Why is it so hard to let go of the things that are causing us pain? 

If we look deeply, we’ll see that the things that are causing us pain also give us pleasures.  We will find that they give us something we would like to have.  Maybe it is only a hope or a promise for tomorrow.  We cling on with the hope that what we desired from them is going to happen.    If they are only pure pain, then we’d dropped them without asking this very question. 

Take jealousy for example.  For centuries we have been told that lovers are jealous.  Jealousy becomes an intrinsic part of love.  If we want to love, we have to accept our jealousy and the pain that created by it, especially when our lover leaves us for another person.  And our cunning mind is very clever in finding rationalization.  It will say, “It is natural to feel jealous.”  And it appears natural because everybody else is doing the same. It will say, “It is natural to feel hurt when my lover leaves me because I have loved so much!  I have the right to feel hurt.  How can I avoid the hurt, the wound, when my lover leaves me?”  While we don’t like experiencing the pain that this wound has causes, we are also enjoying our wound too, in a very subtle and unconscious way.  Our wound is giving us an idea that we are a great lover and that we have sacrificed our lives for this person, that we love so much, so deeply.  And because our love was so profound, that is why we are shattered when our lover left us for another person. 

Just watch every kind of pain and we will see either it has some pleasure in it which we are not ready to lose or it has some hope in it which goes on dangling like a carrot on a stick in front of us.   And we’ll find some rationalization in it.  It looks so close!  Why drop it?   

Why is it so hard to let go of the things that are causing you pain? 

I complaint a lot when I was a child.  I always find ways to show my ungratefulness.  My mom always finds ways to remind me to be thankful for life.  She’d take me to the market often.  The market in Vietnam is a lot different than the market here in the US.  The market we went to was full of homeless, handicaps, leprosies, and other derelicts.  I saw many bizarre creatures and things  including a man with no legs and no hands.  My first question was “how did he get there?”  Someone once said I cry when I have no shoes until I saw a man with no legs.  At every market visit, mom would buy birds and let them go.  I always wanted to keep them.  Mom believed that releasing the birds would help speed up the process of the communists releasing dad from the concentration camp.   May be this was the reason why dad got out alive only after 8 years compare to his friends who stayed a lot longer and some couldn’t make it out.  The market visits were always life changing experience for me.  I am reminded to be thankful to existence and that being alive and healthy is a wonderful gift. 

As an adult, I don’t have much tolerance for people who always find something to complain about.  Some get offended by almost everything.  I also don’t have tolerance for chronic grumpy people.  But I can empathize.  There are many reasons why people behave the way they behave.  One reason is the cultural.  Most of us were conditioned at a young age to not accept ourselves the way we are.  Our isness is never praised.  Being a nobody is not accepted.  What is praised is our future of becoming someone respectable, powerful, rich, intellectual, and famous.  It creates an idea “I am not enough the way I am, something is missing.  I have to be someone else.  I have to be somewhere else.  I have to be more dominant, more respected, well known.  I have to have more money, more degrees, more initials behind my name.”  Sometimes these expectations are not met and we create lots of negative feelings that cause unhappiness not only in us, but in our circle of influence.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!   

It is really not about obeying or disobeying.  It is simply about behaving intelligently.  Sometimes I have to obey, and sometimes I don’t have to obey.  When someone told me to do something, I am given an opportunity to respond.  If what is being told is right, then I’ll do it.  If it is not right, then I’ll make it clear.  I’d bring up my reasons why it is not right.  I want to help the person see that what she is asking is going in a wrong direction.   But I do it lovingly.  I plainly and simply explain the whole thing.  Sometimes, the other person finds that I am right and grateful.  But most of the time, the other person gives me better reasons than my own reasons.  And I am thankful because she has helped me raised my intelligence. 

I try to use every opportunity in life for raising my intelligence. It is one way to clean up pollutants (pain and suffering) in the human psyche and on earth.   With intelligence, earth can be a heaven; and without intelligence, earth can be a hell to live on.

