Insight from Feb 22, 2012

It's been few weeks this thing bothers me. The thought of people have to go through a lot of sufferings during their meditation practice. What I have gone through was, in one day I may be in peace, but in another day I may be in a bad mood. It seems liked my emotion can go up and down quite fast. Honestly, I think the way is hard. One question comes to me, will it be better if I didn't start the practice at all? How different will it be to be like people who just live the regular life, without meditation, seems liked it' s better??? Is this what Buddha said the hindrances that one may face during meditation.
This thought kept on bothering me, until I have a chat with friends talking about my current work. I can say that my work is a good one. No Over Time, very flexible hours.... I can leave work at 4 pm, if I want to, as long as I can maintain the 42 hour work during that week. A lot of my friends always say how good it is if they can have that kind of job. From there, I remember the hard time I had to go through during my graduate studies. Not easy, and pretty tough.... But, if I can choose again, will I choose the same path? The answer is YES. Those hard time bring the good job that I have now. This give me an insight! It's the same thing as the meditation practice. We have to go through the suffering. A lot of emotions, or past things whether they are good or bad, they can appear, and I honestly think it's a suffering to experience all those things. But, I know the suffers worth the suffering.  

Good deeds

So, no more waiting, let's start now. Today, take a 5 mins time, whether it's in the morning or in the night, watch your breath. As time goes, we can probably increase it to 10 mins, 20 mins, 30 mins... This is actually doing a good deed, and we don't even need money, energy or anything, but just 5 -10 mins of our time. Why it's said as "a good deed"? What we call "good deed" is probably just like: 
1. saying good words to make people happy, not saying any words that could harm others - yes definitely those are good deeds which we do with mouth (speech).
2. Any action that we do to help others, not doing any action that could harm others - of course, those are another type of good deeds that we do with our body (action/deed).
But, there is one more that we probably forget, that's "thought". 
Thought may lead to speech that we say and action that we do. There is one quote which says:

True observation of the precepts in thought,
leads to their instant observation
in speech and deed too.

~ Stonepeace

Therefore, if we could train our mind, by watching our own breath just for 5-10 mins, we would have a strong base. When thought arises, we have the awareness of it; when we speak, we have the awareness of it; and when we do any action, we have the awareness of it. If our mind was trained that way, automatically, our awareness to things that should be done or shouldn't be done will be under controlled.

February 6, 2015

Have you ever complain about how other people do this, how other people do that?
Have you ever thought that It's so difficult to stay with people who don't have the same way of thinking as you have. Then you start to ask, why they do this, why they do that?
But, have we ever thought that the other person may think that way as well? My mom ever told me about this. We think it's difficult to be around with people whom we don't like, but, do we think that we are so good that everybody may like us to be around them? It could be the same way as well. They may think that it's so difficult to be around us.

We always want others to change like what we want them to be, but is it possible? No!
Even to change our own behavior, personality is difficult. It's hard! Believe me. A person comes to this world by bringing his own personality that he had in his past lives. Such personality may have been with him for few lives. A person then grows in a family with a personality that he learns from his parents. He will learn things from his parents for 20 over years. Such personality will then also blend with him. I have ever heard a story from my mom, about one family who likes to say "bad" words in the family, even though when their kids are around. When the kids were still little, they heard the bad words, and they thought it's ok to say that. As their children grow older, saying bad words has become a personality to them. Can they change it? Yes, they could, but again it's difficult.

Realizing such bad personality is already hard. But if one can realize that, there is chance for him to change that eventually. From the story, we know it's not easy to change our own personality, then, why we always think to change others? That's almost impossible!

Then, I remember about this teaching. What others do, is their problem, we can't do anything about that. But, what we do is important to know. Taking care of our own thought, our own speech, and our own action is our job. This remind me about a talk that I heard from Bhante Pannavaro, regarding how one should carry a light on his hand while walking in the dark road, to be safe.
As he walks with the light, car will know that someone is walking, and therefore, it won't bang on him; as he walk with the light, he knows where to go so that he won't bang into any livings and hurt them; as he walks with the light, he will be able to avoid holes on the road; as he walks with the light, he may save others who are also walking in the same road but without any light on his hand. Just by holding a light on his hand, he could save himself from danger at the same time also saving others from danger.

From this story, the message is to ask us to take care of our own self. Because by taking care of our own self, we are not only saving ourselves, but at the same time saving others.

August 29

It is important to choose friend wisely. It's not to discriminate, but it's to take care of our own thought. We don't want to have negative thought about others.

