Live and Let Love

Thinking back, there have been times in my life when things were so difficult that I did not know how I would get out of the situation. There did not seem to be any way out. 

It was in those difficult times that you get to know yourself. You ask yourself, what is the worst that could happen? Why did it feel so intractable? Was it shame, loss of a loved one, physical danger or financial ruin that made it so difficult?  

You see, everything that I mentioned before is painful simply because of attachment. There's attachment to pride, to someone you love, or to your own physical and financial well-being.  If you let go of them, all pain dissolves away. 

The worst that could happen is that you die. Our attachment to our own existence in this mortal frame is what we are ultimately concerned about. Let's say that you lose everything that you own, your money in the bank and the job that you have now. Everyone you know and love is gone from your life. Would you still have the strength to go on living?

If you say yes, or that you'll have to, for you have no choice, then the rest is simply a willingness to endure pain consciously--the pain of picking up the pieces and starting over again. It takes strength, courage and resilience--qualities that are difficult to summon in times of despair.

Even when you have not encountered such a dire situation before, it's a good thought experiment that one could perform, for it reduces life to its simplest objective: to survive. What does it take for one simply to survive?

There you will come face to face with your karma. You are born because you still have an attachment to life. It's the simplest of attachments: you want to be alive. To survive involves overcoming a lot of everyday obstacles--seeking food, shelter and companionship. It involves a lot of painful work. That is what working out your karma means. 

And if you have the wisdom to take this pain consciously, you do not generate fresh karma. Work and relationships could be difficult things to tackle. If you love someone and think that your possessive love is something very noble, you are simply generating fresh karma with a lot of potential pain.

Love for love's sake. There's pain and pleasure in the act of love. Take them both. There's no future goal when you love someone. It is not to have kids and a beautiful home. That's a by product of love which you could express gratitude for, if they do materialize. The act of love itself is selfless and goalless.

To live is to love. Love is an energy that emanates from your being. Just spread it around like the selfless sunlight that nourishes the flora, like the cool breeze that brings relief during a hot afternoon, like the gentle ocean waves that lap on the shore. 

Think again of that difficult situation that you have. What attachment is it that's holding you back and making things so difficult? Let go and fall back into your natural state of love. Then you'll know that love and life are inseparable.

The Sword of Fame

Time for me to relax and allow my mind to breathe for a while because it's Friday and I'm finally alone here in my apartment with no work to worry about. Yes, I'm on leave today and I spent the afternoon just now catching up with Myra.

I'm happy that she's making some headway in the entertainment industry, appearing frequently on television, hosting various programs, occasionally starring in music videos and dramas. I advise her to be not too agitated over some of the difficult people she encounters every now and then but to focus on gaining more experience for herself. All experiences, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant are valuable and help to build character.

She is also earning some decent income as a social influencer. I'm always advising her to be mindful of what she does in public as being a public figure opens one up to all sorts of unwarranted scrutiny. The fact that someone can earn money from a fan-base of so-called followers is because, there's a certain 'insanity' innate in people that is being exploited here for commercial gains.

For the masses to pour so much adulation on certain personalities based on his or her looks or even talent is a kind of insanity. Think about it: why should we scream and yell, behave like a lunatic when we sight our favourite idols? Why should we pay so much money to possess certain memorabilia associated with these individuals? 

There's some kind of psychological hangup here that finds its expression in the form of celebrity worship. It's true that there's nothing wrong in admiring the beauty, talent or performance of certain entertainment or sports personalities because they give us pleasure and perhaps even knowledge. But why do we go crazy over them as if they are some kind of super-human that exist on a super-terrestrial plane? Why are their private lives of interest and concern to us? 

Decent human beings do not pry into the private affairs of their neighbours and friends. Why is there a paparazzi industry that exists just to cater to this strange sickness of a large portion of our society?

Celebrities make a lot of money because we are insane enough to pay a premium for a sight of their good looks or talent. Even if they are so talented in a particular field, why should we pay so much to gawk at them? 

So when celebrities complain that they do not have private lives and it is not all bed and roses after all for being famous, they don't really get my sympathy. They are where they are now because of the very perversion which they are complaining about.

Idolization of famous personalities has never made anyone a better person. One could of course claim that the success of one's idol motivates one to excel. But if it is mere inspiration we are seeking, how do we explain our hyper-reaction to their every appearance in the public arena? If a fellow co-worker is a super-performer in some field, do we ask for her autograph? 

If we simply wish to learn from the best, we will watch, take notes and emulate, not drool at their sight. Psychologist have theorized about the underlying cause of this human behaviour. Some say it could simply be compensation for some deficit in the fanatical fans themselves. Is there something that's lacking in their lives that they seek to over-react to everything about their idols?

Perhaps it's simply normal human behaviour that's innate within us, akin to mob behaviour.  Is there any harm to it? Maybe there's none at all. Celebrity culture and idol worship is simply part of the fun of everyday human interaction. We enjoy gossiping about the people we know, so what's wrong with prying into the lives of the rich and famous? 

This is what I try to tell Myra every time I see her. There is nothing wrong in seeking fame and fortune. In fact, I even encouraged her to do so. If popular success attracts you, go for it. Everyone has a calling and that is the path that will be most rewarding spiritually, even though there could be a lot of pain that goes with it. Your soul seeks the best path for its healing.

When one is famous, one should not complain about being treated unfairly by the masses. Their insanity can be both a boon and a bane. You just need to prepared for it and to deal with its adverse effects. Remember, the sword of fame cuts both ways.

Collosseum of the Dead

As we ease our Covid-19 restrictions, I fear that the number of infections will go up dramatically. What more with a state election coming up in Malacca. But what can we do about it? We have no choice but to resume normal life and learn to live with the virus.

It's now customary of hearing people dying of complications caused by Covid-19. The inevitability of death is something that we have to learn to accept. None of us: you, me and all the people that you see around you now will still be around in another 100 years. All the beauty and pride, the smiles, the laughter and the banter will be gone without a trace. 

It is painful to lose a loved one. When we love someone, we have an emotional bond attached to the person as if it is a physical cord itself that ties our souls together. When one dies, these cords will be severed, with a pain that's akin to a limb being amputated.

All pain however fades away with time if wounds are allowed to heal. The first pre-requisite for healing is simply letting go. That is often the hardest thing to do. We feel a pang of guilt, as if we are betraying the dead by 'forgetting' about their existence.

The death of two of my friends due to Covid-19 was a great shock to me. But now I'll have to continue living, cherishing the good times we had--the joy and banter we exchanged are now but a beautiful memory, constantly present to nourish the future. 

We can only go forward and the endpoint of this journey is death. To those who are religious, there could be an afterlife where one is judged for one's deeds in this life; to others there could a transition to another birth. Whatever it is, what matters most is now. This very moment.

This moment that stands on the memory of the departed, ushering the living to their inevitable end. We live and that's all we know. I write these words, and that's all I could do. So I do it with as much heart and earnestness that I could muster, for it is what defines me. 

There are more people who have lived and died than there are those who are alive today. So we live surrounded by ghosts, like gladiators performing in the collosseum of the dead.

All we can do is fight the good fight. Fight with the wisdom accumulated by those who have come before us. It is the best way to honour them. And in time, we too shall depart, hopefully leaving behind some deeds or knowledge that could guide those who shall come after us.

The Fluctuating Field of Feelings

Another week, another Friday off. I'm looking forward to the long weekend because I'll be working continuously the whole of next week when everyone else goes on leave.

I didn't have breakfast today, opting to go for lunch instead, which I had here in my apartment in Cyberjaya a moment ago. Now I'm just enjoying my coffee while I type these lines and figure out the subject of this week's blog article.

This morning a single phrase keeps repeating in my mind: "existence is energy". I remember that I wrote about this recently, and upon searching my blog, indeed I had an article called Existence is just Energy.  Perhaps I want to elaborate more on what I mean by this.

I'm going to go a step further by saying, existence is a feeling. Now, we know what it is like to feel something. You feel cold. You feel dejected. You feel touched by someone. There's a feeling, that is the sum total of all your bodily electro-chemical process inside which you recognize.  The feeling varies from moment to moment in time. There's a quality and identity to that feeling.

Yes, but what is the point that I'm trying to make?  You know you are alive when you are feeling something. And feeling means receiving and reacting to the world. I almost wanted to write "reacting to the external world" but that would be wrong. The so-called reaction is exactly what we mean by that feeling. It is a fluctuation in the field, of which our individual existence is defined.

So life is a continuous feeling. If I may paraphrase Descartes: I feel, therefore I am. At any point in time, the state of your existence is that feeling that you feel and you should treat it as nothing more than a reading of the energy dial. When you meditate, this is what you are constantly aware of, moment by moment. You are tracing the graph of existence as it is being drawn.

When you see that feeling as it is, it is all there is. You are not a physical being feeling heat or cold, anger or elation, but just being a point in the energetic continuum. You have no idea which way it will go next but all you have to do is observe and maintain your balance as you are being swept along by the waves of this energy.

Again, all this sounds like mystical new age mumbo-jumbo. This is what I have a propensity of doing: spouting paragraph after paragraph of such nonsense. I take that as a compliment. They are all non sense--not to be experienced with the usual senses. It is what underlies your senses. You know it when you feel it.

