The Spirit of Religion

Sometimes it amazes me how much respect we give to supposedly religious people. Being religious does not necessarily immediate make one a virtuous person. More often than not, it is a mask to hide a certain shortcoming in one's character.

I've written about it before and I'll state it again here: I'm not against religion per se but religion should not command more importance in the evaluation of a person's character than knowing his or her hobbies or favourite sports.  A person's adopted religion is a matter of upbringing and taste. Nothing more, nothing less. 

More often than not, religion is but a lifestyle choice. It comes in the form of dressing, the upkeep of a certain facial hairstyle and a distinct attitude towards life.

It is not surprising that many religious teachers and leaders abuse their position of authority in the community simply because the masses often give them too much respect, not realizing that they too are human beings, susceptible to the promptings of greed and pride. 

Every culture and civilization produces its own form of music, art and religion.  A greater part of religion is simply a cultural response to fear, the inevitability of death and the mystery of existence. No one has gone to hell nor heaven and come back to tell us what it is like. 

Religion at its best, dispenses some lessons in psychology an human behaviour. Its doctrine might even contain some good guidelines in community living which could have worked well at some point in the evolution of its people.  But to say that one must follow the rules and restrictions written in some book centuries ago as a kind of universal law ordained by God, is sheer nonsense. 

We must trust our own wisdom that takes into consideration the norms and challenges of the present times. Salvation comes from the struggle of the individual to better his or herself in response to the individual's unique circumstances. Religion could provide the inspiration and starting point but each person's spiritual quest is different from another's.

Let's all take religion in the right spirit. Honour its traditions, as one honours any school of art. Some of its doctrines could even be good rules-of-thumb and proven codes of conducts for human beings as social animals. But it is our divine right to take them further and create a new school of the spirit, that is a response to our unique times.

Peering into the Pandemic

 I've been taking a break these past few days, trying to clear some outstanding errands. Life requires maintenance and you have to schedule time for it. Work is easing too as the year ends because everyone else is taking leave. 

It is also time to reflect back on the year that passed. Despite the fact that the pandemic has impacted most of our lives negatively, I'd like to look at some of the positives that have come out of it.

The first good thing that the pandemic has done is that it has made everyone more hygiene-conscious. At no time in history has the human-race been driven to such concern towards cleanliness--being aware of everything we touch and washing our hands all the time. All food vendors have also been forced to raise their hygiene standards or risk being fined. It has been so much more pleasant to eat in restaurants that are far less crowded and where tables are cleared and cleaned more thoroughly.

There have been a lot less traffic on the road. This has contributed to better air-quality and less time wasted looking for parking or getting trapped in a traffic-jam. It has given us a glimpse of what the city can and should be--being car-free. 

The proliferation of cars is one of the things that make life less and less livable in the city. I look forward to the day when most people would order a driver-less vehicle to take them anywhere instead of taking the wheel themselves. I've often equated cars in the city to supermarket trolleys--why should anyone own one at all?

But I think the most important lesson that the pandemic taught us is this: we can make do with a lot less. So many of us have had our income reduced or decimated completely and yet most of us are still surviving. Yes, we cannot afford the little luxuries that we used to indulge in, but it's not the end of the world.  Staying at home and making do with a simple home-cooked meal is not something intolerable.  Not going to the mall for shopping unnecessarily actually helps us to save money. 

We learned to deal with boredom and restlessness. We find time to better ourselves and many of us picked up new skills--some out of necessity because they have lost their permanent jobs. Even though the pandemic imprisoned us in our homes, it has also yanked us out of our comfort zones. 

For many of us, it wasn't only our physical survival that had been threatened but the more challenging mental one. Mental health issues have certainly been brought to the forefront by the pandemic. A person's mental well-being is certain as important as his physical one. 

Mental strength and stability is something we need to consciously cultivate. More often than not, we find distractions to avoid deeper mental issues. People who meditate know how these deeper issues surface themselves during those quiet moments of contemplation and our task is allow them to find resolution. Burying them deep into the recesses of the mind will only make them pathological. 

The pandemic has forced us to look into ourselves. Some see an abyss staring back at them; other's see a glimmer light at the end of the tunnel.

A Saturday Nightcap

 It's that time of the year again: it's beginning to rain almost everyday, everyone is in a holiday mood and work is more relaxed. I was at the mall this morning and people appear to be regaining their courage to go out, despite the rising Covid-19 cases in Malaysia. The numbers are worrying but the vaccine is on its way. People are cautiously optimistic. 

I was sipping coffee at Starbucks and relaxing with a book. It's been a while since I was able to do that. Work has been very hectic the past 3 months and this weekend is a respite from it all. Tonight is a good time to write since I missed my blog post last week. 

I am not exactly a whiskey fan but tonight I decided open my bottle of Macallan which has been sitting on my shelf for a while. The cool weather certainly calls for a nightcap. 

It feels a bit like my days in Singapore, two decades ago. I was always drinking and writing in my small rented HDB room, surfing the Net on my, at that time, state-of-the-art 3Mbit/second ADSL connection.  I was way ahead of my time, watching the daily streaming news from CNA, when everyone else was struggling to send emails with their dialup connection.

I've not changed much. I've never been one to put career as my number one goal--even to the extent of telling my boss that. My attitude has always been: leave me alone to do my job, and I'll get it done. I don't expect praise nor accolades. That has always been my bad habit and certainly a career-limiting one. I worked for knowledge and experience. Every challenge made me a better person. And that was reward enough.

When I decided to move to Indonesia, my earnings dropped by half. But it was the best move I'd ever made. I could have stayed in Singapore if I wanted to, and would probably still be there now because it was such a comfortable place. I led a simple life--eating and reading at the foodcourt, taking the bus to office, listening to my audiobook cassettes and going to the movies after work. 

Surprising it was in Singapore--that metropolitan hub of unabashed materialism--that I advanced my interest in spirituality by leaps and bounds. It was there that I formed the core philosophical principles of my life, which I still adhere to. My posts in this blog, I think, capture many of my philosophical beliefs--thoughts that had been brewing in my head since those free and happy days in Singapore.

Life is less carefree nowadays, but I take every care that consumes my brain as a karmic knot that has to be untied. I'd been steadfast to the spiritual principles I had worked out in my tiny HDB bedroom in Singapore, and during those many long hours waiting at airports and sitting alone in planes on my way to different countries in the region. 

Perhaps one day I'll regain my wanderlust again. But for now I am contented, sitting in front of my computer screen, barely even stepping out of my house here in Subang Jaya. I'll probably drop by in Cyberjaya tomorrow since now inter-district restriction travel has been lifted. But that's as far as I'd go. Life is not elsewhere. I'm happy sipping my whiskey here and now.

Minding the Mind

You don't listen, do you? I don't think you ever really hear me. You just ask the same questions every week. "How's your job?" "Are you having any negative thoughts?"  

All I have are negative thoughts. 

- Arthur Fleck (Joker), played by Joaquin Phoenix

It's a relaxing Sunday at home and I'm feeling reasonably well-rested. It was good to finally get out of the house yesterday to have lunch with Myra at the Starling Mall. Like everyone else she was feeling a lot of anxiety over her loss of livelihood due to the pandemic. But I was happy to hear that she had over the last few months managed to act in a some telemovies and music videos. 

I advised her not to compare herself too much to others as she always feel that she is underachieving. Having goals is a good thing, but once they are set, we need to focus on the here and now. When you are always trying to peer over the horizon, you'll get a lot of anxiety as your destination appears to be never arriving. 

The future goal merely serves to help you lay down the direction of your track. But once a train is moving on the track, it never needs to look too far ahead. It just needs to look at possible obstacles immediately ahead, and ensure that nothing derails it. By doing just that, the train will arrive at its destination safely.

That's what I advised Myra.  Everyone feels inadequate about herself. There's always someone better than you. In a way, we'll never arrive at a point where we'll be completely satisfied with ourselves as there are always bigger goals to achieve. What is more important is to be better than who you were yesterday--that shows that you are growing and learning. 

That's what I've always felt to be my goal: to learn. What have I learned today that I did not know yesterday? It is important that we are constantly moving ahead and not to be weighed down by our past, at the same time ensuring that the pull of the future does not over-strain us.

This balancing act between the past and the future, is the essence of living in the present. True happiness is found in the here and now... That's what all the self-help gurus will tell you. And in your mind, you'll be thinking like The Joker in the quote above. ("But all I have are negative thoughts!").

How does one stop this flow of negative thoughts that keep coming incessantly into our present?  A thought is a vrtti--a whirlpool, or simply a wave in the mind. There are only 2 ways to stop a wave: 1. Attenuate it. 2. Neutralize it.

Attenuating a negative thought-wave is done by not reinforcing it. If we instinctively agree and follow its suggestion, we'll only increase its amplitude. All oscillations die away due to friction.  This is what mindfulness meditation trains the mind to do. 

You see a thought-wave coming, and you tell yourself: it is what it is. Nothing more nothing less and it too shall pass. And over time, your mind gets purified as less and less of its constituents will resonate with these thoughts. The half-life of every thought would be significantly reduced.

Sometimes you'd need to follow strategy 2, which is to neutralize a thought with an opposing thought. This is a bit of a 'brute force' method, but it is handy to have as a technique to douse a flame before it gets too large--you simply pour cold water to it. This is what many self-help books teach: to make positive affirmations: injecting a crest to neutralize a trough.  

