Riding the Zen train

Not matter how  far or how near I feel towards the understanding of ,Who I am, I still feel like i am truly groping in the dark where life is concern; I am trapped within a belief system of the everyday phenomenal world like what they call, living in the Matrix. I have created yet another routine of 'being who I am' in different episodes of my daily experience. I am playing roles to fit the different case scenarios that takes place for every choice i make in due course of time. I am playing each role to fill up my own emptiness while also fulfilling my vows as a Bodhisatva and that is to serve humanity through deliverance from ignorance and suffering. As i learn more and more about myself through my relationships with the rest of humanity and the individuals that I have close encounters with, I try to share these mini-experiences or what they are worth with those who happen to read my Blog.
Yes I am almost 68 years younger now but I am still groping in the dark as to what it is all about this that we call life or existence. It was Friday yesterday, ( it is past midnight now while i am home making this entry,) ; it is said that nothing is more slippery than your self. Just when you think you got it all figured out and under wraps, you find yourself riding yet another wave of uncertainties.      Perhaps i getting old and tired of playing the same old routine, perhaps I 'm still very much attached to who I think I am or should be. Or worse yet, perhaps this whole trip is getting to become obsession of mind, just another mind tripping, only on a grander scale, this need for true self discovery...who am I? Am i becoming a rouge believer in the disguise of a Bodhisatva, a 'Truth seeker', one looking for a healing of his 'splintered soul'? : am I just a victim of my own mind created events and circumstances and believing I will attain liberation at the end of all this, at the 'end of my days'?
If I die tonight I very much doubt that i will make it anywhere close to 'Syurga' or Heaven, I am a candidate for Neraka or Hell by Muslim standards. I can safely attest to the fact that I am pretty much beyond redemption for all the things that i have done in my past; i have every right to fear the afterlife as a Muslim. This is my own logical conclusion based upon things that cannot reveal that i have committed. I have broken practically all the cardinal sins short of one, the wilfully taking of a human life. In short shaitan has got me by the balls, no argument there, the devil does not even has to present his case. Mara will be at my deathbed smiling away for having won my soul hands down. I can rattle on like a defeatist over my fate but I still have time and the hope that i will still this illusion and transcend this feeling of living in the Matrix.
Who wrote the script of life for me? How did i end up with this deluded mental formations that half the time I have accepted to be some form of truth. I believe in what I an experiencing as day to day to be reality and very often becomes a victim of guilt and doubts making me feel helpless, small and insignificant sometimes. I have become a player in the game of life but have not truly understood my role and character; I feel like a slave than a Ruler in my own  to realm of existence. I have sold myself cheap and often became a pawn in the games that someone else is orchestrating or directing. I am reading someone's script and not my own simply because i have begun to fall asleep and being led down yet another rabbit hole. 
The Second Bodhisatva Vow reads, " Delusions are inexhaustible, I Vow to end them."   

Just as all the previous Sugatas, the Buddhas
Generated the mind of enlightenment
And accomplished all the stages
Of the Bodhisattva training,
So will I too, for the sake of all beings,
Generate the mind of enlightenment
And accomplish all the stages
Of the Bodhisattva training.^[1] ---- 

 What if this idea of being a Bodhisatva out to save humanity too is another mental formation? What if this vow that i took while a student at the green Gulch Zen Center in San francisco, is another cosmic delusion the mind has set up for me lead me down as many rabbit holes as there are mental formations along my path through this life? To those who are not aware of what it is, the word Bodhisatva itself has not significance or meaning and yet to me it has held a binding effect ever since I genuinely and with sincerity bowed and uttered these words in the Zendo or meditation hall while facing the altar where sat Manjushri the Bodhisatva of Wisdom and Insight. How did i end up in the Zendo making this vow anyway,  what led me there far from my home here in Malaysia?
This Blog is testimony to how i got on board Suzuki Roshi's Zen train and has not been able to get off ever since.

Work Ethics of Malays

Blog entry 6^th’ March 2017 – 2am.

