Wish for 5 Mindfulness Trainings...

I wish I can be the eyes of Buddha, the mouth of Buddha, and the body of Buddha. I am born to correct any of the mis-conceptions, mis-perceptions of the human being. I am the messager of the Buddha, who will transform the Earth into a pure land of happiness.

Wise Dwelling in the Heart

心智住

Boo,Yan Jiong

19 September 2010

Born to be good...

“I believed that I am born to be good. I have a vision which keeps nourishing the next step of mine while I peacefully walk forward. Virtues accompany me; joyfully, I live for every day.”

I am Boo, Yan Jiong, came to this world on the date 22 November 1983. I did remember neither how I was born nor how I felt when I was born. However, whenever I think about the origin of my life, my heart will always be swollen with gratitude and thankfulness. I did remember the time when I was small, and eventually grow up, living healthily until now. There are unlimited cause and condition that nourish my growth, yet I could only manage to list some of them with limited words.

I am gratitude to my parents who bring me up to this world. They provided me a comfortable environment to grow and learn during my childhood as well as adolescence, yet I started to spend much less time with them when I was 19, as I started my undergraduate study in University Technology of Malaysia (UTM), which located quite far from my hometown. Furthermore, after my graduation, I worked in electrical company which is located much further from my house in contrast to my university. Although I will try to go back to my hometown whenever I have time, yet I feel sorry due to I am unable to accompany them when they start to grow old. My parents had cultivated many virtues in within me, including responsibility, caring, reading, discipline, etc. Besides, my childhood friends were very friendly, and we often joke and laugh together, probably this is one of the reasons that I am humorous nowadays. In a nutshell, I have a delighting childhood, and a happy family background.

After I finished my study in secondary school, I further my study in Electronic Engineering in UTM for 5 years. During the life in university, I was much influenced by many of the people, including my course mates, hostel friends, housemates, society friends, etc. Most of them come from different background, yet we managed to mix together in harmony. Frankly, I was amazed by some of my talented friends in my university, and I learnt much from them either consciously or unconsciously. Besides, I felt very lucky and gratitude because there are few Tzu-Chi society seniors willing to mentor my growth; they encouraged, advised, and accompanied me throughout my campus live. Under their guidance, the capacity of my heart kept increasing, I learnt to accept, trust, love, and forgive upon everything. Furthermore, I was moved to participate in plenty of the social works, such as clean the old-folks home, help those helpless aged people, visit to mental-retarded care centre, organize recycling activities, etc. Through those participation in the social works, I were able to listen to wide spectrum of opinions and advices, ranged from the homeless old-folks to the rich and prosperous people, in addition those people were different in the culture, religion, race, etc. It is very possible that some of the old-folks who gave advices to me may have passed away, yet their blessings will never be faded away from my heart, as long as I stay alive. Through interactions with friends and society, I broadened my mind, and compassion started to bloom in within my heart. Besides, since Tzu-Chi is a world-wide organization, I was exposed to the natural disasters, military conflicts, humanity aids, etc that happened around the globe. Contemplating upon this point, it is very likely that my concerns towards global-scale-incidents developed at this stage. Moreover, I am taught to not waste any foods, etc, and I have maintained this habit until now.

In addition, I am pleased and thankful towards few of my friends who introduced Buddhism to me. Before that, I was a named ‘Buddhist’ without much knowledge in Buddhism. However, after being introduced Buddhism by my friends, I was attracted to the teachings of Buddha, which particularly emphasis on the cultivation of wisdoms and compassions. I started to read plenty of Buddhism related books after I found out that Buddha teachings are actually wisdom and compassion oriented, which I had misperceived for a long time since I was young. I read books written by Ven. Yin-Shun, Ven. Cheng-Yen, Ven. Xing-Yun, Ven. Ji-Chen, etc. Their teachings had guided me to solve many problems throughout my life. Besides reading, I liked to participate in meditation retreats, which I would learn the ways to look deeply into my heart in order to cultivate the wisdoms, compassions and as well as increasing the capacity to non-discriminate, trust, love and forgive in within me. However, I consider myself as the worst student in learning meditation, probably due to the extremely agitated mind that I possessed; yet this never stop me from practicing meditation, instead I still continue to learn nowadays. From the Buddha teachings, I learn and practice to reason with unbiased rationality, to serve the humanity in selfless ways, to understand others compassionately, to do things mindfully, and to live meaningfully.

