I am sharing this thought from Thich Nhat Hanh:

“Concentration helps us focus on just one thing. With concentration, the energy of looking becomes more powerful, and insight is possible. Insight always has the power of liberating us. If mindfulness is there, and we know how to keep mindfulness alive, concentration will be there, too. And if we know how to keep concentration alive, insight will also come. The energy of mindfulness enables us to look deeply and gain the insight we need so that transformation is possible.”

How many of us are guilty of encouraging ‘multi-tasking’ – putting it as a virtue to be nurtured in our lives?

I feel that when we ‘multi-task’, our focus is divided and often diluted to the point that we may end up doing all these tasks, mindlessly. And to a certain extent, we pay little attention to the details and often ‘rushed through them’ – mistakenly thinking that by getting them done fast (and all at the same time), we are being efficient.

Though some segments of our work culture puts a premium on such ‘efficiency’, I feel this way of living is quite dysfunctional as it will eventually eat into other areas of our lives. When we are with our loved ones, how often are we truly present in their presence? Not just loved ones but also when we are with others in a meeting or with colleagues at work, do we find ourselves ’somewhere else, and not in the here and now, with them?’ The idea of ‘multi-tasking’ gives the impression that we are paying attention to them and at the same time, able to ‘manage other matters’; but are we really? What is the quality we devote to these numerous tasks? How much insight do we gain when there is a skew towards quantity over quality?

Being able to fulfill many tasks entrusted to us is good but when our concentration is diluted, there is a good chance the quality of work is compromised. And if we do not correct it soon enough, this mindless living becomes a part of us in every areas of our lives. And it would not be a surprise that many of us will live our lives in mediocrity instead of showing excellence in everything we do, and being who we are.

]]> http://davidtay.sg/2012/02/the-liberating-power-of-insight/feed/ 0 http://davidtay.sg/2011/09/fear-is-an-illusion/ http://davidtay.sg/2011/09/fear-is-an-illusion/#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 07:36:30 +0000 http://davidtay.sg/?p=793

Many of us have a tendency to be extremely critical of who we are that often we create an illusion of our own reality. I would like to share a passage that I have taken from ‘The Tenth Insight – Holding the Vision’ (James Redfield & Carol Adrienne):

“To a greater or lesser degree, in physical life we build our own version of Hell by staying attached to, and unconscious of, our control drama tendencies. When we forget our connection to our divine source, we have to construct a very narrow set of behaviors in order to reduce the world to a manageable level. Living in a defended zone fenced in by fear, we are not open to the full-blown mystery of life. We have become contracted, defended, fearful, and separate. Our language starts to show our fences in statements like, “I’m a rotten person.” “I’ll never make anything of myself.” “No one loves me.”

When we no longer remember that we set up these limitations in our mind, we project the unrecognized constriction into the external world. Let’s make sure we understand this point because it is an essential part of the crux of our so-called problems in daily life. If we have had certain experiences in life, we are going to see/experience/feel our everyday encounters through this filter of past experience. It’s the nature of desire to want what you don’t have. For example, young Juanita was short and round. She thought girls who are tall and thin had an advantage. Frank was bookish and frail. Since he had a rich interior life, but withdraw from competitive activities, he cultivated an outsider image. Shantara was the middle child of five sisters and felt like a nobody, lost in the crowd. At some level of consciousness, we are always worrying about losing control, being lost, losing our livelihood, being a loser without love, success, or happiness. How appropriate that Christ positioned himself as the shepherd, since a basic human archetypal fear is lostness. If we define ourselves a certain way, we entrench ourselves down a certain path. We can be the misunderstood artist or the uncreative blob. We can be the helpless failure or the efficient expert. We paint ourselves into a corner and then tell everybody that God did it.

Once these judgments are entrenched in our mind as reality, the level of fear is so great that we cannot give it up without experiencing anxiety. No amount of positive thinking is going to make us tall and thin. No amount of rationalization is going to make us a football hero. No amount of resume writing is going to make us special. If you’ve been telling yourself that you are a worthless, shiftless worm, you cannot suddenly shift from that story to nothing. We cannot take out a great big gob of Fear without having a gaping hole that has to be filled in with something else – trust, new wisdom, and connection to God.

