孤独与单独的分别 Between Loneliness and Aloneness

I am not sure how I had come across Urban Monk, it was probably fate or coincidence while browsing through other Buddhism-inspired websites. The site contains loads of great articles related to Self Awareness and I had gained lots of insights reading through them. This particular article: Loneliness – The Beginning of Romance was like a wake-up call that I ended up sharing these few insights (in Chinese) with a friend online:

开始悟道孤独和单独的分别了！
孤独表示妳需要人做伴，单独就是和你的内在为伴！
看大树是不是单独的？也在成长啊!

要学往内看才能往外看，才能向前看！
要爱内在的你才能真正的知道怎麽爱外的别人。
..........好像走对了方向！

The reply from the friend was short and sweet:
漂亮

I was surprised I could condensed everything in just these few lines.
Translated to English it reads like this:

Beginning to understand the difference between Loneliness and Being Alone.
Loneliness meant you need another person as a companion.
Being Alone meant being in the company of your true inner Self.
Look at a big tree, isn't it Alone? Yet it still grew by itself, being alone.

One must learn to look Inward into your own Self before one could look Outward.
It is then that One could truly look Forward.
One must first learn to love your own Inner Self before being able to know how to love others.

...........seems like heading in the right path.

True Love Will Find You In The End

True love will find you in the end
You'll find out just who was your friend
Don’t be sad, I know you will,
But don’t give up until
True love finds you in the end.

This is a promise with a catch
Only if you're looking will it find you
'Cause true love is searching too
But how can it recognize you
Unless you step out into the light?

Don’t be sad, I know you will
But don’t give up until
True love finds you in the end.

LISTEN!

This is from Pete Yorn's latest release, his fourth to date and according to early reviews, looks like a classic in the making. Been a fan of Pete Yorn since coming across his music in the movie , "Me, Myself and Irene". The song in that movie was "Strange Condition". I like his melancholic singer-songwriter style.

Don’t wanna cry for u
but there's nothing left to lose
If it can make me feel better
Then I'm gonna cry cry for you

Don’t wanna cry for u
there’s nothing left to do
If it can make me feel better
Then I'm gonna cry cry for you

I know a man not supposed to act this way
But things they got too real, I couldn't stay
(Now) I know one day...we will both feel good
If I could be with u, u know I would

...........from "Don't Wanna Cry"

Every now and then words do not come as easily to express what you actually feel inside. Then you come across words like those above that does so perfectly.

BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2009

(1) DAY OUT WITH MY TWO BEAUTIFUL KIDS:

..........starting with the legs and flip-flops!

.........my eldest.

.......my little one.

........now who took it when I was unprepared, huh?

.........now ready with my pose!

......the Flyer from Marina Barrage.


..........photos with the pair of Rolls Royces of Fullerton Hotel.
..........my eldest is nearly as tall as me!






.............these photos were taken by my eldest and this is the first time he played with a DSLR! Amazing!
And on manual mode too! Maybe he has that X-factor with photography??

.......maybe it's just me, I think symmetry makes most shots interestingly balanced

or maybe it's just because of my star sign??

.................................A Beautiful Sunday

I had wriiten a passage for this piece but discarded it as it was too personal that did not sit in well with the theme "A Beautiful Sunday", so I have written this instead:

From the moment you popped out from your mother's womb

in the delivery room

You had given me Unknown Pleasures, Joy and Wonder

Which will stay with me forever and ever

I may not have said or expressed it often enough

That I love you

I just hope you know it from within

That this love will be there forever and

Through time, will never wither

(2) ROCK AND ROLL IS ALIVE AND WELL..................WITH THESE GUYS:

The OHBROTHERS from South Korea.

These five guys are proof that Rock N Roll music transcends time and space. Smartly dressed in suits, tight pants and pointed shoes, covering standard classics like Tutti Fruitti and Johnny B. Goode to Rock N Roll numbers in Korean, these guys really kick ass and kept the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre humming all night long. Everyone in the packed crowd could easily identify with the universality of the music.

