Of Oceans and Waves

When we think of ourselves, do we think individually or do we think collectively? Although not all the time but most of the time, the answer is individually. "I" comes up more often than "We" during our thought proccesses.

Why is that so? It is simply how we are being conditioned over the years and generations. From a very young age, our education has included "I", "You", "He", "She", "We" and "They". Taught in such a way to differentiate individuals but the truth is, the effects are more than just differentiation. To a certain degree, it conditions our mind to separates ourselves from others. Is this good or bad?

When we look deeper, we cannot say if such a thought process is truly good or bad. We can see that it is like a double edged sword, it can be used both ways. It depends on how we used it. We can used it to stop ourselves from destructive actions such as using "I" to separate ourselves from the rest who are dwelling in ways and dealings that do not better our lives or the lives of our loved ones. But when it comes to dwelling on our own misfortunes, the word "I" may not be as useful as it has a tendency to exaggerate the situation. Sometimes bad enough to start a whole chain of reactions that worsen the situation further. This is when the word "We" comes in very useful. It can help us to regain better clarity of the situation, to look beyond "I" and see the full picture with objectivity.

Just as the Buddha has taught, we can be liken to waves and oceans. A wave in its rise and fall is like us individually, the birth (rise) and death (fall) of a person. Some waves are big and strong while some are small and weak. While most of us will be the little waves, leading a most ordinary life but there are some who rises above the rest, seemingly a life that is not so ordinary, be it full of glitter or be it full of turbulence. But we need to look beyond the waves, not to lose sight of the ocean itself.

A wave is ocean. Although a wave itself is a distinct phenomenon it cannot be separated from ocean. When the conditions ripens enough to cause a wave, nothing is added to ocean. When the activity of wave ceases, nothing has been taken away from ocean as well. The ocean is still the ocean.

Maybe that is one of the reasons why people feel calmer when watching the sea. It tends to gives one a sense of belonging to something bigger than self. Oh, if you are the sort that gets sea sick easily, you look at a patch of grassland or a range of moutains or the clouds in the sky, it should work just as well. Sorry if it sounds a little cold.. my sense of warped humour tends to get the better of me =P

Breakdown

Last nite..

and it was the first time i experienced hyperventilation syndrome..

Today's Epilogue

11 Dec 2008 - a day where the atmosphere in the office was far from usual.

Eyes darted towards each slightly exaggerated movement in our visual corners. Ears perked up each time the doors opened and closed slightly louder than normal. You can almost literally feel your hair standing in the air and your nerves tingling beneath the skin.

Words and information exchanged quickly between men and women alike; something is not right. Everyone is wondering - Where is he? Why does he not return to his work station? Yes, the people involved in the exercise were notified today. Spirits were further dampened with the rain beating upon the window panes. Hmmph, as if it was not melodramatic enough. Attention turned inwards, almost everyone had the same thought, "Will i be next?" So immersed in their thoughts, some jumped even at the sound of their phones ringing.

Emotions were clearly etched on everyone's face. There's no hiding it, each one wearing a different facial expression. Seeing a familiar go, tears were threatening to flow for some while others simply relieved that they were not part of the exercise. For the rest, Resentment? Surprise? Shock? I cannot tell for sure but the feelings are definitely not positive. So were mine, it doesn't feel good to see someone leave without a closure. Especially when he has been one of the better new found friends since i joined.

Job Cuts..

As announced to the media, there's going to be a job reduction exercise in the firm due to Strategic Change.

A total of more than 5,300 jobs will be made redundant and that is more than 10% of our total workforce. From what is known, it appears that we in the Asia Pacific region will be hit hardest.

The namelist will be announced soon in the month itself and i believe it will be these couple of days. So, who is affected? Maybe me? Who knows? Let's wait for the announcement then.

Sweet Camomile

Since her first concert here in Singapore 4 years ago, Emi Fujita will be holding her second concert this Sat 13 Dec 2008 in Esplanade.

Because of my indecisiveness, I missed the first concert. I was left with choices of the most expensive seats by the time i made up my mind. It was too late. Back then, i simply do not have the budget to get a pair of tickets at 100 plus each.

Now, i'm 4 years older and with a little more spending power. So, i'm not going to miss it if i can possibly help it. Yup, i holding a pair of the Cat B passes. =)

I can still recall the time when i first heard her voice in Music Junction at Plaza Singapura 5 years back. They were playing the song "What a Wonderful World" from her second Camomile album, Camomile Blend.

It touched and i was so absolutely captivated by it. From that moment, i knew i was going to walk out from that music store with a copy of the album in my hands. The album surpassed my expectations and i keep recommending it to my colleagues. For those who heard her, they may not become a overnight fan like me but they definitely did agree that she was gifted with a most soothing voice. As for me since then, i've been looking out for her new works each time i pop into a music store.

