Practicing Compassion

I have been reading the Dalai Lama's writings on Compassion and how to develop the understanding of emptiness in our life. The book entitled " Open Heart" is one of the Dalai Lama's works related to these subjects and it was written based on his work done in New York along with thousands of students who were interested in such matters. Yes I am still reading and practicing after all these years of living life with its ups and down, success and failures, I find comfort and solace in the words of great teachers such as the Dalai Lama, Jedu Krishnamurti and likes of the Sufi Masters from the Islamic realm. I am making my own preparation for my end of days trying my best not to allow too much grieve or vexations to enter my already messed up mind. Trying my best tot stay on the good side of spiritual path and not allow anger get the better of me, trying my best to forgive and forget, of letting go and emptying myself of all the accumulated crap that I had considered worthwhile to carry along all these years. Most of these have worn out their usefulness and have become just another piece of added burden weighing me down like dead weights occupying spaces that I would rather be cleared for more profound insights into  what lies beyond.
And the wise man said..

."Another weekend will soon be upon us -- a week gone and a week closer to our graves. Friends have told me that my articles of late have been very morbid. Actually, thinking about death remind us about the journey we have traveled and what awaits us at the end of that journey. It is good to reflect on whether we have achieved anything or whether we have wasted our entire life."
Raja Petra Kamaruddin

"So long as you are inquiring with what the mind should be occupied, it will be
occupied with trivialities, whether it builds a church, whether it prays or whether it goes to a shrine.
The mind itself is petty, small, and by merely saying it is petty you haven’t dissolved its pettiness.
You have to understand it, the mind has to recognize its own activities, and in the process of that
recognition, in the awareness of the trivialities which it has consciously and unconsciously built, the
mind becomes quiet. In that quietness there is a creative state and this is the factor which brings
about a transformation."
J. Krishnamurti

Yes growing old is a process that most would rather just let it be and accept the inevitable if and when it arises, makes it a whole lot easier and in many ways more sensible. But not me, No! My mind has to analyze every bit of phenomena and regurgitate every bit of indigestible thought and ideas to ascertain that they fit in like they should, makes sense like they aught to and relevant like they should. I am my worse self critic or so I have often been told and I am hard on myself although to the lay man it does not seem so..I feel like I have wasted my life after all these sixty odd years with not very much to show for. What brought me here? How have I allowed myself  to be in  such a state of  self doubt and low self esteem?  What of all those experiences i have had and all those great men and women I have met, don't they matter? Who or what am I measuring myself up to? In these days and age who is there worthy to measure up to other than the likes of minds like the Dalai Lama and Krishnamurti, Rumi and Tagore, most are ghost already.
Letting go of life has many aspects and most common of all being letting go of self expectation, what one has set up to accomplish for oneself in this life and how far or how near one is from meeting these goals.
As one approaches closer and closer to the pearly gates one's demand to know the answers becomes more and more desperate, time is of the essence. Why was I alive in the first place? Where did I go wrong? How come I am not well off like my brothers? It is said that one has to be careful for what one wishes or asked for or think about. Perhaps herein lies my error: I think too much! I dwell upon the uncertainties of life and in so doing I have set myself up for a big fall as nothing in this life is certain except death.

"Death will be upon us all in due time. It is only a matter of when that time would be. We must not regret our deaths. What we must regret is how we lived our lives. Have we lived the life we wanted to live or have we lived the life that others expected of us? I do not live up to other peoples’ expectations, I know. But that is only because I do not wish to do so. What I wish is to live the life that pleases me. And what pleases me may not please others. Tough!"
RPK

The end of days will happen sooner or later and when it does all that I am or have been does not matter anymore not in the least.
And the wise man said...
"When you seek a purpose of life, you are really escaping and not understanding what life
is. Life is relationship, life is action in relationship; when I do not understand relationship, or when
relationship is confused, then I seek a fuller meaning. Why are our lives so empty? Why are we
so lonely, frustrated? Because we have never looked into ourselves and understood ourselves. We
never admit to ourselves that this life is all we know and that it should therefore be understood fully
and completely. We prefer to run away from ourselves and that is why we seek the purpose of life
away from relationship. If we begin to understand action, which is our relationship with people, with
property, with beliefs and ideas, then we will find that relationship itself brings its own reward. You do
not have to seek. It is like seeking love. Can you find love by seeking it? Love cannot be cultivated.
You will find love only in relationship, not outside relationship, and it is because we have no love that
we want a purpose of life. When there is love, which is its own eternity, then there is no search for
God, because love is God."
                                       J. Krishnamurti
 I feel fortunate being given a bonus to have survived at least ten more healthy years and still being able to read and write, paint and travel every now and then when I can afford to. Three days ago a cousin of mine had a stroke and is not in the ICU with his head cracked into to release a blood clot; he just turned fifty. I am fortunate and should not take my God given health for granted I keep telling myself. Other than this what is there that I can do to make my life more worthy of the extra time i am being given? How can i be of service to humanity while I still have to ability to do so? How can I practice Compassion towards others without any effort of my doing so, without any sense of attachment?
Oh Yeah I have made a donation of RM800 towards the DHome Mental Health Center Two days ago! Hee! Hee! even if I do not have a dollar in my wallet to brag about this morning. Such Is!