(Some thoughts I had a month ago while getting my Art show set up at the Museum Galleri Tuanku Fauziah-USM)

Twelve thirty, midnight, arrived home from a long day at the Museum Galeri – USM achieving very little about the curating of my works, especially the captions; tedious if not boring. My bad! Then off to Ah Huat to  work my feelings out as I was very angry with the whole situation   and an escape to Ah Huat’s shop helps me to unwind and recuperate my mind and by  the time I left the shop we had emptied two bottles of red wine; Ah Huat was also in the same kind of pissy mood and said screw it all and lets unscrew a bottles.

I told him of the situation at the Museum with the major issues the employees were having between themselves and how laid back and unproductive their days were as I watched them day in day out. Listening to the Imam spilling his guts or being humorous on the You Tube or turn the radio  on loud for the benefit of no one really as the office most of the time is empty. It is very sad indeed when one cannot express one’s feelings because one is not a staff member; I am only a squatter. I have been a squatter for the more than ten years at the Museum doing my own work like writing the Blog or listening Satsangs , or talks and good choice of music to go with.

I have no right to comment on the fact that the misunderstanding between two groups of the Museum staff members is counterproductive if not harmful to the running of the Museum. A Museum Gallery such as this MGTF _ USM is a place where creative energy and passionate expressions should be manifested to draw as many students and adults to learn and be inspired. It should be a place where an inquisitive mind finds a treasure trove of thoughts and ideas that they can emulate and expand upon.  MGTF is becoming another waste of time and money as far as I can see. The place sadly enough although has all the qualities of becoming an attractive venue is slowly becoming an unproductive dead weight. Hardly a handful visits the place each day and there is practically no change in the activities made available for the public.

Sometimes I feel that the Malays especially the government servants have a very poor work ethics. I have held a few positions working in this country and among all the races, those who work under my care and those who work as my superiors. It is hard not to notice that there is a sense of lack of commitment towards duty. The Malays although not in general, I find would rather be served than serve others. Most I find lack a sense of professionalism and genuine caring when they carry out their duties, like they were meant to be paid because they hold a position and not because of what they were paid to do. With higher positions comes not higher responsibility but bigger ego and lack of self discipline and often a sense of arrogance. The pride is in the position and not in the performance.

With this kind of works ethics, it is a wonder how much work is done and to the fullest satisfaction. It took me ten years to get my two children to be naturalized Malaysian citizens and one of my nephews with four children the eldest being 20 years of age, to become a citizen. I wonder if it is in our human nature to be so removed and insensitive towards our fellow beings and their plight simply because they are strangers or anonymous entities that appears as paper works of forms and numbers. Suffice to say that in many government offices and agencies such as the Postal services, the Immigration, the Registration and so forth are practically run by petty tyrants.

The Malays that I grew up with were soft spoken, light hearted and caring people who by virtue of they being Muslims were trustworthy in carrying out their duties. Like the postman who rode his bicycle with a bag full of mails on the handle bars delivering his mail with a big smile on his face and a greeting of peace. There was a whole lot more human connection back then and people really know one another at work and the government agencies were not as foreboding a place to visit. Sometimes in this day and age instead of getting a, “How may I help you?”, you get a “ What the hell you need?!” kind of response with the looks that could kill a horse. Perhaps it’s the times and today most people are too busy to pay attention to little things such as eye contact or an innocent smile to help ease the way; a smile would cost extra. I genuinely hope and pray that the Malays one day will rise above the materialistic, self serving and self aggrandizement habit and become more humane and caring as their forefathers were in carrying out their paid duties towards serving the public.   

It could end at any time.

