Good Bye Thay! (Rev. THich Nhat Hahn).

If you believe in it then it is as it should be and if you don't it is all up for grabs as nothing in this universe will materialize as you expect it to unless you have a greater input into making it happen. A strong believe backed up with a complete faith in yourself is the catalyst that can trigger a higher consciousness that transcends your normal perceptions, In a meditative state of consciousness one has to be able to surrender completely into the unknown or the subconscious mind where there is stored the vast database of information of your past present and future that can only be accessed by a mind that is completely free from any form of inhibitions. No fear nor doubts, no assumptions nor precognitions not an iota of a sense of  a preconceived idea or conditioning. One is like a tabula rasa or a clean slate ready to receive information as they are conjured from the depth of the subconscious. With an immovable belief in your own free will, your own selfless self, you can tap into the vast reservoir of hidden wisdom within you at no cost, cause it is yours to begin with.

Thich Nhat Hahn, the 92 years old Vietnamese Buddhist monk is willing himself to die, true to the ways of the ancient ones of the Buddhist Chan or Zen tradition, This is not right, it is like committing suicide meditatively, like what the historical Buddha did when he sat under the Bo tree for 40 days not eating or drinking. The Buddha had an excuse and he was willing to die fulfilling his intention and that being to find out the way out of this cycle of life death and rebirth, this Samsaric existence. Thay as he is more popularly known has no valid excuse to die other than as a proof that it can be done, that is to fully conscious of the moment of death; it is not an impossibility as many Thai Buddhist monks has been known to accomplish this feat. 

At a Buddhist temple outside Hue, Vietnam’s onetime capital, 92-year-old Thich Nhat Hanh has come to quietly “transition,” as his disciples put it. The ailing celebrity monk—quoted by Presidents and hailed by Oprah Winfrey as “one of the most influential spiritual leaders of our times”—is refusing medication prescribed after a stroke in 2014. He lies in a villa in the grounds of the 19th century Tu Hieu Pagoda, awaiting liberation from the cyclical nature of existence.

Karma

Buddhists regard death as a transition. The deceased person will be reborn to a new life, whose quality will be the result of their karma.

This produces two problems. We don't know what the next life is going to be like. If the next life is going to be even worse than the life that the sick person is presently enduring it would clearly be wrong on a utilitarian basis to permit euthanasia, as that shortens the present bad state of affairs in favour of an even worse one.

The second problem is that shortening life interferes with the working out of karma, and alters the karmic balance resulting from the shortened life.

I had the privilege of doing two Vipassana Retreats at Green Gulch Farm Zen Buddhist Center led by Thay who on one occasion decided to elect me as his 'Bell master' as he called it. This was as a 'punishment' for my ringing the large bell outside the Zendo while the rest of the community was meditating in the meditation hall. It is a story i might have related in my sometime in the past as to why i was ringing the big bell instead of sitting along with the others like I was supposed to. It did not got me into trouble as I had anticipated, instead I was made a 'Bell master', my job was to hit the bell at Thay's lecture every fifteen minutes as a pause where everyone would take a deep breath before continuing with the lecture.

I have a whole lot of love and respect for this small Vietnamese monk who can move others simply by being himself. No pretensions, no self aggrandizement despite his fame as a Spiritual Leader known to many around the world. I will miss him when he departs from this life and I will always remember his words for me when i was alone with him for a private talk, "Be yourself, you are doing just fine as you are."  This entry is dedicated to a great soul who had at one time touched my heart and made me appreciate better of who I am. It was an honor to have walked with him from the green Gulch Zendo all the way down through the fields to the Pacific Ocean at Muir Beach. May you become a Buddha in your next life or return as a Bodhisattva yet to lead more of us towards awakening and liberation. The world will loose a great soul with gentle and soft voice that had taught humanity about Loving Kindness and Compassion. 

 

The rambling just keeps you alive and awake..