Obedience

Who knocked down the walls of Jericho?

At Bible school the teacher was asking his class questions.  He turned to Jenkins:  “Who knocked down the walls of Jericho?

“Please, sir,” replied Jenkins.  “It was not me.”

The teacher was very annoyed.  He went to the headmaster and said, “I have just asked Jenkins who knocked down the walls of Jericho and he said it was not him.  What do you think about that?”

The headmaster said, “I have known the Jenkins family for years, and if he said it wasn’t him, it wasn’t.” 

Now the teacher was even more annoyed.  He phoned the Minister of Education and said, “I asked a boy in class who knocked down the walls of Jericho and he said it wasn’t him.  I then went to the headmaster to complain about the boy and he said that he had known the family for years and if the boy said it wasn’t him, it wasn’t him.  What do you think about that?”

The minister was silent for a second, and then said, “Listen, I am fed up with complaints from your school.  Get the walls repaired, and if there are more complaints I am going to shut that school down!”

Information is not bad in itself.  But if information becomes so powerful that your mind goes on and on and you cannot switch it off, then it becomes a problem.  If the mind cannot relax, then thinking becomes a disease.  In this state, intelligence is not there.  So take charge!  Let your mind be your servant and not your master. 

Do you remember the last time you try to prove your point at the cost of your relationship with others? 

Intelligence

What is intelligence?  Intelligence is intrinsic (like breath).  Intelligence is mindfulness.  Intelligence is the capacity to see without prejudice or stereotype.  It is the capacity to listen without interference.  It is the capacity to accept things as they are.   Intelligence is ability to response to the vicissitude of life.  It is dynamic. It flows and refreshes every moment. It is life. 

Intelligence is not about achievement, efficiency, and memory.  It has nothing to do getting good grades or passing examinations.  Intelligence is not intellectual.   An intellectual person is constantly carrying prejudices, knowledge, beliefs, information of what he has learned.  He stops seeking.  He cannot listen to others.  Before we can say anything, he has already concluded.  He has become fixed, static, frozen.  He has become consistent.  The intellectuals are blind and deaf.  Intellectual alone is unintelligence.  The head has nothing to do with intelligence. The head is the mind.  The brain is part of the mind.   The brain is knowledge.  The brain is a biological computer.  It is good for mathematics, calculation, and day-to-day life.  The brain accumulates and regurgitates.  It is good for efficiently memorizing the verses in the scriptures and unintelligently parroting them to others.  When we live life in the head, we live a mechanical life.  We become a robot.  And robots are very efficient, more so than human.  When we live like a robot, we may have a better standard of living, but we won’t have a life.   

An intelligent person depends on his own insights.  An intelligence person will try just to be herself and listens to her own intrinsic call.  She is a light unto herself.  She is able to response to life situation without resistance. An intelligence person always meditates.  Whenever she feels that life has no meaning, she tries to find meaning within.  She knows life is not definite.  She knows life is inconsistence.  She knows that tomorrow will bring it own experiences.  She surrenders and let God.  She trusts in God and her own being.  She loves and respects God, herself, others.

The idea the some people are intelligent and some are not is wrong.  This is insulting, dehumanizing, and degrading.  All are born with intelligence, though intelligence may differ in expressions.  We just have to find our intelligences.  Once we’ve found and accepted our intelligences, we become clear of whom we are. 

There is only one kind of intelligence and it is in the heart.  Intelligence is to live in the heart and use the head whenever is needed.

Intelligence versus Memory

It happens many times that intelligence people are not so good as far as memory concerned.  Thomas Alva Edison was not good as far as memory is concerned.  He invented hundreds of scientific gadgets include gramophones record, electric bulb, radio, fan, loudspeaker.  Just the quantity if his invention is unbelievable.  But his memory was lousy, sloppy, so much so that once he even forgot his own name.  It is impossible to forget your own name.  If you can forget your own name you can forget anything.  His wife used to have to keep everything in order because his whole room was in constant chaos.  He kept forgetting everything.  He used to keep loose papers around, and would go on writing down whatever thought came to his mind.  Then those loose papers would be lost.  His wife suggested that he should keep a notebook.  He followed her suggestion and kept a notebook.  But then he’d lost the whole notebook!

