On a Lesson to be Learnt ...

I wrote this article in 2002 for the Kuan Yin Contemplative Order’s (KYCO) newsletter. As a tribute to my beloved mother who has passed on in 2005, I would like to share it with all who knew her:

“I know that this temple will heal me”. Those were the first words my mother said to Tony Wong Sifu in mid-1979, when I brought her to Sifu’s small upstairs office in Graphic Press. Mrs. Cheah, was fondly known as “Cheah’s Mother” or just “Auntie”, had a history of severe arthritis of her legs since her late 30’s and has been to numerous places both clinical and spiritual for cures. She often suffered unbearable pain, and at times silently in tears.

In those days, there were a handful of devotees in KYCO and she knew them all, even to this day. However, Wong Sifu, in his own words admitted that at the first encounter with her, he was completely lost and had no idea whatsoever of how to treat her ailment. He couldn’t touch her due to the pain, so he prayed to Niang and he received the message to massage her legs. So my mother was helped onto a seat and when Wong Sifu began to massage her legs, she drifted into a deep sleep. The amazing thing was that under ordinary circumstances she would have cried out in pain even when the massaging pressure was gentle. But she didn’t and Wong Sifu continued with increasing pressure for about 10 minutes and meanwhile, she even snored! As I could remember, when we took her home after the treatment she was much relieved for the first time in many years.

Then upon her request, my brother Hock and I took turns to bring her to the centre (it was called KYCO shortly after) at least once a week (Tuesday or Thursday) for several months. There was one occasion she told Wong Sifu that she was very sad because she had not been able to kneel for many years, even to express her filialness when her parents died. Wong Sifu encouraged her to pray and continued to treat her. One evening thereafter, while sitting the mudra came and she knelt for a full 15 minutes! As tears rolled down her eyes and weeping, she clasped her hands and thanked Niang with all her heart for giving her an opportunity to kneel to pay her respects.

According to Wong Sifu, this incident was an inspiration for him as well as for all of us to believe in the compassion of Niang. Subsequently, my mother visited KYCO often and gradually as she grew older; her visits were reduced to the main festivals. Today, at 90 years old, she could still walk with the help of a walking stick. She insists that it was in KYCO that she first learnt to chant “Om Mani Padme Hum” and she does it every morning and evening without fail. She often tells me that daily, she dedicates all her prayers to each and everyone she knows and who have touched her life in some way or other.

How selfless ...

On Giving & Receiving

There is a distinct difference between “giving and taking” and “giving and receiving”. Giving and taking signifies an exchange, whereas giving and receiving promotes a natural flow of goodness.

It is not unusual that many want to give as little as possible and get as much as they can. For example, in a relationship of two; if you want to give a little and get a lot, the chances are you would end up with nothing. If one party takes more then the other, it is inevitable that the relationship will collapse sooner or later. For harmony and fulfillment to develop one should start by practicing unconditional giving. Since the truth is that we get as much as we give, in our lives, whether it relates to our careers, relationships or spiritual pursuits, we have to make some sacrifices. We have to give a part of us in exchange for what we shall receive.

I know of a friend, single in her early 40’s who has this idea that nobody will care for her in her old age and she goes to the extent of soliciting God’s help to accumulate as much material wealth as possible before then. So, she takes more than her share of anything she can lay her hands on (if offered) and hardly gives. As a result, she has few friends who hardly give her gifts, remember her birthdays, or include her in any of the social events organized. When she moved on to another job, none of her colleagues in the ex-company bothered to find out when her last working day was or gave her a farewell. We often wondered whether she’s aware that there is a more joyous side of life. How sad …

It is the natural law that says if one gives more than one takes, one will receive more than one expects. In heedless taking, the mind dwells intensively on the delusion of greed, desire and selfishness; and there is little or no room for the feeling of joy in “giving and receiving” to flourish.

