Self Image and Attitude

Pride is the greatest downfall of any spiritual disciple. It is highly important to know and acknowledge one's own strengths and weaknesses. By realizing his/her won capabilities and short comings, a person can develop inner confidence through a healthy self-image and good self-esteem. This will naturally be reflected in the person's attitude and behaviour.  One of my teachers used to say this, "I do not have to know how good your meditation is progressing. All I have to do is just look at your behaviour. From there, I can tell whether you have or not progressed in your spiritual practice".  The more confident a person is, the more humble a person should become. This is because he/she would be very well assured of his/her capabilities. Such people do not see the need to the envious of others nor do they have the urge to put other people down to make them look good.       

Internalizing the Teachings

While it is certainly useful to study the dharma from qualified dharma teachers and from sutta discussions, one has to know the teachings relatively well to have a certain level of understandng. But all these knowledge can just be superficial learning at best. This is what we normally call as textbook learning. To really benefit from the learning the dharma, we will have to internalize the teachings. This means making the dharma a key part of our lives. For instance by adhering closely to the precepts and/or leading your life according to the eightfold noble path. A better way to assimilate the teachings is to realise it at higher level so that it becomes a natural part of us. The key thing is to investigate the dharma through our meditation practice. If our mind is quiet enough and our body fully relaxed, chances are that we might be able to feel the soft and gentle energy flow sensation, the silence, inner peace and the bliss for us to investigate the dharma. And coupled with mindfulness, your faith and energy will help to propel you to be trully on the path towards enlightenment.                

Conventional and Ultimate Reality

What is reality to people ?  The answer depends on their different perceptions, viewpoints, beliefs, and value systems etc.  This is because what and how our mind comprehends the things out there in the world (through our five senses) is very much dependent on the conditioning processes which we live in e.g. societal, cultural, religious, political etc. They in turn affects how we feel, perceive, think and consciously be aware of our surroundings through our five senses. So how does this relates to conventional and ultimate reality ? and how does this really matter to me ? Conventional reality is mundane reality which is perceived accordingly to our normal worldy understanding of the nature of things.  But ultimate reality is having the wisdom to look beyond conventional reality. That is to know all sankaras & conditioned phenomenon are impermanent, subject to change, and non-self. By realising the three universal characteristics, we will not cling on to things and are able to let go of them without  mental suffering. Now that is equipping ourselves with the wisdom from the dharma to lead a contended and happy life. 

Anchoring Yourself to Present Moment Consciousness

This is based on my understanding on the different levels of control over our sense bases (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, thinking). Please see the above diagram.  This is because our sense bases are continually being bombarded with external stimuli to keep our mind very busy indeed. One moment we could be watching a car drive past, the next moment we could be distracted by the sound of a loud conversation, and the next instant we could be angry thinking of what happended in the office a short while ago. If we are able to practice mindfulness, it can certainly help us anchor ourselves to the present moment consciousness. The benefit is that we can be calmer, have more mental clarity, and feel more energetic by being in the present moment. We can be in here and now to appreciate the current state of knowing, instead of worrying about the past or thinking about the future. It can bring some degree of inner peace and moments of bliss.    

A Wonderful Way to Breathe Naturally

I recently attended a 10-day silent eight precept meditation retreat in Thailand. Staying over there next to a nature park, I was fortunate to listen to the wise sharing by Luang Por Sumedho, an old and highly respected Buddhist monk in Thailand, I was also impressed by the simple and happy life of the forest Sangha tradition. His attendent was Ajahn Asoko, a senior monk who shared a useful breathing method which combines subtle breathing with energy flow. Now that is good breathing with a very relaxed posture. Moreover by feeling the breathe together with visualisation, I was able to quickly experience natural breathing throughout my whole body.  His method is as follows:        

1. Breathe in slow, gently & deeply to feel the sensation in your nostrils & body to be in here & now.

2. When you breathe in, be aware that your in-breath is awakening, brightening & energizing your mind & body. 

3. When you breathe out, be aware that your out-breath is relaxing your body & releasing tension to give your mind tranquillity.

4. Note your posture and energy flow.

Thorough Cleansing of the Body

Most of us know that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind. Hence it is ideal if we have both a healthy mind and also a healthy body. Although the body is impermanent, we still have to take good care of our physical body in order to function properly as well as to support us in our spiritual development. After attending a liver & gall bladder detox programme in Koh Samui, Thailand, it dawned on me that our physical body requires a thorough cleansing from the inside out. I used to think that doing colon hydrotherapy is good enough and was very surprised that more stuff could be expelled from going through a proper liver detox programme. It was a relatively tough regime of no solid food, taking fibrogel, laxatives, and olive oil & fruit juice connoction for several days.  But the amount of solid materials that came out was simply amazing - cancer cells, gall stones, cholesterol etc. After going through one programme, I could already feel the much needed physical relief. However, one treatment is not enough as many of us were told that the amount of discharge forms only the tip of the iceberg !!! and a lot more stuff still remained in our bodies. Hence I shall have to return for more treatments.    