The roots of dogma and ideology are grown in the soil of fear. Hell is being caught in our own dogma, our own inadequacies, over and over again without the gift of love, compassion, and greater self-understanding of who we really are. A high level of fear over time is like a low-grade fever, permeating our thinking, fettering our perceptions, and hedging our choices. One woman who relived a past-life said, “One [of my lifetimes] was a great spiritual growth, but through isolation, and in that lifetime there was death by torture. It was near Jerusalem. [Because of my religious belief] there was much trepidation and holding back….Fear of violence, fear of speaking her own mind resulted. Fear must be removed. It has to be out of the way, so that the being can venture forth to new growth experiences. More could have been gained from the other experiences had fear not gotten in the way. Stumbling blocks that are self-imposed just waste time. There are enough of them without creating any.” This woman saw how fear had created losses throughout several lifetimes. Maybe we should think of each lifetime as a painting. What the hey. What colors are you going to paint with this time?

In our spiritual existence between Earth lives, we dwell in the true vibration of the universe – we dwell in loving energy. But if we cannot perceive this loving energy, because of our addiction to our false perceptions, we are like the goldfish who, transferred from bowl to ocean, keeps swimming in tiny circles the size of her bowl. True liberation comes when we lose our sense of separateness, our need for control, and our fear of physical death. True liberation is using the full range of the palette – ruby red, alizarin crimson, cadium yellow, yellow ocher, hunter green, purple, terra-cotta, Mars black, blue-violet, gold, silver, and aquamarine. True liberation is being able to smell vomit, sulfur, money, honey-suckle, babies’ necks, garlic, fresh tomatoes, frankincense, peaches and semen, and know that all is God.”

The Fear that we have been living with all of our lives, is nothing but an illusion we have created in our minds, and which has caused us to live of life of separation and duality. Know for certain that we are all One and there is no ‘Us and Them’. A quote from Arthur Ford/Ruth Montgomery in ‘A World Beyond’:

“There is no evil except that which we create, for I have seen no signs of a devil on this side of the veil. We are our own devils, with our own thoughts and subsequent deeds…this evil gathers force as each passing generation leaves its own stamp of evildoing on the force that we think of as a devil…if [evil] is to be destroyed, it will be done through man’s awakening to the fact that even thoughts are deeds and that the ‘devil’ shrinks in size each time we replace an ugly thought or action with loving kindness. Thus we will approach the so-called millennium when good replaces evil in the hearts of those who inherit earth, not only in the flesh but in the spirit, as we are now doing.”

This passage is taken from a chapter in Ernest Holmes’ book: “Living without Fear”. I feel its good to share how positive thinking that is aligned with the Truth in Life, is the determining factor to wholesome living.

“Thoughts are things. This sounds familiar enough; we have all read it many times. But if this is true why can we not think and, through thinking, get what we want? We have been told that we do not get what we ask for because we ask amiss. All this seems very confusing for we also have been led to believe that we should receive anything asked for if we ask believing. It must be that some ideas are more potent than others, that some thoughts have more power than other thoughts, and this is actually the situation.

All thought is creative, but the real constructive creative power of mind comes only from true thoughts. True, positive, and affirmative thought has real power, for it produces the correct answer. Negative thought also has power for it produces undesired conditions. When we place a positive thought beside a negative one, when we recognize the beneficial one and understand the nature of the harmful one, then it is that we find that the true constructive idea can dominate and have complete power over the destructive one. Thus it is that we are told to know the truth if we are to be made free.

Thoughts are things. Yes, true thoughts are true things, false thoughts are false things. If we think according to the nature of the Divine, then shall we get what we want? Yes, provided what we wish for is really the truth. No, if it is not really the truth. We can never get five by adding two and two although we might believe that we can.