Yes, i am so looking forward to this Sat! =)

Happiness of A Car Salesman

Just to share a little short story that was told by Venerable Mahinda during a Dhamma talk, a story about a car salesman and his index of happiness.

"There was a car salesman who measured his happiness in life each month using a very simple formula - no. of cars that was actually sold / no. of cars he expects to sell. So during months when car sales were good, the salesman was filled with happiness but when times were bad, so was his mood."

"Take for example, he expects to sell 100 cars each month. In one of the months, he sold 75 cars - based on the formula, he would be 75% happy. A good percentage since he was happy most of the time. But what if he sold a single car during the month, then he would only be 1% happy - isn't that sad?"

"So the salesman tries extremely hard each month to sell as many cars as he could. But little did he realise, there is a much easier way to happiness - to lower his expectations."

"Remember the earlier formlua? If the denominator is 1 and not 100, he will be a very happy man, at least 100% happy if he managed to sell just 1 car alone. But what if we learn not to have Zero expectations? Anything divided by zero is always infinite in a maths formula, then our happiness will be infinite."

In just a simple short story, Bhante has provided a quick insight how much unhappiness can be caused when one has too much expectations in life, no matter whether the expectations are for ourselves or others.

However, we must not confuse expectations with goals, we still need to have goals in life so that we have something to work for so that we do not become complacent or lazy. With goals in life, we can make plans and place our efforts in the right direction and not let our thoughts or actions wander about mindlessly.

We may think of a goal as a destination, a snow-capped mountain that is a thousand miles away. From far, we already have the mountain in sight. If we expect to reach mountain in the next 2 hours, we are likely to be disappointed since it is very unlikely we can do so. But if we forget about pushing time to reach the mountain and just simply walk towards it with no expectation on the time required to get there, we may even find ourselves enjoying the walk itself.

Isn't that a lot nicer? =)

Breathing Mindfully

Watching your breath? Have you ever done so? Is it fast and hard or is it slow and steady?

Breath mindfulness is a technique that has been taught for thousand of years. You may wonder, don't we all know how to breathe? Yes, we all know how to but over the years as we grow, we forget, we forget how to breathe without a care.

Remember when we are all still a child, all of us knew how to breathe, how to do so without a care, to breathe each breath and marvel in each and every moment as we fill our lungs with air. Why not take this moment, slow down, put away whatever you are doing and just watch your breathe for a few minutes or so?

It is a marvellous feeling when we settle into it, our breath becomes lighter and so does our heart and mind. Our mind may be filled with activities at first but as we practice it over time, it becomes easier to be more mindful of our breaths. Most of us as we start off, our breaths are hard and fast because of the tension that has been built up in our mind and body over the years. But just let our body and mind settle and our breaths will follow suit. It will start to slow down and we will find that each intake of breath becoming smoother.

Our breaths can be reflected to be a mirror of our lives. Like each moment in life, each breath is unique in its own rights, some long, some short, some hard, some smooth, reflecting impermanence. Our bodies rise and fall as we breathe in and out, just like our lives, birth (rise) and death (fall) with some days of our lives somewhat harder than the rest while some days are more pleasant. As we reflect on this while we watch our breaths, we will understand life a little better and with that understanding, we naturally become more lighthearted and just simply marvel in the simplictity of it all.

Now that we realise breathing is such a big event, will you spend a few minutes of your time with it everyday? =)

My Workstation @ ORL

It's been over 3 months since we moved from ORQ to ORL. Here's a little peek to how my corner looks like.. its a pity those partitions are metal, so not much space for me to pin up fotos. Other than that, its still pretty much cosy like my previous workstations. =)

Shingles Part 2

According to Wikipedia, the occurence of Shingles is 1.2 to 3.4 cases per 1,000 healthy individuals. That works out to be about 0.12% to 0.34% chances of contracting Shingles.

Sometimes when events like this happens to ourselves, we tend to ask the question, "Why me of all people?" and start lamenting about our situation. Doing so serves no wholesome purpose and will only worsen our mentality and slow down the recovery of our body since a body cannot be well without a healthy mind.

In turn, why not ask ourselves the question the other way round, "Why not?" What makes us so special that we are spared instead and not others? This will help us to take stock of the entire situation in a more holistic manner.

After all, we are all sentient beings subjected to the 4 conditions, Birth, Old Age, Sickness and Death and no one is spared from such.

Shingles

Think i got the shingles, in Chinese it is know as 生蛇..

The symptons started on saturday nite, its getting progressively worse. It starts from my chest area and it stretches all the way to my back spinal area.

It causing me no small amount of pain and discomfort.. not only that it is causing my social life too and i missed a very impt message on monday nite..