And what good have i done today that is worth to ponder upon as a justification for very existence on this Planet and the answer to that is that I did not do anything bad that would warrant any form of punishment, well not that i can think of or know about. I always thought that, if you cannot help me make it through the day, at least try not to stand in my way for no good reason. And the mind goes on like this off and on until I manage to shut it down for a few minutes through meditation When the mind comes to a rest, there you find silence and peacefulness and if you are, in this tranquil state of mind you might find yourself seeing new or fresh thoughts arising from the depth of your consciousness or as some might say from your subconscious mind, only this happens while you are consciously aware, like you are watching these thoughts arising out of the blue. Most of the time these thoughts are positive in nature and some even divine or spiritual in nature,   the divine matrix as some would suggest  and they make you feel elated and there is a sense of satisfaction and gratefulness. This sometimes even makes you want to say thank you to whatever you feel is responsible for your experiencing these feelings; you pray to your Maker.

This raptures do not last long and usually it is because you cannot hold on to this state of tranquility or transcendent for too long due to factors beyond your control such as bad backs or getting sabotaged by mental formations that is egoistic in nature. Religiously you would say that you are being dislodged from your meditative state by whisperings of the demons or devils, the children of mara, that does not like to see you making any headway towards enlightenment. But if you persist and maintain your quietude and rest upon the silence state just watching what comes and goes you might catch a glimpse of reality as it truly is and realize that there is nothing to it or perhaps everything that it is. Either way your mind is put on a hold or goes through a shift of gear and you have an insight or and intuition into whatever it is that has been nagging at you. Whether you did good or bad for the day does not really makes much difference after all as it is all a perception and if you believe in what you perceive, it materializes 
sooner or later as a reality if you don't well it is still just a perception that is like just a cloud passing by appearing and disappearing in the vast consciousness of your true nature. And it is 3;00 am. The witching hour, time to sit and perhaps fall asleep.   

Bruce LIpton's - Epigenetic Control

After joining the Gregg Braden and Bruce Lipton's Group on fb I came upon Bruce Lipton's talk on You Tube entitled "The Biology of Belief" (full lecture). Upon listening to this lecture I realized that what he was talking about has been what my mind has been suggesting all along, only am not able to lay it all out scientifically. Yes, listen to this man if you get a chance and you will have good idea of where i am coming from over the years as my Blogging would testify. All the ideas and spiritual practices that i have been accumulating and putting to practice for myself, from various forms of meditation to daily mental observations of how my mind functions and how my body reacts and so forth, my auto suggestion techniques and experimental take on life has been aimed with the same intention at taking charge of my mental and biological state and not allowing for the external environment and circumstances dictates. I am the master of my own destiny as I am the master of my thoughts and consciousness, my body speech and mind and the rest of it. This has been my mantra for years and today as i listen to scientific talks related to this subject I feel like I have been on the right track all along, for what it is worth.

If I live fruitfully to be a hundred I would be grateful but if i die tomorrow i would be happy too, as I have always said to myself often enough: I have lived life, the best and the worse. It is four in the morning right now and here I am writing this to who knows who out there and for what? If by chance my writing this touches someone's heart and mind in some positive way I am happy if not I am still happy cause I have been able to share my thoughts with myself. It is said that everytime you express your thoughts and feelings you are telling your own story and if it is the truth you are made to become stronger in character if it is a lie then you learn to make amends and mend your ways. It is also said that he who justifies does not convince, not even to himself, this is not a justification at least not anymore, don't need to anymore, I am as I am, don't need to be any less or more than who I already am. I don't need nor am i looking for any approvals to being any different than who I have evolved to become albeit from family relatives or friends. 

"You control the genes, the genes does not control you!" Bruce Lipton's revelation in his lecture is a breath of fresh air for me as it confirms my belief that I am the master, ( of my body speech and mind). The science of Epigenetic Control- control above the gene- Perception controls the signal and signal controls the genetic change. "You are not a victim of your genes because you control your genes." Recent discoveries says that DNA is not your identity.
"If you look for the disease you can create the disease through Epigenetics." - Gregg Baden.
" Perception controls genes and you change your perception you can change the readings of your genes." 
Perception controls Behaviour.
Perception controls Genes,
Perception rewrites Genes.
Perception controls Biology.
Perception is fallible,
Belief controls Biology,
What you belief creates your life. inside and out."