Albert Einstein was not a man who had a good memory.  He failed many exams in school simply because he could not memorize anything.  This greatest mathematician of all the ages, and for ages to come, was incapable of counting small amounts of money.  He would have to count again and again.  He would go into his bathroom and would not come out for hours because he would forget where he was and that he should come out.  He’d come out when he feels hungry or thirsty or something else.  His wife has been curious for years of what he was doing in the bathroom.  She would peep through the keyhole and saw him sat in the bathtub playing with soap bubbles.  When she asked him, “What are you doing?” he said, “Don’t disturb me—never disturb me because it is in playing with soap bubbles that I have discovered the theory of relativity.  It is through playing with soap and bubbles that I came to understand that the universe is expanding just like a soap and bubble.  It goes on expanding and one day it will burst—just like soap and bubble!”

If we look down the ages we will find thousands of genius with very bad memories with intelligence and thousands of people who had tremendous memories with no intelligence.  We see that creativity comes from the no mind.   

Does this mean that memory is part of the mind and intelligence is part of the no mind?  Are both memory and intelligence come from the same source? 

Ha!  Someone finally understands engineers!!!!!!

Listen to these statements:   “No one really values or appreciates me.  I don’t feel especially needed at work or at home.  I am not making a difference.  I feel empty inside.  My life lacks meaning; something’s missing.  I’m lonely.  I’m bored.  I’m angry, scared, and can’t afford to loose my job.  I’m stuck in a rut.  I never seem to get ahead.  I can’t change a thing.  My spouse doesn’t understand me.  My kids don’t listen to me……”  

The pain is deep.  You may relate with some of these statements.   Why are there so many of us looking so unhappy, dull, bored, as if we are muddling through life? Because we’ve been imitating.  We wanted to be somebody else.  We wanted to be at somebody else’s house and nobody’s attending to our own house.  Maybe it is time we use our time and energy attending to our own home.  It is time to stay home and work on these questions:  Who am I? What is my authenticity?  What is my original face? 

If we don’t know who we are, our lives will be long series of accidents; and whatever happens we will never be satisfied.  Discontent or dissatisfaction will be the only flavor we taste in life. 

So, find the courage to seek out your original face.  Trust in your own being and listen to your own voice. You are the center of your world.  It is your life and if you are not kind to yourself, who is going to be kind to you?  If you are not listening to your voice, who is going to listen to you?  If you are wasting your life, it is nobody else’s responsibility.  It won’t be the responsibility of your parents, spouse, friends, boss, children, Jesus, Buddha or God.  They are not your saviors.  Be responsible toward yourself.  Everything else comes next.   

Meditation

Every time I talked about meditation, people automatically assumed that they have to sit in a corner in the closed-eye position with an object of focus such as a Buddha, a Christ, a bead, or a guided CD; and it should be scheduled at a certain time and duration.  I think everyone can meditate while walking, running, driving, working, sitting, or lying in bed, as long as these activities are done with mindfulness.  Other terms for mindfulness include: meditative act, witnessing, and observing. 

I rarely sit in meditation.  I am not against sitting.  I prefer to be in meditation in whatever I am doing.  When I drive, I drive meditatively.  When I am bored, I get bored meditatively.  When I am in physical or psychological pain, I feel the pain meditatively.  For me, meditation does not have to be scheduled at a certain time and duration.   If I spend one hour a day in meditation and the rest of the twenty three hours in non-meditation, what good does that do?  It feels like a waste of time.

Meditation should be something that goes with me the whole day.    Even the most mundane job like saving an electronic document, turning the pages of the phone book, or scratching an itchy spot turn into a meditation.  Every act I do in life turns into a meditative act.