The big "C" comes back to haunt again

This is Saturday afternoon and I just had my tea time with grapes and coffee. It is a strange combination but it is okay for me.

The occasion was not so good as I am waiting to see my sister in law who have just diagnose of having cancer. The mood have been muted for the past few days since the news and I have just travelled six hours from Penang to Kuala Lumpur.

The news have brought back memories of my mother in law who have died years ago also from cancer. I spend a lot of time with her during her treatment and I could see how she has suffered . The memories still hurts and the latest news bring back the memories that have been kept deep in my memory.

My sister in laws' sickness is very serious as the sickness have already spread. Now , we are waiting to see her and hear what she intends with her treatment. It is a very tense moment and we are eager to see her. 

We pray for her and hope she can recover from this sickness.

Namaste.

7 habits of meditation - ext,

"To meditate does not mean to fight with a problem. To meditate means to
observe." - Thich Nhat Hanh

We all know meditation is a great way to deal with problems, live in the
moment, and of course manage stress. But, if you’re interested in
changing some negative habits you have, creating a habit of meditation is
the best place to start. To create other good habits, start with the habit
of meditation first. Here’s how:

1. Commit to “half of tiny.” Anytime we introduce something new, we
tend to run into resistance. At first the motivation will be there, but “life”
gets in the way. Here’s why: we try to solve our entire problem all at once.
Have you ever done this?: Decide you’re going to lose 30 pounds... Make
an extra $30k per year... Remodel your house... Publish a book... Run a
marathon…

You get into a frenzy of activity and then get totally overwhelmed - How am
I going to fit this into my schedule? How am I going to manage this extra
“thing”? I don’t know what I’m doing! And you quit.

So don’t look at “life-changing.” Look at lifestyle. To create the meditation
habit, commit to a few minutes a day. Not even 30, which is ideal, just
however many minutes feels realistically doable to you every single day.
10 minutes? 5? 2? Whatever it is, it’s right for you. Now: Commit to half of
that. And then do it every day, until it feels natural and normal.

2. Be aware of resistance. These urges can arise unnoticed and if we act
on them, we don’t take action on the habit. So whenever you think about
“not” meditating, bring your attention to the resistance. Being mindful of
these rationalizations and urges takes away their power!

3. Pick a consistent time of day. This is the easiest way to make
meditation part of your routine. Remember you’re meditating in super tiny
chunks so it’s not going to be a disruption.

4. Pick a trigger activity to “link” your practice to. For example, you may
get pleasure from having a cup of coffee in the morning. Link that to your
meditation practice! Put on the coffee pot and go meditate for your teeny
chunk of time. Link the pleasure of your morning coffee routine with the
emerging pleasure of your emerging meditation routine.

5. Be comfortable! If people were told that to meditate “properly” they had
to twist their legs into Lotus, or even half-lotus, many would not meditate
at all. Don’t fuss too much about how you sit. Or, for that matter, where.
There is no wrong way to “be,” after all.

6. Relax… and be okay with a wandering mind. Your mind will wander,
and you might feel frustrated and mad that you can’t make it shut up. I can
teach you to quiet your mind (it’s surprisingly easy) but, most of the time,
simply being aware of your mind’s travels is best. Meditation is about being
in the moment. Since most of our thoughts are “yesterday” and “tomorrow”
it’s easy to lose sight of the moment. So just practice bringing yourself
back to now. Your mind wanders off to a fight you had with your significant
other… notice that and tell yourself, “hey, I’m thinking about something in
the past!” That’s enough to break that thought loop and bring you back to
the moment. If your mind persists in going back to that topic, fine. Notice it,
and bring it back. Over and over, like a yo-yo, like waves in the ocean, like
the breath… back and forth from moment to thought to moment to thought…

7. Relax… and be okay with physical sensations and environmental
distractions. Suddenly you’ll develop an itch. A strand of hair will blow
across your face. A fly will buzz next to your ear. The neighbor’s dog will
bark. That doesn’t mean you’ve broken your meditation, even if you’ve
come out of a trance-like state - as long as you don’t get caught up in a
domino effect of thoughts triggered by this physical “intrusion,” you’re still
meditating. Awareness of a sensation and practicing non-judgment of it,
is a wonderful skill. Say you have an itch. Pause after you notice a
sensation; note your discomfort; “be with” the sensation as long as you
can, resisting the urge to scratch it - you may notice that by focusing on
the sensation of the itch itself, the urge to scratch it may disappear. It’s
really fascinating to practice this!

