Mining Meaning from Mindlessness

It's a working day again after a week-long break for Hari Raya. I have been reasonably productive though during the holidays, working on my favourite projects. I like to put every second to good use. Even idleness has to be 'meaningful' idleness.

Now, how do we gauge what is meaningful and what is not? Why should 'meaning' be an important aspect of life? Why do we have a need to seek meaning?

Meaning is a vector--it has both magnitude and direction. Doing something meaningful in life means that you have a direction or goal to aim for. And then you expend time and energy towards it. How much time, how much energy you invest---that's the 'magnitude' part of the meaning vector.

As long as our lives are guided by over-arching principles and purpose, even moments of idleness will automatically have meaning. How? Let's say you are watching TV, channel surfing randomly until you hit something that catches your fancy. And then you sit there on the couch for an hour, watching whatever that caught your attention. Is this activity meaningful or a total waste of time?

One could argue that watching TV can be meaningful in many ways. Maybe you just need to relax and take your mind off work for a while. That could be a good reason. It's a 'sharpening the saw' activity that is essential for us to be fit and ready when we are required to do so.

But sometimes we tend to over-exaggerate the need to relax. A short nap or a walk in the park could be a better way to refresh oneself. Most of the time, watching TV is just a way of putting off work. It's simply easier to press a button on the remote control and let your mind shift aimlessly in tandem with the channels. It's basically a form of daydreaming.

We can, if we choose to, watch TV in a more meaningful manner. Many TV series are quite educational. I'm not talking about serious documentaries that are obviously directly educational, but even fictional ones. Fictional films, drama or serials, especially the high-quality ones, can help us learn a lot about history or other domain subject matter like law, or government, or criminal investigation. We just need to be smart to know where real-life ends and fiction begins. All fiction are based on real-life situations, only exaggerated for dramatic effect. If we are smart in knowing these boundaries, we can extract the essence from the dross.

Hence watching TV is like a process of mining. There's a lot of junk that's being fed into our minds, but every now and then, a gem of a lesson emerges and you lap it up with relish. We are like those underwater filter-feeding creatures. They live by allowing water to flow continuously through their 'mouths' and have food nutrients extracted from it.

Watching TV is certainly not energy sapping, only time-consuming. So it is an activity that's performed at the cost of your time. But always remember this: time is a finite resource. Even though we can filter educational nutrients from this activity, it is better to be smarter in the process. We can enter into this low energy mode but still have a better flow of content fed into our minds. That way, we get the most value for the time spent.

Actively choose what you feed your mind with. That way, you can better control the quality of meaningful nutrients that are being consumed. And do have a conscious intent to extract. Extraction requires some effort. Energy is involved, but it is minimal, if you've already acquired the habit. To extract, you will need to be questioning, comparing, assimilating and noting facts throughout the entire experience. Only when these activities are present in your mind, and not simply passive reactivity, can knowledge or even wisdom be extracted.

So, treat the mindless experience of watching TV as a process of mining. You'll be surprised to find out how much meaning you can extract from it.

Pixels of Thoughts

It has been a happy weekend for me because Liverpool FC won the EUFA Champions League Cup again--for the sixth time. That made up for the heartache of just missing out on the Premier League title by 1 point to Manchester City. Also the pain of last year's Champion League's final has finally been healed by this great victory against Tottenham Hotspurs.

I've been supporting Liverpool for ages--since the days when Bob Paisley was the manager. There have been many managers and new players since then; so many ups and downs. By sticking with the team you support through thick and thin, you earn your right to enjoy their victories simply by partaking in the pain of the defeats. Being a football supporter is great training in karma (the subject of my previous week's post).

Every blog post starts with a single thought. Students of the Buddhist text, the Abhidhamma will know that thoughts, at their most fundamental level, are discrete. One thought sparks off another thought and another thought--a Markov Chain of events, propelled by its karmic force.

In our everyday life, we experience physical activities such as walking, sitting and sleeping and also go through a whole gamut of human emotions such as joy, anger, fear, jealousy, love and hate. This is where we operate in our normal mode of existence. Our moral conscience, ethics and education guide us on how we should react, respond and act on these experiences. Religion, at a superficial level provides principles and guidelines on how we should or should not behave at this level of existence.