But what if we are not mentally strong enough to pull ourselves together? That's when it is alright to seek the help of a friend or mentor. The mind is a peculiar thing. Even a cliche repeated by a friend can sometimes trigger a change, because we simply cannot pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. A helping hand, a small nudge in the right direction,  a shoulder to cry on, or even just a listening ear can often bring about a fresh perspective and restore balance.

As we like to say here in Malaysia during this pandemic: kita jaga kita. Let's take care of each other during these difficult times. And mental health is as important as its physical counterpart. By giving advise to Myra, I also remind myself to practice what I preach, which--more often than not--is not the case. 

The Surface World

The human mind likes novelties. We constantly need stimulus and diversions. It is no wonder why solitary confinement is so dreaded even among seasoned prisoners. 

And yet, there are monks who choose to meditate alone in a cave for years. These mental athletes know that beneath the surface noise of the mind, lies latent truths about the reality of our existence. But for most of us, our lives are spent swimming on that foamy and turbulent surface, trying to stay afloat, believing that deep down beneath, only annihilation awaits us.

Every time we turn on the TV, every time we click a web link or swipe our phone, we are making an unconscious move to remain afloat on the noisy surface. It brings a whole new meaning to 'surfing'. 

To live on this surface, we need to be connected to the larger world, so that we do not sink into a nothingness, which is like a dreaded abyss. The Tibetan monks have no such fear; instead they become explorers of this terra incognita. But we surface-dwellers are always feeling insecure. 

 Our need for novelty make us susceptible to juicy gossips, scandalous rumours and outlandish conspiracy theories. We want to believe that the world is fully of heroes or villains and nothing in between, when in reality most people are neither. We want things in stark contrast against each other because it takes a lot of brain CPU time to make subtle distinctions.

The simpler things are, the easier it is for the brain to digest them. The brain like its low-brow counterpart, the stomach, is addicted to junk food. Bite-sized, interesting and juicy information are what it desires most. And that's what we get from Tweets and other social media.

It is no wonder that the world is no longer able to decide what is the truth anymore. We can no longer agree even on facts. There are always 'alternate facts'. And we can easily contaminate facts by simply labeling it as 'fake news'. We can make conspiracy theories acceptable by simply broadcasting it loudly, as if they are facts.

We are sharing a planet but not a world anymore. How did we arrive here? In a way, it is inevitable. Technology such as social media merely amplified divisions which have always been there. 

The surface world is fractured. Everyone clings tightly to whatever they are comfortable with, for fear of falling through the cracks. If we just would care to peer down these cracks, we could catch a glimpse of what those Tibetan monks spend their lives seeking, in those cold dark caves.

Spiritual Fitness

I have kind of fallen behind my blogging schedule a bit as it has been an incredibly busy week for me against the backdrop of a gripping US presidential election, which kicked off on the 3rd of November 2020. Joe Biden finally prevailed against Trump to the relief of many. But as expected, we now have to deal with a supposedly outgoing president who is unwilling to concede and has been stirring up unsubstantiated accusations of voter fraud.

We all expected this. Just that we don't know how it will play out. To non-US citizens like us, this is the only time that we don't envy being Americans: the pandemic is raging there unchecked; Trump is rallying his diehard supporters and they could create trouble in the streets.

Here in Malaysia, the lockdown in the Klang Valley has been extended again to 6 December. It makes no difference to me now as I am completely home-bound. So much soul-searching to do for everyone and for every business big and small out there who have been severely tested.

I am still trying to make my days more efficient--ensuring that I get enough sleep and making sure that I am able to do all my essential life and spiritual maintenance activities. This blogging routine is one of them. And in the past week, I've slipped slightly. Hopefully, I'll be able to pick it up again. 

The only thing that I have not had the opportunity to do much is listening to my audiobooks as I have not been driving much. I only make runs to the grocery store on weekends. Weekends are very precious now. Yesterday I was able to jog in the park and had the opportunity to listen to my audiobook in the process. 

It is interesting to see how life is going to be when the pandemic finally ceases. There's already good news on the horizon, with Pfizer announcing a vaccine that's 90 percent effective. But the logistics of distribution is going to prevent this from being available widely for a while as it requires sub-zero refrigeration. 

Perhaps the pandemic has taught us to value life a lot more. Perhaps something good will come out of all this. As a glimmer of hope appears, let's all make a resolve to do better in the days and months to come. I will continue with my routine of working from home for a while as this is my present commitment. This stint of lockdown is good training for the soul. And hopefully we'll all emerge from it spiritually fitter.

Milestones of Happiness

Feeling a bit exhausted after working non-stop in front of the computer screen for the whole day. It is a good feeling to have spent the day productively. My new wide-screen monitor is certainly helping my productivity a lot. These days I work with 2 laptops and a 29-inch wide-screen monitor connected to both of them.

Having to resigned myself to working strictly from home (or rather my bedroom), I'm trying to make the best of the situation. A second laptop and monitor are among the luxuries that one can never have if one is nomadic. 

I've been thoroughly domesticated by the pandemic. I only get to step outside my house on weekends--shopping for groceries and enjoying a regular kopitiam breakfast, if I get the chance.

The new pandemic normal makes us realize how good life used to be. Will we able to experience that again? And when we do, hopefully we will all be more appreciative of those little daily blessings that we receive everyday. 

Happiness is being able to do the simple things in life--hawker food, teh tarik, nasi lemak, a jogging session in the park, browsing at the bookstore, reading at the cafe and hopping on the next available show at the local cinema. 

Being able to keep my blogging appointment every week is another one of those achievable goals that I set for myself as a weekly milestone. What awaits me after this is a nice warm bath and a bit of bedtime reading. And then I'll sleep with total abandon, surrendering myself to the mysteries of the unconscious, confident that I will be awakened tomorrow to a brighter day. Another day, another milestone, another excuse to be happy.

Of Breath and Bread

These are dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost every country is experiencing a surge of new infections. Hospitals are being overwhelmed again. People are losing their jobs; companies are filing for bankruptcy. 

Even though the death-rate due to the Covid-19 virus is relatively low, we are still unsure of its long-term consequences. In Malaysia,  people are generally conforming to the requirements to wear masks in public areas but I think most people find it hard to resist social gatherings among friends. 

Here in Malaysia, people are already bracing themselves up for the imposition of Emergency  rule on the nation. It looks like there's no alternative for the ruling government as it faces political uncertainty over the approval of the 2021 Budget and also the risk of upcoming by-elections and elections which could further exacerbate the current public health crisis.

The US presidential election is slightly more than a week away. While most of the world abhors Donald Trump, he still has his die-hard supporters who could turn the tide for him in some critical swing states. A close result could plunge the US into a lot of political uncertainty as Trump is already questioning the legitimacy of absentee mail-in ballots.

Over here in Malaysia, The Sabah state election had triggered our third wave of infection. We cannot afford any by-election nor state election, let alone a snap General Election. The problem in Malaysia now is that neither side has a strong majority. The 2020 General Election has wiped away age-old alliances and rearranged them unexpected ways.  There is also a lot of uncertainty. 

While these political intrigues are playing out daily, the average citizen is struggling to cope with the restrictions of the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) imposed in the Klang Valley.  I think most people are more appreciative of their jobs now, if they still have one. Everyone is just trying to cope with their bread and butter issues.

I've been in a meditative mood in all my past blog posts. Which is why, I try not to write anything in that vein this time. I have a daily job which allows me to continuously improve myself and for that I am grateful. Let's take things a day at a time. And every day upon waking up, I do my daily meditation--acknowledging the basic fact of my existence: I breathe. 

How simple is the breath. And that is all there is to life. You take a breath, and the rest follows. That's how I approach each day.  My daily breath, is my daily bread.

The Signature of the Soul

A brief hour or so before dinner-time to blog. I've had a relaxing weekend, having cleared some of my life-maintenance errands and now ready to start another busy week. 

I've been holed up at home mostly during the work-days, not even stepping foot out of the house for meals. This is like those early days of the lockdown but I'm already used to it.  I'm grateful that I'm still able to use my time productively to generate some income.

The only way to understand yourself better is to expose yourself to difficult challenges. When you are faced with difficulties, you begin to see your strengths and weaknesses very clearly. Your weaknesses are the things that prevent you from achieving the things you plan. Identifying them is part of the payoff of any challenge.

Life throws you a lot of curve balls. You handle them with as much courage, stoicism and dignity as you could muster. In my last blog post, I alluded to the equivalent of the eye of the storm within you--a center of calm where we can find your inner self.

There's a part of you that is your 'nature'--something you can't really change. It is as if you were born to depend on its strength and suffer its many defects and accesses. It is the soul's signature.

When you meet old friends, you'll always notice how little people's basic characters change. The outward appearances and their social image would have undergone changes but deep within everyone's character remain as it were decades ago. The soul's nature often requires a lifetime to find its expression and resolution. 

You will only change your nature when you face existential threats. Only the ultimate pain can trigger a deep shift in the soul, because you have no options left. It is either extinction or change. The ability to change is the secret weapon you unleash. 

All change is initially painful because they expose your vulnerabilities. Suddenly you have to depend on the ingenuity of your brains and muscles to tackle the situation and not some standard cookbook formula from memory.

When change occurs, the soul's signature shifts into a new configuration. It is like a realignment of the planets. The new configuration will reveal new strengths and weaknesses, which require another cataclysmic event to trigger a change.