These 7 habits will help you create the most wonderful habit of all,
meditation. And you know that you get a lot of help from LifeFlow! Even
though the full entrainment process takes about 7 minutes, don’t feel that
you can’t use LifeFlow while you’re committing to a 2-minute meditation.
You can, and it will help you relax and be okay with “not doing” which is
super helpful when you’re starting out. As you build your practice, you’ll
find that LifeFlow helps you go deep into meditation very quickly;
stimulating the release of serotonin, dopamine and other feel-good
chemicals - and this pleasurable feeling will help cement the habit!

Let meditation be an integral part of your everyday routine with these easy
steps!

Life is just an in-transit

 This life is a transit ...

I have read this wisdom from a Buddhist book before that our life on this earth is preparing for our next life.

A few days ago, I heard this wisdom on a movie show on Astro. This set me to think about this philosophy of the existence of karma and the concept of next life.

Without the concept of next life , the law of karma will not work and the concept of many religions will fail. But , again we do not know and this concepts are like guess work and based on a make believe framework.

Based on this concept, everything is temporary in this life and this is already a fact because we cannot carry all the material things with us after we die. We come  here naked and we go off naked. If the more we have , the more difficult for us to give up or let go when we have to go to our next life.

One thing which is good for this concept is that death will not be scary or frightening anymore. Death is like opening another room to go into another room. So easy and why have to be scare? So, it is all in our mind and belief  and if we enforced this concept I our life , it will much easier to let go and move on.

Namaste.

 

Time will change a person

Yesterday, my banker friend came to see me after lunch.  It was a impromptu meeting and there wasn't any agenda or topic to discuss. Suddenly , he bring up the topic of the changes in a person.
His intention is to tell me that time will change a person . I was curious how can it be ? A person's character cannot be changed.

As we go on, he told me that he used to sleep only wearing his undies or brief and it had been going on for so many years and with the air-con fully on. Recently, the air-con have been off intermittenly while he is asleep.  He has to wake up a few times in a night to restart his aircon. The reason is that his wife who shares the same room have been swithing it off when she feel cool.  Hence, he has the impression that his wife have love him less or have change in her character.

I don't think this is the case.  I think it is that when relationship goes old and ripe, our tolerance levevl or our needs change. Instead of hoping that the other better half can take care of us, we start to take care of ourselves and feelings,  This is a natural re-action and it is a case of I still love you but I love myself more.  If we are aware, then it is not an issue.

I have discuss with a few friends at lunch and he told me that he does not have this feeling.  Yeah, this is very personal and no two people is alike or no relationship is alike. The tolerance level of each parties is different between two people at different times.  There is a saying "the outcome of a human relationship is the most difficult to control or predict."


I think it is not only time which affects a relationship but rather all the experience during the time or the change in thoughts and the influence of our family and peers will impact it severely.

When all the fireworks is done and  gone, the dark sky will remained and this is the basic in life.  When we expect nothing, nothing can hurt us.

Namaste.

A compassionate heart

Have a compassionate heart or wake the Buddha in everyone of us.  Yes, I believe everyone have a Buddha in us and we are born to be compassionate.  However, during our journey through life , we have experience the bitterness and hurts in our life .

Once, a friend of mine told me that to love is open our heart to be burt by others.  I do not understand her but she has had two bad experience with her life partners. Once is her first husband and now with her second husband.  I do not know her expectation in life or where has she been hurt.

I have another female staff who is also angry with her husband.  She told me that all man are animals and irresponsible . But , I do know that there are also good man around. Not all are bad apples.