Osamu Kitajima's Dragon King -full album on You Tube, provides for the background music this afternoon while i am also eating my lunch of rice and veggies and a piece of lever picked out by mistake. Earlier the guys working for the WiFi installation came over late as usual and when my daughter asked why they said they were at the hospital where one of their friends had just passed away from high blood pressure. The deceased was the one came over to install the unit for our apartment about a month ago,he was 40 odd years old with three children and wife left behind....Such is!
You could almost cook a chick outside without fire and so i am giving myself some time before heading out to Ah Huat's mechanic shop. It is not a hard choice to make between the heat and the cool environment to work from. This my way of making time and space work for me and these spaces are there at no cost for me, provided for by the higher order in life who i do not wish to ask why or where for that I get these little favors.
Here at the MGTF -USM I get to work on my mind, observe it, share it and put it to creative and productive work without too much effort or being coerced into. Simply put i take my own time doing pretty much what i like to do given the circumstances and time. Work is an ugly word to most people as it means having to do specific things and fulfill specific obligations in a timely manner. i am not at meeting  datelines although I cannot remember not being on time in delivering my services in  the past, I still do not like the fact that i am under the pressure of time; I create and utilize my own time in pretty much what i do. What is essential for me is to get things done no matter how fast or how slow it takes to get it done, it is essential to be able to become enthusiastic and creative in whatever needs to be done and produce satisfying result for one and all. 
Work in whatever shape or form is a therapy for those with very active mind like myself. Work helps to bind the mind from wandering aimlessly and creating necessary false flags for the emotions to handle or the external to take hold of one's inner peace of mind and turn it into chaos. Physical work that needs allot of energy will keep the mind focused or collected more so than when the body is not active; it good to sweat the mind and body out as regularly as you can. It would be more beneficial if while achieving this you are also making a good income. That is why great sportsmen. are the most luckiest people on earth as they are making good their life form doing what it is that they enjoy doing. But then again who knows, they too may have their own crap to wake up to in their daily lives. 
The yearn to leave all these behind and roam the country side is still percolating around at the back of the mind and i have not been able to take my trip to the Organic Farm in Sik, Kedah for quite sometime now. I am drifting into the comfort living of the City Lifestyle. This is not too bad in itself for the time being as i am also being there for my daughter who is going through a change in  her life as well. i hope to be able to do a little travelling as soon as she is well adjusted at her present residence. 

Now she is 24 years old!

  Hence, this will my routine for now doing what needs to be done with a minimum effort and no pressure or obligation to fulfill other's needs unless i choose to do so of my own free will. Work is play and play is work either way you look at it it helps to fill up empty spaces and time, it helps to keep the mid from drifting and the heart in tune with what is within and without. Life is unpredictable just like the guy who passed on this morning leaving behind a load of misery for his family.  

This too is Me.

"Ban! Ban!, Shamsok, which means , "take your time, Shamsul," in Hokien. This is wishing someone safe journey as they leave your premises. The word 'Samsok' also means the third uncle in Hokien and so I have become the thrid uncle to the guys working at the Huat Huat Auto Airconditioning Center and the motorcycle shop across the street and the the mechanic next door. Ah Seang's Auto Shop. They are all Chines boys young and old. If if I fail to turn up for two or three days, they are concerned and so does some of the customers and frequent visitors to the ares of Sungai Dua near the JPJ Office, Penang. Although a predominantly a Chinese area, most of the customers from way back when are mostly Malays, My friend Mr. Huat is like Jackie Chan, the 'Laughing Buddha" of Kung Fu of the 'Drunken Master' tradition of Chinese Martial Arts; my friend Ah Huat is the Auto Air conditioning Sifu in the George Town Area, especially in the Sungai Dua Area. I am his apprentice, a disciple of the Art of Dismantling Auto Air Cond. parts, a student of human relationship, how to communicate and how to relate, how to not give up or give in, how to maintain your balance on this path of action.
I had just returned form the recycling shop where I had sold 39 Kilogram worth of Aluminium spare parts mostly the cooling generator part. I had been dismantling these discard blocks piece by pieces utilizing tools which i would had never had the chance to handle, like the simple Allen Key. My finger nails are never without a thin black line running all around them, my skin itches from being allergic to the waste black oil that ooazes out of the parts as I tear at them. My arms an my back aches from the strain and my fingers stretches to the maximum every time i try to wrench at the bolts with the Allen key, a slip and game over, you will have to find some other ways to do the job; the anger and frustration, the satisfaction of knowing that i still got it in me; I am an Eclectic I choose only the Best to learn and emulate from; I find my Gurus and they find me.  
At the moment I am writing this, I am sitting in the basement office at MGTF-USM where i have been coming and going form for the past ten odd ears of my life in Georgetown everisnece i came back from my travels all over the country and the world looking for my self. Now i am sitting here listening to Hans Zimmer's Epic Theme of "The Son Of God" the movie. I am here and I am in the Now of Eckhert Tholle and that of Jedu Krishnamurti. Swami Rama,of Ram Dass and Of Allen Watts, of G.I. Guirdjief, Mooji and all the Great Man of the World...my Teachers, my friends, my torch bearers...The Hidayat. Shaikh Abdul kadir Al JIlani, May Allah Protect his Secrets..." my guide, my Saint.  