But how are we to know what thoughts to think? What should be the content of our prayers and spiritual mind treatments? How are we to know the false from the true? The answer is more simple than it may appear. Goodness is the truth, and so is beauty and strength and life and love and abundance and loyalty. Even the apparently selfish desires of our hearts are true if they do not contradict the fundamental Truth of the universe, which is unity and goodness and purity.

Our difficulty is not great provided we keep a few fundamentals in view. We have a Divine right to all that makes for a happy life. Abundance must be the heritage of our Divine nature. Our life must come from Life, and peace and happiness cannot contradict Reality. We shall not pray amiss if we affirm these things as part of our experience. Therefore, if we ask, believing, according to the Law of our being we must receive.

What we wish for and need is peace, ability, happiness, harmony, plenty, and a greater degree of livingness together with love and beauty. Possessing these we should be in heaven and we ought to be in heaven here and now in our daily living; that is, we should be in harmony with Life. There is no Power in the universe which wishes to withhold good from us – let us forever wipe this idea off the slate of our minds. God is eternal Goodness, hence no evil need befall us either here or hereafter. Life cannot produce death, consequently we cannot die though we pass through the experience miscalled death.

But what is there left to ask for? Nothing. We need but to accept and make use of that which already is and is for us. But each shall individualize the gifts of Life through his own nature, and this individualization constitutes that activity which personifies through each of us – the eternal Mind of the universe. this is the play of Life upon Itself and the desire to express which is working through all of us. There can be no life without living, no creator without a creation. And there can be no satisfied man without an adequate expression. There is nothing wrong about desire provided desire is in harmony with Truth. A man who has no desires is asleep and needs to be awakened.

What then if we should desire some special thing that we might enjoy it for a reason? Can there be anything wrong with this? Certainly not if this desire harms no one and helps us to express. If, then, we desire some special thing, why should we not ask for and receive it? But how do we ask? By knowing in our own minds that that for which we ask we now have. This creates the image of our desire and makes a definite pattern through which the energies of Mind may intelligently and lawfully act, and to which there may be attracted the conditions necessary for the fulfillment of the desire. And according to our belief, receptivity, and full acceptance will it be done.

We cannot live by proxy or attain by pretense. We are dealing with real laws and actual forces when we deal with mental and spiritual laws, and they cannot be fooled. From our own endeavor will come our own reward, only now we know that we are dealing with a Law which is amply able to fulfill the rightful demands made on It and which is intelligent enough to always bring them to pass. With this in mind we shall do our spiritual mind treatment work gladly and cheerfully and with much less effort, for we are no longer struggling against Life but flowing along with it. We are going with the current and not against it.

We should feel equal to any occasion and overcome by none. We should enter any and all true endeavors with a zest for the game and get a real joy out of living.”

This teaching is taken from The Dhammapada, a collection of the sayings of the Buddha:

“Who shall conquer this world and the world of death with all its gods? Who shall discover the shining way of the law?

You shall, even as the man who seeks flowers finds the most beautiful, the rarest.

Understand that the body is merely the foam of a wave, the shadow of a shadow. Snap the flower of desire and then, unseen, escape the king of death. And travel on.

Death overtakes the man who gathers flowers when with distracted mind and thirsty senses he searches vainly for happiness in the pleasures of the world. Death fetches him away as a flood carries off a sleeping village. Death overcomes him when with distracted mind and thirsty senses he gathers flowers. He will never have his fill of the pleasures of the world.

The bee gathers nectar from the flower without marring its beauty or perfume. So let the master settle, and wander.

Look to your own faults, what you have done or left undone. Overlook the faults of others.

Like a lovely flower, bright but scentless, are the fine but empty words of the man who does not mean what he says. Like a lovely flower, bright and fragrant, are the fine and truthful words of the man who means what he says.

Like garlands woven from a heap of flowers, fashion from your life as many good deeds.

The perfume of sandalwood, rosebay or jasmine cannot travel against the wind. But the fragrance of virtue travels even against the wind, as far as the ends of the world. How much finer is the fragrance of virtue than of sandalwood, rosebay, of the blue lotus or jasmine! The fragrance of sandalwood and rosebay does not travel far. But the fragrance of virtue rises to the heavens.

