Retro: From Lineage to Dharma Position: A Conversation at the Table.

 From Lineage to Dharma Position: A Conversation at the Table

What we are truly suffering from today is the loss of lineage—our disconnection from ancestral origins and cultural heritage. This is what I was trying to convey in a conversation with a Chinese woman and a Māori wood sculptor, James Lancelot, at the Muzium & Galeri Tuanku Fauziah (MGTF) at USM, over lunch at the VIP table.

We spoke of the erosion of our tribal and familial bonds, the unspoken trust and mutual respect that once held communities together. These ties used to offer sanctuary—an anchor from which we could launch ourselves into the future without losing our sense of who we are or how we belong in the grand scheme of life.

Over generations, we've grown lackadaisical, making assumptions about where we come from. "I am Chinese," "You are Malay," "He is Indian," "She is Arab"—and we leave it at that. We no longer ask: what kind of Chinese or Malay? Where did our ancestors actually come from, and what kind of lives did they live to get us here? We assume that no one cares anymore. In a shrinking world, flattened by modern technology, we've allowed this loss of specificity, of soul, to seep into our identities.

But it does matter. It matters greatly when we engage on a global level. Whether one is a Teochew from Penang, a Cantonese from Hong Kong, or a Hakka from Taiwan—these distinctions shape the mind, the mannerisms, the mode of thinking.

The mind is molded by its cultural environment during its formative years. Even if a person is far removed from their birthplace, they will often fall back on ancestral thought patterns when navigating life. There is, in truth, no such thing as a “global mind.” Not yet. When people are cornered, they revert to their roots to justify behavior: “I am Chinese, and this is how I think.” “I was raised with Judaic values, so this is my way.”

In my own encounters, I too have found this to be true. I approach every conversation with the intention of bare attention, of neutrality. But as dialogue unfolds, tonalities and values emerge—and I catch myself categorizing: “Ah, this is the Chinese speaking,” or “This is the Indian mind at play.” The social constructs rise like road signs along the path, guiding how I proceed. My neutrality erodes. I begin to apply filters and assumptions drawn from my own cultural upbringing as a Malay raised amidst Chinese and Hindu influences.

And in this realization, I see where we all falter. We engage not as open beings but as fragmented identities. Yet this instinct—to categorize, to interpret through a cultural lens—is difficult to transcend. It is both natural and conditioned.

Today, I discovered Michel Foucault.

Through his 1983 Berkeley lectures on The Culture of the Self, I stumbled upon reflections that struck a profound chord. Foucault reframes the philosophical questions from “What is truth?” or “What is man?” to a more existential “What are we in our actuality? What are we today?”

He suggests that the self is not hidden, waiting to be excavated, but something that evolves alongside the technologies and practices of self-care through millennia. Being occupied with the self is not merely preparatory—it is life itself.

He spoke of how, even in Greco-Roman times, the culture of the self relied on practices such as writing letters, taking notes, recording dreams, meditating on readings—forms of self-examination, of preserving the inner life. The self, he said, becomes a field of observation.

I found this lecture serendipitously, right after my conversation with James and the Chinese lady on the very subject of cultural heritage—how it is vanishing from the face of the earth. And suddenly, I realized: this is what my blogging has always been about. I may not have known it consciously, but my work has evolved into a kind of memoir—a practice of the self, a writing of the soul, day by day, like a modern-day scroll.

For someone like me—a Malaysian of mixed ancestry raised in a predominantly Malay society, steeped in Chinese and Hindu influences, and shaped further by 21 years in the West—understanding who I truly am is not a simple matter. But recognizing and embracing this complexity is the key to everything I’ve tried to express all these years.

To know oneself is to know how to give. If you do not know who you truly are, how can you offer anything original, anything authentic to others? You remain merely a bystander in life, not a participant. You repeat what you’ve absorbed, not what you’ve realized.

Only when you dig deep into your cultural, spiritual, and ancestral roots, when you recognize your innate intelligence—your Unborn Buddha Nature—can you begin to offer the world something true. And from that place of truth, you speak not as a Malay or Chinese, Christian or Jew, but simply as Man.

This is your Dharma Position.
This is the summit from which your voice carries.
And it is heard.