So be prepared when change occurs. The pandemic is a change. How have you adapted. Has your soul's signature shifted?  

The Eye of the Storm

These are crazy days: we are experiencing another surge of the Covid-19 virus. Just when everyone is getting used to life post-lockdown, now suddenly the treat of another one is looming ahead. It looks like I'm going to be holed up at home for some time to come.

What have we learned during these trying times of the pandemic? One, we can actually live with a lot less. We don't really need the superficial luxuries of dining out with family and friends, going to the movies or flying overseas for holidays to really appreciate life. 

Secondly, it is alright to fall down a rung or two financially, as long as one is not destitute and still has a roof over one's head. We are so used to upward mobility that we forget that our parents and grandparents used to live with a lot less and yet, they still managed to lead meaningful lives.  

We all need to learn to eat the humble pie. High-flyers who have lost their jobs are now grateful to be able to earn at least something to cover their daily expenses. Corporations who used to dominate the news with their overseas expansions and new product launches, now are trying hard to keep afloat and desperately restructuring loans with their anxious creditors.

The pandemic is resetting the economy. Many companies will inevitably fold. Many small businesses already have.  Those who can still survive have to make do with a lot less income. Yes, we all learn gratitude: counting our blessings rather than lamenting about our losses.

In the US, things are getting more acute with President Trump--already infected with the Covid-19 virus and supposedly recovered--is behaving like a runaway training, holding super-spreader rallies that further exacerbates the already bad pandemic there which had claimed more than 214,000 American lives. And we are less than 4 weeks to the US presidential election, with a possibility of a very messy outcome.

Uncertainty clouds the entire world. UK is considering another lockdown; cases are rising in Europe again and winter is approaching with its expected threat of driving up infection and mortality rates, as is always the case with respiratory diseases.

We are all being tested--each and every one of us, in our own unique ways. The pandemic brings different challenges for everyone.  We just need to brace ourselves for the coming storm of uncertainty. And in times like this, it is comforting to know that deep down inside, there's a place that one can find refuge. There one stares at the eye of the storm. 

The Knots of Time

We go to bed and fall asleep every night without hesitation, expecting to wake up the following day. Why are we so confident that we'll ever wake up?  And if we know that there's no certainty that we will, how would we live the remaining hours of the day now?

It could be a very morbid way of thinking about life: that sleep is no different from dying: we lose consciousness and we have absolutely no idea when or if we will wake up again. But yet, we do that willingly and even eagerly because the tired body yearns for rest. 

While it is good to live today as if it is your last, such an intense way of looking at life could actually be very stressful. We come to think of time as an acutely limited resource and that infuses a sense of desperation into everything we do. 

We can instead choose to see life as a fresh blessing which we receive every day. When we wake up in the morning, it is like being born anew. You have a chance to make good on things that you didn't do so well yesterday.  To be able to breathe, walk and taste your morning coffee is already a miracle of existence--a privilege granted to you every morning when you wake up.

The human body is fragile and breaks down rapidly. What is worthwhile only lives on in memory and even that is ephemeral. Instead the real memory of your existence are your deeds--the karmic effect you have on the universe.

Everyone tries to make a mark in the world, in their own small way. But the best mark that one can make is one that doesn't leave any traces of oneself. That is the essence of karma yoga--selfless action. If you choose to hep someone, do not expect anything in return. Better still do it anonymously. That way, every action resolves itself without generating any fresh karma. Love is a continuous state of being, not an act of grandiosity.

Sounds like idealistic New Age mumbo jumbo? Perhaps. I write, I post, I move on. And hopefully, something gets resolved inside, Next week, there be other karmic knots to unravel, for life is a long thread with many knots. And living is but a process of untangling them. But let's take it one knot at a time. 

The Walk of Life

Just a couple of lines to kick off another busy week. The pandemic doesn't look like it is abating and I'm glad that I at least is busy with work that I can do from the safety of my home.

What a far cry from my life two decades ago when I used to travel around the region every other week. Now I don't even leave my house at all for days on end! But I'm learning more than ever before. As long as I have an opportunity to do that, I should be reasonably happy.

The Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman talks about the experiencing self and the remembering self and how the two have different conceptions of 'happiness'. The remembering self summarizes a whole swath of time as a kind of 'story' with a definite outcome: happy or unhappy. While the experiencing self--the way we feel from moment to moment while we are living our lives, could be very different. 

"I'm alright, right now", is a good refrain I learned from Gurudeva, whenever I feel a certain uncertainty in my life. I am alive, breathing and at this very moment, safe. And that is 'happiness'--the happiness of the experiencing self.

Right now, I'm typing these words and watching them appear on the computer screen. How delightful is that? How miraculous! With a click of a button, my thoughts go out into the world, exposed in cyberspace, etched in the akasha.

To be healthy enough to think, understand and act is already a great blessing. My bar for happiness is set very low indeed. Happiness is being grateful for all that you've been given and having the strength and energy to continue improving yourself every day.

Tomorrow is another new day, beckoning like a blank canvas waiting to be painted. I will experiment with new strokes, trying out different shapes and colours--some will work, some won't. But that is alright. Life is an exercise in drawing. The important think is to put pen or brush to paper and then things will begin to happen.

To live is to be an artist every day.  The artist Paul Klee once said: "Drawing is like taking a line for a walk". Life is like that too. Do not rush through it. Take a walk. And every step you make is sheer happiness. Life doesn't need to be more complicated than that. 

Simple Spirituality

 With my workload getting heavier even during these difficult days of the pandemic, I am finding it more difficult to maintain my regular routine of meditation, exercise, reading and writing, let alone meeting friends. But I see it as a blessing: to have one day's filled with activities that one love is better than boredom and aimlessness.

Throughout my entire working life, I've never given much thought towards building a 'career'. Obviously it is recklessness on my part but I've never really been comfortable in working just to build a professional reputation and to climb up the corporate ladder. It is a worthy pursuit for many talented individuals but I found out long ago that this wasn't my cup of tea.

 I see everything as an adventure--every job a task where one could learn and grow, after which one moves on to the next thing. I've never had an opportunity to be comfortable for too long in any single endeavour. Growth, in all aspects--physical, mental or spiritual--comes through undertakings that take the form of an adventurous quest.

In an adventure, one is never certain of an outcome. One has to face one's fears and be ready to improvise for survival. The only thing that one can trust is one's ability to learn. How quickly and effectively one does that, determines one's success in the adventure. 

Now, success is a dangerous word. It often implies social and physical rewards to the individual. But to me success means insight. At the end of the day, I always ask myself: what useful insights have I gained today.

By being insight-focused, one entire's existence is automatically spiritual. Spirituality is simple: it is just bare attention and bare honesty with oneself. Seeing everything clearly, understanding why there's pain in the world and then see through them by applying skillful means.

This simplicity (or one could even say, naivete) of this approach towards life is a sense of joy and discovery. And in the final analysis, it is all that matters. 

A Half-Full Toast to Malaysia

 I've been so busy these past two weeks but I still want to maintain my routine of blogging weekly. Today has been hectic but I don't want to delay my blog post for the week.

Today is Malaysia Day, which is a public holiday--something which was started not that many years ago. Malaysians generally love their country even though everyone has their pet grouses. We love our food and we are proud of the fact that we are multiracial. 

But as I've mentioned before in another blog post, when you ask a Malaysian what do they think of their country and government, you can roughly expect the answers to fall into 2 categories: half-empty or half-full.

The former group thinks that we have not realized our full potential and have squandered many of our unique advantages; the latter thinks that we have done better than expected given the circumstances. But there is another more fundamental difference of opinion: we cannot agree on what kind of Malaysia we are building. What does mean to be a 'Malaysian'?

Many of the old-timers claims that racial unity used to be better, during the period before and right after Merdeka. Yes and No. Yes, because during that time, we were 'united' by a common official language: English. And those who wax lyrical about those days are mostly English educated 'Malayans' who chose to interact using a 'third-party' language and culture. English is more easily accepted as neutral medium of intercourse between the educated classes of the different races because it was and still is considered modern and progressive.  

So to many, the idea of being a Malaysian, is to be like the educated 'Malayan' of old. And yes, the English-medium schools were great places to forge unity among the different races because everyone proudly and willingly agreed to interact through a common foreign culture, adopting their liberal norms and values.

But when Bahasa Malaysia was chosen as our national language, many lament the fact that we were losing a competitive advantage.  Many also view it as a language of a lower stature, suitable only to be used in bazaars among the common folks. Even among the educated Malays, who are native speakers of the language, they too tend to adopt English phrases when they want to sound more uppity.

The second divisive element in Malaysia is religion. Even though we proudly claim that all religions are freely practiced in this country, we do have an 'official religion', which is Islam. We are a Muslim country, period. Some want to take it even further, suggesting that we should be an Islamic state, adopting syariah laws. That makes a certain non-Muslim segment of the population understandably uneasy. 

The third factor is affirmative action. Arguable necessary to help the natives who were lagging economically behind the immigrant races, it further divides the nation. Are they necessary? Perhaps. Have they been abused? Most certainly.  

The natives claim that they have been very accommodating to the immigrant races, while the latter feel that they have not been treated as equal citizens of the country. Half full and half empty again. 

Can our glass ever be filled? 

To many, they don't really care, because no one has died from thirst yet. So let's drink to that.