When you say that you know or you understand, again it's a feeling. And if you see it clearly, one feeling differs from another in terms of quality but they are all neutral. We cannot say one wave causes another, or is superior to another. They are part of that oceanic field of cause and effect.

All of art is nothing but feelings captured in various physical medium. And if you feel something after reading these lines, then I've made my point. The moment it is felt, it becomes a part of your existence. And there's nothing more that needs to be said.

The Comfort of Certainty

I'm feeling very comfortable here today in my apartment in Cyberjaya. I've decided to spent the rest of the day doing some much needed housekeeping  after I'm done with this week's blog article.  As always, I'll have to decide what to write about as I go along.

I know of another thing that gives us a lot of comfort: certainty. We humans are fearful of the unknown. What happens after death? That's the greatest unknown, which makes us feel extremely uncomfortable. Is there life after death? We want to know desperately. We want some kind of certainty that death is not the end of everything.

All that is very understandable. We are humans and we have a common experience and expectation of what life is and should be. Life is good. Death is bad, because it is the end of everything we like here. We want whatever little happiness and love that we have in this brief existence to continue. We fervently wish that if a life after death exists, it has to be a better one, without the suffering that makes this life so difficult at times.

Uncertainty makes us edgy. Having some kind of flaky answer to the ultimate questions is better than admitting ignorance. You know what I'm getting--my favourite bugaboo: religion. I do not dislike religion, only their institutions and man-made doctrines, which on serve to numb and exploit our worst fears, never elevating us to greater understanding and transcendence, which its hidden truth is capable of revealing.

We need some figure of authority to tell us that if we recite this prayer or perform certain rituals, some good or blessing will come to us. The local gangster up there will ensure our safety after we have obediently paid the protection fee. Our susceptibility to religious dogma suggest some deeper psychological hang-up or fear that needs to be worked out. But instead of healing, we opted for numbing--something which religious doctrines and dogma provide with their false sense of certainty.

Those preachers and priests want you to believe that once you have accepted their faith, you belong to an exclusive club of favoured souls, whose safety is guaranteed in the hereafter. They talk so much about the hereafter as if they have been there and back, like tourists recounting their budget tour experience in some exotic far-flung country.

There's certainly comfort in such certainty and exclusivity. If that makes your life more bearable, by all means, go ahead. But do not be deluded into believing that you have the answers to everything. Allow others to find their versions of the truth, which may or may not be better than yours. 

I've blogged before about the virtue of keeping an open mind. It's alright to say, I don't know. Of course we don't know. That's why we are living: to slowly discover more and more. We'll not know until we come to our deaths.  It'll be interesting to find out if your membership, which was chiefly determined by the circumstance of your birth, qualifies you admission to the Club and its perpetual pleasure parties.

There's certainly comfort in certainty, but not at the price of ignorance.  The path of the pilgrim is fraught with uncertainties. It is the challenge of uncertainty that illuminates the mind and offer glimpses of the real afterlife. 

You can ask: how do I know this?  I certainly don't. But I do know uncertainty and its many discomforts. And strangely, there's a certain comfort in that.

The Scents of Change

I spent a few years working in Singapore and those were among the happiest years of my life. I had a good job which allowed me to travel regularly across the Asia Pacific region and beyond. Singapore was a great place to live, even though I lived simply, in a rented HDB room with an Indian family.

I think my landlord loved me as a tenant because I was travelling half the time and barely bothered him. But whenever I was back in Singapore, I spent a lot of time reading in my room, surfing the Net on my then state-of-the-art ADSL connection. I didn't have a TV, so I watched Channel News Asia through the Internet--a great novelty at that time in the nineties.

I watched a lot of movies at cinemas across the city and spent time loitering at Borders and Kinokuniya book stores. I bought so many books and audio-books during those years. I took the bus to work and was perfectly happy doing so, listening to audiobook cassettes on my Walkman.

But when the opportunity arose to leave the city and base myself in Jakarta, I did not hesitate. I've always sought new experiences and working in a new city had always proved to be interesting. Prior to that, I had a 3-month stint in Menlo Park, California. Being in Silicon Valley during the height of the dotcom boom was quite exciting.  Even now the smell of Eucalyptus would remind me of those carefree days, driving along the 101 Highway and loitering around the suburbs of Palo Alto and Mountain View.

My days in Jakarta are well-documented in this blog as I started blogging during my second year there. Interesting though it was to live there, it was not an ideal place to live permanently for the pollution there was bad. 

I am reminiscing fondly about these foreign experiences of mine because they are such a contrast to the life that I'm living now in Malaysia. The pandemic has made me even more of a hermit. And the strange thing about it is that I do not seem to mind that much.

What has become of me? I guess we all change. Life itself changes. When we know that change is inherent in Nature, we don't cling on to things that much. We enjoy every experience as they come along and allow them to go as easily as they had come.  Every experience makes you a better person and one should express gratitude for it.

The smell of kretek will always remind me of Jakarta as Eucalyptus pines do of my time in the Bay Area of California. The pandemic has brought changes to every one's life. More changes will come for sure. For better or worse, let's embrace it. For change itself is the stuff of life. 

The Virtues of an Empty Mind

I have a lot of leave to finish off before the end of the year and so today I've decided to take the day off. I do not like to take a long break because it is usually very difficult to get back into the rhythm of work after that.  

I don't get to spend much time here in my apartment in Cyberjaya but today is one of those rare occasions that I get to write a blog article from here. Despite the poor maintenance in my condominium complex, it is still a very quiet and relaxing place to be. To sit here in my home office, staring at the foliage of trees around me puts me in the mood for contemplation.

Contemplation usually involves ruminations of both the past and the future.  To take an event, a snippet of a conversation, an expression of the face or a scene that imprints in the memory and play it repeatedly in the mind, in an attempt to distill its hidden meaning. That's what the mind does constantly.  How do we prevent that?

Can the mind really be blank at all? Of what use is an 'empty' mind? 

We are seduced by thoughts that are nothing but the drama of likes and dislikes. We have an opinion on everything. Social media encourages that, amplifying that to a degree hitherto unseen. The outer world is merely an exaggerated world of the inner one. Ideas and opinions shape the world at large. The mightier the thought, the greater the effect it has on the world, for better or worse.

An 'empty' mind is a mind that is a wellspring of harmonious ideas--ideas that are part of the naturally evolving universe. When the mind is empty, we peer into the greater mind of the universe. Our thoughts are but little eddies in the larger ocean of truth. Only allowing these local eddies of ruminations to subside, are we able to tap into these mighty oceanic swells.

A mind devoid of petty thoughts becomes a vehicle of expression for the universe--a fertile soil for the growth and development or artistic works. We all love art because art is nothing but creations that mirrors the impulses of the cosmos.  

We are part of the universe. Our minds are nothing but the universe being conscious of itself. And when it does, it needs to know that it is reflecting on its own image. An empty mind is nothing but the egoic mind standing aside, to let the real mind reveal itself in all its glory.

Hark, the universe itself whispers within. If only you are willing to listen, with an empty mind.

Master of the Moment

I am writing this on a Friday night after finishing my work for the week. It is a good and relaxing feeling to have the whole weekend ahead. And I'm getting a head start by writing my blog article now.

You usually begin the week with apprehension on a Sunday evening, bracing yourself for another busy Monday with all the bustle, mini crises, false alarms and emergencies that will inevitably pepper the week. But you always emerge at the end of it feeling quite alright. It's not that bad after all. And there goes another work week.

No problem is as big as they initially appear to be.  Once you are willing to stick your toe into it, the water is not too cold nor too hot for you. You'll be able to adapt. Just take one step at a time. Take one do-able step and imagine that's all you need to do. And when it is done, you'll be buoyed and the momentum will carry you forward to the next doable step. That's how you progress--like what the Chinese say about the journey of 10,000 miles.

It is like this blog article too. I always click the New Post button not knowing what I'm supposed to write. But I'm always able to write one sentence. That will bring me to the next one and so on. Without looking too far ahead, things become more manageable. You are all right, right now and you can certainly do that one thing, right now. 

That is also the philosophy behind mindfulness. Be aware of what you are experiencing at this very moment. Acknowledge it, and the next moment comes. There is no tension, no anticipation nor reflection. It is just pure awareness--taking in each moment like a frame from a movie reel. All drama ceases to exist. Life has no crises, only different moments, each on its own is what it is--a quantum of experience, neither good nor bad.

All judgement comes in retrospect. It is a blessing and curse that we are able to recollect the past and anticipate the future. A blessing because it is how humans progress--learning from our past experiences and using them to tackle the future. A curse because we can now compare, between good times and bad ones, between ourselves and others and start fearing for threats that are unlikely to happen.

We begin to live not in the moment but jump back and forth between the past and the future. That's the recipe for an unhappy life. The entire lesson of the past can be learned in the present moment--if you are aware of it in its entirety. 

Now pay attention: this moment is the sum of your past and the seed of your future. Take it as sweetly as you possibly can. If you can master the moment, you have nothing to fear in life, because no matter how bad it is, it is just this moment, and that's all there is, and it is all that matters for the moment.