However these are but experiences at a macroscopic level. The everyday drama that runs in our mental screens, on closer inspection are made up of small pixels, like your TV or computer screen.

A sensory input, say the sight of an expensive watch on the display window of a mall, can trigger an impulse to possess it, which result in you perhaps parting with a huge chunk of your salary to purchase it, which in turn results in pride of its possession, an inflation of your ego, an awareness of your rising social status, a need to possess even more material accessories that fall in line with that status and perhaps leading you to suffer financial difficulties, which trigger you to consider better-paying jobs elsewhere and so on.

Each one of these experiences are actually made up of even smaller pixels. Just think, why should the sensory input of the image of a watch itself would trigger a need to possess it?

This is due to the condition of your mind. The watch is not simply an image of an object. The impingement of its light on your retina, triggers a series of mental stimuli and responses that are automatic, apparently beyond your control. Our consciousness works at a very coarse-grained level. We don't see these individual pixels that make up the total mental picture. That is the main cause of our downfall.

As Victor E. Frankl famously wrote:

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

The ability to see the space between stimulus and response, like seeing images as consisting of pixels on the LCD screen requires a higher resolution in our consciousness. How easily do you get angry? That is a good test of your mind's resolution. Are you able to see the arising of anger within you before you respond?

Increasing the resolution of the mind requires training. That training is called mindfulness. Mindfulness is a skill that can be cultivated. Just as the piano player can through practice increase the flexibility and precision of his fingers to produce the subtle tonal variations, so can we cultivate the ability to see our experiences clearer, at better resolution, so that every pixel of experience is seen as it is. By seeing out thoughts at the pixel level, we choose more wisely. And of course, wise action leads to better outcomes in our lives.

A Gymnasium in Paradise

I had always imagined paradise as a kind of library. - Jorge Luis Borges

The most enduring image that has lingered in my mind from the movie Minority Report (starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg) was the final scene where the pre-cogs were seen in a some kind of rustic cottage, surrounded by piles of books, blissfully reading. I thought to myself then, heaven must look like that--filled with wonderful books and all everyone does is read all day, and all night.

Reading is one of the greatest pleasures of life, and among the cheapest too. People like to complain that books are expensive. No they are not. The price of a paperback book is probably about the amount you'll spend on a typical outing with friends at Starbucks. And how many books does an average person read a year?

You'll be considered quite an avid reader if you manage to read a book a month. If the average paperback costs RM50.00, that amounts to only about RM600.00 a year spent on books. I'm sure your smartphone (which you'll probably change every year) costs more than that.

And don't forget, you can also read for free at the local library. Not to mention all the free e-books that you can also download to your favorite reading device. No other equivalent pleasure in life comes that cheap.

Why don't people read more then? In Malaysia, if you ask someone what he or she is reading now, you'll probably get a blank stare. Ask them what TV series they are watching now or which nightspot do they hangout these days, they'll probably light up immediately.

Most people consider reading boring. It takes a lot of effort to focus page after page of words. Reading is hard work. Reading is passe. Why not surf the web? Isn't it a much more efficient way of absorbing information in today's fast paced world?

Yes and no. I don't disagree that the internet is a great source of information and knowledge. One can probably find out more up-to-date information about a certain subject much more quickly from the web. I'm a great fan of Wikipedia and Youtube. One can learn whatever one desires to learn these days. All knowledge is available on one's fingertips, if only one is willing to invest the time to absorb them.

No, surfing the Net does not provide one important benefit one gets from reading printed dead-tree pages: the practice of concentration. Reading a book from cover to cover, tracing the authors thread of thought one word at a time, watching his ideas and concepts take shape sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph is like a kind of meditation, with words acting almost like prayer beads.

It is the hard work of slowly scanning line after line of monotonous text, lumbering along page by page at snail's pace that provides the necessary exercise that our mental faculties need. The book is the mind's exercise machine. One reads to sharpen one's mind. Reading keeps the brain sizzling with healthy electro-chemical activity, forging fresh connections among neurons, stimulating neuro-transmission across synapses.

Reading keeps one mentally fit. And I can imagine Borges, who passed away in 1986, blissfully working out at the gymnasium of the mind in Paradise.