"IN the beginning there was the Word...and He came into the World....the Word Became Flesh and made His dwelling among us."

I am here looking into myself and what I had been through in the process of getting to this moment in time and space, listening to Hans Zimmer and letting my fingers tap dancing the surface of the key boards. Why do I keep making mistakes when I type these words? My back is killing me! and my shoulders feels like they are carrying a ton of aluminium on my back heading for the recycling center. I am as blissful as i can afford to be for I am in my Lord's presence as i have always bee, for where I am there you will find me. I  am the Master of all circumstances in my life, I am the master of my thoughts and consciousness, and I am the Master of my Body, Speech and Mind...I am That as i am the Word and the Word Is me...how can there be God if i do not exist, at least in this consciousness...in tis moment in time and space.. in this blissful moment of being able to reflect to and fro the passage and times of my life thus far.
"If not Now, When? If not here, where? The master asked.
Satori, Is, none who experience it.
Just as suffering is, None who suffers.
In this Human form waste not Time."
This is in Essence is Enlightenment in the moment in time."

" We thank you Lord by Whose Word everything comes to Be...Amen!"

And this too shall pass....
dedicated to my friends at the Sungai Dua Auto Mechanic Shops area.

Mind juggling

An uneventful day with  not much happening most of the day  yesterday so i decided to sleep in most of the vening just to catch up with my bad sleeping habit. It is almost 4am. now and i am still up doing what i enjoy doing for now and that is challenging my mind to throw up all that it can for the sake of making this Blog entry. It may be happen to be reading this so quit while you still can. Stop wasting your time reading these garbage that my mind has been puking out on a daily basis, it is only my way of emptying my head. I'm addicted to thinking an it has become a bad habit especially when i claim myself to be a meditator and a spiritual seeker of sort. All that crap is merely a futile effort to keep my mind from being overload with unexpressed thoughts which has the tendency to keep me awake. Either write or kill my brain cells with some form of bad habit like get stoned or drunk, prayer does help but often adds on new dimensions to the thought production process.
Yes I am an obsessive thinker and i spend hours watching movies and listening to music just to keep my mind from thinking and I think in my sleep too unfortunately. So, there you have it, my confession as to why I write this Blog. Why do i keep making entries into this lengthy Blog day in day out making it sound like i have all the answers to life and death and all about spirituality and what not. Get me out of your list of things to read as you are wasting your precious time and you will learn nothing that you cannot get on You Tube.  I am telling you right here right now that I am not what i write, whatever that i have been writing all these years are merely mepty thoughts and false flag of a personal kind. I am actually your 'cosmic joke,' the guy who has nothing better to do so he takes on an assignment for himself and that being all these crap about 'Self Discovery', 'Knowing who you are,' and so forth. 
As it has become a habit,i am now going to kick this habit too like I just gave up smoking.  
I am a creature of habit, what starts off as good habit becomes bad habit just as what started off with good intention ends up becoming a lost cause. All these for the purpose of killing time, filling up empty spaces and avoiding being bored caught in a stupor. The mind is something that still provides a great challenge, a mystery when we run out of things to do, we challenge our own mind at the very game that we are trying to give up. Like I am tempted to go to bed in order to end this, but I know i will not fall asleep even if i try. So what do i do? The next thing that comes to mind is to sit and meditate till i get tired or fall asleep but this too has its draw back and the mind knows it, my lower back and knee pains will kick in even if i want to sit for as long as the Buddha Boy in Nepal. I will give up out of fear of agitating my physical problems any further. 
So maybe it is time to do some serious art so as to occupy myself fully and at least get  some satisfaction from being creatively productive. Tried that too and it did not work, at least not at this tage in my life, art has slowly receded into the background of my consciousness just like all else. I am having a mental if not spiritual blight, like my mind is infected with some kind of new  strain of virus that is trying to dominate how i handle myself, how i free myself from this insanity this insomnia. 
It has been fun anyway and this too will pass...    