Desire never crosses the path of virtuous and wakeful men. Their brightness sets them free. How sweetly the lotus grows in the litter of the wayside. Its pure fragrance delights the heart.

Follow the awakened and from among the blind, the light of your wisdom will shine out, purely.”

When we are true to who we are, and live a life of virtue, our light and energy will reach out to many others. And in being who we are, we help one another to awaken to the completeness we all have in us.

It is not my way of Being to talk about negativity but I feel it warrants deep reflection and why this state of negative thinking and emotions are so prevalent in our lives. It is the recognition of what is.

All the cultures and all the religions have been conditioning us to feel negative about ourselves. Nobody is loved, appreciated, for just being himself or herself. We are asked to prove whether we are of any worth: ‘Bring gold medals from the university! Get First-Class Honors! Achieve success, money, power, prestige, respectability! Prove!’ Our worth is not intrinsic; that’s what has been taught to us. Our worth has to be proved. Almost everywhere we go in life, there appears to be a relentless need to ‘prove something to some people’, and sometimes in the company of close friends and family, negativity prevails.

Everybody is feeling negative about himself, because that’s how he has been made to feel. Our parents have done it to us – this is a heritage, a great heritage. Our teachers have done it to us, our priests have done it to us, our political leaders have done it to us – and so many people are doing it that, naturally, we have become impressed by the very idea that we are worthless, that we don’t have any intrinsic meaning or value, that we don’t have any significance of our own.

Each parent is saying to the child, to each child, ‘Prove that you have some worth.’ Being, just being, is not enough – some doing is needed.

OSHO shared: “My whole approach is that being is intrinsically valuable. Just that you are is such a gift from existence, what more can you ask for? Just to breathe in this beautiful existence is certificate enough that existence loves you, that existence needs you; otherwise you would not be here. You are; existence has given birth to you. There must have been an immense need – you have filled a gap. Without you existence would be less. And when I say this, I am saying it not only to you: I am saying to the trees, to the birds, to the animals, to the pebbles on the shore. A single pebble less on the immense seashore and the seashore would not be the same. A single flower less and the universe would miss it.

We have to learn that we are valuable as we are. It is not about the ego – just the contrary. In the feeling that we are valuable as we are, we will also feel others are valuable as they are. Accept people as they are; drop shoulds, oughts – those are enemies. And when we carry so many shoulds: ‘Do this and don’t do that!’, we cannot dance; the burden is too heavy. And when we have been given too many ideals and goals – ideals of perfection which as utterly impossible – that we will always feel we are falling short.

All that we need is to be creative, loving, aware, meditative…if we feel poetry arising in us, write it for ourselves, for our lovers, for our children, for our friends…and forget all about it. Sing it, and if nobody listens, sing it alone and enjoy it. Go to the trees and they will applaud and appreciate it. Or talk to the birds and the animals, and they will understand far more than mankind who have been for centuries…missed out on the real deal in life!

BE who we want to be…and loving it!

OSHO shared in one of his talks:

“I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. You don’t grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house; and so you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look! Kabir will tell you the truth: go wherever you like, to Calcutta or Tibet; if you can’t find where your soul is hidden, for you the world will never be real! I don’t know what sort of a God we have been talking about. The caller calls in a loud voice to the holy one at dusk. Why? Surely the holy one is not deaf. He hears the delicate anklets that ring on the feet of an insect as it walks. Go over and over your beads, paint weird designs on your forehead, wear your hair matted, long, and ostentatious, but when deep inside you there is a loaded gun, how can you have God?”

This extract was taken from OSHO:

The fish in the sea is not thirsty – but man is. Man lives in existence, and is absolutely unaware of it. Man is born in existence, breathes in existence, and one day will dissolve in existence. Man is godliness, made of the stuff called God, and yet completely oblivious of the fact.

The fish is not thirsty in the sea – but man is. God is the sea – God surrounds you, within and without. All that is, is divine. God is not a person: God is the presence that is overflowing everywhere in all directions. The radiance, the beauty of existence, the splendors, the majestic, the miraculous, the mysterious – the whole magic of life is godliness.

