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| A Face in the Crowed |
I know and accept the fact that I will have a very hard time stopping my thinking mind from going on and on about anything and everything that it comes into contact with, but i will have to stay with it and not let too much thinking overcome my effort in understanding who I am,(Almost sounds like a broken record by now). Yes I have to pull the hand brake and kill the engine park along the roadside and take a deep breath, a few deep breaths to align my myself with being in the here and now. I have to stop drifting away from my path towards self understanding as a means towards liberation. I am at present, as I mentioned to my daughter am not functioning at full capacity and am letting myself get sucked into other people's dramas and the events around me that I have no desire to or have any control over.
This incessant writing is testimony towards how crowded my mind has become of late and how hard I have been trying to divest myself from getting involved with events that does not concern me or my well being as I try to manage my own state of mind. It is manifesting physically in the form of an ailment, perhaps in the form of high blood pressure, or worse. How to remain in 'bare attention' in these moments of pain and anxieties, how to remain in touch with my breath, how to maintain a connection with my spirit, how to become aware and awaken. I write this to help me steer myself towards some remedy in the effort to find a cure for what ails me and this is one of the reasons I ramble. With every entry it is my way of keeping my mind in check, my body in alignment and my spirit not to kow tow before some illusory episode or event, or feel guilty over some remark or decision made in the past. If there is any issue that needs to be addressed it would just have to be economics, how to make some money before I become desperate.
The latest development in my financial woes is with the Income Tax office that has tracked me down to my Penang address demanding the I pay RM5000 for my late wife's back taxes from when she was a lecturer at KUZAR (Kolej Agama Sultan Zainal Abidin) in Kuala Terengganu. According to the the lady at the office when I went to the Penang income tax office by law i have to pay for it as I am the next of kin or waris. I asked why KUZAR had not deducted her income tax from her salary, the beautiful lady just gave me her beautiful kindly smile full of compassion and understanding and said 'Wallah u Alam", only God knows. Yes they deducted from her salary but they deducted very little not the whole amount she was required to pay. Yes blame it on God even when an institution that professes to uphold the Islamic virtues like Kuzar is not infallible and their screw ups is my burden to bear.
What am i suppose to do I asked the sweet lady who admits she has two children to lighten the conversation. Oh sir you just have to write a plea letter to the office in Kuala Terengganu, the files for your late wife is in Terengganu, unless off course if you have cash RM5000 to pay now, you can make the payment here now! Or you can pay in instalments. As for your income tax status sir, you are clear, all paid up, zero. Wow i am glad to hear that, and I swear to god that I had over one thousand over paid income tax last I checked but...this is the IRS! Prince John and Robin Hood. Just one more pressure for the migraine to chew on.
This is the story of just about everyone I know of and mine is no different, but i write about it and what good it does for me is evident by the fact that there are those who take the time to read about it. I share my predicaments, my ups and downs yes it is true, but in the process I also try in some small way to share the solutions as to how I try to deal with them as they arise. At this moment I am trying to return to the basic understanding of the teachings of the Masters, to let go and to remain detach from what I encounter. My son Karim has found his escape in shooting his way through a gunfight in a video game and he is lost to what is going on around him; sometimes I envy him. Cannot blame him as I went through the same phase at his age although not in video games although I remember there was a time when I was hooked on it too and my video demon was a game called 'Firefox'. I remember having the machine at Chucky Cheese Pizza place on West Mason Ave., Green Bay, Wisconsin fixed such that for half a dollar my son Nazri was able to play the game for almost three hours while I pigged out on the pizza; it was his birthday after all.
But such is. How do one keep focus on being in the moment and taking care of things as they arise without getting sucked into the details? The judgements, the discrimination's and the discord? How do one 'pick the lotus without wetting the fingers as the Buddha asked? How do we not get touched by our daily activities, how do we remain free from the mind generated world that we have come to call life. We simply cannot, to be able to break free from the bonds of one's own making is to recognize them as such, bonds of our own making. and through acceptance can this attachments to phenomenas be broken, cause that is what they simply are, phenomenas, episodes, happenings, like clouds in the sky they come and they go and the less we identify with them the less are we attached to them. With the practice of bare attention these events will not have too much hold on to our consciousness. With less taken in, very little needs to be let out, hence we are free to observe our minds as it is, not feeding it energy nor being fed with vexations and anxieties by it.
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