Reflections on A Reading Life

It's been a while since I've been able to work from my home office in Cyberjaya but today happens to be my day off and because the inter-district travel ban has been lifted, I am able to visit my apartment there. I'm now typing these words from the comforts of my man-cave.

The good thing about being here is that almost my entire book collection is available. It's like being reunited with my memory bank. Each book is a piece of random access memory. Most of everything I know came from these books and if I need to recollect a certain passage or revisit a certain idea by a particular author, I am able to find it here in my shelves.

I wish I am a child again, being able to spend an entire school holiday reading. Are there such children anymore who would be delighted to while away his or her time perusing books rather than being glued to his phone or computer screen?

Before the miracle of the Internet and the World-Wide Web, the only source of knowledge was books. Which was why my first investment when I could afford to do so after working for a few years was to purchase a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. This set still occupies prime space in my library shelves. It is a milestone in my quest for knowledge and understanding.

And that's all I've ever wanted to do. To know and understand. To have all my childhood and childish questions answered. A quest that had lasted an entire lifetime and is still on-going. Is that too much to ask for? 

My collection of books here is the result of this perhaps quixotic quest--the belief that the universe could be understood by the humble human mind and that there's nothing nobler than the pursuit of knowledge.

This belief has coloured everything that I do.  I was just flipping through a paperback book from the shelf with the title Bohemia written by Herbert Gold. And on the title page, I had written my name and the date and place where it was purchased: 5th April 1994, San Francisco.  And inside the book, I found a card which I had used as a bookmark: it was an unused breakfast coupon from the Westin Resort, Macau, dated 7th December 2000. 

Every book is like a time capsule. Not only do the contents of the book enlighten the mind, the experience of buying, reading and carrying the book with me on my travels are all woven into those pages. I often like to slip pieces of receipts into the books that I'm reading. And inside this book I found on a receipt for a drink I had at the American Chili's Grill and Bar Restaurant at Boat Quay, Singapore, dated 11th April 1998. I had carried this book with me to Boat Quay and read it there.

This collection of books is my entire life. And I'm still accumulating them. The other day, another book I had ordered from Book Depository arrived through regular mail:  In Court and Kampong by Hugh Clifford and I immediately scribbled the date of its arrival: 6th of September 2021. 

When I'm done reading a book, I would also note down the start and finish dates on the last page--using pen and ink to mark my territory like what a dog does with urine.

Of what use are all these books and supposed knowledge that I've gathered? How does it help me in becoming a better person if not a successful one?

Honestly, that has never been my goal when it comes to reading. It is like asking of what use it is to consume food. It is simply a basic necessity of living, without which I would have died a mental death. 

And here I am back again in my apartment of books, pulling out a piece of my life from here and there--every book reflecting back at me, like illuminating facets of a diamond. It's the reflections of a life lived and examined. and I know no other way of doing it.

The Contentment of a Tree

I was having breakfast just now, at home, listening to a Haydn piano sonata, while reading the day's newspapers. I used to have my meals everywhere but with the pandemic, I'm marooned at home ninety-nine percent percent of the time. I'm not exactly an outdoor person--the type who loves outdoor sports and activities, but I like being outside, feeling the heat and sunshine and watching people go about their lives.

I used to be as free as a bird--floating high above, flitting from branch to branch, in Shelley's words, a "scorner of the ground". But now I'm like a tree, rooted in one place.  But it's not too bad to be a tree with a wide canopy, providing shelter to creatures below, with roots radiating out into the surrounding, savouring its precious nutrients, while receiving the blessings of sunlight and rain from above. 

A solitary tree, sturdy and strong in facing the vicissitudes of weather is a good metaphor for the kind of life I'm living now. Or at least that's how I strive to be. What a beautiful machinery a tree is! It is solar-powered and only uses what's available around it, accepting its limitations, and growing around obstacles. It is subtly insistent, its roots occasionally piercing into concrete, if required. If we subject a tree to stop motion photography, we'll realize it is actually a moving object--only that it lives on a different speed from what we are used to. These foliage fiends are models of patience--it plots slowly, stretching branches and aligning leaves to reach sunlight, and silently burrows its roots towards live-giving hints of water.

A tree lives in the moment. It accepts what it is given and makes do with it. It satisfies its yearning for more by simply making the tiny adjustments required to realign its growth. If it is pruned by some fastidious gardener, it obediently remolds itself into its masters vision of perfection--a pet and performer of infinite patience.

A tree can die. Sometimes violently, being chopped down by humans or struck by lightning. At other times, it goes away gently, withering in a drought, its leaves and branches decomposing back into the soil, recycling its nutrients back to its community of fauna. And that's how we should all live. We are given a moment in time. We do what we can and we return back what we had momentarily borrowed. We are merely passing participants in the pageant of life.

And what a beautiful thing life is. A tree embodies this beauty to utter perfection. I have been a bird of passage, but now I am a tree, sitting in contentment in the fields, taking it all in: a host and witness to the fecundity, above, below and around me.

The Grace and Glory of Gratitude

Typing these words on my computer while listening to Beethoven's 'Razumovsky' String Quartet. All I need to be happy is a laptop with an internet connection and all these simple joys of life come streaming in, like sunshine.

I don't pay much for my broadband connection, opting for the cheapest package available which is 89 ringgit a month for 30 Mbps. This connection is the umblical cord that provides nourishment to my soul. It is the key to all the greatest treasures of humanity through the centuries. Music, art, literature and access to all the best teachers on every subject in the world--everything is available at the click of the mouse.

What I feel is a deep sense of gratitude. With this alone, I could spend a thousand years in a cave, savouring the experience of mankind through the ages. I don't life in a posh neighbour nor have a large house furnished with designer furniture, but I do have a shelter, and sufficient food, and a good internet connection. The pandemic only makes us realize how little we all need to be really happy.

 Let's express gratitude for all the things we already have and not fret over things we don't. If you have a roof over your head and food to fill your stomach everyday, what more do you want?  Perhaps success; the kind of success defined by society: a social standing and being recognized as such and having the means to live life lavishly--the overseas holidays, the fine-dining and the designer clothes.  The good life. But for many, the pandemic has yanked all that away, reducing them to the bare necessities of life. But are you not grateful that, at the very least, you have that?

You are alright, right now. That's a mantra l have learned to tell myself, every time that I'm being anxious over something that is not exactly going my way. Well, at the very least I'm alive and at this moment, healthy. And if I care to really think about it: happy. Happiness is a simple thing. You are at ease and in possession of all your faculties, and being aware that you are, here and now, present and able to express gratitude for it.

Is that a difficult thing to do? If it is not, then it is not difficult to be happy. Happiness is simply gratitude. Gratitude is appreciating all that you have now and being aware that you are doing so. This awareness of the moment, this acknowledgement of the now, this presence of mind, body and soul--this is the divine state of grace and gratitude. 

The true prayer is a prayer of gratitude--of acknowledging one's fragility in the world and having made it so far with so little. It is with the grace of the universe that you live and thrive in this tiny sliver of space and time. When you see and feel that deep down in your soul, then you have been touched by the grace and glory of gratitude.

I Write, Therefore I Am

A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind

- Antoine De Saint-Exupery (French Aviator, Writer).

I'm typing these lines on a Saturday night. It has been a full and busy week as usual and I spent my Saturday as usual shopping for food and groceries in the morning and jogging at the park in the evening. I also write in my journal with my array of fountain pens. I also have a collection of inks of different colours ranging from the usual black, blue, red to more exotic colours from Diamine with fancy names like Claret, Green Umber, Steel Blue and Apple Glory. Writing longhand is a completely different experience from typing on a keyboard. You literally stroke your mind with the nib of the pen to tease out your innermost thoughts.

What's the benefit of writing in a journal? My main motivation for doing so is to understand myself better. When you put thoughts on paper, especially with a fountain pen, you slow down the pace of your thinking and allow the mind to breathe. Scribbling your thoughts on paper is like a mathematician working out a complex problem by first capturing it in a set of equations before working them out to their logical conclusion.

The pen acts like a seismograph--registering the minute movements of your thoughts. When you capture the stirring of your emotions on paper, you see them in their true colours. You feel their vibrations at the tip of your pen. Every nuance of your inner motivations are captured in the variation of your ink strokes on paper. I just love watching a wet fountain pen making marks across the surface of the paper. To me, that is how God created the universe--by writing out the Word.

Writing is spiritual. The act of drawing lines on a piece of paper that reflect the promptings of your mind is a piece of performance art.   You know your writing has quality when you've bridged the gap between thoughts in the head and written sentences on paper.  Writing longhand with a fountain pen helps in the process. The pen is a transducer of thoughts -- tapping the signals of the mind and amplifying them on paper, to be analyzed, read and disseminated, where they will trigger further thinking in better minds, influencing events in the real world.

I've called this process writhink.  Writing physicalizes thinking, allowing the signal of your thoughts to find their true expression in the external world. When you write what Hemingway calls a true sentence, you know that the sentence expresses the thought in the best possible way. And there's nothing more to say about it. That's one brick in the cathedral you're building in your mind. And you move on to the next true sentence.