Godliness has not to be worshipped: godliness has to be lived. And to live godliness you need not go anywhere – you are already in it. To live in godliness you need not cultivate any character. Godliness is already the case. It is your consciousness.

To live godliness you need not become (a follower of any religion) – you are already in it; it is already in you. It is not a question of the future. This very moment godliness is showering on you. But you are closed. It comes, but you don’t receive it. It knocks on your doors, but you don’t listen to it. And it has been knocking for ages.

The old biblical story is: When Adam disobeyed God, he was frightened, obviously. God came in search of him. Afraid, he went behind a bush and hide from God. He was not courageous enough to face him, to encounter him. And the story says God called in the Garden of Eden, ‘Adam, where are you?’

Adam heard it, yet did not respond.

This is not just a story, this is not something that happened in the past: this is what is happening with each of you. Existence calls you – either you don’t hear, or, even if sometimes you hear, you don’t respond. You are hiding! You are hiding from the truth of your own being; you are hiding from yourself. You don’t want to see your original face. Godliness is your original face, and unless you see your original face, you will live in misery.

Misery is nothing but remaining ignorant of one’s own being. To be alert, to be conscious, of all that has been given to you, to be conscious of all that has been bestowed upon you, to be conscious of the treasures that are hidden in your being, is to be blissful.

Man is very strange, the strangest animal on the earth. No other animal lives in such anguish – even trees are far more blissful, even rocks have more of the heart than man. They are in tune with existence, or in tune with totality. Everything knows its place on earth, except Man. Man has lost the connection. Man has broken the bridge.

Know that we (mankind) have everything we want inside us, all we need to do is to look deep within and discover the abundance! Man is a seed – be aware and live this truth…because life is indeed blissful.

My most recent encounter ‘dealing with the flu virus’ brought me to my knees to understand fully what it means to let go and let the life force flow freely in me. I was ‘battling’ continuously with the virus with all the remedies I can find. And with every attempt to ‘control’ the situation, the virus persists in staying with me. The ‘wake-up’ call to surrender and let go of control, was when I went into a sporting event with the virus, thinking that I can overcome it with my ’sporting prowess and will-power’, but was stopped short barely 5 minutes into the race, gasping for breath in the midst of  ‘flagging arms and legs’ in deep waters.  During that brief moment, I was completely disoriented and could not muster the strength or the courage to carry on. At that instance, I knew the ego had to finally let go of its control and surrender to the life force. It was eating humble pie in the most dire situation but it woke me up to this ’senseless need for control’. Apparently I have not learned enough to live by letting go, despite numerous lessons in the past. This was another ‘wake up call’.

I could not describe how I felt during this recent encounter as I was not angry or feeling sorry for myself though I acknowledge that I was disappointed that I did not finish the race. However, I was aware that everything happened for a reason, and even if I have yet to know why, I have learned to trust that things will be revealed to me eventually.

I used to shake my fist at the injustice of the world, and I’d rile against tyranny. It made me sad and weak, and it robbed me of energy. In the end I saw that the key to everything is to surrender. I can fix myself but not much else. Surrender offers us the hope of victory in the end, but we have to wait.

Verse 55 from the Tao Te Ching (by Lao-Tzu) taught me to be in harmony with the Life Force:

“He who is in harmony with the Tao is like a newborn child. Deadly insects will not sting him. Wild beasts will not attack him. Birds of prey will not strike him. Bones are weak, muscles are soft, yet his grasp is firm. He has not experienced the union of man and woman, but is whole. His manhood is strong. He screams all day without becoming hoarse. This is perfect harmony. To harmony is to know the changeless; to know the changeless is to have insight. Things in harmony with the Tao remain; things that are forced grow for a while, but then wither away. This is not the Tao. And whatever is against the Tao soon ceases to be.”