A Future on Cloud Nine

How will we remember these days of the Pandemic in years to come? Will we talk about it nostalgically as a time when the whole world decided to take a break from their usual routine to rethink their lives?

Or will be soon forgotten when the world goes back to normal where everyone is preoccupied with their cellphones and their social media feuds? Our world has become so noisy: information are bombarding our minds at an unprecendented rate. Just notice how many notifications that you receive on your smartphone every minute. They come in rapid succession: Whatsapp messages from your chat groups, emails from your work and personal accounts, news alerts from the sites that you subscribe to, Facebook and Tweeter notifications from the people you follow and the ever-present SMS spams advertising the latest illegal online gambling sites. 

We are swarmed with unnecessary information. How do we make sense of the world? How are our worldviews shaped by this deluge of mostly unsolicited information? I suspect we react to it simply by filtering out things that we dislike and only admitting those that conform to our chosen beliefs.

In this era of so-called 'fake news', we no longer know what is the truth, nor do we care. We simply choose to believe what we believe. And what we believe is what we are comfortable with. If you are left-leaning, then you will only admit liberal and progressive views into your bubble. And quite naturally your circle of friends would be people of the political beliefs, which again determines what kind of messages and alerts you'll be receiving throughout your day.

We are not comfortable standing in the middle, undecided. We need certainty to make sense of the world. Only then do we know how to act or the world would be too confusing for us. The world has no time for nuances; everything is polarized, pixelized and pigeonholed into neat little boxes. Every politician is either idolized as a hero or vilified as a villain. This makes life manageable and entertaining--like a good popcorn movie. 

We want the world to be easy to understand because it's too much hassle to treat everything as nuanced and measured. So we dumb down everything. And in the near future, I suspect we'll outsource all our decision-making to AI because they will do a better job. We'll all carry a better brain in the cloud. What kind of life will that be? Will we all be on cloud nine?  As always, the future is full of surprises. And I look forward to that movie.

The Glass of Ever-flowing Water

 Today is Malaysia's Independence or "Merdeka" Day.  Celebrating our 63rd anniversary of independence from British rule, where are we heading? Are we considered a success or a failure?

As always in Malaysian politics, we can view the situation as a glass that is either half-full or half-empty. The optimist will say that we have done very well considering the fact that we have a combustible mix of races and religions, which in other regions of the war have led to perpetual strife and unrest. If we look at South-East Asia, the level of poverty that you see here is unlike those that you find in many other countries in the region. True, we are not in the same league as Singapore, but we have not done too badly either. 

The half-empty folks will always point to the success of Singapore, which is like a 'better' Malaysia in miniature, as something we should have achieved by now. We are unfortunately  hampered by race politics and endemic corruption.  Some Malaysians consider themselves second-class citizens, denied of opportunities in education and top positions in the civil service and are uncomfortable with the growing Islamization and 'Arabization' of the administration. 

We can argue for either side until the cows come home and would still not agree on anything. That's the nature of politics. We feel strongly for certain positions which we believe are right and no logic or explanation will convince us otherwise.

We are all born different and we are comfortable with the culture and religion of our birth. When we are asked to go beyond what we are comfortable with, we tend to protest. Why do I choose to write in English instead of Malay? Well, because I've read more books in English and it is natural for me to think and write in the language. 

There-in lies one of the challenges of building a united Malaysia: we all live in our own language and cultural bubbles. Language shapes the way we think and behave. I know it whenever I switch from English to Chinese or Malay: I have to think differently, almost as if I have to use a different part of my brain. 

We humans often take pride in our rationality but experience tells me that most of the time we behave intuitively--making gut decisions and emphasizing opinions that appeal to our biases. We often do not vote with the head, most of the time we vote for the candidate that appeals to the heart. 

We certainly do not know many of the politicians like how we know our family members or friends but we form very strong opinions about them based on news we happen to read or watch on social media. With that alone, we are absolutely certain of whom we dislike. And that often determines our vote.

Thinking takes effort. And in an increasingly complex world, there are no easy answers to many of our social problems. We certainly do not have binary answers to them. Everything requires judgement and balance, which have to be exercise from case to case, from moment to moment.  It is always half-full and half-empty. 

Has humans entered a phase where the complexity of the world is simply too much for their sluggish brains to handle? Will we rather be ruled by AI who will make 'better' decisions on our behalf?  We humans are not good at statistical judgement, instead we are driven by stories: we seek to find causal explanations when most of the time it is not so clear cut. 

I have no easy answers for Malaysia. On this day when we celebrate its 63rd year of independence, I only hope that we can all unshackle ourselves from our instinctive habits of thinking. The glass contains water, and let's take a sip and continue filling it. 

The Spotlight of Awareness

Last week, I wrote about the flux of experience, which is a continuous flow of mental impressions that somehow brings about the cumulative effect of a 'self' that is the source of everything.  No-self or anatta is one of the 3 characteristics of existence that all Buddhists have to realize on their path to Enlightenment.

The concept of anatta is a difficult one for most people to grasp because almost all religions of the world have the concept of a soul that transcends the body. If there is no substance, spirit or soul that is permanent, what then is there? And Buddhists believe in reincarnation don't they? If there is no soul, what is it that is being reincarnated?

Let me put it this way: the concept of a soul is a simplistic way of viewing an on-going chain of causality. There's only energy or karma being transferred from one thought moment to another. And that's all there is. A conscious moment is like the momentary illumination of a strobe light, and we see karma in freeze-frame, exposed in all its nakedness.

You experience it, but you cannot hang on to that thought moment, no matter how seemingly pleasant or unpleasant it is.  This is where the 2 other characteristics of existence come in: impermanence (anicca) and suffering or unsatisfactoriness (dukkha). 

Experience is a process and being a process, one moment is different from the next. The laws of statistical mechanics dictate that entropy shall increase, simply because order or perfection is an unlikely circumstance.  So, unlike anatta, the concept of impermanence or anicca is a relatively easy concept for people to understand because we see it everyday in our daily lives. Things breakdown, decay and die. Nothing lasts forever. 

But why this emphasis on dukkha? Can't we just accept the impermanence of existence without this rather pessimistic view of suffering or dukkha? 

Yes we can, but unfortunately we don't. And this is simply because we cling or attach ourselves to these impermanent moments of experience. Each moment has a feeling of 'unsatisfactoriness' because of its transient nature. If it is at its intense peak, then the moment is 'over' before you knew it. If it is rising, then it is 'not there yet'. If it is falling, it is 'slipping away'. It is never ever achieving the ultimate state of perfection because it never stays the same. 

Hence dukkha is baked into anicca and the resultant illusion of anatta frames the entire system as a finite region of suffering--a life, an incarnation.The 3 concepts are interlinked and self-perpetuating. 

Occasionally, when allowed to do so, moments of insight arise, and the system untangles itself ever so slightly. Part of our mind is a semi-autonomous faculty called 'awareness'. Awareness is dumb, like a spotlight. It can point and illuminate certain views of the on-going process. This pointing of awareness is all the self-less 'you' is capable of doing. 

Each time an area of darkness is illuminated by the spotlight of awareness, some illusions will be dissolved. So all you can do is continue pointing that spotlight. 

But how do we know if we are pointing at the correct spot? Well, you'll know it when you see it. It's called insight. And they only come when you meditate with the spotlight of awareness.

The Flux of Existence

 I usually start off a blog article not knowing what I'll be writing about. Which is why I  usually ramble on a bit just to get my writing juices flowing. I've probably written about this before: it is always important to get things started first, and the rest will follow. Once I start typing these words, a torrent would usually follow.

Daniel Kanhneman in his famous book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, talks about the 2 modes of thinking in the human mind--which he labelled simply System 1 and System 2.  System 1 is instinctive and happens almost instantaneously whereas System 2 is logical, methodical and slow. The interesting thing is that System 1 will always form a 'conclusion' about any problem or situation and that is what we usually take as a default, if System 2 is not invoked.

System 2 is more expensive in terms of brain CPU time and so we usually hesitate to go into that mode unless it is absolutely necessary. So for most situations in our every day life, we form instant opinions about the news we hear, the people we see in the streets or the food we eat.  System 1 works incessantly and can never be uncoupled. Thus a constant stream of impressions and opinions drive our consciousness forward.

System 1 is a form of embedded intelligence, shaped by our past experience. Buddhists talk about the fetters of the mind, which bind us to suffering (dukkha). These are like 'bugs' in our System 1 thinking that are constantly leading us astray. What are these so-called fetters? The Pali Canon gave  a whole list of them: ten to be exact.  Among them are doubt, illwill, conceit, ignorance and restlessness.  

The fetters influences all our thoughts and actions. If they are not detected and eliminated at its roots, they drive our System 1 and possibly System 2 thinking too. They are the imperfections in our soul...but er hang on--Buddhists are very suspicious of the word 'soul'.  In fact, one of the first fetters mentioned is our tendency to belief in a self or soul.

Anatta, is the Pali word for no-self or no-soul, which is considered one of the truths of existence that a meditator needs to see clearly. It is in fact a sine qua non for a Buddhist to achieve Enlightenment.  Like many neuro-scientists today, Buddhists do not believe in a kind of intangible substance that exists independent of the body and the mind. You can talk about a stream of thoughts or consciousness but that's all there is. The individual feeling of self which we cling on so dearly to is actually an illusion, or 'virtual'. 