Well, I am no Hemingway nor Exupery. But I write, therefore I am.

Metaphors for Work

 I've spent the whole week working and now when it comes to my weekly blog article, I'm going to write about -- work. But I've written a lot about work in the past. So is there still something left for me to write about?

Now, what does Kahlil Gibran say about work? Here's a quote:

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
And I truly agree with that. Work is sometimes such difficult labour, especially during this difficult time of the pandemic, when work is actually a matter of life and death.  Having work is a blessing and a boon to one's mental health. 
I work all day because my current job demands it. On a weekday I work continuously from nine to at least 11 at night. I don't break for lunch and I probably sneak in an hour for dinner in between. Even when I'm having dinner, I take peeks at my laptop to see if there are incoming emails and chat messages. It's a tough job but I see every day as an opportunity to learn something new.
At the end of my work day, I'd usually ask myself: what did I learn today? If not about the subject matter of your work, you always learn something about yourself. Always do an ego check. It's the cause of most work-related problems. 
After I close shop, I'd write in my journal, sometimes enjoy a cool beer. And the whole thing repeats itself again the following day. A weekend comes, a blog article like this is written, and after an anxious Sunday, it's Monday again. That's my worklife during this pandemic, which has raged on for more than a year now.
If you've read my old articles about work, you'll know that I associate the following words to it: worship, workout and penance. In a way, work allows you to kill three birds with one stone. Let me explain.
Work is a form of worship because it is a spiritual act of reverence. You are going through a repetitive ritual, in service of a higher goal. Or at least that's how I would approach work. You are not worshiping the company that you work for nor are you kissing your boss's ass. When you worship, you put your ego aside. You bow in humility and you see your work as a higher cause. Never mind if your job is a mundane one. All work is noble, because in the end, you are the one that would benefit most from your labour.
Which brings me to the second metaphor I often use for work: workout. Work is a form of exercise to improve your mind and body. At the end of a hard day's work, you can be assured that you are a fitter person than you were at the start of the day. Exercise is not labour, even though it can be exhausting.  Working out everyday only makes you healthier. And after a hard day's work, you sleep like a baby.
Why is work also a form of penance? This is the most interesting of the three metaphors. No matter how much you love your job, you would still encounter painful moments during the course of your work day. It could be criticism about your work, it could be dissatisfaction with the performance of a subordinate or an unreasonably difficult customer. There's always pain in work. The way to take this pain, is to see it as a form of penance. Take it head-on and see it as a form of healing. Pain only arises because you are challenged and bruised in some way inside. Examine the pain. Understand why it arises. Soften the hardness inside. You will find that if you confront pain as a form of penance, it does some magic to your soul. 
There in a nutshell is my whole philosophy about work. Blogging is the fun work that I do every weekend. It has elements of all three metaphors. Blogging is 'painful' because writing is not an easy task. You have to think of something to write about; you have to be coherent about the ideas you are expounding and in my case, there's a dateline to meet. But at the end of the article, I feel truly rewarded. Worship, workout and penance -- all three of them checked and done for the week.
 

Musings on Mortality

Another Saturday, another article. I'm listening to Beethoven's Pastoral Sonata while typing these words here in my bedroom, shielded by curtains from the harsh afternoon sunlight. I was just wondering last night what I am supposed to write today. And because this week I lost another good friend to the Covid-19 virus, I decided to write about mortality.

My late friend, who was a colleague of mine during my time in Indonesia had passed away last Friday, leaving behind 3 children and a wife. It was a shock to me when I heard the news, rather belatedly on Tuesday. He was a devout Christian and a clean-living person whom I respected very much. His death was totally unexpected and tragic to everyone. I guess it made all of us reflect on our own mortality. Any one of us could be whisked away by the Grim Reaper anytime.

We live knowing that we will all die one day. Sometimes when I'm in large glamorous gatherings of people, I morbidly imagine how in probably just another few decades, all the strong, healthy and beautiful people that I see around me will be nothing more than ash and bones--their ravishing smiles and laughter probably surviving as pixels on some storage in the cloud, unremembered and unsighted.

Like these sentences of mine too: mere arrangements of bits and bytes in some cloud storage, insignificant and unremarkable, perhaps even permanently wiped out--succumbing ultimately to the laws of entropy. 

We as humans will never come to terms with death. We have to find solace in religion, which do not always provide us with satisfactory answers. But having some answer is better than none, for death seems so final--the annihilation of everything dear to us: separation from our loved ones and all the things we are so attached to in this world. We think that each one of our individual existence is or is supposed to have unique significance across space and time. And we, our unique visions, hopes, feelings and dreams and physical bodies deserve perpetuation and preservation.

But let's pause for a moment and think. Yes think--such a human activity: having thoughts and emotions, a mind and free will, a soul, if you will. What if all this is but a small fragment of a larger existence? This is where words become inadequate to express this larger vista of being, for language is a human construct that arose out of our very limited spectrum of experience--this bio-chemical machine of protein and water, with electro-chemical energy coursing through a nexus of neurons, which we proudly interpret as a life of thoughts and emotions.

 After finishing writing the few lines of the previous paragraph, I dozed off for a while--having lacked enough sleep for the entire work week. And for those few moments--wasn't that no different from death itself? Did I care when I was sleeping? If I had not woke up from the slumber, I would have been 'contented' being 'dead' for I did not know better. But now that I'm 'alive' again, I want to cling on to this consciousness that is capable of writing these words that you are reading now, forever.

When we are dead, will we be disappointed at our unwelcome demise? That consciousness that we experience now, will it still even exist or matter? If it does, will it still have the same petty concerns as we do now? 

Perhaps not. Perhaps death is a process of outgrowing our present state of immaturity, which we call adulthood, like how we leave behind the innocent attachments of our childhood. Yes, we smile at how we used to care so much about our toys and ice-cream not knowing that real adult life offers a lot more than that.

Perhaps death is an awakening from the pupae of our adult life? Our consciousness suddenly becoming aware that we are resplendent butterflies, able to flap our magical wings to fly away and dance in an air filled with pollen and perfumed petals? We'll never know until we experience it. And at the moment, that's how I would like to imagine the lives that my departed friends are having. Something a butterfly can never communicate with a leave-crawling larva. A larva's view of mortality is all we are capable of now. And thus end my musings on mortality on a lazy Saturday afternoon, on another day in my earthly existence.

The Dance of Deviation

The battery on my laptop shows 84% and that should be sufficient for me to write this blog article for the week. Let me type a few lines of irrelevant sentences just to warm up my fingers and to get my thoughts flowing. I have been working hard the past week and last night I was thinking what I should be blogging about today.

I thought about balance. Again, I'm sure I've written about this before but the point is so important that it bears repeating. It's good to start with an analogy. We all know about physical balance--when you are walking on a ledge or standing on a stool, we all have to constantly adjust ourselves to avoid falling. I believe I've also likened meditation as being like walking on a tightrope. Thoughts are constantly throwing us off-balance and we need to readjust ourselves to come back to our object of meditation, which is usually the breath.

As you practice more, you begin to have less deviations from the centre of focus. Every time the mind strays, you become aware of the 'imbalance', and bring the mind back to the centre. After a while, you begin to do this instinctively, like how you avoid falling on a bicycle. You move your body and adjust the wheels so that you and the bike continue going steadily forward.

Riding a bicycle is I think a better analogy for meditation. We all have to learn to acquire the skill that keeps us balanced on a bicycle. After we've acquired it, we don't even think about the act anymore. It just happens. When we meditate often, we are training the mind to be balanced. It doesn't mean that we are permanently locked on one thought or object but we simply know where we are heading towards even if our trajectory is not a perfectly straight line. We will always sway and deviate but instinctively we make tiny adjustments which we are not even aware of to maintain our course.

That's what a mind trained in meditation is like. We have acquired that subtle sense of poise that ensures that the mind is never knocked off-balance. The better we are at it, the less wobbling we'll experience as we propel ourselves forward in time. I've also likened the process to surfing. Knowing these analogies make it easier to understand what meditation is all about.

We do not fear a mind that constantly deviate because we have an awareness of our position and direction. Trust the system to make the necessary readjustments. Once we've acquire the rhythm, we are moving perfectly in response to the stream of inputs that come from our senses and which arises spontaneously from within. This is the dance of deviation, which shall be the title and the last line of this blog post.

The Force of Forgiveness

I wanted to write about the subject of 'forgiveness' today and then I thought, I must have written about this before. True enough a search of my blog yields this article on the Art of Forgetting.  Though the article was more about forgetting, it is closely related to the subject of forgiveness. Today I will focus more on forgiveness itself.

Myra was texting me last night asking me why is it that her mother is always causing her so much pain. She didn't tell me about the specifics but I can understand the kind of difficulties that can arise in the relationship with one's parents. She was jokingly saying that she must have done something bad in her past life to deserve such a mum.

I laughed and told her that we all get what we 'deserve'. She has the mother that she has because she is exactly what she needs to perfect herself.  And what is it that she is supposed to learn from her mum? I told her that she is there for her to learn forgiveness. Surprisingly she understood perfectly and it seemed to comfort her a little.