When Lao-Tzu mentioned the lives of people who are free from the provocation of ‘deadly insects’, ‘wild beasts’ and ‘birds of prey’, he was saying that when their lives are in harmony with the Tao, things will ‘fall into place’ for them. He said that we should look into infants who haven’t yet taken on the ego belief that they’re separated from their originating Source: They can scream all day and never lose their voices like a screeching adult would. Even with underdeveloped muscles, they can fashion a firm grip. Furthermore, babies are pliable and virtually immune to harm from a fall that would break the bones of a grown-up. All of this is called ‘perfect harmony’ by Lao-Tzu.

This verse invites us to realize that what we call luck isn’t something that randomly happens – it’s ours for life when we decide to live by letting go. We attract the cooperative power of the Tao when we release the need to control our life. Living by letting go means releasing worry, stress, and fear. When we promote our sense of well-being in the face of what appears as danger to others, our alignment with our Source frees us from pushing ourselves to act in a forceful manner. Lao-Tzu reminds us in this verse that ‘things that are forced grow for a while, but then wither away’.

I have learned to see it as a way of allowing life’s natural rhythm to flow unimpeded through me. I don’t fight against the virus anymore and the letting go means allowing it to remain in me for as long as it wants. It sounds like a paradox, but when I made the decision to surrender, I felt the energy of the Life Force flowing freely through me, and now I am back on my feet again.

]]> http://davidtay.sg/2011/02/living-by-letting-go/feed/ 1 http://davidtay.sg/2011/02/live-a-compassionate-life/ http://davidtay.sg/2011/02/live-a-compassionate-life/#comments Thu, 10 Feb 2011 23:04:46 +0000 http://davidtay.sg/?p=708

Recently, I came across the Charter for Compassion, initiated by Karen Armstrong, one of the world’s leading commentators on religious affairs, and the charter was launched on 12 November 2009 in sixty different locations throughout the world; it was enshrined in synagogues, mosques, temples and churches as well as in such secular institutions as the Karachi Press Club and the Sydney Opera House. The charter spoke to me in a deep and special way, and I feel I would like to share it with everyone here:

“The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical, and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to improverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others – even our enemies – is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred, or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the sufferings of all human beings – even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.”

(Text taken from www.charterforcompassion.org)

Karen Armstrong shared that compassion was inseparable from humanity; instead of being motivated by self-interest, a truly humane person was consistently oriented to others.  HH the Dalai Lama said ” whether a person is a religious believer does not matter much. Far more important is that they be a good human being.”

Regardless of which religion we belong to, all faiths insist that compassion is the test of true spirituality and that it brings us into relation with the transcendence we call God, Brahman, Nirvana or Tao. Each has formulated its own version of what is sometimes called the Golden Rule: “Do not treat others as you would not like them to treat you” - or in its positive form: “Always treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself.” Further, they insist that you cannot confine your benevolence to your own group: you must have concern for everybody – even your enemies.

Jesus Christ taught us in Matthew 5:43-48: “You have heard how it was said; you must love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; in this way you will be sons of your fathers in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good and his rain fall on honest men alike. For if you love those who love you, how can you claim your credit? Even the tax-collectors and the pagans do as much, do they not? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? You must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.”

Compassion was the test of true spirituality, as mentioned in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 “If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever.”

In our modern society, we are often target-driven, geared for efficiency rather than compassion. Do we treat colleagues and workers as cogs in the wheel, forcing them to maximize output at the expense of their physical mental and spiritual health? Does the need to create a ‘competitive edge’ endorse and aggravate the ‘me-first’ drive that makes us heartless in other areas of life?

Compassion is our natural way of being. How often have we allowed our unconsciousness prevail over living a life of loving-kindness? Charity is the ultimate test of faith. You can not worship God unless you honour your fellow humans, whoever they may be.

Live a compassionate life…now.

]]> http://davidtay.sg/2011/02/live-a-compassionate-life/feed/ 0 http://davidtay.sg/2011/02/be-open-minded/ http://davidtay.sg/2011/02/be-open-minded/#comments Fri, 04 Feb 2011 03:59:48 +0000 http://davidtay.sg/?p=697 What does the term ‘open minded’ really mean? We all hear that to be ‘open minded’ is a good thing, yet we tend to turn the idea of open-mindedness into yet another goal we need to accomplish, as if it is some new self-improvement project, something else that we need to achieve.