Open Awareness Meditation

I recently attended a "Mindful Awareness & Serenity" workshop session with Bhante Aggacitta over the weekend.  One of the key takeaway from the workshop is open awareness or dynamic serenity. It is best to do this meditation with eyes open using the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and contact to be aware of the present moment. We can be aware of present objects through the five senses. However, the mind (sixth sense) can take in past, present, and future objects.  Because the monkey mind can propel us into daydreaming, we can make use of this meditation to help anchor our mind to the present moment. Here are the tips to ensure that happens - free & easy, touch & go. Free & easy means letting the mind go free to wander from one sense base to another, with both the mind & body totally relaxed. Touch & go means moving on and not hanging on to any of the five senses. Another interpretation mens see & see only, hear & hear only.... and so on. Which also means no labelling of any of the five senses, or the mind can easily wander off to create stray thoughts to frustrate our meditation practice. Do not allow the mind to pull our consciousness back to the past or dwell on the imaginery future because thinking of the past & future is just a delusion.       

How to be in Total Relaxation

Mindfulness of breathing means the whole body is "breathing" in a concerted way. The result is total relaxation and you will feel very comfortable, very much like being in a blissful state. To achieve this, you will have to 1) still or quieten your mind to shut out stray thoughts. Bring your awareness to back to your body is one way to do this. 2) challenge yourself to relax your body more and more. Be in a comfortable position to ensure your body is upright with your spine straightened. Even then, you can feel your body getting softer and softer. 3) when your mind is relatively still and your body relaxed, you will find that your breathing will become more and more gentle to the extent that you will feel very little air through your nostrils.  All three factors support one another. In the process, you can sometimes feel the energy build-up in your aura expanding outwards and upwards. That is also the time when you can feel the bliss.  You can use this blissful state to heal your body. Visualise energy downpour coming down from above to permeate your whole body and when you exhale, visualise the used-up energy coming out from the pores of your skin. And to sustain the bliss, you need mindfulness to keep the momentum going. This bliss is not something money can buy. It is free and you can tap on it whenever you want, provided the above three conditions are met.

Understanding the Purpose of Meditation

Meditation seems to touted as a panadol to help combat today's stressful lifestyle. Mindfulness is another hot topic being taught to many people to achieve focus. Sometimes it makes you wonder how many people truly benefited from doing meditation and practising mindfulness. First, know exactly why you want to meditate. Is it to relax the body or your mind, or both ? Second, know how to do it well. For this you will need to find a good meditation teacher who can impart you with the right skills and techniques. Whatever it may be, you must to be in a state of peace and calm before you meditate, and also be peaceful and calm after you meditate. For themore spiritually inclined folks, please also invoke The Triple Gem for their guidance, help and protection. The above diagram aims to summarise some of the key points to help you achieve a more fruitful meditation session. Just remember that total relaxation is key. My next post will show the close connection of having a quiet mind, a relaxed body, and subtle breathing to make the difference, so that you will truly enjoy your meditation, and not to become stressed and frustrated in the process.    

The Danger of Pursuing Materialistic Pleasures

Many people seek enjoyment to gratify their five sense bases (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch). This brings temporary moments of mundane happiness which satisfy the craving for pleasurable sensations. Eventually a person will have a stronger desire to have more and more which leads to clinging (attachment). This forms a strong habit (addiction) to propel a person to a continous cycle of rebirth due to the strong energy stream of consciousness. I would like to point out that it is absolutely okay to harbour ambitions to be successful in life to acquire wealth and enjoy material comforts. However, the balancing act is to know how to enjoy wealth and comfort without being soiled by them. In fact, it is a great blessing to have both material and spiritual wealth at the same time. Why ? So that you have no financial worries (burden) to pursue spiritual development. In addition, you can also put your wealth to good use in doing service and tithing to generate good karma for yourself and your family members.  During the time of the Buddha, there were kings and noblemen that managed to attain the first stage of spiritual enlightenment without having to renounce. So there is hope for us all !    