On Miracles

Throughout history there have been countless accounts of miracles. However, "miracle" is a term normally used to represent a positive event or occurrence. But it is the human mind that decides on what is positive or negative, and as such it is inclined to be neither right nor wrong. One could use the premise of "truth" to support the definition but "truth" itself is also subject to the similar debatable definition process. Nevertheless, there is no harm for the human mind to accept miracles in whichever manner, so long as they are accompanied by the element of hope. Having said that that, the meaning of "miracle" then depends on the situation, subject and/or frame of mind of the person who defines it.

There is this frequently told story of a small honest to goodness family that was unfortunately afflicted with all sorts of misfortunes and sufferings. One day the head of the family gathered everyone to a religious institution to earnestly pray for a miracle to deliver them from their plight. Upon completing their prayers, and as they drove out of the gates, they were met with a fatal accident and all died on the spot. So, was that a miracle?

Recently there was a plane crash where, out of 100 passengers only one survived. This was reported to be a miracle, whereas the next-of-kin of the non-survivors could only console themselves that it was just sheer luck for the survivor and just too bad for the rest. So, was it a miracle or luck?

I know of a colleague who was a bad worker by nature, consistently sabotaging her department's progress. She just couldn't get along with her co-workers and they hated her guts. Under much distress she resorted to applying for another job over the past year and prayed very hard to get one. Recently, when she finally succeeded she exclaimed, "It's a miracle!" Meanwhile, her co-workers were also praying doubly hard to get rid of her. And when she announced her resignation, they all cheered, "It's a miracle!" So, do we have two miracles here?

It is undeniable that many of us believe there is divine intervention in events which can't be readily understood or explained. Undoubtedly, there are such phenomena and occurrences that lie at the edge of or beyond the limit of comprehension of the human mind. Until then, we continue to label them as miracles.

On Birthdays

I wrote this poem dedicated to my friend who celebrated his birthday recently: 

Onto your health, this day we drink, for
Time shall pass, but fear not,
Its it, we live by daily.
The memories that abound …
The company which they surround.
But before the voices are long gone,
We should cherish this moment, lest we forget.
We should remember it well,
For its now you celebrate
This special day.
Tomorrow will be yet different.
So, let it continue to bring cheer
As life is but all that is.
A Moment, a Day, a Lifetime and the sum ... Eternity.

On Self Realization

Sometime ago, a friend of mine happily announced that she was finally blessed with a grandson and was honorably entrusted to babysit the newborn. But being an actively religious person, she had to sacrifice some of her time in leading prayer sessions at a local temple. Nevertheless, she enthusiastically undertook the assignment with the help of a maid. Unfortunately as days went by, she gradually became stressed when her working daughter-in-law began to take her for granted and dictated how the child should be cared for. So in a fix, she conferred with her close friends and the responses she got were mixed, some for and some against which further confused and frustrated her.

When we met, she appeared perturbed after having lost some sleep over her predicament. When she described her situation, my first reaction was to recommend the classic management strategy of assessing, planning and dovetailing her commitments. She gave it a brief thought and said that my suggestion has its pros and cons but would give it a try. After that day, since I didn’t hear from her I assumed she succeeded.

To my surprise, the story didn’t end there. When we caught up with each other about a year later, she was gleaming. I greeted her, “Hey you look real good. Glad my solution to your babysitting problem worked”.
“Why yes, thank you and more than that.”
“Oh yeah? Pray tell”, I couldn’t contain my curiosity.
“Well, it was tough going at the beginning. The child, maid and parents were all moving in different directions and it was hell, so much so that I scooted off to the temple to pray for a miracle! Now, don’t you laugh at that!”
“Ahem … did you get one?” I quipped in an attempt to stifle an upcoming snigger.
“No! But I got up one morning and realized that it was I going through the hell. The problem was in fact not “my problem.” My problem was the way I judged, valued and prioritized things. I couldn’t bend rules which made me inflexible. I had all the things to make me the happiest grandma in town but I couldn’t see them”.
“That’s interesting, didn’t see it that way too. So?”
“I returned to the temple, took it as a school to learn more about life and living and went home to practice what I learnt.
That worked. Don’t ask me how but it worked. It’s a long story anyway. Today, the child responds to his granny’s cuddles, the maid is more cooperative and my daughter-in-law recognizes and appreciates my services. Now my son takes the whole family including the maid for outings on weekends when he’s available. And, I still have the time to lead the prayer sessions in my temple.”
To that, I could only say, “Wow, you are certainly blessed“.