Why do we get hurt? It's because we have 'sharp edges' that rub against others. Whenever we feel hurt, ask ourselves, what is it within us that's causing this pain?  Most of the time, it is our pride and ego. Or perhaps it's our relationship with money or other attachments that we are unwilling to let go of.

Pain points to our imperfections. Forget about what other people should or should not be doing. Like an athlete, we need to train ourselves so that we are fit to meet the challenges of the terrain that we are encountering. If we are not running correctly, with the right type of shoes, we could get injured.  

Sartre famously wrote: "Hell is other people". The line came from his play where 3 people arrived in hell only to find that they are supposed to spend the rest of their time in eternity with each other in a plain ordinary room. That could be a worse prospect than eternal hellfire.

Other people is the terrain that we have to deal with on a daily basis. If we do not know how to navigate through it, we'll get hurt.  Having the right strength, nimbleness and flexibility could save us from further injuries. 

Forgiveness is one of those skills that we need to acquire to protect ourselves from permanent injuries. Whenever we get hurt,  we try to understand why it hurts so much. And then we adjust our response to ensure that we don't get injured again in the future. To forgive someone means we are not reacting rashly in response. It doesn't mean that we are passive either.  It actually requires use to perform the right action and to train ourselves to know how to avoid similar situations in the future. 

To forgive someone is to depersonalize a pain and take the experience simply as an obstacle in the terrain that we did not navigate through wisely. We don't curse the terrain or kick the rock that tripped us. We just learn to deal with it better. There's nothing personal about a difficult path that we have to run through.  

It may be that other people are purpose doing certain things to hurt you. But they are also dealing unwisely with the terrain that they are encountering. Let them learn their lessons their way, in the right time. Your job is to run your own marathon.

By forgiving, you are acknowledging the lesson that is to be learned from the experience and allowing yourself to start afresh. The karma is resolved, without any tricky residue. It's always good to restart again after a fall without any distracting grudges or thoughts of revenge. 

What matters most is how you move on. You could be more bitter but certainly wiser.  Even bitterness is like temporary muscle sore that fades away. You end up stronger and more adapted to the terrain. Never under-estimate that powerful force called forgiveness.

The Cadence of Calmness

During this difficult time of the pandemic, which still doesn't show any sign of abating, I see a lot of people in a constant state of anxiety. Sometimes the things they are anxious about are not worth worrying about. 

Firstly, if you avoid crowded places and ensure that you wear a mask, I think your chance of catching the Covid-19 virus is minimal. If you do get it, then it's just pure bad luck. You'll have to accept it. You just do what's necessary to protect yourself--like getting vaccinated. There's a mad chase to get vaccination appointments these days. People are anxious that, even after registering they are still not called up yet for their jab. Some try various other avenues to jump the queue.

I didn't bother, because I knew my turn would come. And came it did. I had my first jab and will go for my second one this week. You just do the necessary and not fuss over things that are not within your control. All you have to do is register for it and things will be set into motion. A notification will come when you are called up. Checking your MySejahtera app every day and trying to read into every tiny little change in the application doesn't serve any purpose. Being anxious about your appointment won't make it come sooner. 

Doing what is within my control has always been my guiding principle. After you've done it, let it go. Move on to the next task. Tackle the problem at hand, once. There is no point in anticipating the future or lamenting the past. Any thoughts of the future is for planning purposes only. Planning is something you do now, with data that projects to the future. Plan, execute and move on. Just like the philosophy of pass-and-move football. Make the right pass, run into space and be ready to receive the ball again. Ultimately, these small moves will lead to a goal.

That's how I live my life. We don't need to make it too complicated. Life is already challenging as it is. Tackle the challenge at hand. Take reasonable action. Observe results, correct action and try again. Pass and move.  Always have the eye on the ball.  If things are unfavourable, don't complain. Complaining or blaming doesn't solve problems. A course of action based on an analysis of the facts at hand is the best move. If the outcome of an action takes a while, it is always good not to over-anticipate things. Relax, let go and move on to the next thing.

In difficult times, it is important that we know how to manage our minds so as to not plunge ourselves into a state of depression. I know how difficult it is when you are overcome by such mental states. You tend to fall deeper and deeper into an abyss, without knowing how to extricate yourself from it. Relax, let go, move on.  That's the cadence of calmness that one needs to maintain all the time. 

   

The Sovereign Within

I made it through the week and now it's time to blog. I slept late today waking up at 9 am. It has been a long time since I've been able to do that. It brings back memories of my days in Singapore and Jakarta. I never had to worry what time I woke up most of the time. Happiness is waking up and going out for a slowly breakfast with the morning papers.

When we sit still to meditate, we are in touch with the core of our existence. And as I mentioned in my previous blog post, existence is simply energy. This energy seeks to find stability by redistributing itself. Every time you perform an action, energy is expended. Some of it goes out and some are reabsorbed back in an inter-change with the external world. Knowing how this energy works is essential for our well-being.

Meditation simply increases our sensitivity into this energetic system. You begin to see that thoughts are nothing but manifestations of this energy--they are merely the signature of its its fluctuations. Very much like how the movement of the earth's core is felt as earthquakes and tremors on the surface. 

The hotblooded youth is like earth in its early infancy. Its instability manifests itself as active volcanos spewing out lava and ash into the atmosphere, shifting continental plates an churning oceans everywhere. That's an unstable system, attempting to find stability. It takes time, but inevitably all such high energy systems stabilize. If there's an Earth God, we'll interpret all these activities as the shifting moods of the divine entity. 

We are all gods of our own system. Reclaim your throne within and rule over your kingdom. Be in control of your elements. You rule over the seas and lands within. When the sovereign within rules wisely and justly, there's peace all across the kingdom. 

Existence is just Energy

Yesterday I had the first dose of my Covid-19 vaccine shot--Sinovac. My appointment was 7.30pm at the Setia City Convention Centre. The drive there was smooth but there was a congestion when I entered the road leading to the centre. I also had to find the particular centre assigned to me, there's HCO A, B and C which does not really correspond to parking areas also labelled with A, B,C and D. 

Thankfully, there wasn't much of a queue at the centre. After my shot, I felt slightly cold. The feeling was strange but it was somehow bearable. After the customary 15 minute observation, I received the date for my next appointment. It felt liberating to be driving home on the highway after such a long time. We're not allowed to cross district during this lock-down period. There was a police roadblock just at the highway exit and I had to show my vaccination card before they allowed me to go through.

I didn't have to work today. So I thought it's a good time to blog. Sleep helps to heal the body, which was why I woke up late today and even took an afternoon nap just now. When I had the strange feeling after my jab, I focused on my breathing and that's when my meditation skills came in handy. The breath is our lever of control for the function of the entire body. If you know your breath well, you can sense what's going on in the body and by controlling your breath, you can determine how it reacts to changes.

Existence is just energy. The flow of our breath is a manifestation of that energy. Call it qi, prana or what you may, but the fact is that the body is an energetic system. Most of the time it is self-regulating and we don't have much control over it. It functions well on its own, unless we prevent it from doing its job. When it wants you to rest, you'll have to obey because it knows best. That is why sleep is so important. By sleeping, you allow the body to do what it does best: re-balance and readjust everything without being disrupted by an external exertions. 

The vaccine definitely had an effect on my body. Hopefully it is doing what it is supposed to do--let my body learn how to deal with the Covid-19 virus if it encounters the real thing. I'll happily take the small discomforts now. Life is fragile. Recently a dear friend of mine passed away because of the virus. I shall always remember the conversations I had with him. And we who are left on this earth shall trudge on,. And as long as there's energy flowing through this body, I shall try to make the most and cherish every moment of it.

Milestones of Memories

Every blog post is another milestone in my life. That's how I see it. The time you have on this earth is finite. There's a fixed amount of time in your pocket and you choose how you want to spend this currency called Time.

What then is considered a good use of one's time? It's the same consideration that comes into play when you decide what you want to do with your money. You can spend it on something that you enjoy or you can invest it. 

Usually to try to kill two birds with one stone: enjoy and invest. Writing in this blog is one of those activities that I enjoy but what do I get out of it? It is like physical exercise. If you want to improve your writing, you simply have to write. The more you write, the better your writing becomes. And that's my motivation for maintaining this blog besides having it as almost like an online journal of my thoughts throughout the years. 

I've been blogging since 2003, when the war in Iraq broke out. At that time, there were many so-called 'warblogs'. Facebook, Youtube and smartphones were not in the picture yet. That seemed like a different kind of world now. I was living in a hotel in Jakarta then and I remember having to dial-up through the hotel phone to PT Telkom's ISP service to get a connection.

This blog contains all my thoughts since then and I've covered a wide range of topics. I can see how my thinking has evolved over the years and I certainly know myself a lot better now having thrashed out these thoughts on the pages of this humble blog. 

No one reads this blog of course and I'm happy about it. You see, when you practice writing, you need some kind of stage for rehearsal. A rehearsal stage is both private and public. Anyone can walk in and watch the performance, but it is not the actual performance that you would want your real audience to see. Anyone watching a rehearsal too understands that there will be imperfections and the performance is just a work-in-progress.

