Category Archives: Reflections

True Spirituality

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I once went shopping with a dear friend in Beijing some time back and she pointed a store to me and told me that they sell spiritual clothing. “What do you mean”, I was really puzzled. “This is where spiritual people buy their clothes from” she explained. I went in and saw that they were mostly linen, loose comfy clothing. I then matched those clothing in my mind with the people that I saw in workshops and classes in the San Francisco Bay Area and realized that those people did wear similar kind of clothing. 😉

How interesting to actually notice this, I thought. Hmmm… how many people actually start dressing like that in order to feel belong to this group, to project the image that they are also spiritual…

If you ask me what it means to be spiritual, if a person is spiritual, I think my only perception would be that he/she is very human, humble, much in touch with the fact that he/she is only human and stands on the same ground with every one else. That’s as far as I can go with spirituality.

After all the far out game one plays, he/she has to come back to reality, to open his/her eyes to seeing the extra ordinary within the mundane ordinary day-to-day life. That is true spirituality! hahaha….

Lesson at Gambling Table

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gambleWas in Singapore Sands Casino a few days ago. That’s our to-go place every time we are down in Singapore. Casino is a wonderful place to notice and hear the mind because money is one thing that most of us have strong identity and attachment to and being in a casino can easily bring up our issues around money.

For me, I love the game of gambling. I grow up in a family that gambles every Chinese New Year. Starting at the age of 6-7, we would all gather around and placed our 3 cards bets on the living room floor with my brother being the banker. It’s always feels like a way to connect with all my cousins and friends.

Even till now, every weekend when my dad and all the uncles gather around, they play mahjong or gin rammy. They don’t play for the money but for the fun of gather together and for love of the game.

Sometimes when I watch people play, my mind thinks it can find a pattern around how the game is being played and it wants to come up with a formula to beat the system. And I always end up with lots of humility coming to see that no one has it down. No one can absolutely know what comes up in the “big/small” roll of dice table. “See, it was big for the last 4 rounds, this time it has to change to small.” And then it was another round of big, or a change to small. The best thing is, the mind would give reasons and try to make sense of why it was big/small. It would do that over and over again until it finally realizes it for itself that it just can’t know for sure.

And if we are not so stuck on whether we are losing or winning, we will at least get to enjoy the game while engaging our bets in them.

And if we take this lessons at the gambling table into our lives, we get to enjoy the game of life without attaching to our loss and gain, after all, they are all games.

This Too Will Pass

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stormsI love the wisdom of what this phase “this too will pass” brings me.

I remembered when I was first presented with this phase, I cried so hard. I cried to the death of my dream of being “enlightened”. I was wanting to achieve a peak state in my mind and hope that it would be forever.

The same phase also brought me great comfort when I was in physical pain. This too will pass – it is going to get better, that is how the mind interprets it.

Regardless of the peak or the valley in life, this phase reminds me to be conscious of the working of the nature, Tao. And slowly, gratitude arise from knowing that the state I am in is constantly going off forever, and every moment is complete in itself.

Thank you pain for sharing your life with me in different moments in my life.
Thank you success and happiness for sharing your life with me in different moments in my life.

The sweetness is what remains constant in this experiencing of the valleys and the peaks in life.

Overflowing and Half Cup

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cupThere was a poem that was shared by a friend that I took it to my heart for many years.

In the poem, the poet referred us human as cups. It talked about how important it was to fill up our cups, to be an overflowing cup instead of a half cup.

“An overflowing cup need not do anything, it is full of abundance and it can’t help but to share freely the water overflowing its rim.

A half cup has to tilt over to share its water, and often it tumbles over and break.”

It just came to me today that I have been working on giving myself what I want to give to others. What I realized long ago was, I wasn’t able to give honestly, I gave with the motive of having you like me, thank me, so that I can feel good about myself.

Since doing The Work, I give myself what I want to give others. Totally selfish! And after doing that for many years, i think my cup is starting to be full and coming to overflowing.

I now feel absolutely ecstatic when I give or help someone. I no longer have have to wait for the response or return. I feel great when it was never found out. It is so effortless, it feels like I am doing it for me, I so love myself. That’s how I could describe it.

And I love that it is always for me. I am the projector.

Highlight for the year 2012

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Two more days into the new year, 2013.  Looking back, I reflect on all the happenings in this year and images come into my mind.
If I have to list what are the biggest highlight for the year, it would be:

1. I am more open to being wrong, starting to love to be wrong and looking forward to being wrong.  Being willing to be wrong helps me to stay open and vulnerable to reality, I come to experience that I am not in control here and everything just falls nicely into place with or without me.

2. I tap into the experience of joy by being kind of others and myself.  It’s so simple and easy and precious.  And at the same time, I can’t stop noticing how kind people are to me.  I love the image that I see in the mirror.

Merry Christmas

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They call it Christmas day tomorrow and tonight is Christmas Eve.  I have to chuckle when I think of this Christmas thingy and how and when I came to believe this.  As I brought my nephews out in the mall with my sister, I saw the decorations, the songs played, the faces of people, I love this beautiful dream.  I marveled at how easily we all believe this Christmas story without even questioning it.