So, who says life is not a bed of roses? This is one way of making it – self realization and how much of our life we want to be a bed of roses is entirely up to us. We've to create our own miracles and no amount of hollow "please let me have it my way" prayers can do it.

Finally, this is a common but not a fabricated story. My friend the grandmother just celebrated her 62nd birthday and her grandson will be 5 years old soon.

On Visible Problems & Hidden Solutions - a dialogue

My colleague, a long-timed employee of our company often complained of not getting full cooperation from staff of other departments no matter how hard she tried. Recently, over a lunch chat she was whining away at her quandary, inviting a response from me.
Looking at her expressionless for a brief moment I said, “Knowing you, the solution to your problem is not in anyway near or in your problem”.
“Whazzat?” she replied, puzzlingly.
“Then let me share this with you. I also happen to know of a handful of people out there who wouldn’t touch you with a 10-foot pole, let alone working with you”.
Startled, she blurted disbelievingly, “Is it? You must be kidding! But why?”

I paused briefly and continued, “Believe it or not, it’s true and it’s about you, the image of you in their minds and the “vibes” you generate. I can observe that you are unaware that they have a negative image of you, even though you have not done them any harm. Also, the image of you can precede you in a way that someone whom you have little or no dealings with could developed an unfavorable impression of you using data from the others who know you. Likewise many would, in an environment where they have to occasionally deal with people indirectly so as to find out more about who they’re dealing with”.

“Next, you are obviously unaware that the “vibes” you generate from your body language (behavior), the things you say and the way you say them, are all your signatures. People around you can easily feel whether you are friendly, sincere or otherwise. Consider this, if you dislike a person for some reason, whatever the person utters is always either wrong or debatable to you, even though what is said is right. Usually if unprompted, this would be your natural response. So unfortunately in your case, not many people here are enthusiastic about working with you because they feel uncomfortable and without telling you openly, express it in non-cooperation. That’s why you’re experiencing this problem without being able to detect or establish the cause”.

At that juncture, I was not ready or capable enough to help her to resolve the complexity of her plight except to identify the salient causes.

Therefore in life, if we are not mindful we can be inflicted with many such problems where the solutions are well hidden away and not discovered even on our way to the grave. So we continue to wallow in a quagmire filled with them because our minds are deluded by skewed values blocking the view to our real selves. Unwittingly, we keep on blaming others for our predicaments. If we could only stand in front of a mirror each morning and ask ourselves whether we are happy with what we see, the answer could well be in that image.

Blessed are those who are and joyful of what they see. Otherwise, we seriously need to reinvent ourselves …

On Spiritual Maturity

In view of all the different definitions of the subject, the most common sign of spiritual immaturity is when one hints or says, “My God, Religion, Religious Teaching or Philosophy etc. is the only true one”, without realizing that no God, Saints, Deities, Prophets or Gurus can make one mature spiritually. They can only be there to guide us with and through their teachings and if the mind interprets them without some basic wisdom, it can be equally disastrous. Spiritual maturity simply means the ability to see the good in all religious teachings and philosophies as well as to understand one of the human mind's dysfunctions in the treatment or mistreatment of knowledge, views, beliefs and judgments that could be tainted with cultural, social and environmental factors. Here’s a simple and hilarious example of spiritual immaturity.

I have a colleague who swore that her God is the only one and true God and that no other Gods stand before it. I then asked her, “Who or what says so?”
“The good and holy book!” she replied without hesitation.
“Ok, I don’t disagree, but there are many such books around, why do you choose this one?” She couldn’t provide a convincing answer except to insist that her book (and version!) provides the only real and believable answers.
I added, “If you claim that your book is right, there are others who claim theirs too. So, where do we go from here?” After some unconvincing statements, she concluded, “You’ll find out when you die!” Oops …

On Trusting the Mind

To quote Chuang Tzu one of the foremost Chinese philosopher, “I dreamt I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?”, profoundly expresses one of the ways of how the human mind should deal with the transient nature of all things.