I witness myself.

The call for 'zuhr' or noon prayer just began from the nearby State Mosque and i just sat with my cup of coffee and a cup of instant noodle facing the Lap -top to jot down my next entry; it is Sunday. I had stayed up most of the night listening to Osho aka Bhagavan Shri Rajneesh on the You Tube talking about Death and so forth. I fell asleep at call for 'Subh' or dawn prayer from the same mosque and woke woke up half an hour ago and my daughter has left for work taking the 'Uber' as Dad is not leaving the house today, maybe. A little background would help to get the mood going as it going to be another long and hopefully productive day whatever that entails. First came to sight is 'Best Epic Music Collection' Mix and it started off with my all time favorite, "Last of the Mohicans," as i keep saying to those who care to listen, it is all there at your fingertips. Van Gelis, Hans Zimmer, Trevor Jones Lisa Gerard and a host of other great contemporary song writers, that soon will turn you into a connoisseur of contemporary classical music while you keep the mind entertained.
No, I don't pray and i hope it answers the question for all those good Muslims around the world and if that makes me a non-Muslim in their eyes so be it; it is entirely between me and Maker as far as i am concern. It is not that i reuse to pray the five times a day prayer just like all the rest of the Muslims all over the world but i simply can't for some odd reason, i find it is not how i communicate with my Lord, it simply does not happen for me. Call it ego or pride or whatever that crosses the mind to judge me, till I find the feeling of being connected in His presence through my prayer than perhaps i will attempt to do it consistently. But till then I will meet my Lord in my own way and it is not that am not afraid of the afterlife and all the punishments in store for  stubborn man like me, but it is a matter of principle, I simply find no satisfaction is praying ritually five times a day. As it is i have slowly bu surely removed my self from my Muslim friends and relatives around me sp as not to offend them with my presence especially during the prayer times.
As the Fasting Month of Ramadan is approaching I dread more than look forward to yet another month of observing more rituals and the feeling of guilt for not being able to perform as completely like the rest of them. At my age to have these doubts is a very dangerous predicament as some would point out for death is at my doorstep an what i have to offer as an excuse for not being a good practicing Muslim is lame to say the least. I Love my Lord and I fear Him for the things i have been told he is capable of in metting out His judgement for the likes of me. For whatever good it may do, I keep telling myself that i yearn not for heaven nor do I hanker for hell, I just want to return to the One Who owns that which is within me; my soul if it may be called that. I just want to return to the source; I just want to go home and end this very existence for good. But if it His Will that shall be done then i prostrate myself before Him and accept whatever is in store for me. Perhaps i am expressing my faith in complete ignorance at the moment, but i know myself and the transgression i have and still is committing in my life and for this I can only hope for the Mercy and Grace of my Lord for only he knows better. My Lord is  Merciful and Forgiving, this i hold as my faith and He is not the wrathful God that craze to punish his creation for what has already been destined to be in each and every life of His servant. My Lord is more than Fair in His Way and this is what makes me take upon myself towards self discovery as my path to my Lord and not the ways of the Prophets or the Saints. I walk the path of the Buddha as it allows for me to go deeper into who I am more so than Islam does. I was born and raised a Buddhist for twelve years of my life before i converted to Islam and in that twelve years I have come to rely on the teachings of the Buddha for my sanity and survival; Buddhism is no stranger to me. As Islam strikes fear into my heart, the Buddha's teaching gives me a sense of Compassion, Acceptance and Forgiveness. It gives me an open road towards discovering for myself the truth about myself, life and God.
Perhaps in attaining the Buddha's Liberation I can at the same time attain 'Fana' ' that in Islam is considered a criteria for all Muslim to attain in order to become one with the One. It is said that the Buddha has once declared that because of the believe in existence of the 'self' or the 'I', one suffers in ignorance. When there is no Self , no I, who is there to suffer? Thus His saying about suffering, "Life is suffering, but none who suffers, Enlightenment is, but none who attains it." It is like saying I have attained enlightenment or I am liberated from this life, who is making this declaration: the self? the I? And who have this Self or I been liberated from or to who is this declaration being made?  Who is the witness to this whole phenomena of being enlightened or liberated? The Buddha did this before thousand upon thousand of His followers, but He did it as a testimony of His teaching and not to anyone in particular as He declared to himself, "I, am no more." The I has ceased to be, no more I to identify with, complete annihilation of who I am. If there is to be a witness, it will have to be the Universe or simply God the Creator of all there is 
WallahuAllam...only He knows.