That's the spirit of this blog and that's how I choose to maintain it. The good thing about writing in a blog is that, it is forever etched in the akasha of the internet. For the first two years, I blogged almost daily. Nowadays, I try to post something once a week. These regular blog posts gives me a sense of accomplishment every week--like a columnist with a dateline to meet.

When I run out of things to write about, I simply write...about writing. And that's what this post is all about. It's about time, blogging, milestones and writing. It's a blog about nothing and yet it is everything to me. In the end, all you have are memories. And they are captured here for posterity. And it gives me so much pleasure to be able to write this final sentence that ends the post for this week!

The Karmic Quest for Self-Expression

Happiness is listening to some piano music while I read or write. I have John Field's Nocturne No 1 in E-flat Major playing in the background as I type these lines. Classical piano music always bring me back to my childhood.

There's a certain sense of familiarity whenever I listen to classical music. When I first listened to Beethoven and Chopin as a child, it felt like welcoming back old friends--I had a feeling that I had heard them before and I had always loved them. Was I evoking memories of my past life? Perhaps. But I wouldn't go so far. 

All cultures create their own music. Is music a basic necessity? No. We won't die but life would be intolerably boring without it. Music is an expression of karma. (There I go again, with my annoying New Agey lingo!). What I mean is that there are certain tendencies in human behaviour, in the way the human brain works, that manifest themselves in art and other forms of human expressions. 

Why do we enjoy chatting with friends? Most conversations do not serve any practical purpose. There's no real practical value in 'catching up' with old friends. But we socialize because it is in our nature to do so. Our genes demand it. We are compelled to do so. We are driven by our instinctive behaviour to do things that we do not really comprehend its purpose. Because to live is to do things, even without purpose.

Why climb a mountain? Because it's there. 

Why listen to music? Because it evokes certain feelings and memories. Why do we value these sentimental evocations? Again, it is an expression of being human. We feel, we think and we do. Must there be a purpose to everything?

We chase after pleasures. Life is the pursuit of pleasure--not in a negative sense. Having a partner for life and bringing up children whom you can love and be proud of is a pleasure. There is no shame in striving for that. It is what makes us human. It is what life is all about. To love and be loved. Again, it is karma expressing itself--energy being conserved, transferred and distributed evenly across the universe. 

You can assist or impede this flow of energy. But the laws of nature are dispassionate. You can push things off, but the universe has infinite patience. It cuts channels into mountains of stones and sweeps the soil from the land into the oceans. It is forever looking for stability. 

To live is to allow your personal channel of energy--your karma--to find its optimal path of expression. That in a nutshell is the purpose of life. Why does life even need a purpose? The need for purpose is another karmic kink within of which its quest is an act of expression. The sense of dissatisfaction you feel inside--those are the unstable regions of your psyche that need re-balancing.

May we all have better insights into the workings of our karma and may we ease them into resolution through our well-chosen actions. 

Tuning the Ever-forking Mind

Let me be reflective today. To just muse about things and not having to worry about sticking to a particular subject or theme. And quite inadvertently, I latch on to one: rambling.

We all have a rambling mind. It is the nature of the mind to jump from one thought to another. When we try to focus the mind on a single thing,--what we call concentration--we lose our connection with the surrounding. A focused mind accomplishes great things simply because all mental resources are targeted towards an intended goal. 

To focus one's mind is not an easy task as it is the nature of the mind to wander.  But what if we focus on the mind's wanderings? Is that sort of a meditation too? And of course it is: it's called mindfulness.

Being mindful is a different type of 'concentration'. You are tuned to a process, not an object. The mind in actual fact is a process--a stream of thoughts that does not cease. If we do not have any expectations, anxiety or distractions, the mind bubbles with natural 'thoughts'. 

If we tune the mind to noticing whatever it is that bubbles up, voila we are doing mindfulness meditation. It may sound easy but it is not. The problem is that we always latch on to a specific thought and then fork off from there. The mind is ever-forking and that's how we normally operate.

To be mindful is to not follow a thought. We allow the next fresh thought to surface. If our thoughts have a common theme or setting, then it is not a 'natural' thought--it is an obsessive stream, which we are often sucked into.

To be mindful is also to be in tuned with one's surroundings. You 'see' everything that's occurring as part of the vibratory nature of experience. You are part of the universal ebb and flow of energy--there's no separation between you and the universe.

The universe is the reservoir of inspiration. When we are in tune with it, we are creative. Ideas pop into our heads because we in essence are part of nature that is expressing itself.

Acceptance and Adaptation

It's a Friday today and I am taking a day's break from work. I took the opportunity to go to the bank to collect my cheque-book. Parking was a breeze because the lockdown is in full force. However, there were quite a lot of people queuing up outside the bank. Thankfully, I did not have to wait too long. 

The weather is extremely hot lately. It is almost impossible to work without air-conditioning. I had thought of going for a jog later but the late afternoon sun is still scorchingly hot. We modern folks have forgotten what it was like when air-conditioning was not a common thing. I grew up without it and even today I still sleep without air-conditioning.  The only time that I have the air-conditioner on is when I'm working--like now.

The first car I drove had no air-conditioning. I even drove all the way from KL to Singapore with that trusty Honda Civic. Whenever it rained, it was tough--you had to keep the windows partially open to be able to get ventilation, and and as a result you often end up with a very wet interior. But I was happy with the car, because riding a motorcycle was worse.

Which brings me to the subject of today's blog post: we can always get used to anything. I trained myself to sleep without air-conditioning. To do so, you'll have to embrace heat. It is alright to sweat. Once there's acceptance of the situation, there will be no resistance. And then your mind will find some other types of annoyance to occupy itself. You just move on to overcoming that.

That's how I train myself most of the time. I used to have a heavy lunch. Now I don't even stop work during lunchtime. When the body knows that it is not expecting any food during the time, it will not release digestive juices and make you feel hungry. The body and the mind are very adaptable. But the resistance for change is also huge. That is our biggest challenge.

To overcome this inertia, you need to always start with something achievable first. If you are trying to stop smoking, then resist going for the next cigarette. Ask yourself, what do you lose if you do not take the next puff. Nothing much actually will happen if you do not exaggerate your discomfort. Meditate on the discomfort. What is it like? In the end, everything boils down to a feeling and feelings are always ephemeral. Pain, like pleasure will always fade away.

When you meditate on your discomfort and seeing it for what it is, it loses its power over you. Pain is self-consciously shy. It creates annoyance to you when you are not looking at it. When you put it under the spotlight, it reveals itself as a fraud.

Look around you now. What is causing you discomfort? Is it the heat? Is it the noise? Focus on it and see it as a mechanical process without any emotional overtones. Everything is just matter in motion obeying the laws of physics. Even your emotions are electro-chemical processes in your body. Allow them to play themselves out.

That is the meaning of acceptance. We see the pain or discomfort that we are experiencing at the moment and we allow it to play itself out without adding or subtracting from it. There's no need for amplification or diminution.  If we master this skill, we can adapt to anything. Like this lockdown. Haven't we all gotten used to staying at home? And when we have adapted to it, it's not so bad after all.

The Penance of Pain

It is happening again--the total lockdown starting 1st of June. There won't be too many changes in everyone's lifestyle. By now we are used to the routine. I took the opportunity today to go for a haircut. Had to queue for a while though but I got it done. 

Just in my bedroom alone, I already have sufficient books to last me probably a couple of years. But I indulged myself (with the upcoming lockdown as an excuse) by shopping for a few books. If I have to lock myself up in my bedroom, I'm all set. I have sufficient pens, papers and notebooks to write with, even if I don't have an internet connection. 

Over the years I've trained myself not to be too attached to material possessions. True, I'm still very attached to my collection of books but much less so than say 20 years ago. I've even thought of giving away some of them. The most important thing about material possessions is their transformative power. Everything we possess reveals some weakness that we have.

Is a craving for knowledge bad? We have to ask ourselves this question: why do we seek knowledge in first place? For some, it is for some practical purpose like learning a new skill to make a better living; improving one's knowledge of the stock market so that one can become a better investor or understanding religious scriptures better to gain God's favour. 

Most of the time, we seek knowledge because we crave for certain things. Knowledge is the stepping stone for that craving. Choose what we crave for carefully for it is guaranteed to cause us  pain. Pain is the necessary ingredient for transformation. It is like taking the Covid-19 vaccine--there will be some mild side-effects. But that is the necessary pain that transforms your body's ability to protect itself against an even bigger pain--the Covid-19 virus itself.

 Life is a process of choosing your pain. Take the pain that could transform yourself for the better. That way you are better protected against unexpected pain. By craving for something, you are immediately exposing yourself to the pain of being denied its attainment. Are you strong enough to face the loss of something which you consider your dearest possession?

How painful will it be if I lose my entire lifetime's collection of books? It will be very painful indeed. But I'll take it on the chin and move on. I'll be grateful for the many moments of epiphany that these books had given me. Any further attachment to them as some sort of trophy or symbol of wisdom only serves to inflate the ego, which ultimately will cause more pain.