What about the mind then? Isn't that a kind of independent existence? No, the mind with its System 1 and System 2 modes of thinking are like software running on the hardware of the brain. It is only a matter of convenience to use words like mind, consciousness and even soul to talk about existence, because we always need a noun to point to something. 

A big part of the feeling of 'self' is caused by the pattern-recognition tendency of System 1. We see forms and patterns everywhere because evolution has honed our brains to look at the world that way.  We see some dark coiled object in front of us, and immediately think: snake! Our physiology changes in an instant, putting us in a fight or flight mode. But on closer inspection, System 2 kicks: it is only a piece of rope. 

Thoughts and feelings arise, some are interpreted as pleasant and some unpleasant. Some 'self' is experiencing that. But look closer: the self is like a fountain which appear like a solid object from a distance, but it is actually made up of particles of water moving very quickly in a concerted fashion to form a beautiful shape.

Look closer at your computer screen now. There are no words or pictures--only individual , ever-flickering pixels. But you in your 'ignorance' see objects that stir you emotionally. This stream of pixels could be a movie with a beginning and an end, with characters that love, hate and fight over non-existent causes. It excites and touches you emotionally. But look again, what it is that is 'you'? More pixels of thoughts, arising and passing away?  

So where is the self in this flux of experience which we call existence? Is the movie on the computer screen more real than the movie in your brain? 

A World of Words

It's only words and words are all I have
To take your heart away 

- Words by the Bee Gees

How do we learn most of the words in our vocabulary? Certainly not from school. We learn most of the words we know from experience--that is from listening, reading and narrowing down their meaning from the context of their usage.

We pin down the meaning of a word from a process of elimination. Initially we guess its meaning. And through repeated encounters with the same word, we zero-in on its range of possible meanings. 

Unlike words which we learn artificially from reading the dictionary or from a list prescribed to us by our primary school teachers, 'experienced' words maintains their subtle nuances and potency. Only when we learn words this way are we able to write poetry. For poetry explores the expressive properties words and pushes the envelop of their meanings.

A single word can conjure up a plethora of feelings and images in our minds. Sometimes, the right word at the right place and time strikes the listener like an arrow: it could hurt or inspire. A carefully chosen word could become a powerful metaphor that triggers an aha moment.

It is no surprise that there's an entire body of sacred chants and incantations that could invoke the divine in us. Words--it's imagery and sound--push buttons in our psyche and nervous system.  For didn't the book of John say that in the beginning was the Word? And the Word was with God? What is this mysterious Logos/Word? To simply equate it to Jesus is to immediate strip those immortal lines of of their awe-inspiring power.

Sometimes we run out of words. Speechless. For words are our inner-most thoughts and feelings made manifest. And when they are absent, it is akin to the lull before a storm. And when they come, they pour out in torrents sweeping away mountains of obstacles.

Words, written and spoken, are a miracle of existence. Say a word. Write a sentence. You become a creator, partaking in the drama of creation, an heir to the Word which spawned its very beginning.

The Food that is Love

The weather outside is hot today, with the late afternoon sun scorching the road and pavement outside. I'm happy to be cocooned in my cool air-conditioned room, typing these lines. Not feeling exactly sure what to write today but I'll latch on to something in no time.

The mind is always capable of latching on to something quite easily.  Especially when that something gives pleasure. When the mind continuously jumps from one thing to another without any purpose, we call that a restless mind.  When it latches strongly to a single thing at the expense of others, we call that an obsessive mind.  

Both states of mind are undesirable. A restless mind can never focus on a single task and carry it out to completion. An obsessive mind, if applied to a constructive cause, could produce results but it comes at a heavy price. Other important aspects of life would be neglected. If the object of the person's obsession is something negative, it could even lead to self-destruction.

Even though there's a slight difference between obsession and addiction, both are disorders that need to be treated. Obsession could start off harmlessly as a self-imposed discipline or simply fastidiousness. For example, during these times of the pandemic, a lot of people wash their hands frequently. But for those with obsessive compulsive disorders, this hand-washing could be carried out to the extreme. Initially, perhaps fear is the driver behind this behaviour, but after a while, it becomes a compulsive habit. 

Addictions on the other hand is driven by pleasure, at least initially.  Be it alcohol, cigarettes, food, drugs or porn--anything that stimulates the pleasure circuits of the brain could cause addiction.  It is the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain that gives us a sense of pleasure--the brain's reward mechanism. But when too much dopamine is released continuously, the brain makes adjustments so that it is not overwhelmed, which  causes the pleasure-seeker to intensify his indulgence in the substance or activity so that the same level of pleasure can be experienced again.

What we often associate with romantic love could also a form of addiction. Lovers who go through breakups suffer greatly from withdrawal symptoms not unlike those with a substance dependency. And the possibility of relapse is also high--it is not uncommon for lovers to break-up and reconcile many times over the course of a difficult relationship.  Even when both parties realize that they are going nowhere they would still continue to see each other to get their regular 'fix'.

Then is it possible to enter into a healthy romantic relationship without descending to the level of addiction?  

It is the same as asking whether we can eat or drink without developing a compulsive eating disorder or becoming an alcoholic.  We most certainly can: by not over-indulging ourselves, by eating slowly and mindfully, by knowing our limits and by cultivating a sense of gratitude for our food.  As healthy food nourishes us, so does true love. And let's drink to that.

Morning Thoughts

There's a certain joy in starting your day early--you get a head start. The mind is also at its freshest in the morning. I usually try to put in between 1 to 2 hours of work before breakfast. Today I've decided to blog instead.

Mental health is a great concern to authorities during these difficult days of the pandemic. Being cooped up at home and not being able to socialize physically with friends have been difficult for many. The uncertainty of the future and possible financial worries also contribute to the problem. Dealing with such stress is not easy.

The root of the problem lies in the fact that we are forever consumed by thoughts, especially thoughts of the negative kind. We are able to command our hands and legs at will but when it comes to the mind, we do not seem to have that much of a control. Thoughts occupy our minds like uninvited guests, hogging the space in our heads. When too many of such stressful thoughts accumulate consistently for prolonged periods, it could cause psychosomatic problems and plunge us into depression.

The first step in overcoming this condition is to recognize thoughts as thoughts. This may seem like a trivial thing to say but a lot of people don't actually objectify their thoughts. To them, they are their thoughts. People who meditate are taught to see thoughts as arising and disappearing, simply noticing without reacting to them. This is mindfulness 101. In doing this frequently, you are able to see thoughts as they are, something external that come and go like the ebb and flow of tide on a beach.

Thoughts are useful only as a means of processing information. But too often than not, our thinking is circular, driven by our fears and obsessions. Recognizing these infinite loops and breaking out of them is also a mindfulness skill. We live most of our lives unconsciously, driven by the promptings of our feelings. We are always trying to escape from pain and hide in our comfort zones. We seek the momentary pleasure of distracting ourselves from the boredom and tedium of the present.

But why should the present be boring? Simply noticing the mind and its myriad machinations is a fascinating exercise. Look at how it jumps from one thing to another. See how easily you get distracted. Feel the impact of thoughts on your body: is there tenseness in the stomach? Are there palpitations in the heart? Is there a surge of pleasure in the loins? The movie of the mind is simply endless.

As you stand and watch your mind with bare attention, you'll learn to create distance between you and your thoughts. That is a good first step. But there's a more difficult challenge ahead. Ask yourself: who is this 'you' entity that is watching 'your' thoughts? Does it exist? Or is it...another thought?

The Future Now

I almost didn't realize that it's already Sunday and another week has passed. Time for me to blog again. To me the biggest news this week is the one about Twitter being hacked. Around 130 accounts have been hacked, including those of Joe Biden, Obama, Bill Gates and Elon Musks.

False tweets were sent out from some of these accounts encouraging people to send Bitcoins. But to me this is considered benign, the scary thing is that they could have done a lot more damage. With so many of our leaders using social media like Twitter as their main communication channel, a single misguided tweet could have led to very serious consequences: pandemonium, stock market crash or even a nuclear war.

Social media has become so intertwined with our lives that it is almost like an extension of our nervous system. Celebrities and leaders often get into trouble by tweeting things that they shouldn't and once broadcasted, that single indiscretion lives on forever in the akasha of cyberspace. Social media is like the most efficient transmission medium for karma. Its effect are magnified and felt instantly.

Social media has brought great good to humanity by connecting us together globally. But at the same time, it has accentuated our differences and polarized us to an extend never seen in history before. Our connectedness has enabled us to find our like-minded kind and each of us end up huddling together in our closed little opinion bubbles--the Whatsapp groups, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts that we follow. Everyone is emboldened because of anonymity and a feeling of safety in numbers.

The Dark Web has also given shelter to criminals, scammers, drug peddlers and paedophiles, allowing them to conduct their activities under a cloak cryptographic secrecy. We have an entire underworld lurking beneath the seemingly innocent facade of silly icons and idyllic wallpapers. The viruses that live in cyberspace are as dangerous as the one that is causing havoc across the world now.

Have we sold our soul to technology? Will we end up in a cyberpunk dystopia where machines rule the roost? At the rate that we are going, it doesn't look unlikely. But I also know that the universe always has something up its sleeves. There could another technological revolution that changes the game entirely and make us reevaluate our priorities anew.