Adyashanti shared these thoughts in his book, “Falling into Grace”, and he said:

“Open-mindedness comes naturally as we begin to see the ways that we argue with our experience, with events that are in fact immovable and unchangeable. Of course, the next moment may be very different, but this moment is as it is and any moment in the past is as it was. This is a very simple concept, but it’s very difficult to let in because it’s so contrary to what we’ve been taught. The conventional worldview involves a constant state of evaluation and judgment. We are even praised for being able to debate and judge. We’re constantly saying to ourselves what should and shouldn’t be, what we like and we don’t like. We can open the door and it could be raining, and we might say, ‘Oh gosh! I hate the rain! It shouldn’t be raining! I hate rainy days!’ At that moment, we are in opposition with reality. Reality is simply it is raining; that is what’s real. If we argue with it, if we judge it, then we’re at odds with life. In many unconscious ways we’re taught that if we don’t argue with what is, then somehow we aren’t doing our jobs as human beings.”

But, what is the effect of our constant judgment and evaluation of what was and what is? What effect does this have on us, both individually and collectively? Does it actually lead us to peace? Does it actually lead us to sanity? And most importantly, is it even true? Is it actually true that this moment should be different than it is? Is it actually true that the past should have been different than it was?

Adyashanti added: “When we begin to open our minds, we see that this continuous state of evaluation actually leads to suffering. It is when we clearly see this that we can begin to have the capacity to let it go. When our minds start to open, we’re no longer in a constant state of evaluation and judgment. Naturally, then, our senses open – and we can really see what is before us. Our eyes open in a different way, our hearing opens in a different way, our emotions open, our hearts open to all of existence. We see how judging and condemning actually close our hearts and harden us to the experience of life and others. Open-mindedness allows us to embrace the nature of our experience. This doesn’t mean that we have to like every experience that we have. There are experiences that are painful; there are experiences that are unpleasant. Open-mindedness doesn’t mean that we’re just opening to the good parts of life; it means we’re opening to everything. And this is when we start to discover a type of inner stillness, an inner stability, that vast unchanging expanse that is at the heart of everything.”

My most recent encounter with reality is when I was hit with a cold, sore throat, blocked nose, soreness around my hips and knees, all within the first day of Chinese New Year; a day when I would usually get up early for my morning run and a hearty breakfast to start off the ‘New Year’. I could have argued about the ’shoulds and shouldn’ts’ about falling sick and getting injured, and it wouldn’t have gotten me closer to getting better. I could have whined about not getting enough training and preparation especially with a couple of sporting events coming up in the next few weeks. Instead I chose to embrace fully all that I’d experienced that day – the pains and discomfort, and accepting everything as it is. And when I stopped ‘fighting with what is’, I found myself in a state of being which has a sense of inner peace and calmness in the midst of this ‘turmoil’.

I am resting and letting my body recover fully but I am no longer besieged with the ‘woe is me’ mindset – knowing that by accepting everything as it is, I have allowed my mind to be open to everything that life offers to me, and living it to the fullest.

]]> http://davidtay.sg/2011/02/be-open-minded/feed/ 0 http://davidtay.sg/2011/01/free-the-mind/ http://davidtay.sg/2011/01/free-the-mind/#comments Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:37:08 +0000 http://davidtay.sg/?p=663 When it comes to making choices we tend to agonize over every detail of the situation instead of letting them come spontaneously. Somehow we have overlooked intuitions in favor of a more labored (and seemingly logical) process, even though we knew these flashes gave us greater clarity and the ‘knowing’ what to do.

Choice should be a flow. Your body already suggests that this is the natural way to exist. Each cell maintains only enough reserve of food and oxygen to survive for a few seconds. Cells don’t store up energy because they never know what’s coming next. Flexible responses are much more important to survival than hoarding. From one viewpoint, this makes the cells look entirely vulnerable and undefended, yet as fragile as a cell may appear, two billion years of evolution can’t be denied.