The gist of what i could follow of Lipton's lecture and even this much I has triggered a great relief in my own belief and understanding of my own take on life. 

The Renaissance Mind.

Am not writing much as there is not much to write about with regard to my spiritual growth or any worthwhile development towards my personal self discovery. I feel like I have arrived at an impasse, a situation where progress is impossible due to no particular excuse but just a lack of determination or passion towards demanding for an answer. Laziness of the mind and spirit if one is looking for an excuse, perhaps, but may not be necessarily so, perhaps it is as it should be, nothing is required to act upon. It is just letting it be for the moment in time just as the land is needed to be left alone to recover itself after a harvest. These are what I observe as what is happening to me in my inner engineering, my self awareness study; what is there to write about other than noting down what is and what is. is as it is and that is fine too.

I am also keeping my mind busy on painting 3x3 feet and 3x4 feet acrylic paintings which I have started to work on in last two weeks or so. There are 20 pieces of canvass to work with and  hopefully by August of this year I will have some works ready for my solo exhibition a the Seni Mutiara Gallery as planned. I am working on my number four painting which is still in the process of completion. I have come to realize that in the past i have always been impatient while working on my paintings, however now I am taking my time giving each painting a more careful study and better in executing the technique and medium. Perhaps it is a part of growing old where things kind of slow down just like eating more slowly and with awareness as to the nature of the food and so forth. Everything you do comes to a slow motion or so it seems and incidentally you learn to appreciated better certain things that in the past you had tended to rush through without much notice of what is going on.

“From the age of 6 I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was 50 I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the the age of 70 is not worth bothering with. At 75 I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am 80 you will see real progress. At 90 I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At 100, I shall be a marvelous artist. At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign my self 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.”
― Hokusai Katsushika

This quote from one of my favorite artist in history has always been a guiding rule for me that I may not be the greatest artist in this life but I sure as hell am going to do better as I get older. I hope to leave behind me a legacy of paintings worth framing and hanging on walls in homes and galleries. I am bound and determined to be more creative and productive than ever before. I do not care what others have accomplished be they better or worse off than I am, but I will produce works that will reflect a life dedicated to what it is to be an artist, to live life as an artist and not just a craftsman. I envision that someday when I am no more around, it will be said of me that, " He had lived the life of an artist, a true renaissance  man."

     

Where does the word God came from?

Creation is God's general revelation, but Jesus Christ is God's personal message to us. In Greek philosophy, the concept behind the Word (Logos) is the divine principle that permeates an oruse of the derly universe. In the Old Testament, the Word carries the idea of active power. God spoke the universe into being.Mar 3, 2014

And the word God, where does it originates from? Is there ever uttered in the Torah, Zabur or The Bible, the word God? Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, yes but the word God where did it originated from?

A brief Wikipedia search on the origin of the word 'god' reveals the following: The earliest written form of the Germanic word god comes from the 6th century Christian Codex Argenteus. The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic * ǥuđan.Jul 11, 2012

In other words the word God never existed in the Hebrew Christian texts in any form but was a later addition through the adaptation of the Germanic word 'gudan'. Ironic enough, the word in its mirror image spells Dog, but that's purely a technical observation for a sick if not blasphemous sense of humor. For how long has the word God been used by Christians to replace the Jewish words for The Creator of the Universe? How did it happen? Are Christian theologians throughout history of Christianity contented to used this word to refer to the Maker when in conversation or delivering a sermon to the masses?

Please help enlightened this ignorant mind to understand this basic truth about this fundamental most uttered word. God in Christianity. 

I am Whole-Complete and Perfect.- as I am.

As I watched another year slipped by I realized that it has all really been pretty much the same as far as my own status is concerned; I have done and remained pretty much who I have been all these years. I still bear the same faults and guilt, fear and foreboding, the feeling of small victories and accomplishments, measuring myself up against the successes of others in the course of their lives compared to mine and often enough cowering in low self esteem when having to depend on others for my own survival. This is life! This is what it is to have lived and learned all there is to learn, practice all there is to practice and still end up with a discontentment within? Perhaps it is in line with the teachings of Gautama, the Buddha who foresaw that life is inherently, suffering and that my being here in this moment in time is to discover for myself the key to unlocking this mystery of being liberated from this cycle of life-death and rebirth.

