

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche mentioned this in his recent talk at University of Carlifornia, Berkeley - Buddha once said Mind is No Mind. Mind is Luminosity.

Rinpoche clarified that though this statement itself looks and sounds contradictory but it presents the essence of the Buddha Dhamma, the non-duality nature of all phenomena.

Mind is a valid relative truth and yet when we analysed deeply enough, mind is but a concept that can be deconstructed in the ultimate truth / reality.

And this is the tricky part. Once we start to talk about the ultimate truth and conceptualise it, we must remember the ultimate truth now falls under the scope of relative truth. It is now bound by the limitations of the relative reality.

That is why Buddha often taught that the path is no path and as often he spoke of enlightenment, he also mentioned in his sermons that there is no enlightenment. Samsara and nibbana cannot be separated.

However that does not mean to say that enlightenment does not exist or is not valid anymore. As long as our minds are cluttered and bound by the notion of self, we are still trapped within the boundaries of the relative reality. And so the path Buddha prescribed is still valid, making it a useful tool to help us break free, to attain liberation in this relative reality.

When the mind is luminous, only then can we experience samsara and nibbana simultaneously, realising they are both one and not separated.

Circle Mirror Transformation

Great evening out with Elieen, we had very good seats allocated to us. It was definitely worthwhile getting the season tickets again from Pangdemoniun. I have been getting very decent seatings so far for the last 2 years. Excellent view.

Here are some of my thoughts and feelings about the show Circle Mirror Transformation. In summary, it was intensely real to me. Having the privilege of being a part of drama club during my polytechnic days, the activities in Circle Mirror Transformation definitely had a ring of familiarity to it.

The show is about average people, real issues and their interaction with one another. It is about how most of us act to cover up our fears and weakness, how sometimes all it takes is the right trigger and the right opportunity for these issues to intensify and surface. When it does, majority of us will be hoping for a little help and a listening ear but yet we hold back and play down the moment, acting as if it was something else. As we grow older, we have all become very good at this. So here is a play about a bunch of people learning how to act. How apt and ironic at the same time.

I love the way how little moments of awkwardness were cleverly directed to pop up at the appropriate moments throughout the show. One such moment was when Adrian Pang had the conversation with Neo Swee Lin about night terrors. Clearly Adrian touched onto a sensitive area of Swee Lin's. She looked for a quick moment as if she was pleading for help, wanting more advice or at least to hear more from Adrian and Adrian struggled to find a right approach to offer his help and that little awkwardness surfaced. It was so real. How many times in life do we see this play out time and again? More often than we care to admit. 

Although it was an immensely fun show filled with laughter, it is undeniably a well thought out production that showcases about interpersonal relationships between your average run of the mill people. That's how Pangdemonium won me over again with this production - simply because I can relate to the characters as they seemed so real.

Below are some photos of the cast with Adrian thanking the sponsors after the show. You can see how close we were to the stage.  

 

Reconnection

It is amazing how people can reconnect even after 15 years later. It was almost as if we had picked up the conversation right from when we last met, and could hardly feel there was 15 years in between.

I suppose this is what we commonly termed as affinity or karma, something that science cannot explain. It is a direct experience; we just simply know within ourselves if we are comfortable with the other party, how much we can trust and communicate with. Sometimes we struggle to find a reason or explanation why we connect better with some than the others. Maybe we struggle so because there is simply no need to explain the better connectivity. It simply is.

For that i am glad you found my number, allowing us to establish the connection once again. See you soon again :)

Egoistic 2014

In "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying", Sogyal Rinpoche wrote about Ego, how it traps and deceives, causing us to suffer endlessly in this Samsara state. For the last 2 days in 2014, i have contemplated and came to realised how much truth there was in Rinopche's writings, chapters he touched on the subject Ego. 

Ego comes in many forms and manners, but its underlying issue stems from ourselves, how we view ourselves and the world around us. When we are not able to see past our pride, our attachments, our "self", ego has a easy time convincing us that we are "better" or "higher" in the material sense of world, giving us a false sense of inflated self. When that happens, it hinders our development, both in character and spiritually.

Earlier this year, i had a change of portfolio in work, the third in 3 years working for this department. It is not common to have a constant change of portfolio when some colleagues in the department went without much changes in their scope of work for years. I believed it was a recognition of my abilities, comparing to my peers, my bosses had a view that i will be able to undertake the tasks involved more effectively.

My pride in work and this inflated self was further boosted when my department head said during the half year review that he could not see any other who could have done it better. He needed someone strong from the team to handle the changes and he saw me as one of the senior guys (among those who held the same corporate title), making me by far the best choice.