Despite my apparent bleak assessment, I still find the future exciting. I look forward to its unfoldment with the wonder and excitement of a child reading the latest issue of his favourite comic book. And the Future is the most exciting book that one could ever read, even though we could only read the the page opened before us. Read it now, read it well. Tomorrow there will be a new one.

The Examined Life of A Firefly

The unexamined life is not worth living
-Socrates

Starting another week in the era of the Pandemic. This period in history will rank alongside the two World Wars and September 11 as pivotal moments in our modern history. Will there be more pandemics like this in the future? It is likely but humanity will be more prepared for it. This one has blindsided us but we will be wiser in the future.

This Covid-19 pandemic is a bit of an enigma: it doesn't consistently attack everyone with equally devastating effect. The majority are asymptomatic but yet you still cannot ignore the millions who either died or survived the disease after being hospitalized. It occasionally attacks the young as severely as the elderly and it has brought death to more than half-a-million people around the world.

Does the pandemic warrant such a severe lockdown all over the world, knowing that the economic hardship that resulted from it will be no less severe? It is a difficult question to answer. But we do know that out hospitals would be overwhelmed if we had allowed society to go on as usual. It is ironic that, in an era which social networking is the main byword, we are have to practice physical social distancing.

The world will always surprise us. Before September 11 and right after the collapse of Communism, writers were talking about the end of history. But history always have something up its sleeves. Like an epic miniseries, it introduced to us another plot twist: Al Qaeda and terrorism. And once that started showing signs of waning, we had another curve-ball thrown at us: the Covid-19 Pandemic, which turned everyone into mask-wearing, obsessive compulsive cleanliness freaks.

What will the next plot twist be? Climate disaster? Extra-terrestrial contact? Catastrophic collapse of our IT systems due to EMP or cyber-attacks? We don't know--we only know that there's no guarantee for our species. We are not special. We are just another one of many explosions of life on an insignificant corner of the galaxy. And like fireflies that flicker about gloriously for a night, we could gone without registering any significance in the larger universe. Even our universe could just be one among an infinite number of multiverses.

And here we are, tiny little egos trapped on a pale blue dot, pondering our place in this larger scheme of things. But at least, for 1 brief CPU cycle, each one of us, in our very own individual way, examined ourselves and realized our insignificance. And that alone makes all the difference.

The Eternal Quest for Pleasure

I start each new week with a blog post. Every post is an indication of my current state of mind. Things in Malaysia are going back to normal after our rather strict lockdown but Malaysians seem to support it and we seemed to have done a good job driving down the number of infections.

I haven't been eating out for a while and don't intend to do so in the foreseeable future. New habits have been formed with the so-called new normal. The hassle of taking temperatures and writing down contact info at every shop is a big turn-off. There's enough work and recreation at home to keep me occupied. And there's also that constant goal of mine to further simplify my life. The pandemic has probably helped this process.

Living in isolation has never been too much of a problem for me, even though I do enjoy the company of friends. When I was living alone in a motel in the US for months, I did not for a single instance felt lonely. I guess being an avid reader helps. There's no time to be lonely when you have an unlimited amount of books waiting to be devoured.

Books and other types of content are infinite nowadays. The challenge is how to be selective about it, because time is a precious resource. Like eating, sight-seeing, socializing and sex, reading is just another of life's many pleasures. That's what everyone tries to do anyway: enjoying life.

We are pleasure-seeking creatures. We assume that a happy life is one filled with pleasures. It is usually true, until we find that things that used to give us pleasure might turn out to be less than satisfactory after a while. How many times have you heard someone say that the food at a particular restaurant used to be better. Is that really true? Had the taste of the food deteriorated or was it simply because the pleasure had faded away due to familiarity?

Are there any pleasures in life that get better every time you experience it? Are sequels ever better than the original? We develop addictions simply because our body craves for the level of pleasure that we had experienced before. So we keep on repeating the experience and yet somehow not finding perfect satisfaction in it. And so we repeat it again and again ad infinitum. It's the Buddhist concept of dukkha (better translated as 'unsatisfactoriness') rearing its ugly head again.

A static pleasure by itself will ultimately be unsatisfactory, if it is not accompanied by transformation. Parents enjoy the pleasure of seeing their young children everyday not because they remain so cute forever, but it's because they keep growing. Change can bring new pleasures and happiness. It is by the process of transformation and renewal that we keep on finding new joy in life.

if an object of our affection does not evolve in a way that gives us continuous pleasure, we'll soon get bored with it. The pleasure of intoxicants can only be sustained by ramping up their dosage. But that only works to a certain extend because the body has a certain threshold of tolerance for it. At some point, it becomes a torture. So if we are pleasure-seekers, we have to find an object that transforms on its own, and enrich us in ever-growing ways.

That is the key to sustaining worldly happiness. You have to evolve together with your objects of pleasure. Pleasures come from growth and transformation. A relationship between a couple cannot remain forever in its youthful state of romantic passion, but instead it has to grow into new phases of maturity and mutual-discovery. That is why some creative hobbies give us pleasure: we are indulging in a skill or activity that can nourish us spiritually and mentally. We get to learn something every time we perform it. If we have a similar attitude towards life, nothing will ever bore us.

I did not know what I'd be writing about at the beginning of this post. But as I am ending this piece, I have found that I have created something out of nothing--I have understood more about myself and elucidated my thoughts. My state of mind has evolved as I typed those paragraphs. And that somehow gives me a great sense of pleasure. Which is why I have continued doing so for the past 17 years.

The Ecstasy of Existence

The big news for the past week is Liverpool finally winning the English Premier League after a wait of 30 years. Being a die-hard supporter of Liverpool ever since my teenager days playing soccer barefoot in the park, I felt both extreme relief and elation. Finally, after all those years of heartbreak, we are finally there.

Sometimes I feel that sports as an industry is there because we have a deep psychological need for it. We want to feel that we belong to a larger group. By supporting a team like Manchester United or Liverpool, we feel that we belong to a family of kindred souls. We share and suffer together and that gives us to right to both criticize and praise the performance of our team.

I always feel miserable whenever Liverpool loses (thankfully, those occasions are quite rare nowadays). It is like a kind of self-imposed suffering. You alternate between despair and ecstasy, depending on the fortune of the team. The joy of winning is immense because of the pain you have willingly endured in sticking with your favorite team through thick and thin. When we win a huge tournament like the UEFA Champions League or the English Premier League title, the happiness is out of this world. It is a kind of ecstatic joy that you never get to feel in your ordinary humdrum existence. And maybe that's why football is so important to the masses. It gives us the highs and lows of human emotions, in the safety of our couches at home.

We are all adrenaline junkies. The entertainment and gaming industries know that and thrive on giving us those huge fixes. Cheering crazy over your favorite English football team, who have no direct connection with you, seems like a foolish thing to do, but it provides supporters with a sense of identity, which is another deep psychological need. It gives them a license go wild and behave like hooligans, albeit for a short duration during the match.

Mr Spock of Star Trek would certainly find the antics of football supporters strange. Why would the outcome of a match involving 22 players chasing a ball evoke such extremes of emotion and trigger such loud behaviour? 40,000 people packed in a stadium, screaming madly over the seemingly useless physical labour of 22 men over 90 minutes. Strange species indeed!

Strange, but that's who we are. Proud as we are of our capacity to reason, deep down inside we are but creatures of emotions. Everything we do is mostly driven by the turbulence of our hormones and neurotransmitters. Ignoring this dimension of human existence is to obliterate life itself.

So let's continue doing this every year. Repeat this senseless ritual of winning and losing. Sink to the deepest of despair or rise to the heights of ecstasy at each iteration. Life and existence demands it.

The Face of Fear

Most businesses are back in operations, albeit at a much lower volume during this Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) period. While the rest of the world is ramping up, I've been slowing down a bit these past two weeks, mainly because I've been operating at full steam for the past months. Feels like I need a bit of recharging. I also need some time to consolidate the various pieces of work that I have done.

The other day I had my first mug of Starbucks coffee in 3 months. Working from a cafe is not going to fun anymore with all the rules that are now in place. It looks like I will continue to work from home for the foreseeable future. New habits are easy to acquire as long as we are willing to consciously place them into our daily routine. If you stick to it for a week, usually you'll be alright with it.

The key word is 'consciously'. Most of the things we do in life are unconscious. We tend to follow the path of least resistance, or one that is delimited by fear. Fear guides many of our actions. Fear imprisons us in the comforts of our mediocrity. Only when this safe zone of comfort is challenged, are we forced to rise up to face our fears.

Why do we let fear rule our lives then? Part of it is due to the way we were brought up. Parents tend to plant fears into the minds of their children out of an abundance of caution. The relative success of our pademic lockdown is partly due to the fear planted in us the government and the mass media. Pain, shame, sickness and death are things that fear threatens us with to keep us in check. It is this aversion to pain and a natural alignment towards easy comforts that dictate most of our actions and decisions.

If we are conscious of our fear and feel it as an experience in the body, we can learn to put it in its proper place. Fear is just a warning mechanism nature has built into us. It has saved the lives of any of our ancestors--that is why our genes are living now. But in the greater part of our modern waking life, fear is just a hindrance to our wellbeing. Fear are like obstacle blocks put in our paths. If we know how to see them as that, we can blast them away--like obstacle props in a video game, placed to give us a more exciting challenge.