 Here's another popular anecdote. Let's say you are asleep and dreamt that you are a rich man surrounded by extensive material wealth. Suddenly, someone appears in the same dream to say that you are neither rich nor wealthy and that you are merely dreaming. You will immediately disagree and will not hesitate to point out that all the wealth around you is tangible and therefore very real. But when you awake, you realize that it was just a dream. So, as Chuang Tzu says it makes one wonder whether we are really a human being going through this life, or something else dreaming of what we are now.

 So, isn’t everything based on the mind's perception? One may argue in great length that if we can see and touch something, it is real. But it is the mind that does it and it depends on the five body senses to gather data, interpret, compute, store and use them as references to process new incoming data in a continuous process. Therefore, anything that our senses can detect whether tangible (material) or intangible (ethereal) and accept as real, depends on the mind.

 Then again, I'm always asked, “Why is there so many types of ghost, and why does a Chinese ghost differ from an European ghost, a Malay or an Indian ghost?” Obviously they're all different, because your mind says so. It depends on the data (image) in your mind of what ghosts look like. A Chinese would have several versions including one dressed in courtly Mandarin attire and goes around hopping on both feet and a European would have others including vampires and werewolves etc…. So, when somebody shouts “Ghost” in the dark, a Chinese could expect a hopping Mandarin, and a European, a vampire or werewolf, or in general some fiction horror movie image.

 Another proposition, can you describe a color that doesn't exist (or you've not seen)? Technically, you can't, because it's not in your mind's data-bank. The moment you can (e.g. by mixing the colors you know), the color then exists, at least in your mind to be described – a paradox!

What then am I trying to say? Here, I'd like to quote part of Mr. Ng’s comment on my post 'On Karma', “… someday it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else. Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It does not matter what you owned or what you owe.”

 Now, that's the real picture ... which lies beyond the mind.

On Adultery

Often, I've been asked what my views on adultery are. To that, I feel there are some things marriage councilors don't always tell us before a couple signs on the dotted line "for the better or worse" or even after adultery has been committed. Most marrying couples in their self-induced bliss are usually oblivious to the fact that the union comes as a package. Like everything else in marriage from health to sickness, bliss to grief, pleasure to pain, adultery is one. There is of course, no "bed of roses" and getting to "happily ever after" is hard work indeed. Then again, at the point of exchanging those devout and ideal vows, none would be attentive enough to listen anyway. Least to say, the vows don't guarantee partnerships' successes even under the most stringent of cultural and social rules.

Henceforth, when adultery occurs; often for the victim the cookie crumbles. But if one understands what the contract entails should have no reason to panic. It takes a mature mind to do this and by and large, the younger the couple, the more susceptible they are to delusive and idealistic thinking. In such a partnership, accepting the good and bad, positives and negatives and rights and wrongs, is a question of individual values and judgments at whichever point of time. Even during the aftermath, the contract also neither calls for the salvaging nor rescinding of a relationship.

However, under the traumatic conditions of adultery, the natural response to this type of view would be, "It's easier said than done". But think again ... although one's happiness is at stake, life doesn't stop there. There are multitudes of the hurt finding contentment after the impact wears out. Suffice to say that at the beginning, getting married is a decision, and now it is still a decision to resolve the predicament.

In the process of surviving and recovering from the emotional crisis, all other matters should be held secondary so as not to cloud the mind from formulating a painful and/or practical solution. Difficult, but necessary since it is also going to be an endurance exercise as well. Similarly, certain religious, social and cultural “should be or must be" values have to be temporarily shelved from influencing the decision that is to be made. But always remember, the sun shines tomorrow and the next day no matter what direction the solution takes. Life has to go on ... pieces to be picked up ... emotional housecleaning administered ... lifestyles revamped ... and the good thing is, time is a great healer ...