Woe unto him who underestimates the power of the human mind, his own as well that of others. If there is any lesson that I have come to learn and accept, is the truth about how my mind is capable of lifting me up to the greatest heights or smashing me down to a bottomless pit if I allow it to and yes, I am definitely not my mind as much as I am not my physical body. Both of these are my tools, my vehicles of expression, or existing upon this physical realm of existence just as the wisdom of the ancients has been pointing out from way back when. The sciences would say that it is all in gravitational pulls and vibrational waves and energy that forces the molecules of atoms to merge together to create a form in this universe of formlessness. The mind and body of ours are just part and parcel of eons of evolution and transmutation that has arrived at this state we are in and will continue on to evolve into states we are yet to become. Our mental and emotional and spiritual states are just the inner evolution of our genetic engineering which involves much more complex forces that science has yet to unravel its mysteries. So, till I am convinced factually of what it is that I am truly am or how come I am in this state of being and consciousness, I will abide by the rules that is holding together the fate of humanity as it is. Whether it is scientific or evolutionary laws or spiritual and religious dogmas, whether it is my mind alone or the combination of the minds of the entire human race that makes the world goes round, it is my intention to make the best out of all possibilities made available to me in the process of becoming a complete and wholesome person.  

They say it is going to be a Challenging 2019.

Another year slipped by and there is not much to say except I feel one year younger and feel more like a seven year old then a seventy. Where have it all gone, those seventy odd years having disappeared into the horizon like the Star Wars story lines at the beginning of the movies, "In a Galaxy, far, far away!" For Malaysia 2018 has been a year of change, of reorganization and repair of the damages left behind by the former government; it was a year that will go down in her history as a year that the people's power brought down a corrupt system. For the world it has been a year of soul searching as the killings and brutalities in many countries continues and the climate change that has wrecked havoc in many areas. is till a worrisome issue yet to be fully acknowledged and addressed; humanity is living in denial as we head for a nuclear holocaust. However all is not lost, we are making a whole lot of progress and improvement in many fields especially in our effort to escape to galaxies far far away from this Planet of ours.

Millions if not billions are spent, so it is said, in R&R for space exploration on account that we will need a new environment to work ourselves into a feeding frenzy and set it on yet another destructive course, just like the one we are on. It is all excuses off course for the rich to have a hobby and the technocrats to have something to work on. but none the less we as a specie are still lost in a limbo of our self made crap no knowing that we are taken for a ride all along. It is said that the whole world's human population can all be placed into the state of Alaska and there would still be room to spare, but we are tolf we are running out of space to live as a specie and we believe it hook, line and sinker. So what would 2019 have in store for us the minions? We have to find ways and means to awaken the rest of the population on this Planet from the illusion that we are made to believe to be reality as it is, we need to unshackle our minds from the bondas of ignorance from having been conditioned all these years. The more people are set free from the delusion that we are bred into like cattle all primed for the slaughter house. 

I have committed myself to a goal for 2019 and that is to have an solo exhibition in August at the Gallery Deni Mutiara, one of the more sought after galleries in Georgetown. The date for the  launching has been sst to on the 11th. of August, a day before my 70th. birthday which happens to fall on the auspicious date of the MUslim calendar for Eid Mubarak. So I am looking at producing at least twenty decent new works for the occasion. I also got my financial sponsor in getting the art materials through my friend and art collector Mr. LeeKhai who practically gave me  blank cheque to get what i would need. In essence 2019 will be focussed on Art primarily to get the best of what I have in me for perhaps what might be my final show. It is a challenge to look forward to. But what man propose God disposes as the saying goes, anything can happen from now on; it is good to have a target none the less.

All in all, Have a Very Happy New Year to all those who have been following this Blog and ay your year too be as challenging.