Everyone knows how to choose; few know how to let go. It is the letting go of past experiences that we have allowed to define us. And it’s only by letting go of each experience that you make room for the next, allowing ‘fresh water’ to flow into you. The skill of letting go can be learned; once learned, you will enjoy living much more spontaneously.

Deepak Chopra shared these guidelines in helping us to make choices without getting trapped:

Make the most of every experience. Living fully is extolled everywhere in popular culture. What does it mean to fully experience something? Instead of looking for sensory overload that lasts forever, you’ll find that the experiences need to be engaged at the level of meaning and emotion. Meaning is essential. If this moment truly matters to you, you will experience it fully. An experience that touches your heart makes the meaning that much more personal.

Don’t obsess over right and wrong decisions. If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. This isn’t a correct assumption because the universe is flexible – it adapts to every decision you make. Right or wrong are only mental constructs. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience.

Stop defending your self-image. Over the years you have built an idealized self-image that you defend as ‘me.’ In this image are packed all the things you want to see as true about yourself; banished from it are all the shameful, guilty, and fear-provoking aspects that would threaten your self-confidence. But the act of banishment creates the chaos of your internal dialogue, and thus your ideal erodes even while you are doing everything to look good about yourself. To really feel good about yourself, renounce your self-image; all self-images have the same pitfall: They keep reminding you of who you were, not who you are. The whole idea of I, me, and mine was erected on memories, and these memories are not really you. If you release yourself from your self-image, you will be free to choose as if for the first time.

Go beyond risks. As long as the future remains unpredictable, every decision involves some level of risk. Risk is mechanical. It implies that there is no intelligence behind the scenes, only a certain number of factors that result in a given outcome. You can go beyond risks by knowing that there is infinite intelligence at work in the hidden dimension of your life. At the level of this intelligence your choices are always supported. The point of looking at risks would be to see if your course of action is reasonable; you wouldn’t rely on risk analysis to override far more important factors, the very factors that are being weighed at the level of deeper awareness. People who can assess their choices at the deeper level of awareness are aligning themselves with infinite intelligence, and thus they have a greater chance for success than does someone who crunches the numbers.

Make no decision when in doubt. It’s hard to let go when you don’t know if you have made the right choice in the first place. Doubt lingers and ties us to the past. It’s important not to make critical decisions when you are in doubt. The universe supports actions once they are begun, which is the same as saying that once you take a direction, you are setting a mechanism in motion that is very hard to reverse.

See the possibilities in whatever happens. It would be much easier to let go of outcomes if every choice turned out well. And why wouldn’t it? In the one reality there are no wrong turns, only new turns. But the ego personality likes things to be connected. Coming in second today is better than coming in third yesterday, and tomorrow I want to come in first. This kind of linear thinking reflects a crude conception of progress. Real growth happens in many dimensions. What happens to you can affect how you think, feel, relate to others, behave in a given situation, fit into your surroundings, perceive the future, or perceive yourself. All these dimensions must evolve in order for you to evolve. Try to see the possibilities in whatever happens. If you don’t get what you expected or wished for, ask yourself, “Where am I supposed to look?” This is a freeing attitude. On some dimension or other, every event in life can be causing one of two things: Either it is good for you, or it is bringing you what you need to look at in order to create good for you.

Find the stream of joy. In your own life there is a stream of joy that is just as elemental and unshakable. A worm knows nothing but itself, so it cannot deviate from the stream of joy. You can disperse your awareness in every direction, and by doing so distract yourself from the stream. You won’t really let go of your self-image and your restless mind until you feel, without question or doubt, a palpable joy in yourself. J. Krishnamurti, a renowned spiritual teacher, made this moving comment: “People don’t realize how important it is to wake up every morning with a song in your heart.” The song stands for a sense of joy in existence, a joy that is free of any good or bad choices. To ask this of yourself is both the simplest thing and the most difficult. But don’t let it slip your mind, no matter how complex your life becomes. Keep before you the vision of freeing your mind, and expect that when you succeed at doing this, you will be greeted by a stream of joy.