Based on the stories by these two female friends,  I wonder whether it is because of their expectation or the bad performance of their husbands. Relationships are very complicated and if we expects nothing, we will never be disappointed.

Last sunday, I could see two nasty incidents involving two females around me. One of them was my close relative. She has been married for 25 years and she often quarrel with her husband over the use of words. She cannot tolerate the use of foul languages and because of one foul word , the scene could change from a loving situation to a war zone.  They will end up not talking to each other. I think this is a different of expectation or there could be an egotics element in the incident.

Another incident is as I was having dinner at a restuarant with my family, there was an old couple with their daugther at the next table. There was two empty seat. They ordered their food and start to eat when a young couple came to join in their table. The girl told the parents that the boy was late and the whole dinner , these two young couples were not talking to each other and eating their own food without caring for each other. It was a really tense dinner.

Based on these two incident , I feel that both are very trivial matters and it is just like the story of a couple walking along a jungle path and they heard a sound. The lady said " this is a chicken" but the man said " this is a duck" and the rest of the journey, they argue whether it is a chicken or a duck . Finally, the lady start crying very badly and the man said " yes, you are right it is a Chicken". Is it so important whether it is a chicken or a duck.  We have missed the most important thing in our life. It does not matter it is a chicken or a duck , the present time we are having is the most important.

Yes , if only we realized what is the important thing , we will be happy.

Namaste.

Bak Kut Teh lunch with Lee.

My old friend, Lee called me after a long time since we last meet. It was more than one year ago. He asked for a diary and calendar from my company and I took the change to meet him  for lunch.

The Bak Kut Teh lunch was not so good but tolerable and it was a meeting with old friends that was the main point.  During the lunch , he updated me that a few banker friends have retire including an old investor friend.  After his heart attack , he chose to retire for good . To stay away from stress and live longer. I could feel that one by one my old friends have recluse themselves after retirement.

Life is a journey and at certain point, we have to take a back seat and move into the background. I have been trying to be useful and to be relevant as my boss told me.  If I can still contribute, I should continue to provide such meaning service and it is not because of money .  It is also to seek that my legacy have been carried on.


My friend, Lee look old but he still healthy and as usual very humble. Now , he is a businessman and he cannot blame the economy and he is struggling to survive. Yes, business can be very cruel and sometimes , it bites very hard .  If we choose to eat chilli, we must expect it to be chilli hot.  Well, at the end of the day, it is the acheivement or self fulfillment that matters more to us. 

We want to prove that we can stand on mountains , weather the stormy seas and emerged to be champions to fight the adversity.  It is the struggle and fight that is worth it .

Well, I cannot say things on other people's behalf but for me, it is to remain useful until the end of the day which matter most for me.

Namaste.

Love is a war ...

Love is a war...

I saw this writing on my Facebook from my daughter's best friend and she describe love is like war, easy to start, difficult to end. I was wondering when has love became a war. So much killing,hatred and hurts. If love is like war, why are we seeking it？

Yes, love is sweet at the start and gets sour at times and sweet again at certain times and could be poison in the end or remained forever sweet,

But once it becomes sour and intolerable , it is pointless to hold on to it. If it has turn into a war, it is better to turn and walk away from it.

It may not easy to end a relationship as there are so much hindrance to it. The children , the properties , the parents and the society and the uncertainties.

All these are mental blocks which prevent us to make a clear decisions. There are some people who can do it easily by walking away and most people especially those with Asian cultures, they prefer to suffer in silence. 

Life is short and yet we choose to live in war zone , it is incredibly stupid. Let it go , break it free and move away from these frustrating life styles. Break your ego and be your real self and go for  what you want. There is no time to ponder. Don't change yourself for anyone and live happily. This is your right and your choice. The decision is within you and you can make it immediately.

My advise is not to encourage us to fight the establishment but why do we need to care about establishment and the people making the establishment . We owe them nothing and this is our life and we have all the right to do whatever with it without hurting others.

If love have turned into a war, just end it.

Namaste.