I even got a photo shot with the gang after the show!

IF....YOU WERE LISTENING...........

Lately I've been thinking
Lately I've been dreaming with you
I'm so resistant to this type of thinking
Oh, now it's shining through

I was alone for the last time
Before my night's vacation with you
Alive from the first
Now I'm denied by the ghost of you

Oh….You take yourself a photograph and laugh at me
Please

I know there's little use in crying
It's more wide awake and dying then I'm used to
I thought we'd walk these streets together
Now I'm hoping that I'll never have to meet you

Step aside from all this anger
And somewhere in between I can feel you

Ask me should we try again
I'm thinking no
Y'know, it's not what I believe in
It's not what I believe in

Oh, just
You take yourself a photograph and laugh at me
Please
You make yourself a photograph and laugh at me
Please

No I, wanna taste your love
No I...no I
No I, just wanna taste your love
No, no I

Standing in your shoes
I turn and now
You're standing bare in my doorway
I only wish that I had been prepared
I'm gonna have to go along with your way

Just take the plastic camera out
It's in the pants you borrowed in the driveway

Alive from the first
Now I'm denied by the ghost of you

Make yourself a photograph and laugh at me
Please
You make yourself a photograph and laugh at me
Please

No I, wanna taste of love
No I...

I was alive from the first
Now I'm denied by the ghost of you
(.....................from Howie Day's "Ghost")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heartbreak is never easy to overcome.
The pain is proportionate to the length of the relationship, i.e. the longer it is the more deeper the pain gets. This is the workings of nature and the One up above.

The menu of feelings that one goes through is quite possibly as long as the ends of the world. Deep inside we yearn for the party to be able to read our minds and understand but the truth is that we ourselves could not even read our own minds or straighten things out within ourselves. Quite possibly the same with the other party.

Anger is a driver without any GPS guidance and runs your mind amok beyond any logic. We start asking the 5W2H (Who, What, When, Where, Why, How and How Much) to make sense of the problem and locate the differences, typically from only our own perspective and never from the other's point of view. As you go through the 5W2H, your anger starts to build up again and again each time.

Anger is the biggest obstacle to having a clear view of the whole situation. If only we could pause "Anger" for a moment or cast it aside for the time being, things will surely become as clear as the big blue sky.

In any dispute, there will never be a Win-Win situation. The same with business or just about anything. The people who speak it did not tell the full story - it is not Win-Win per se, but in essence a matter of degrees of compromise by each party.

We can forgive but we will never forget, that is nature too! But if we could dig real deep down into the bosom of our hearts and find that tiny piece of our "SELF" to forgive (never mind about forget), I think we are already on the right path.
What I have found through my own long path to this "Self" discovery in regard to my own situation was to acknowledge the fact that EVERYTHING STARTS AND ENDS WITH YOU, AND ONLY YOU.
Never mind the other party, you could not possibly force a change in the other party but you sure could start a change in yourself. Cast aside the notion about losing or winning because at the end of the day, everyone loses something in any disputes. The difference is only in magnitude and whether each one had managed to find one's own true "Self".

If we start to see life as a series of waves as Einstein said, we could realise the non-permanance of all things. You came into the world stark naked and some even needed a smack up the backside before awakening to make your first sound in this world. When your time is up to leave you also leave naked, nevermind the clothes your dead body will be clothed in, you leave taking nothing from this world. So what is the point of fighting over this or that is this brief lifetime? Think about it.

It's not about worldly possessions but the experiences we gather through this journey called a lifetime that really matters. Yes, you will make mistakes, live with regrets or lose your directions at many many crossroads where decisions need to be made, but in truth we are all really here to experience all these, isn't it? If life is given on a silver platter what is the point of being here in the first place?