How my pride and inflated self burst during the year end review that i was in fact compared to the "junior members" of the team who were considered to be the same generation as myself. Owing to such a comparison, my performance for 2014 was considered outstanding. Most people would have been very happy in my stead to receive such praise from their managers, saying their work was outstanding. But i felt no such thrill, no such jubilation at what i heard.

I realised the lack of joy was because my inflated ego had made me believed that there was a need for me to perform much more, at a higher standards so that i can be measured against whom i considered to be the more "senior" colleagues. At that point in time, i would have felt better receiving a lesser rating. I had such an egoistic view that a lesser rating among the "seniors" was much better than an outstanding rating among the "juniors".

As i reflected on my feelings and meditated on it, the more i realised how false this ego and self is. This "senior" and "junior" view was simply how biased and subjective i viewed the work around me, making me trying to live up to phantom standards that were not there in the first place, prompting me to recall a story about a car salesman and his index of happiness that Bhante told us during a Dhamma talk - you can read it here

I do not see this experience negatively. Rather than let this ego inflate further by false praises and expectations, hindering spiritual and character development, it is better it burst, allowing me to reconsider my priorities and expectations, walking towards a better 2015 and beyond. 

With this, i end 2014 and wish whoever is reading this post a very Happy New Year filled with much joy and happiness.

A PG Breakfast

I was in my old neighbourhood, Ang Mo Kio Ave 10 for my half yearly dental appointment this morning. It was time for some breakfast after the appointment, I decided to pop over to food center at block 453 (453 market as we know it affectionately) to see if I could join my old pops for breakfast. 

There he was at his usual spot with 2 of his friends. They looked about my father's age, late sixties to mid seventies. I called out to my pa and greeted his friends, uncles in the Sinagporean fashion. In Singapore, any person older than yourself is usually termed as uncle or auntie out of respect for their seniority. 

I sat down beside my pa and ordered my breakfast. While I was midway through the meal, my real paternal uncle, 小叔, passed by. Called out to him and he joined us at our table. 

They started swapping stories about who used to make the best soy bean drink, the best carrot cakes, best fishballs in the past. Unlike these days where most food material came from factories. My pa even remarked that these days even the fishballs are the same size and weight in contrast to the good old days when they were made by hand, lots of texture and flavour despite the irregular sizes and weight. 

They also talked about our government and PAP, how years were good during the 70s and 80s. Everyone could make a comfortable living as long as they worked hard. Shared their opinions and of course, not without a few gripes of their own.

Suddenly I had this feeling that I was a teenager all over again, surrounded by real adult men. It was a good warm feeling on a rainy day. These guys were the heroes of the past. They grew and toiled during our early nation building years, having little or no material comforts. 

They are who in my eyes un-breakable in spirit and willpower despite all the hardships they been through even if the weight of years and hard work causes their backs to bend a little, their eyes a little dimmer today. They are the real deal, Pionner Generation. It was my honour to breakfast with them. 

Active Laziness - Dying before Living

 

The day we were born, we are destined to die. Yet knowing so, most of us are not equipped to handle death well. We go about our lives as if we will live forever and tomorrow always come; believing our family, friends, jobs with all material possessions we hold on will be there in the future as they were yesterday and today. Death then comes as a rude shock to us when we encounter it, how we weep and wail when someone close and dear to us dies.

 

Intellectually, everyone knows that death is inevitable but majority choose to ignore it, numbing ourselves with activities that do not better ourselves or the lives of people around us. This is in stark contrast to older times when people devote time to spiritual studies, reflection and practice for actual realisation of their studies and faith. These days, we simply lose ourselves in a furry of activities, burying ourselves between work and entertainment.  

 

On page 19 of "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche, he wrote, “there are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style is like the one practiced to perfection in India. It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio, and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issue.” He calls that Active Laziness.

 

I cannot agree more especially as a person living in a cosmopolitan city like Singapore, we see this sort of Active Laziness on a daily basis. We are active, constantly on the move but despite all these activities, we hardly grow in our ability to deal with death; lazy in our spiritual development. The subject is brushed aside as if it never will happen. Even on our rest days, we filled them up with things to do; places to travel and visit. If we can remind ourselves of impermanence and that life can extinguish in the next moment, we might choose to do things a little different, to be a little more mindful of ourselves and the people around us.

 

It is important to find some time for quiet moments to self reflect, be in touch with our true nature. In addition it is just as important to touch the lives of others around us positively. It can be as simple as spending a few more minutes with our family, sharing precious silent moments, simply knowing we are there for each other. For a friend or a colleague, a simple gesture to bring them a little more joy or lend a listening ear when they need them. No matter how many places we visited, no matter how much material possessions or titles we amassed, there is nothing more real than the here and now, to be mindful of the living and stop the buzzing laziness so prevalent in us who live in this city state, Singapore that we call home.