I love that I am alone at home on Christmas Eve.  I love that I can’t find a story that would go against this solitary Christmas Eve.  I see images of people counting down, families getting together.  I also see how much stress some people have having to hold this beautiful picture for their loved ones.

I love that my peace doesn’t have to come from outside.  And that no one can take that away from me.

Yes, Merry Christmas!  I love this beautiful dream.

If God doesn’t give you what you want…

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Saw this posting on Facebook from my cousin this morning.  Write “Amen” if you belief this!
Without hesitation, I gave it a big “AMEN” at the bottom.
Then, I hear my mind saying, “how is it that what I get in life has to do with what God is (willing) to give me?”  It’s interesting to see that my mind add “willing” into this sentence even though I can’t know if it has to do with God’s willingness. And “who am I to give an “Amen” when I am not a declared “Christian”?  Hmmm… this mind way too inquisitive, busy discovering itself.

So, where do I come to meet this statement?  God to a Christian, is almighty and it is above men.  And to me, the reality and how things are, things that are no beyond my control, that is my “God”.

So, when I don’t have something that I want, obviously it is not something I need, or there will be war inside of me.  I will be going into God’s business, arguing and negotiating with him about my good deeds and how it is unfair that It is treating me this way.  All these effort into getting God to give it to me is a big tantrum, a waste of energy and time.  And honestly, I have spent many years of my life throwing these big tantrums.

And when we have suffered enough arguing with God and reality, it may be time to start sitting with what we want for a moment and see how it is true that it is a good thing that we don’t get what we want.   Our eyes may start to open up to all the gifts that had, have and will come into our lives because we don’t have what we want.

And the openness to this gift comes only when we are ready to see it.  Everything has a timing of its own, doesn’t it?  If not, God must be crazy… 😉

Taker or Giver?

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A friend asked me the other day if a mutual friend is a giver or a taker.  I didn’t know how to answer that question, it wasn’t that I didn’t know her enough or something along that line.  The thing is, I know that I am a taker and that makes her a giver in our friendship.

I remembered many years ago when I attended a training where we had to look at every participant in the eyes and then shout out “taker” or “giver”.  When it was my turn, I was looking at each one of them and shouted, “giver”, “giver”, “giver”…”giver”.  The instructor was so mad as he thought I was playing a fool and he threatened to kick me out of the training.  “you mean this fellow, after what you see he is doing in this class, you actually think he is a giver??? You are not serious, I don’t want you in this class!  You are disrupting the class!!”  He didn’t leave me any space to say anything.

I realized after that incident that he wasn’t ready to hear what was going through my mind and I just left it as it was.

So, if you ask me now how was it possible that everyone is a giver to me.  My answer would be that I am very clear that I am always a TAKER.  I realized that everything I do is for my own happiness, I wanted something from others and in that I am a Taker.  And the reason I do everything is that I wanted to feel good about myself, I like me when I help you, And over the years, this Taker became more honest about her taking from others and more greedy as she is enjoying the joy and pleasure in taking honestly.

What a gift!

My experience with Vipassana meditation

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A friend asked me about Vipasana meditation a few weeks back.  She wanted to know what I thought about it.  And I said, “Great!  If it works for you and you see the value, go for it!”

What came to my mind was a time when I went for a Vipassana meditation retreat back in California closed to 9 years ago.  The morning bell rang at 3:30 am and we all got up, washed up and off to the morning chant.  After that, it was walking and sitting meditation alternating every hour for the rest of the day.  It was a sweet experience.  Besides the struggle to get out from my thick warm blanket during the winter time and the most yummy Burmese and Cambodia breakfast and lunch, my mind didn’t seem to register any memorable events during those long hours of mindfulness.

Would I do it again?  I don’t think so.  I don’t feel the need for it.  Meditation is no longer something that is separate from my life.  My life is no longer compartmentalized into conscious and unconscious time, that I have to set aside time for.  At one time in my life, I decided that it is either all or nothing.  I just couldn’t bear being conscious in part of my life and unconscious in another.  I just couldn’t fool myself any longer.  It’s just too painful to not want it all.  So now, I open up to what my life offers.  I am learning to love having no preferences.  And I love it when I could ask to have things the way I want it.  And it feels absolutely equal to me.  Strange but that’s how it looks on the outside.

About My Purpose in Life

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 Had a really heartfelt experience these few days.  I got to tap into a few experiences in my past that held the keys to determining how I perceived and interacted with the world outside.  I got to see that it wasn’t what happened that was the problem, it was really the story that I told myself what happened that was the problem. And in the past, I continued to live out over and over again this past experience.  However, this time, it is different.  By undoing the past, I come to experience life through a new pair of eyes, not through the same old pair of tinted glasses.

As a certified facilitator, I worked with many people on their stressful thoughts and beliefs.  The greatest blessing for me in doing that is it has helped me to have higher/greater awareness of my own thoughts and beliefs.  Every now and then when I identified the dark space in the attic of my mind and shone light into those areas, it humbled me to see that we are all on the same ground – no one has higher wisdom than the other person except the equal privilege to find out what is true for ourselves.

I am truly grateful for this self-realization experience and I come to see that to start living out this realization in this world is my only purpose in life.