I did remember that I once studied in FGS Taiwan Buddhism Institute for 2 months while having UTM semester break. During the period, I tried my best to write diary on daily basis. Besides, I was taught and encouraged to retrospect my mind and behaviours frequently, and eventually the congruence between my mind and behaviours improved. The period in the institute was very memorable, and it maybe one of the most intense self-monitoring periods that I ever performed. Moreover, one of the reasons that I write blogs frequently may originate from this period of habitual daily dairy writing.

On the other hand, I participated in some of the direct sales activities during my campus life. Subsequently, I attended many of the motivation talks, and my perception towards diligence was reinforced. Besides, most of my friends in the campus were very hardworking, e.g. diligent in their study, participating in social works, selling health care products, joining religious activities, etc.; and these consciously or unconsciously cultivated my diligence, as well as the spirit of keep walking forward.

After my graduation, I worked as an electrical engineer in a multi-national company. The working environment in the company was extremely systematic, and functional. Besides, schedules were followed strictly, and works need to be finished on time. However, employees were given freedom to do anything, provided that they can able to fulfil those requirements in time. I learnt many virtues from these working environments. Moreover, I had few good bosses at that time, which I learnt much from them too. In short, my leadership, creativity, confident, strategic planning skill, resources planning skill, presentation skill, etc were being polished during that period. Besides, I learnt to be independent as I started to earn my living with my salary as an engineer. I resigned from my post after 3.8 years working there, due to my intention to further my study in clinical psychology, yet those virtues and skills that were cultivated during that time are very beneficial and useful in my daily life.

I kept seeking the meaning of my life seriously when I started to work. Of course currently I do not have any clear answer, yet it seems that I am able to raise the order of the question to another higher level. I continue to seek the truths from books, participating in discussion groups, searching for enlightened ideas from the internet, participating in meditation classes, deepening my observations on this world, questioning towards any things, looking deeply into self-emotions, monitoring deeply into self-mind, etc during this period. I broaden my world-view through the internet, particularly interest in Youtube, Google, National Geographic, Discovery, CNN, Aljazeera, TEDtalks, Berkeley Webcast, etc. Besides documentaries, I enjoy listening to fascinating news around the world, as well as listening speeches talked by those great people. Within this period, I read about politics, economics, human anatomy, human health, western and eastern medicine, psychology, technology, science, ancient history, philosophy, myths, etc; however I am none of these field experts as I managed to learn on the surface only. In addition, I am inspired by many of the great people, such as Dalai Lama, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, etc. The translator of ‘Tibetan Book of Living and Dead’, Prof. Zheng Zhen-Huang, who I meet few years ago had mentor my spiritual growth greatly, I gained much knowledge from him and eventually my perceptions are transformed, leading me to live joyfully, happily, and meaningfully, ever since.

I do write blogs whenever I have inspirations. I write dairies in orders to kept historical records of my life. Through writings, tremendous thinking and reasoning process involved, subsequently I managed to recursively correct any misconceptions in my mind. Besides, I become more self-monitoring for every dairy that I wrote, I learnt to observe deeply into my mind, attitudes, emotions, and behaviours whenever I translate them into words. Through self-monitoring, driven by wisdom, I correct any faults in within me. Purification of oneself is neither to be a great nor famous people, instead happiness and meaning bloom with every forward step in the purification path.

Currently, I enrolled myself in the psychology field. Of course I wish to graduate as a clinical psychologist, yet I know none of the people can guarantee my wish; at least I know my heart is unable to guarantee that. Instead, even if I able to get a psychologist certificate, yet it does not mean that I will become a psychologist in the future, since I don’t even know what will happen at the next moment. However, I told myself that if my heart is still beating, and I am still breathing, then I shall walk forwards, joyfully serve the humanity as the humanity has served me.

I am just an ordinary people with ordinary visions. Even though there are any virtues or capabilities that shine in within me, I gave all the credits to the causes and conditions that nourish my life, as well as my mind. Without those causes and conditions, any establishment of values in within me is impossible. Finally, I am thankful and gratitude to all those causes and conditions that nourish me, and I bless them, for both of the known and unknown that exists in this universe, hoping that we can transform the Earth into a humanism-significant pure land together.