The Tyranny of Thoughts

This blog is like my meditation cave. I retreat here to dive deeeper into my soul. New Year's Eve is especially a good time to do some deep reflection.

I'm not exactly sure what I will come up with everytime I face this blank screen with my fingers hovering over the keyboard, like a diver poised on the edge of a springboard.

When I was young, curiosity drove me to acquire knowledge. It was my belief that at some point, with sufficient knowledge and intelligence, one gets to understand everything. Reason and logic can overcome any intellectual challenge.

Then as I grew older, I began to realise that the reasoning mind is not everything. There are depths within the mind that are never penetrated by reason. The mind, which has served mankind as the ultimate instrument for exploring the secrets of the universe is the biggest obstacle of all towards enlightenment.

Our preconceptions, our love for ideology and dogma seduce us into believing that we have found the Ultimate Truth when in fact we are like children preoccupied indoors with the latest toys, while the vast world of wonders lie unexplored outside.

Everytime we think, we are already imprisoned by the mind. We fear the cessation of thoughts because we think that the absence of thoughts make us stupid. How wrong we are!

A wise spiritual teacher once said: "Thoughts are wonderful servants but bad masters". How true it is. Thoughts, when they are given free reign, takes over our lives. If I have a new year resolution at all, it has to be this: "To make thoughts my servants". Happy New Year.

Gymnasium of the Mind

I'm on leave and that gives me a bit of space to think more clearly.

When I was in Jakarta, I used to blog daily even though I didn't even have a notebook PC at home then. I blogged from the Internet cafe: an hour there was just enough time for me to put down my daily reflection and to catch up on the latest Malaysian news. I even wrote longhand in my diary everyday.

I've lost a lot of these habits since I came back to KL (5 years ago?). Slowly, I need to cultivate these good habits again. Writing helps me to think--it puts space in between thoughts and helps me to see them with greater clarity.

I haven't been watching movies at the cinema regularly too for the past few years. This is another activity that I miss a lot. Movies give me lots of ideas and I often get inspired by them. Books, movies and music -- these things enrich life, adding colour and tone to our humdrum existence.

And of course people too. Meeting friends and strangers add to the myriad of possibilities that life has to offer. Every movie watched, every blog entry written, every conversation with a stranger or friend is another brushstroke in life's canvas.

To blog is to to distill and to savour the essence of life's experiences. It also helps to keep my writing skills sharp. Now I'm like a footballer during off-season break: my fitness is at its lowest and my agility gone.

A blog is like a gym for the mind. You have to use it regularly to keep yourself in tip top condition mentally. I'm certainly not in good form now. But give me time, slowly, I'll regain my touch...

The Music of God

Are you always conscious of your own mental processes? Do you completely identify yourself with them? This is a crucial question that you need to answer as a spiritual seeker.

In our everyday lives, we think, act and react. We become the thinking and acting. Acting and thinking, are merely two ends of the same spectrum. Is that all life is about?

You have biological, emotional and intellectual needs, so you think and act in certain ways to fulfill them. Your entire life is spent doing that--fulfilling your needs: the need to eat, to procreate and to gratify your senses.

A need arises, which triggers a thought, which leads to some action being taken and the need is temporarily satisfied. The cycle repeats itself ad infinitum. That's your life.

And then you realize that you only feel happy when the needs are met. And when any of these needs are lacking, you feel unhappy.

Then you ask yourself: Whose needs are these? Does it come from the body? Or the mind? or both?

Can these needs ever be completely satisfied? If not, does that mean I can never ever be truly happy?

What then is there, if not the activities of the mind? When the mind is quelled of its "waves", what do you see? When there is no thought, is there still consciousness? Is there still "intelligence" as we know it?

Why are there so many questions and no answers?

Answers are created to satisfy the mind. If answers exist at all, they are merely brief resting points -- a comma or a semi-colon, rather than a period. After a while, you will realise that all intellectualization has to stop at a certain point.

You don't attempt to understand music; you listen and you enjoy the sheer pleasure of its melody, harmony and rhythm. Perhaps even dance to it.

If you want to truly appreciate music, you will maintain silence and try not to ruin the experience by talking at the same time.

Do you want to know what's behind the mind? If you do, then let the mental noise stop. 

Stop.

And listen.

When the mental noise stops, there is music. And the entire universe dances to it.