Yes, let's put fear in its proper place--as mere barriers in an obstacle course, designed to test and bring the best out of you. Feel the palpitations of fear and acknowledge that it is nature's response to an emergency situation. Adrenaline will be pumping but see it as extra energy that shouldn't be wasted. Fear can drive us to achieve greater heights. Just acknowledge its signal, set the necessary mental switches and then propel yourself forward with a greater sense of purpose--now made wiser by your early warning system. Fear is just that, an alarm: more often than not, a false one.

Fear is like a loud crying kid seeking his parents' attention. But once the kid's concern is acknowledged, the tantrums subsides. Treat fear that way. Acknowledge it. Give it fair attention and let him know that his concerns are taken into consideration. And then move on. Fear is annoying but we don't have to make it too big a deal. Face fear with kindness and a knowing smile.

A Bacchanalian Blog

Since this is a blog without readers, I do not have to pander to the tastes of a specific audience or worst of all, having to state my stand on current issues. This gives me a lot of leeway to experiment and have fun. Having said that, I also do not want to be too self-indulgent here because the purpose of this blog is to allow me to express my thoughts clearly, and adhering to some basic principles of good writing, so that whatever message that I am conveying, gets through to you, the absent reader.

I've mentioned elsewhere before that writing helps me to think. Writing a blog article is a bit like solving a mathematical problem: you have to start with some basic premises, and then apply some step-by-step logical reasoning to advance towards a final conclusion. You build your argument sentence by sentence, using all the meaning and imagery that words are able to convey. Words are magic: the moment these black marks hit your vision, movies start running in your head. The miracle of writing and reading is that, even though each of us will watch a slightly different movie, we'll immediately see what the writer has in his mind. Good writing resonates with the reader, evoking the multi-various experiences that we as humans share.

The last two paragraphs will bore a lot of readers. If I continue in this vein, you'll soon be skimming through my sentences and start clicking on the next link. But I am the only reader here, so I don't have to care too much. My blog is where I doodle with words.

Shorter sentences are always easier to read. Like this one. To write is to choose words. Words with single syllables have a lot of power: I was hurt: my wound was deep and and I bled. Don't you feel the pain in those words? Don't they stab you like sharp knives?

Yes, you can kill with words. Short and sharp words hurt the most: If you don't like what you read, fuck off.

But words can also heal: dawn is breaking and the first shafts of sunlight falls on your face, caressing you with its warmth and freshness, bringing the promise of a new day and a new beginning. You rejoice for life is a wonderful miracle that is renewed each day. You beam with gratitude for all the blessings that have brought you thus far. You rise, eager to fill your days with the sweetness of flowers, food and music--all the good things that life has to offer: the company of loved ones and friends and of course, the pleasure of books. Ah, to be able to read words and be touched by them.

And when you write, words emerge, flowing like rivers of ink from the tip of your pen, like magical apparitions, conjured on your computer screen. You, the writer, the reader, are co-creating this miracle, this celebration of letters, this ecstasy of expression, this drunken dialectic of words, this unabashed bacchanalia of a blog.

The Hero's Beautiful Journey

Our MCO lockdown is coming to an end this week but social distancing practices will be the new norm. There will still be many businesses that will go under. But that is the nature of business and all things in this world. It is a painful lesson in impermanence--a fact we must learn to accept, no matter how hard it is.

The bonds of attachment to all worldly things are strong. It is this attachment that causes us pain, as the Buddha told us more than 2500 years ago. But impermanence cuts both ways--even pain never lasts. If we are willing to see things as constantly arising and passing away and accept that at every moment of our waking lives, then life can be a beautiful experience.

Art is one of the ways we humans celebrate the beauty of life. We capture all our moments of sadness and joy, of yearning and despair, of exultation and and ecstasy, of spirituality and sensuality and transforms them into works of art using sound, colours, movements and forms. Art is our way of sharing our personal take on these universal experiences and in the act of sharing, we partake in that beautiful life.

How can so much sadness and suffering be beautiful? Art is about contrast, balance, expectation and surprise. It is the interplay of extremes, light and dark, that gives rise to the infinite shades of grey in between. If life is static, there is no art. To live is to embark on the archetypal hero's journey. One's entire life is a journey, but if you observe closer, the arc of life is fractal: every day itself is a mini hero's journey, from the awakening of dawn to the denouement of night. Life is, in essence, an epic tale of many chapters.

So take life head on, as any hero would. Let every change be a catalyst and a catharsis. Let pain be that bending of the bow that propels the arrow forward; let the joy of victory be the stepping stone to even greater challenges. So let's take that journey bravely every day head-on. It is what heroes do. It is what makes life beautiful.

The Miracle of Emotions

I'm back to my habit of waking early, before 6am these days, which also means I have to be in bed before 12 midnight. With the relaxation of the MCO lockdown, we are able to go back slowly to our old lives. I am happy to be able to jog in the park again. There's a mixture of joy and apprehension as things seem to be going back to normal: will re-acquire our bad habits? Or will we change for the better?

The news both locally and worldwide are rather troubling. Riots are happening in 25 major cities in the US sparked off by yet another unnecessary death of an African-American in the hands of the police. All the pent-up anger and frustrations are now brought out on to the streets. This comes on the heels of the US crossing the tragic landmark of 100,000 deaths due to the Covid-19 virus. On the local front, there have been a few tragic road accidents due to drunk driving lately. The political situation is also not encouraging as politicians are busy wheeling and dealing behind the scenes to jostle for power, while the nation is distracted and immobilized by the pandemic.

We humans are emotional creatures. When anger arises, it is difficult to suppress. When it has already boiled to the surface, the energy has to be released somehow. Sometimes this could lead to tragic consequences. The God of the Old Testament was an angry one, while the Gospels bring out the loving and forgiving aspect of God. For some of us, this emotional drama between Man and God gives life its purpose and meaning. Life is a hero's journey of trials and ultimate redemption. Our myths and movies celebrate the struggle of Man in the face of adversity. We are touched by stories because emotion begets more emotions. When emotions are focused on a specific goal, we produce faith.

And because we are the emotional beings that we are, we rouse emotions to promote the causes that we believe in. Good art understands the mechanics of emotions and through them, communicates direct to our hearts. Emotions bypasses the analytical mind--it just needs to resonate and everything rings true. That is the power of emotions and anger is part of that spectrum. But emotions are like fire--they could sometimes flare up and consume us. In its aftermath, we sit among its smoldering embers to wonder if it has been worth the destruction it caused.

Like fire too, emotions can be tapped for both creative and destructive purposes. We can use fire with skill to cook the most appetizing dishes or we could raze an entire city to the ground. The first step towards the mastery of emotions is detecting its existence for they are there all the time, smoldering like peat fire beneath the psyche. Meditate on its flickering existence; understand its lifecycle; know what fuels its growth. If we are skillful enough in handling it, we could perform miracles.

A Moment's Reflection

This is another typical pandemic day for me: all day at home, working from my bedroom. I've been learning new things every day, making full use of the lack of activities elsewhere. The other day I dropped by at the old office to sign some documents. It was great to be able to chat with former colleagues again. I pity all of them having to wear a mask all day at work. But this is the new normal and we'd better get used to it.

Today is also the first day of Hari Raya Aidil Fitri, the Muslim celebration for the end of the fasting month. The pandemic has made everyone look at their usual religious obligations in a different light. Perhaps it is a good thing. When we are too mired in rules and rituals, we forget the essence of religion. We can't worship at mosques and churches now, so we have to believe that the divine can be accessed wherever we are, as long as we focus our hearts and minds to it. I think it helps us to strengthen our faith.

I see the lockdown as a sort of spiritual retreat. It gives us an opportunity to reevaluate our priorities; it lets us see deeper into our souls and figure out what's important and what's not. It shows us that any bad habit can be broken as long as we have the resolve to do so and that we are actually quite adaptable. If we are willing to let go of things, so much transformation can happen.

Accepting and embracing change is one of the most difficult challenges in life. Everything we hold dearly to ultimately will be lost. This Buddhistic truth is such a brutally stark and cold one. We have to learn to accept the loss of our youth and vigour and everything we hold dear to, ultimately. The pandemic has made all of us see the fragility of life. The universe favours no single life-form: we are but a flicker of existence in the immensity of space and time--a tiny wavelet of energetic impulse, rising and falling in the void.

While this view of the universe can be very depressing, we can also look at it this way: we are the universe. You don't lament the loss of a single strand of hair because, they keep growing--old ones are replaced by new ones. You still have a head of hair. The cosmos is all there is and ever will be. Even if you believe in multiverses, they are part of the cosmic whole. We are but a vehicle for the universe to experience itself. And in that experiencing we see our true nature.

And this opportunity to experience life in its totality is the miracle of existence. Take one breath, and within the in-breath and the out-breath, generations of births and deaths would have occured: everything changes, vibrates and goes in and out of existence. You are the God of your microcosm, which is a reflection of the larger macrocosm. Let's follow William Blake's advice: experience the world in a grain of sand, eternity in an hour.

We are here, now, experiencing this moment. This moment. And another moment. And yet another moment. Every moment sparkles like a multi-faceted jewel--the distillation of all your previous life moments. Every moment is a miracle of existence, reflecting and illuminating your entire life's experiences. See it clearly in its totality, with the highest possible resolution of the mind. And if you do that well, you are the universe, experiencing itself.