“Wise Dwelling in the Heart”



Boo, Yan Jiong
8 October 2010

Reflection on a drama - HOCK

Synopsis

Drama Name: HOCK

[Hock] is a drama that reflects the daily life of a young adult in the current society. “Hock” is an ordinary Chinese name, which is quite often to be used by the Chinese. In the drama, the main actor was named Hock, and he was, like anybody else in this society, need to confront to series of interactions in the society, such as the relationship with his friends, colleagues, parents, girl friend, boss, etc. The drama focus on series of thoughts that flash into Hock minds, as well as his emotion while confronting to those situations. Eventually, Hock was overwhelmed by those difficulties and decided to commit suicide. After his death, his spirit was being rebirth to the demonic world, yet he was killed by a demon due to a conflict with a demon. Eventually, he re-birth again to the mouse kingdom, where he had few conversation with the mouse emperor. Both of the rebirth lives also focus on the contradict ideas that haunted inside Hock mind, as contradicting as in the ‘human’ Hock’s mind. The drama ended with the scene where Hock’s friends, relatives, girl friend, etc sorrowing, sad over his death, in front of Hock’s monument. The following paragraphs will briefly describe some of the main scenes played in the drama.

For the first few scenes, the drama described the background of Hock. Hock was just finished his study in college, and he was facing many “expectation pressure” from multiple parties while starting his career in the society. His parents expected him to return home frequently, his colleagues expected him to help them to complete all the work, his boss expected him to excel and perfect in all the task and his girl friend expected him to accompany her more often. Every people expected him to do better, instead much better, and keep reminding him that it was for his own good. All people around him seem to do well in the society, and he was stressed, frustrated, and inferior when he compares his performance with them.

The following scenes clarified that Hock actually dream of having a simple life and simple family, yet he seem to be flooded with the society expectation, keep urges him to do better than that. He feel that he was rejected by the society when he intend to just have a simple life and simple family, due to the society only accepted the “he” who is hardworking, and who will strive for the best in every aspects.

The scenes followed focus on the struggling thoughts in his mind. When Hock looked into the mirror, the people inside the mirror, who represent the ‘virtual him’ challenge her with all the contradict thoughts. The ‘virtual him’ keep asking for further clarifications from him, yet he was miserable in every aspects. Moreover, when his “virtual him” ask for confirmation to a certain extent, he was more likely to be more less confidence, and eventually changed his mind. For example, when his “virtual him” asked him repeatedly either his girl friend was happy when dating with him, initially he seem to be confidence that his girl friend was happy, yet eventually, he changed his mind after repeated questioning from the ‘virtual him’, self-confirmed that he seem able to notice the ‘tiny sorrow symptom’ from his girl friend’s smile. Thus, he further pushes himself into difficulties. Guilt, shame, worry, anger, frustration finally overpower him, and he finally committed suicide.

The last few scenes were focusing on the rebirth lives of Hock. Immediately after his suicide, he rebirth as a monster, and was killed by his peers (demon) due to conflicts among them. The conflict was Hock refused to disband his name “Hock”, while all of the monsters insisted that being a monster, no name should be remembered. It seems that the drama was indicating that Hock refused to release his status, while in a culture that ‘no status representation is required’. Later, he reborn as a mouse in a mouse kingdom, and few conversations held between the king and Hock. Upon the end of the drama, Hock asked few unsolved questions, and seem to be few of the most important questions for all of us as well, such as “why do men exists”, “what if we have gain all the things that we intended”, “why we need to follow the pre-existing script of society to live” and “why people intend to live, and afraid of dying”.

Reflection:

Firstly, Hock is considered to be the “typical” type personality in this society. He did not have any mental retardation, instead he could use his brain to think from multiple perspectives, allowing him to explore much deeper into his own thoughts. Besides, he did not seem to have any childhood traumas that probably drive him to crazy, instead his memories on his childhood were those guidance provided by the elders, who taught him to strive more hardworking in order to gain the status, material, wisdom which eventually will benefit him himself. Most of the people in the current society are influenced by these similar perceptions, and probably had self-asked those Hock’s unsolved questions to them. The main different between the norm of the society in contrast to Hock is probably the final action that he eventually committed, which most of society members are less likely to do it.

Personally, I think the best way to understand a person personality is to study his/her thinking paradigm, provided that he/she does not have any physical and biological defection. A people will be emotionally and mentally healthy if he can think in the ‘correct’ way, else he may feel overpower by the negative emotions and act in negative ways, eventually lead to self destruction as the Hock had did.