Any material possession that gives you pleasure is also laden with pain in equal measure. Always take the pleasure together with the pain. Penance is a way to proactively experience pain in order to tap its transformative power. Life itself is an act of penance. Remember this, every time you experience pain, know that some sort of transformation is at work. If you allow pain to play itself out, you know that you've allowed healing to happen. That is true penitence.

The Sacred Act of Penmanship

Our Covid-19 infection numbers are surging, with more than 6000 new infections every day. A tighter lockdown has just been announced by the government--something that everyone has been bracing for. But that's life in the era of the pandemic. 

I am grateful for having a regular income during this difficult time. The only good thing about the pandemic is that you don't spend so much money. I barely had to pump more petrol into my car. And I go for days without having to touch any money. Online purchases have increased but that's understandable. It is a good thing that I don't have any expensive hobbies. Reading is a cheap hobby because books last a lifetime.

I cannot understand most men's fascination with fancy cars. I look forward to a world where no one owns his or her own car. Movement from point A to point B should be done by some driverless electric vehicle which you can call on demand--just like pressing a button for the lift to arrive at your floor. 

I wrote about fountain pens in my last blog post. I confess to having some expensive tastes for pens--especially Mont Blanc. But my collection of pens were bought 20 years ago. I'm allowing a small indulgence lately with cheap Chinese-made fountain pens. It is remarkable how good and cheap they are--often comparable with their more expensive counterparts at a fraction of the price.

Hobbies keep one sane, especially during these difficult times of the pandemic. I must add writing to that too: not writing as in producing some substantial output like an essay, blog or even a letter--but just the physical act of scribbling something with a pen. I have an interest in calligraphy and do possess a number of books on the subject but I've not seriously pursued it since my student days. I lament the fact that penmanship is not something they teach you at schools anymore. My parents and my uncles were all schooled properly in penmanship during the colonial days. Their excellent handwriting is a constant source of inspiration to me.

I had practiced writing in cursive during my schooldays but over the years I've evolved my own lazy style. I realized that the older I get, the more unintelligible  my handwriting has become. Writing with cheap ballpoints also contributed to that. Which is why lately I'm reviving my interest in fountain pens--I want to rediscover the joy of writing longhand.

Writing is also a good meditation practice. Like any artistic endeavour, writing requires one to concentrate on the here and now. The point where the nib touches the paper is like the point of breath which Buddhist meditators are asked to focus on when they do breath meditation. By watching how words form letter by letter, one gets to practice focusing on the present. 

When we put thoughts into writing, we are subjecting our karma to a deeper analysis. It is like math--you write down your equation and then proceed to solve it step by step. Layer after layer of complexity is peeled away as your write and things reveal themselves with greater clarity. 

The pen is the inducer of thoughts. Graham Greene famously said: "My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does". Through writing you get a glimpse of your current karmic state. As ink flows out from the nib, you see the trajectory of your karmic flow, which drives your thoughts.  

Writing with a pen is sacred. If you dislike the boredom of counting your breath, or chanting meaningless mantras, try writing with a pen every day. The pen is the key to unlocking the secrets of your soul.

Fountains of Joy

Being old-school, I enjoy writing with a fountain pen. I remember when I was in kindergarten and Standard One, I learned how to write with pencils. And when I was allowed to use a fountain pen in standard 2, I felt it was a step up: I as finally being treated like a grown-up. 

Over the years, I've used many brands of fountain pens but the popular ones during schooldays were Parker, Sheaffer and Pilot. When I was working in Singapore, I started buying Mont Blanc fountain pens, which was one of the few luxuries that I allowed myself. Unlike some of my friends then, I had no taste for expensive watches; fountain pens were my thing and I took great pleasure in using them, especially when writing in my journal.

I had always carried a fountain pen with me whenever I traveled and I'd always find an excuse to scribble something in my notebooks. There's something magical about watching ink emerging from the tip of a nib as you push your pen across the grainy surface of paper--watching thoughts materialize before my eyes: emptiness becoming form. There's no purer moment of creation than that--like God giving life to Adam in Michelangelo's famous painting.

The only difficult thing about fountain pens is that using one is often a messy experience. Even the best ones leak. Unless you are using cartridges, having to carry a bottle of ink with you all the time  can be troublesome. Despite these inconveniences, nothing beats the experience of writing with one. 

The fountain pen is certainly not the writing instrument of choice for today's generation--that is if anyone even writes longhand at all. Nowadays, we text, cut-and-paste or snap photos to convey our messages across. Writing with a leaky pen on paper sounds absolutely medieval. Today's disposable gel pens certain does its job admirably for those rare occasions we do need to jot down something quickly on paper. And we don't have to fear losing a precious family heirloom if we happen to misplace one. 

It could be a relic of a bygone era but to me, the fountain pen is a symbol of learning and romance. To hold one, poised over a fresh piece of paper is to have the world held at bay, by a weapon that is truly mightier than the sword.  

The Stairway of Spirituality

Last week I wrote about the abstract concept called 'God'. To call God an 'abstraction' or a 'concept' might sound blasphemous to people who revere the Almighty and feel His presence deep down in their souls. The presence of God makes them feel loved and purposeful. Some pray to Him everyday and this connection with the Lord anchors their everyday existence. And there's nothing wrong with that. Each one of us finds resonance in a certain type of language and concept. The God model works for a lot of people and they should keep it that way.

The only problem I find with that model is  the doctrines that have been created by religious authorities over the ages to 'explain' their view of God. Great schisms and sects have arisen out of doctrinal differences. This is the sad thing about institutionalized religion.

Being unattached to any religion in particular allows me to sample the best of everything. I am personally apprehensive about using the word 'God' because it has been over-abused through the ages.

The most tedious thing about religion are the arguments about what the scriptures actually say. Proponents of religions that dissect every word in the scripture to find their 'real' meaning have to understand that most likely the version they are reading is a translation of the original. And even the original itself had been copied repeatedly and probably subjected to numerous edits and embellishments to support certain positions preferred by the people in power. Scriptures are only useful as a stepping stone for the exploration of spirituality. They are meant to inspire and serve as starting points for personal reflection. 

It is the reading and reflection that creates the understanding. And even what we claim to understand has to be accepted with humility for our human capacity to comprehend is limited. One 'aha' moment doesn't mean you've already understood God. 

Some religious scriptures, even though they are read in their original language, are also subject to interpretation as they were orally transmitted and written down much later. The language used is archaic and often its meaning had evolved over time. Every time we listen to the interpretation of scripture from an authority we are actually tapping the wisdom of the authoritative figure, who is merely recounting what the scriptures mean to him or her. It is not the gospel truth, merely one data point in many that the student has to collect in order to gain a fuller understanding.

If only we can approach religion this way, we wouldn't be in so much trouble with it. We wouldn't feel superior to others who are not following our path instead we adopt the humble stance of a seeker of Truth.

We can only interpret what we perceive as 'Truth' with the limited comprehension capability of the human mind. We know we are susceptible to beliefs that we somehow latch unto because it addresses an insecurity that we feel inside. The fact is, our neuroticism colours what we choose to perceive as truth. 

When it comes to spirituality, truth is a feeling. If it feels right, if it clicks inside, if  the Tetris block falls neatly into the right slot, a moment of epiphany arises. And some would call the feeling as being 'touched by God'. But be prepared to go further. On swallow does not make a summer; one insight does not make you a prophet. It is merely one small step up the stairway of spirituality.

An Abstraction Called God

I've always felt that at its core all religions are attempts to realize the basic truths of existence. Doctrinal differences to me are trivial. Rules and rituals sometimes hinder rather than help the spiritual progress of the devotee. It bores me whenever people argue about the virtues of their own religion. 

When we explain technical concepts in engineering, we often use models and architecture diagrams. To represent a web server, we draw a box. To represent a client communicating with a web server, we draw another box with an arrow pointing to the web server. And when discussing it, we have these images in our heads: boxes and lines of interactions going back and forth between them.

What does that have to do with religion? Well, religion are like those box diagrams we draw on the whiteboard to explain nature and how we humans are to function within it. 

Let's go back to the web server. A web server is a piece of program running on a server hardware. If we dive deeper, all we have are just lines of code--instructions--executing based on a predetermined sequence on a processor chip made out of semiconducting material. And even that is an abstraction. There are no 'instructions' as such. That's just our human way of conceptualizing what's happening inside a computer. 

If you open up a computer and look at its printed circuit board, you don't see any activities happening at all. No one barks out 'instructions' to another. The so-called processor feels hot, but you don't see it 'doing' anything. If you tap the the probes of a voltmeter at the right points on the board, you'll be able to read voltages. Voltage is just an indication of the energy possessed by that point relative to another, allowing it to drive the flow of electrons.

All that's happening are just electronic pulses that are being triggered based on the state of the memory, processor and the disk storage. One set of pulses trigger another based on the deterministic behaviour of semiconducting transistors that make up the processor. 

Engineers again use abstract symbols to represent these digital pulses - the '1's and '0's binary language of computing. This is an abstraction to help us humans think. Bits and bytes are concepts that don't exist in nature. Nature is only an interplay of matter and energy.