In any argument, the moment anger kicks in, we are no longer striving for the truth but instead striving for our selfish "Self". That is probably why things tend to drag on with no ends. Something had to give. To give something you have is easy, to give something which you do not have and thereby gaining it in the process is the true giving which I had previously commented in piece 2 of this earlier post in reference to this article by Urban Monk. We are here in this existence to gain the intangibles, not the tangibles.

The only true equality in life is this:
You came into the world with nothing and you will still have most of it at all stages of your lives and this "nothing" you will take it with you in death to the next.

This is not a perfect world, the moment when man is left to their own devices selfishness will kick in and there is only each man for himself. There is no such thing as equality when we are all governed by your fellow man including not only the government, the laws and the Court Judges as these are all your fellow men. How can they know what puritant justice is? Only the One above will be the ultimate judge. Those on this earth appointed to judge are nothing more than listeners and then giving what they think is the best based on the evidence and non-evidence given. They do not know what is truly right or wrong, they are merely making a decision where decision had to be made. It may not be the right decisions.

Just remember, in any disputes or arguments to:

"Step aside from all this anger And somewhere in between I can feel you"

as Howie Day wrote in his song "Ghost"................you are probably on the right path.


In closing, I leave with this quote from Charles Schulz :

"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I`m happy. I can`t figure it out. What am I doing right?"

.......................that would be as close as it gets to attaining "nirvana" and completeness in this lifetime!!

REFLECTIONS OF BUDDHA

All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.

He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.

It is better to travel well than to arrive.

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.

On life's journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.

There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What's the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?

What we think, we become.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

。。。。。in celebration of Vesak Day 9 May 2009

算命 DIVINATION

On 2 March 2009, went to partake a session of divination at a place recommended by a colleague who had gone there just last Friday. More curiosity than anything else, I went for the appointment, nearly an hour late because it needed my time of birth and I was scrambling all over the flat looking for a piece of yellowish paper called the birth certificate which I had not glanced at for many many many years!

I must admit that I went there with a lot of apprehension and in truth not expecting much in return. I even started on the wrong footing when the "master" asked me to pick a card from the stack he had just shuffled - I took 2 cards instead of one! Luckily my fingers were holding on to one card only, so the other card that was "revealed" was cast aside. The "master" then placed my chosen card at the centre and formed the Eight Trigrams for divination with sequential cards drawn from the stack. He was shaking his head most of the time, which means things are not looking up! I was there to hear what he could foretell about my past and my current state of things without me saying anything, not so much about my immediate and near distant future. I have been at rock bottom for many years so I could take anything he was about to toss at me.

(1) There is no saviour or saviours (贵人) in sight for me.
(2) This year is not a good year for my chinese zodiac sign and my year of birth.
(3) Luck? Very little.
(4) Problems/Disputes? Many.
(5) True Love? Bitter, then sweet (先苦后甜). - This one is way off-track man! I had absolutely nothing in sight, having just lost the big one in 2008.
(6) Work/Job/Career/Human Relationship? Career-wise, refer to (1) & (2)...in a word, near hopeless! I was told it is no good to wear my heart on my sleeves, that I was too "straight", too "direct", too "one-way street" that people tend to take advantage of this fact and "use and then forget" about me.

As you can see, things are, in a word - HOPELESS!

OK, I went along with whatever "remedies" to sort of improve the situation that he "prescribed"...........including being told to pray to the Chinese God of War, Guan Yu (關羽) to improve my lot. I then recalled that I WAS actually at the site of the former Kingdom of Wu - Chengdu, Szechuan and also visited the Temple of Marquis Wu and paid my respects to two Heroes of the Three Kindgom period - Kong Ming (a.k.a. Zhugeliang) and the honourable Guan Yu (Guan Yunchang)! So in a way, I had actually "Pay It Forward", so to speak. (Does it mean I would be OK for the year then???)

Hope for the Best, Expect the Worse................under the current economic woes, this may be the wisest approach, really.