        

Different Spiritual Progress by Different People

Everyone of us is different. We have our own karmic debts to pay, lessons to learn, and defilements to get rid off. Learning the dharma is one thing, but applying what you have learnt in your daily life is another. Accepting and understanding the Buddha's teachings well is a first good step as it leads to having the right view and accurate perception. Next is adhering to the precepts and living life according to the noble eightfold path.  If you do this diligently, you would have generated some good karma or merits for yourself as a form of benefit. But of course if you can also supplement the learning of the dharma by doing dana and practicing meditation would be a good bonus. This is assuming you are meditating well under the guidance of a good teacher. This is because it is only through meditation would you be able to "see" or realise dharma to develop the factors of enlightenment. Else, it would just be an academic understanding by just studying the dharma and leading a wholesome and upright life.  Being good is not good enough. You will have to purify your mind through meditation. 

How to Develop Wisdom

Unlike conventional wisdom which normally equates to intellectual knowledge, the wisdom that the Buddha advocates is intuitive wisdom. In the science of energy healing, the chakra responsible for intuitive wisdom is the forehead chakra. It is not determined by how intelligent you are, how smart you are in terms of IQ or EQ, or how high is your academic or professional qualifications.  Here, the purpose of wisdom is direct knowledge or full understanding  that leads a disciple to see, realise, and taste dhamma towards the goal of total liberation or nibbana, That is the eradication of all mental defilements and letting go of all attachments. Else the craving energy will lead to many rounds of rebirth and suffering. To help develop your wisdom, there are four things which you need to do, and they are 1) associate with the wise e.g noble friends or members of the sangha; 2) listening to good dhamma to gain the right understanding of the three universal truths and the eightfold path etc, ; 3) careful attention or mindfulness; and 4) behave in accordance with the dhamma e.g. adhering to the five or eight precepts.

Kalyana Mitta

It was said that Buddha once mentioned having a noble friend(s) is not half, but the whole of a person's spiritual life. Choose your friends wisely. They either help you or hinder you on your spiritual path.  Associate with friends who adhere to the five/eight precepts, impart wholesome values, cultivate virtues and have good character development. Their highly positive energies will help uplift you to pursue loftier goals and aspirations. On the other hand, associating with the wrong company can drag you down by influencing you with mental defilements, unkind speech and unwholesome deeds. Such negative energies can further be compounded by indulging with vices. Hence, one has to use one's wisdom and discernment whether to continue associating with the right group of company. However choosing and dropping friends might be easy, but you cannot easily do that for family members and relatives. When it comes to such situations, do not judge or criticise others as we are all evolving at different rate. Perhaps the best thing is to continue to socialise but reduce your frequency of engagement. And for those of you who know about energy work, just do some cleansing and energising should put you in good steed.        

The Five Spiritual Powers

In Buddhism, the five spiritual powers are also known as the five spiritual faculties. These five powers can simply be considered as virtues to be cultivated. First, one has to cultivate strong faith FAITH in the Triple Gem (the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha). Second, one needs to develop the drive, effort or ENERGY to keep the mind free from unwholesome mental states. Third, one needs to develop and practice MINDFULNESS, so as to have the mental awareness to restrain being caught up or distracted by the various sensory impressions. Fourth, one needs to train a mind that is CONCENTRATED, that is to be still and stay focused so that it can be sharp, clear and light to experience calmness and tranquility. And fifth,one needs to develop intuitive WISDOM so as to be able to see, understand & realise dharma. To gain all these powers, one has to do three things: 1) study the dharma; 2) adhere to the precepts; 3) do regular meditation.  

the drive, the effort to keep mind pure

Generating Bliss

You can only experience bliss when you have inner peace and harmony, which in turn brings about a good sense of well being and happiness. At the lower mundane level, it is about feeling good about oneself through some accomplishment or helping others in need.  This probably arises from a healthy self-esteem or self-image. At the higher spiritual level, bliss is achieved from having a good meditation session. This is a result of feeling very light hearted and energetic. If you are more sensitive, you can feel your aura and chakras expanding. This type of intense happiness is very much more lasting than the ordinary type of happiness because it transcends beyond the mind. The ordinary type of happiness can only be gratified through our six sense bases of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and mind - which is very impermanent, unsatisfactory, and non-self (conditional).    



The Four Sublime States

Between good and pure are the four sublime states as expounded by the Lord Buddha. Abide in the four sublimes states equally. They are your mental wealth to overcome any defilements. Cultivate in these qualities as they serve towards your mental, emotional and physical well being. They help put you in good mental states so that you can instill inner peace & harmony, joy & happiness, calmness & sweetness to experience divine bliss.   

The Four Paths to Wisdom

According to Venerable Kai Zhou, there are four paths to acquiring wisdom. Some people acquire it the easy way and some acquire it through the hard way. I believe that karma and present diligence plays a large part in this.  If one has good karma and is diligent in one's practice, one can achieve a faster realization. The most important thing to have is right view, followed by right effort and right mindfulness to follow-through.