Even matter and energy are concepts invented by us to again help us 'explain' nature. It's similar to 'form' and 'karma' in Buddhist terminology. Every time we talk about something with the use of concepts, we are simplifying. But it serves our immediate purpose. Concepts have instrumental value. There's nothing intrinsically 'true' about concepts. 

What is the web server? A program, a grouping of logical instructions that execute in a specific way to help us realize a desired interplay of matter and energy, realized using materials such as silicon, copper and gold and electrical energy.  The laws of thermodynamics will always be at play, energy will always be conserved and quantum mechanical laws will be obeyed. Electrons (another abstract concept) will behave like particles and waves with probabilistic certainty.

Nowadays, we like to talk about cloud computing. That's another higher level of abstraction--we have lots of computing power (inescapably engineered configurations of matter and energy) which we can tap to deliver the information processing we desire: the movies we watch on our tablet, the songs we listen to on our phones, the chat messages and videos we send back and forth with friends. We operate at this level of abstraction--exchanging information and energy with the help of engineered systems made out of matter and energy.

God is an abstraction. The rules and rituals of religion are models we build to help us interact with each other as human beings in an optimal manner. Having the concept of an authoritarian God helps. It could be a monolithic architecture but every architecture has its strengths and weaknesses. Very much like how we used to have mainframes where all computing are centrally done. Nowadays we don't even know where the processing is done because it is 'in the cloud'.

Some people are more comfortable working at the level of matter and energy--electrons, heat, light and waves. Some prefer to visualize things at higher levels - a box to represent a server, another a client. But there's no such thing as a server or a client in this artificially assembled matrix of silicon and electron. 

Some people prefer to pray or talk to God, like how a client talks to a server. This client-server model is an architecture. Some like to think of reality as being distributed--everyone is a node for karma to find its optimum path. Karma is just energy, like electrons coursing through semiconducting material in accordance with the laws of physics; like water molecules in an ocean of waves, tsunamis and whirlpools; like human beings loving, hating, desiring and killing each other.

All are just different levels of abstractions. Abstractions are just temporary formations in the human mind. The mind is another concept that does not have an independent reality of its own. We draw a boundary around a group of electro-chemical processes and call it a 'mind'.

But abstractions are how we comprehend the world and interact with each other. We are temporary abstractions build out of lower level of abstractions. Ultimately we are nothing but nature being what it is, undulating and unfolding in its natural state.

This is how I experience the universe. What is 'I'? What is 'experience'? Where are their boundaries? By asking these questions, the boundaries dissolve momentarily. Then we suddenly know, God is in everything. That is, if we choose to use that abstract concept.

A Panacea for Pain

I'm back again on a hot lazy afternoon. I've taken the day off to run some errands. It's been a while since I've been able to do such things--to have a late breakfast and to loiter around at coffeeshops. 

But today has been productive so far: I went to Bangsar to settle some strata-title business; drop off my car at the service centre and then paid a visit to the bank before heading home. Life, like everything else, requires maintenance. 

Now I'm at home, having downed two cool beers, feeling relaxed and contented. The weekend looms and I intend to make it a productive one--productive in terms of maintaining that elusive work-life balance.

Wisdom is the knowledge of balance. How much is enough and when is it too much. That is the eternal question. How much money is enough? Many people would claim moral superiority by saying that they do not need too much to survive. Just enough to eat, with food and shelter. And of course, the occasional holiday overseas and maybe an expensive gadget or two. And of course, a nice pair of wheels.

But how many holidays? How much is considered expensive? And what difference does a flashy car make in getting you from point A to point B?

We can't answer all those questions with certainty. We think that we are just moderate in our consumption. But of course we wouldn't mind more. How much more is enough? We don't know when we cross that elusive line.

By nature, our consumption increases if we are better off financially. Everything we consume has a tinge of unsatisfactoriness--that eternal Buddhist bugbear. Can we live with this feeling of unsatisfactoriness all our lives? Those who can't end up seeking solace in spirituality. 

We are encouraged to see dukkha as an inevitable truth of existence. But how does it help? Does acknowledging that you are in pain make the pain more bearable? 

What else could one do? Suffer like an animal or suffer with dignity? Doesn't the need for dignity causes even more pain? What's wrong with suffering like an animal?

The pain of an animal is physical. The pain of a human being is complex and multi-layered--there's a physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual dimension to it. This is the 'pain stack'. 

Physical and to a certain extend emotional pain can be eased with medication. When the pain is intellectual and spiritual, where do we find solace. In idealism and religion? That's what the atheists and the religious fanatics have in common.

Who can blame us. We are all suffering creatures. Is there a panacea for pain? That's what we are here to find out. That's why I write this blog and you reading it. 

Simple Strength

I was at MidValley today to have lunch with some old friends. We all grew up in a small town and now most of us have seen the wider world out there. Are we wiser, or are we just the way we were before?

Most of us do not change that much. Our basic character is determined mostly by our DNA--the environment merely allows or prevents it from finding its true expression. Plant a seed in a flowerpot, the plant will grow to only a fraction of what it is capable of. But if you allow it to grow wild with enough space, sunshine and soil, it will expand into a majestic tree, with a large canopy. 

The environment nurtures and constraints us in equal measures. Sometimes we move to better environments that allow us to flourish better. Sometimes we trap ourselves in a rut. Life is a constant battle between our innate nature and the environment. If we find the strength, we end up shaping the environment to suit ourselves. But strength is a quality that's determined mostly by our genes.

How do we find strength whenever we need it? There's no guarantee that we will always be strong enough to overcome difficulties when they arise, but we can build habits that make it easier for strength to be summoned. Show strength when it is easy for you to do so. That way, you help to strengthen its muscles. By repetition, any action can become a habit. Repetition is something within our control. Even though we still require some willpower to overcome the laziness of performing an act, it is still more doable than summoning strength in a moment of weakness.

Give yourself easy wins. Make small wins a habit and by doing so you slowly build a habit of winning over your weaknesses. Find monsters that you can slay easily and slowly progress to more powerful ones.  Start with something doable: push away the junk food; walk to the convenience store; turn off the television. These are all simple tasks that can lead to bigger things: you'll find pleasure in rejecting unhealthy junk food after a while and even feel proud about it. A walk to the convenience store is a pleasurable way to exercise and to also accomplish an errand. Turning off the television forces you to focus on a more productive task like reading a book.

I always tell myself whenever I start a new blog post: just write one sentence and the rest will follow. And true enough, I've summoned enough strength to finish another post. My writing muscles have been further strengthened. That's one small accomplishment for today and I shall move on to the next one.

  

A Molecule in Heaven

I went for my haircut this morning at the Empire Shopping Gallery. While sitting outside waiting for my turn, I was thinking about people's idea of heaven.

Many people live a religious life with the intention of being admitted to heaven when they die. Heaven in their view is a place of perfect bliss and happiness--everything good about the earthly life without the pain and suffering: the company of loved ones, good food and perfect living environment where everyone goes around pursuing their hobbies, like playing the harp.

The problem with this idea of afterlife is that it is so limited. We are not able to imagine any kind of life that is vastly different from what we experience here. We see immortality as a continuation of everything that we cherish in this life. Heaven is just somewhere up there, occupying the same 3-D space that we know so well. And life consists of living as humans with the kind of pleasures that we are used to--things that titillate our senses and stimulate our taste-buds. 

Why can't we imagine an afterlife that's vastly different? An afterlife that will make everything that we care for now inconsequential and irrelevant. We'll look back at our earthly life and see how limited our minds were, how foolish and childish we were to think of heaven as some kind of pleasure palace where we'll be reunited with our loved ones. Think of a child who believes his toys are all that he ever needs in this world and imagine him being in a toy-store with all the time in the world and parents who would buy him anything he wants. Wouldn't the toy-store be heaven to the kid?

A river is not able to know what 'life' is like when it merges with the sea. Is a river's heaven a place where it can continue flowing majestically, irrigating large fertile plains and being praised for being a mighty, life-giving source of water to its surroundings?

We are like rivers who do not know the life of the sea. The sea does not have the petty concerns of rivers. It has its much vaster universe of water swarmed with myriads of new lifeforms. It is a world of its own, even though both rivers and seas are part of the same circulation of water on the planet.

Just like the river which do not grasp the sea, the clouds, the rain and lakes and as part of the global circulation of water, we humans only see a small fragment of the vaster life of the universe of which we are part of. We are not able to think like a 'star-child', who sees suns and planets, stars and galaxies as part of a larger scheme of divine life. Why should life be limited to a small slice of the electromagnetic spectrum in human timescales?

Our brains, complex evolutionary machines they may be, have no idea what it is like to be a bat, navigating its way around using echolocation. Do bats 'see' things like we do? We can't even see into the ultraviolet range, but so many birds and insects do. The world of flowers look a lot more beautiful to the bees. Is bee heaven a more beautiful place than ours?

Let's don't fool ourselves into thinking that all religion does is teach us how to be good so that we get rewarded in heaven. If you are happy with being 'religious' that way, you are missing out on the real heaven, which is much much more than you could ever imagine. 

Chuck your mediocre idea of heaven. Touch a drop of water, imagine the vibration of the water molecules within and try to understand where heaven is for them.