More information abt it can be found in the below link..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingles

Unthoughtfulness

I was pretty unthoughtful and i did not realise it till Qin hinted to me today, my bad.. it was something that i should have taken note of.. heehee, to make it worse, it was a lesson that i could learn from my 2 very good friends. so here i am, making this entry so that whenever i happen to revisit my blog, i can reflect again on how to be a little more thoughtful to those people whom i hold close to my mind =)

Test Feed to Facebook

Facebook has a function to import feed.. so here goes.. not sure if it works.. so i'm testing now

好久不見

好久不見 by Eason 陳奕迅 - a most heartwenching song that i find reflective of my mood over the last few months.

Club 123

Its a new "club" that we started in our department -

Some of us have been working more than 12 hours a day, even up to as much as 16, for most of our work days during the last 5 weeks or so.

Guessed the couple of us are feeling rather drained out and it was one of these days that the idea just came upon me.. you know.. just eureka! i said to EG (my korean colleague), " Hey 123! Dinner? We are going now." and she looked up with a perplexed face, "Ya, dinner ok. But what's 123?" "Haha, its 1 man, 2 shifts, 3 regions"

Hearing that EG and i broke into a hearty laughter with the rest of my colleagues. It sort of lighten up the mood in the office when everyone were so engrossed in their work staring into the LCD screen sitting in front of us.

Its important to work hard but its just as important to take a break when one is needed. And more importantly to work lightheartedly even though the tough is going. =)

向左走.向右走

向左走.向右走 by 梁咏琪 is one of my favourite movie theme songs and i love this line 两条平行线总有交汇的一天.



How can 2 parallel lines meet? Is it possible? I can think of 1 way. Maybe you can think of another?

Imagine these 2 lines on a piece of paper just like below.
____________________________________________
____________________________________________

Draw dotted a line between them at equal distance.
____________________________________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
____________________________________________

Fold the paper at the dotted line and the 2 lines will meet. Parallel lines do meet =)

Alternative Perspectives

Imagine looking at a stick flat, it will probably look like this
_____________________

Turn it around and look at one end, it will end up looking like this
.

Liken to a coin with 2 sides, there's always duality in all situations, there is no absolute.

Even time, although we can measure it in seconds, minutes, hours, days and years, it is still relative to our perspective. We can tell that from examples that occur in our daily lives - A sec is too long for a anxious husband whose wife is in the operating theatre but a day is too short when a newly wedded couple is on their wedding honeymoon.

Capsules

Some fun shots that i did sometime back with the miniature DragonBall characters that i got from capsules =)

这一秒你好不好

A song by 许志安 that was released way back in 2001 but a song that i still find light and soothing to the ears even today as i hear it.

想你风就停了
刚好不迟不早
想你会在做什么呢
会不会也孤单呢

这一秒你好不好
希望你会微笑
有你我觉得我重要
我会努力成为你的骄傲

如果这一秒钟你想起我的笑容
那是同一秒钟你浮现我脑海中
如果当寂寞穿透思念是一种痛
亲爱的没有人比我懂

世界这一秒钟多少爱都已落空
庆幸这一秒钟我们仍心意互通
言语虽无法形容却真实的可以触碰
我的世界只为你转动

Especially the words highlighted in yellow, that's how i hope you are each time i think of you.

The Leap Years

Just watched The Leap Years on DVD - its not too bad a film.

Nothing to really rave about but nonetheless it is one of the better local films that appeared on the big screen this year. Btw, i do feel that Singapore was portrayed rather beautifully throughout the show.

If you wish to learn more about the film, you can visit the official website - http://www.mediacorpraintree.com/TLY/

What really caught my attention was the quotes used at each junction of the movie. Two of them especially.

William Shakespeare: It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

Robert Frost: In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

I find it very Zen like, very much in the spirit of buddhism. Just like what Buddha has once said, "You are the child of your past, parent of your future, the captain of your own ship."

These quotes remind us how we are the ones who really determine how we live and how impermanent all conditioned things are.

Things and events are always in a constant flux and though we may not have complete control on how these events will turn out but we definitely can influence them and even more so, to decide on our own mindset about them.

It goes on, does it not?

In Remembrance of My Godfather, Ho

My paternal uncle, also my godpa, Ho who passed away on 16th July.

What can be said of him? I'm sure there's alot to him that i have never known and will never know. What ever in the future i can learn of him will be through his legacy, his children and grandchildren - my cousins and their babies. How they live and how they remember him will be the best testament to his efforts in living his life fully.

There is one thing i know for sure - he had great passion in social work and spent a great deal of time serving the community. His lifelong efforts were recognised when he was awarded the public service medal years back. But that is not important as the fact that his passion and involvement in social work had benefitted individuals and the community.

I hope that the merits he generated in his living years will continue to flow strong like his name, Ho - translate as river in the years ahead. May it gather more strength as time goes by, just like how a trickle becomes a stream, a stream joins many to form into a river with the flow gaining strength each moment it flows downstream. With metta.