The tendency for Hock to think too much is not an issue, instead thinking thoroughly and actively is very beneficial. It is the ‘direction’ of thoughts that matter, not the activeness of the mind. Instead, to a certain extent, I think that Hock at least take the initiative to find the answers for those questions, and comparatively more initiating than those alive people that do not even think of those questions, or refuse to think about them. Those people who seek only maintain the primitive requirements to stay alive, without hope or dream in their life, could be analogize as dead as the suicidal Hock. Hock should learn how to think and plan without emotion, just like what we do when solving for a mathematics problems. The more emotion involve in a thinking process, the more likely the people will be charge by emotion complexity, and probably degrade the outcome of the thinking process.

Besides, being hardworking or striving towards the goal is not the root of the stresses, frustrations, depressions; the root of these emotions is to have the virtual line that encompasses the ‘self’. Immediately after the establishment of the perimeter of the self, the contrast between ‘you’ and ‘I’ formed spontaneously. Instantly, the hope of becoming the ‘most successful’ suddenly becomes a competency. In the drama, Hock was charge by the emotion complexities whereby he needs to compete with millions of people in order to success, as taught and emphasized by the elders during his childhood. If Hock could view the world as being shared with everyone, or broaden the perimeter of the self, then at least he would view that other people successes as his own success, other people happiness as his own happiness, etc. Furthermore, if his self perimeter includes all the human being on the earth, then all successes will be considered as share with himself, and there are no conditions for those negative emotions to arise, since the root of competency is base on the differentiation between ‘you’ and ‘I’.

Moreover, even if Hock maintains the perimeter of self, he still can be able to live normally with moderate emotion fluctuation, provided that he needs to accept the nature of the mind itself. In the drama, Hock tended to think from multiple perspectives and considered over many possibilities of consequences. The problem of Hock was when he thought of some pessimistic consequences, he will further be dragged into the valley of sadness by those thoughts. He tends to unconsciously, and unintentionally manipulate by those thoughts. Human mind seem able to think without limit, from the extreme optimistic to the extreme pessimistic, yet it is our consciousness that make the decision, and carry out the subsequent action that affect the result. Sadly, Hock en-realized all his pessimistic thoughts, and subsequently, fears create fears, he denied himself eventually. If Hock knew that it is normal for his mind to contemplate on pessimistic thoughts, and there is no reason to angry or frustrate over the mind itself since the mind is just functioning in its natural way, then probably Hock would able to live normally, instead of ended in self-destruction. Moreover, pessimistic thoughts serve the purpose to increase the awareness of one-self, those thoughts are indicating that something need to be done in order to avoid those pessimistic outcomes. In short, there is always space exists between the current and future, and it is the space where freedom lay inside it. Thus, pessimistic is indicating for opportunistic optimistic outcome, and neither fear nor frustration is suitable to be applied when thinking pessimistically.

Lastly, Hock did not able to contemplate on the preciousness of the life. If he could able to see the inter-relating relations between the world and him, he would probably become one of the happiest people in the world. To raise Hock to the twentieth, there are many contributing factors. To raise a baby to young adulthood, the parents themselves need to lives for years healthily, and eventually they can meet together and give birth to Hock. Besides, those foods that consumed by Hock all along is due to the hard-work of the farmers, and if we consider the background of those farmers, it seem that the inter-relating relations is too infinite, marvellous to be describe here. If Hock managed to study the inter-relating relationship in detail, he would able to surpass all the negative emotions. In short, when a person is able to contemplate on these inter-relating connections in detail, then there is no space for negative emotions to arise.

In summary, Hock was a thinker, but an inexperience thinker. He is not confident, and often kept himself in emotional complex dilemma. However, all of the complexity that faced by Hock can solved if he is taught on how to percept his own life correctly and healthily. Maybe the society successfully educated Hock on the skill to earn a living, yet the society fail to enlighten Hock on the way to live happily.

Frankly yet compassionately, I do think the best way to understand a person’s personality is by describing and analyzing his world-view, as every actions, emotions, etc are just the masks of those world views. Hock was the typical example of the youngsters that stray aimlessly in the society nowadays, probably one from the thousand-millions. Even that Hock does not have any future, yet he may be our future, if we still maintain the level of awareness as low as the current level.

