The Secret to Sanity

It's another Saturday dedicated towards catching up with friends. I enjoy light social drinking at outdoor places. The place I went for dinner just now appears to be doing quite good business now that restaurants are allowed to seat more than 2 persons per table.

This is life during the pandemic, something you can tell your children about like how my dad used to narrate tales of his experience during the Japanese occupation. Before this pandemic, the last major event in my lifetime was September 11 2001. That marked a lot of changes in my life--it marked the end of my stint in Singapore and the start of my Indonesian chapter.

The pandemic appears to be another turning point. It has devastated so many businesses. But many will also bounce back again. Let's see who can ride this period out and enjoy the inevitable rebound. Financial worries can be a big stress for many with families and other commitments. It can plunge someone into deep depression. 

To prevent that from happening, one must manage one's mind very well--a task I call mental housekeeping. Meditation is the practice that achieves this goal. Through meditation, one become aware of the behaviour of one's thoughts and they are nothing more than naturally occurring vibrations in the mind.

I can see depression as some kind of infinite loop that we sometimes experience with buggy applications. The mind gets caught in its own thinking loop and it is very difficult to extricate oneself from it.

This is when the skill of letting go plays a role. Thoughts take hold of the mind because we allow them to, through our attachments to certain outcomes. Letting go of attachments drains thoughts of their fuel. Without the binding power of attachments, thoughts fade away.

But what kind of  life is that without attachments to things? 

Well, instead of attachment, we can cultivate hope and appreciation. We hope for certain outcomes in life but we are not obsessively attached to a specific manifestation of this outcome. A hope is a general alignment of one's mental and physical faculties. But the universe always works out things in the most optimal fashion. We should not second-guess it. Allow it to unfold in the way it chooses.

This attitude allows us to be at peace with what is. It is what it is. If it goes your way, express gratitude and move on. If it doesn't, acknowledge, learn and move on. Letting go and moving on, letting go and moving on. 

Once you've achieved that rhythm of existence, life becomes very spontaneous. One is a peace with the universe. Thoughts do not become the tsunamis that wreak havoc in your mind. And that is the secret to mental sanity.