The Flowers of Forgetting

It's amazing how swiftly a week passes by during this lockdown period. I've been able to spend some time in Cyberjaya since the lockdown has been relaxed. But I will try not to go back to my old lifestyle after all this is over. Things might never be back to normal in this new age of the pandemic. But it is also an opportunity for humanity to acquire some new habits. Having less traffic, less congestion and less environmental abuse can only be good for us.

I was at the Sunway Pyramid Mall to run some errands on Friday. Was pleasantly surprised to see lots of parking available in the basement. Many outlets were still closed. Those that were open are half-empty because of social-distancing measures. It is tiresome to get your temperature taken every time you enter a shop. It doesn't look like things will be back to any semblance of normalcy for a while, with these stringent measures in place.

Twenty years ago, I was travelling every other week across the region. Over the past two decades, I have been 'domesticated'--kind of by choice, I must say. I wanted to lead a different kind of life. Now the pandemic is offering me and everyone else for that matter, another opportunity to lead a different kind of life. But what kind of life will it be?

Sometimes it is good to be yanked out of our comfort zones. Only then will transformation take place. Now companies are rethinking their business operations. Do they even need a physical office? Business could still be done with a lot less overhead using technology. We were all commuting to the office, chatting over coffee at the pantry and attending meeting after meeting out of habit, not necessity.

Football matches played in empty stadiums, awkward elbow bumps for goal celebrations and masked faces in the substitute bench--these are all things we have to get used to. It is a colder world, no doubt. But let's look at the bright side: we are all more hygienic--washing our hands obsessively and being ultra-conscious of the existence of pathogens in everything we touch. Wiping, spraying and washing with disinfectants at available opportunity. Never in the entire history of mankind, have the human race observed such high standards of cleanliness.

I used to spend a lot of time doing my work from cafes. Maybe now I've lost that habit. I don't know. Am I leading a lesser life because of it? Probably not. I still have access to all the books in the world; I have tonnes of audio and video contents that I can listen to; I have lots of things to learn; I still work 8 hours a day from my study or bedroom; I am still writing in my journal; my weekly blogging continues uninterrupted.

Our adaptability is our greatest asset. Like ant paths, all habits are but convenient routes which we follow by instinct. But when these paths are obliterated, we are quick to forge new ones. And soon, everything flows along again as if nothing had happened. The daily preoccupations of survival distracts us from any thoughts of the past. And soon we'll forget, like we always do.

Forgetting is a great human gift, which can be used to great advantage. For sometimes it is better to forget our old ways completely after we've acquired new ones. Only by forgetting do we really discard our bad habits. Only by a willingness to forget, does pain ever fade away. Only in the withering of flowers and leaves, do fresh new shoots spring from the ground.

Insights from the Inside

Our partial lockdown, which we Malaysians refer to by the rather Kafka-esque initials "CMCO" (Conditional Movement Control Order) has been extended for another 4 weeks.  I think there will be a gradual easing of controls over the weeks to come. And we have to learn to live with it.

Because nothing much happens when you are under lockdown, the days seem short to me. I try not to listen to too much news and simply focus on my personal projects. How will we remember these lockdown days in years to come? With fondness and nostalgia? With regret and sorrow? Or will we remember it as a turning point in our lives?

To realize that everything comes to pass ultimately, can be both a source of pain or comfort to people. If you are in a difficult situation, understanding the impermanence of things gives you hope to carry on. But if you are trying hard to cling on to some material pleasure, impermanence is your enemy.  Having the wisdom to see both sides of the coin is equanimity.

Impermanence is one of the so-called 3 marks or characteristics of existence in Buddhism. The other two is unsatisfactoriness (or suffering) and no-self (or no soul). These terms, admittedly are rather imperfect translations from the original Pali of anicca, duhkha and anatta.  Most people understand impermanence. "Everything is impermanent" is an exhortation which many dislike because it seems to give a rather pessimistic view of life. But that is again viewing one side of the coin.  The fact that everything passes away also means that there's constant renewal.  That's how the universe works. Every trough is followed by a rising crest.  If you get in tuned with the rhythm of rising and falling, you'll always be able to ride the rising wave and relax along with the downward flow when things are ebbing away. 

Ironically relationships are more 'permanent' when two persons are constant meeting and parting.  The do not live in each other's presence too long to be annoyed with one another and whenever they see each other again, there's always the joy of meeting. Separation dilutes pain and hatred. Impermanence work in our favour that way. Different relationships have different natural frequencies. For some, the duration of optimal parting could be a single day, for others it could be years.  Married couples work that out naturally after a while.

The mind without equanimity will always try to cling to things that are pleasurable and push away unpleasant ones. That's what we instinctively do, even though we know that both pain and pleasure are subject to impermanence. This restless nature is the root of the second characteristic of all phemonena --that they are never satisfactory. Even the bliss found in deep meditation are temporary and ultimately unsatisfactory. It is by letting go that one progresses.  You cannot bottle a single wave from the ocean, but you can stand above it and admire the might and grandeur of the waves as the lash against the shore.

But what is an ocean? It is just a convenient term we use to refer to a body of water. We can give names and artificially assign international boundaries to them. Like the self, oceans do not exist. There's only water molecules vibrating and redistributing themselves across space and time.  We can go on and ask ourselves what are molecules, atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons or even quarks. Physics have shown us that matter and energy are interchangeable and that particles pop in and out of existence constantly, depending on its energetic state.  In other words, energy has 'no self'. There immediate you see the three marks of existence.

To live is to gain insight into these truths.  And very often, the best insights are gained in periods of difficulties--like the times we are living in now.  Yes, we are all forced to stay inside during this lockdown period. But let's go even deeper inside, and find some true insights within.

The Minutiae of Spiritual Maps

Today is the first day of the conditional MCO, where most businesses are allowed to reopen. I see that the traffic on the road has increased significantly. The peace and quiet of the MCO days are over now. It is good that at least some businesses can resume or many would go under. Things have been very tough for a lot of people. As long as everyone takes the necessary social distancing precautions, I think we can manage the situation.

The weakest and the poorest are the most exposed during these difficult times. Those who are more fortunate must extend out a helping hand. The best kind of help are those that you give instinctively and quietly without having to publicize them. That is the best way to work out your karma. To seek recognition for helping others is to extend the chain of action and reaction. Doing good is just practicing good energy management. You focus all your resources towards the point of need and you move on without having to waste any more time dealing with either praise or blame.

We all need help at one time or another. If we are too proud to seek assistance when we are truly in need, that is also due to the ego. Look inside and see what is that facade that you are trying to project to the world. It costs a lot to maintain it. If you let it go, a lot of healing can occur. Free up the energy and let it find its best mode of expression.

Every religion emphasizes a different aspect of the path. Some focuses on love and forgiveness, which is an 'architecture' that facilitates and outward flow of positive energy. To love is to give without expecting anything in return. This is something that all lovers caught in the intoxication of first love must learn. Romantic love is often selfish, with a lot of expectations on the other party. Only through many iterations of pain, do we learn how to love. In the immortal words of Kahlil Gibran:

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

Love dissolves the ego. The dissolution of the ego requires an act of surrender--which is another aspect of the spiritual path, emphasized by some religions. To surrender to the will of the divine means, one does one's best and leaves the outcome to the universe. To give and to love without expecting anything in return. If one is rewarded, let it be called a blessing. For a blessing does not result from one's own act of will. The monotheistic religions emphasizes a "virtual external point"--God, which is the source of all blessings. By using the architecture of the virtual external point, the ego is diminished--it is no longer the source of anything. Hence there is no desire for revenge or recognition. Once's actions are simply one's energetic contribution to the circulation of energy within a larger system. Only then, does one feel to be close to God.

We live within a sliver of the universe, seeing the world within a very narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum, and listening within a very limited range of audio frequencies, occupying an infinitesimally small chunk of space and time. Yet in our ignorance, we think that our small flicker of consciousness is all there is. Hence we grab whatever material possession we can, thinking that it is what makes life meaningful.

Yet every time we succeed in doing so, its allure fades away, and you see yet another horizon further on, where that mythical pot of gold is. And we foolishly think that the ultimate goal of life is just to gain enough loyalty points so that one gets to claim the reward of a place in heaven, which is supposed to look like an idealized version of our small world, where everything is perfect, the way we envision it to be. How limited is our mortal imagination!

Every day, we try to chip away a bit of our ego, by prostrating before a Higher Power, by surrendering our will, by loving unconditionally, by giving and helping others. We try to circulate the energy so that nothing accumulates and festers within the constricting confines of our souls. Even the concept of a 'soul' is another manifestation of the ego's desire to actualize itself. We always need to have static objects to help us think. Hence we invent mental stepping stones for us to move forward: an internal virtual object called the 'soul' and an external one called 'God'. Point A and Point B.

Religion is simply a guide for moving from point A to point B. The more enlighten ones would prefer to call it 'merging' point A with point B. Others would tell you that points A and B are actually not real, only convenient markers, like how cities are represented by dots on the map.

We are all physical creatures, familiar with physical metaphors. We can only begin from our own humble physical vantage points. On the spiritual path, having a map is better than none. But one must never confuse dots on the map with the place they represent. The religious dogmatists argue incessantly about the minutiae of the maps: some would tell you that there are actually an infinite number of dots between A and B. No, there are a trinity of points: A, B and C. A is above B and C; No, A, B and C are all equal; no, ABC, BCA, CAB... and they write books, arguing about it.

The real spiritual seeker takes a look at all the maps, and proceeds onward. For he knows where his true destination is: it is always outside the map.