Words from Dalai Lama

"Take care of your Thoughts because they become Words.
Take care of your Words because they will become Actions.
Take care of your Actions because they will become Habits.
Take care of your Habits because they will form your Character.
Take care of your Character because it will form your Destiny,
and your Destiny will be your Life"

I received this email from someone, but it's written in Chinese, and I thought that I should share it with you all, therefore I translated it in English. Enjoy...


First story:
A does not like to eat eggs, so, every time if he has eggs, he will give them to B to eat. B is very grateful at the beginning, however, as time passes, B used to that condition. So, until one day, A gives the eggs to C, and B is on bad mood. B has forgotten that the eggs are belongs to A, therefore, it's still A's wish to whom he wants to give those eggs to. To this end, there are a big fight.

Second story:
In a hot summer, a team of people went out for drifting. A girl was playing with water, and accidentally, her slippers fell off, and sink to the bottom. At the shore, under a very hot sun, there are still a long way to go for them. So, the girl went to seek help from others, but everyone has only a pair of slippers. The girl was very unhappy, because she used to ask for help, and she always got the help that she wants. However, not this time. Suddenly, she felt that all these people are bad.
Later, a boy came and gave his slippers to her, and he is on his bare feet in the hot sun. The girl thanks the boy, then the boy said, "you have to remember, no one is required to help you. If someone helps you out, it is because of friendship, however, there is nothing wrong if someone doesn't want to help." After heard what the boy said, she learned if someone helps her, in return she should feel grateful.

Very often, we always want everybody to be nice to us.
At first, we feel grateful. But after a long time, we get used to it and accustomed to the good that the person offered. We think that it should always be that way. But, of course it's not always that way. One day, when we don't get what we used to get, we feel resentment. We feel that the person has changed. In fact, in this kind of situation, nothing has changed from that person, instead our expectation is the one that has changed. We expect more from that person, therefore we forget the gratitude. 

The Teachings of Ajahn Chah

A collection of Ajahn Chah’s Dhamma talks

Learning to Listen

DURING AN INFORMAL GATHERING at his residence one evening,

the Master said, “When you listen to the Dhamma, you must open

up your heart and compose yourself in its centre. Don’t try and accumulate

what you hear, or make painstaking efforts to retain it through

your memory. Just let the Dhamma flow into your heart as it reveals

itself, and keep yourself continuously open to the flow in the present

moment. What is ready to be retained will remain. It will happen of its

own accord, not through forced effort on your part.

Similarly, when you expound the Dhamma, there must be no force

involved. The Dhamma must flow spontaneously from the present moment

according to circumstances. You know, it’s strange, but sometimes

people come to me and really show no apparent desire to hear the

Dhamma, but there it is – it just happens. The Dhamma comes flowing

out with no effort whatsoever. Then at other times, people seem to be

quite keen to listen. They even formally ask for a discourse, and then,

nothing! It just won’t happen. What can you do? I don’t know why it

is, but I know that things happen in this way. It’s as though people have

different levels of receptivity, and when you are there at the same level,

things just happen.

If you must expound the Dhamma, the best way is not to think about

it at all. Simply forget it. The more you think and try to plan, the worse

it will be. This is hard to do, though, isn’t it? Sometimes, when you’re

flowing along quite smoothly, there will be a pause, and someone may

ask a question. Then, suddenly, there’s a whole new direction. There

seems to be an unlimited source that you can never exhaust.

I believe without a doubt in the Buddha’s ability to know the temperaments

and receptivity of other beings. He used this very same

method of spontaneous teaching. It’s not that he needed to use any

superhuman power, but rather that he was sensitive to the needs of the

people around him and so taught to them accordingly. An instance

demonstrating his own spontaneity occurred when once, after he had

expounded the Dhamma to a group of his disciples, he asked them if

they had ever heard this teaching before. They replied that they had

not. He then went on to say that he himself had also never heard it

before.

Just continue your practice no matter what you are doing. Practice

is not dependent on any one posture, such as sitting or walking. Rather,

it is a continuous awareness of the flow of your own consciousness

and feelings. No matter what is happening, just compose yourself and

always be mindfully aware of that flow.”

Later, the Master went on to say, “Practice is not moving forward,

but there is forward movement. At the same time, it is not moving back,

but there is backward movement. And, finally, practice is not stopping

and being still, but there is stopping and being still. So there is moving

forward and backward as well as being still, but you can’t say that it is

any one of the three. Then practice eventually comes to a point where

there is neither forward nor backward movement, nor any being still.

Where is that?”

On another informal occasion, he said, “To define Buddhism without

a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say, ‘Don’t cling or hold

on to anything. Harmonize with actuality, with things just as they are.”’