最后的心锁

最后的心锁解开了，心明朗了……
回头一看，只发觉没有任何的一扇门是仍然封闭的。
后方，没有任何的遮蔽；前方，也不需任何的遮蔽。
四周，唯有一片的祥和。

感恩善友，为我开解了最后的心锁。

2010年8月1日

音乐与音符

音符只有区区的几个，而音乐家能把它们串联成一首动人的乐曲，不谙音乐的人就难以把音符演变成一首首好的曲子。无论如何，只要经过一系列的学习，所有人必能把音符化为小鸟，好让它们在天边演奏，动人心弦。

生命发生的事件也能归类成区区几种，就像那区区几个的音符。排列生命的事件就如编辑乐曲，只要通过学习，就能孕育出美好的生命，故有智慧的人能把自己的生命活出色彩，缺乏智慧的人却东凑西凑，生命往往都乐少苦多，坎坷不已。学习活出美丽的色彩，所需要的既是爱与包容，而依此学习的过程所展现出来的就是踏实，而踏实将会引领我们喜悦的精进，最终所得到的成果就是所谓的幸福与祥和。

朋友，不要害怕，不要慌张。
您的伤心，我曾有过。
您的悲痛，我曾有过。
您的憎恨，我曾有过。
您的怀疑，我曾有过。
您的傲慢，我曾有过。
您的失望，我曾有过。
您的泪水，我亦曾有过。

朋友，请您听我说。
伤心、悲痛、憎恨等并非音符本身；
而只是某一串音符演奏后所产生的效果。
要灭去如此的效果，方法有二。
其一为明智的选择与排列音符的次序，就如智慧性的处理生活。
其二为明智的欣赏与观察那首曲子，就如智慧性的看待生活。
二法并行，就能让生命祥和。
也唯有祥和，人生才能体会真正幸福的意义。
也唯有如此，人生才有存在的必要性。

前世与生命剧本

每个人都有自己的生命剧本，但每个人对所谓的剧本却有不同的看法及解释。昨晚闲谈中，听了友人各自分享了自己生命的剧本，而启发自己再为生命剧本的再思维。

宿命通是一种能看透前世因缘的能力，能在善心一境性成就或智慧成就后而获得。能有宿命通固然是好事，它不但可以更让我们了解事情所发生的因果，而且也能帮助我们理出多个更有效的方法，以便更能契机契理的处理世事。

然，有些则因看到了前世的因缘，故一意想全然的照着前世所写的剧本而活。若前世所写的剧本能在今世演变出善的结局，而根据此剧本而活着，我该是没有什么的异议的。若前世的剧本写得不够美好，或着此时的众缘稍有改变，而若还依照前世的剧本而生活，这难道是智慧的生活？非也，非也！这根本是无明的执著啊！须改！

每个人都想快乐的生活，而我也相信前世的我们也一样。故，若前世乃善根者，故必定会考虑今世而为今世写下美好的剧本。但，此世界乃由无数的众生业力所形成，因缘非常复杂且不可思议，故违心事件的发生也属必然。也因如此，剧本仍然是剧本，但是一旦搬上舞台时，就会发觉有些剧情根本不适合当时的情况，任何的再依照剧本而演出，只会更破坏该部的演出啊。若硬从，那岂不是飞蛾扑火？难道是想撞个头破血流才甘愿吗？到时若后悔，生命又能从来吗？

细心分析当下的因缘，而采取更适当的处理方式。昨日为今日设定下的行程，也须于今日再分析后再决定是否全然的依行程而行。昨日今日已如此，更何况前世与今世？活在当下最为正道啊！

若如此，那么是否人不需要为日后做任何的安排与计划？若如上文所说，所有计划将有所改变，那为何需要再计划呢？只需活在当下不是很好了吗？若有如此的思维，那既是承认当下，却又否认了过去与未来，此见非究竟也。当下乃过去的未来，想要拥有善的当下，那么就不能不在过去聚集善缘；而欲有良好的下一个当下，又不能不在此当下聚集善缘。而改变乃必然之事，故更需在每个当下有更清晰的思维和善念啊。莫因改变而灰心，却要学习在改变中看到无限辽阔的生机与希望。请思维此话的不同处！

思维，再思维……

若有众生说他此世将会依照前世所写的剧本而活下去，那么我的剧本即是教导此些众生如何活在当下，解脱前世的束缚，好让彼此的生命在智慧之海闪闪发光吧！

2010年8月2日
静融

千年之后

月亮依然高挂，
浪涛依然起伏，
阳光依然温煦，
此事也只不过如此……