In the Young I Trust.

"I learned from the eleven million youth that i have come across over the decade that every youth wants to be different, wants to be unique.;that is you! But the world around you is doing its best day and night to make you just like everybody else. Now, the question is whether you want to be you or everybody else. Being like everybody else is convenient at the first glance but not  satisfying in the long vision. The challenge therefore my young friends is that, you are to fight the hardest battle which any human being can imagine and never stop fighting until you arrive at your destined place that is the unique you."
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam's -  Speech at IIT Madras

" The young man who had renounced all his worldly ties has but one Love, his country, one grief, it's downfall."
Swami Vivekananda.

I am reflecting upon the wisdom that was and still is, that is India one of if not the oldest spiritually evolved nation on earth. I am reading, listening and practicing as much as i could the Hindu Ways, the Hindu thoughts from the Vedas and the Upanisads to the contemporary thoughts of the likes of Jedu Krishnamurti, Sadguru Jaggi Vasudav, founder of the Isha Foundation and many others. This is not something new for me as I have always reflected upon the teachings of the Gita and the thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi in my self discovery process. India is still a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom as the people live their lives according to the ancient ways of the Yogis and the Rishis. 
I have often enough declared that the intention of writing this Blog is to share my innermost feelings, my perceptions and my general take of life itself. The younger generation holds the future of this Planet in their hands and as I am among those who is marching out of the picture, it is my hope and intention that i can leave behind a little something for the benefit of the young. I do not take the young for granted in the way they view life, in what they know or understand about life. I often am caught with surprise when confronted with the young adult who could make me wonder at myself for not being up to what is going on in life or when i am corrected for not seeing life in a more fresh and innocent ways as they do. The young adults today have come a longer way than their elders when they were at the same age; their consciousness is much more awakened in most of them and they are able to discern right from wrong in a mush more accepting manner than their fathers used to.
I am very encouraged to find that more and more of the younger generation are getting involve and becoming aware of the fate of humanity and the environment they are inheriting than their forefathers do. Perhaps being more exposed to the information than their fathers through the Info-tech has given them and edge over the matter. It is my hope through this humble work i am attempting that a few might be awakened to pursue their own self discovery and create a journey of their own towards finding out who they truly are and what their position is in the scheme of things in this life. In so doing I hope too that they will be able to make their own contribution towards the betterment of their lives and society if not the world itself. It is my hope that the youth of today will awaken to their own uniqueness and become creatively involved in helping to solve and heal the universal ailments of apathy and decadence, that is threatening to rip us apart at the very seams of our humanity.
Through the wisdom of the ancient vedic teachings such as Yoga and so forth, the youth of today will continue on to harness the power inherent within each and everyone of them and put their mind to work in a more productive way towards solving world problems. When modern day science and the wisdom of the ancient spiritual consciousness is being merged into one entity it becomes a formidable force of creation.  

In this human Form, Don't waste Time - Happy Birthday Shakyamuni Buddha!

Who am I according to the Mandukya Upanisad.;

You are not the waking person.
You are not the Dreamer.
You are not the deep sleeper.
You are apart from the waking world,
You are apart from the dream world
You are apart from the the blank sleep world,
You are the consciousness illumining these states of you existence.
You are not God, nor are you not God.

The consciousness of who you are is something that you cannot see, touch or smell..etc.
It is not transact-able, not use=able/ nor graspable.  nor can it be inferred and thought about. It cannot be named.

If you follow this "I feeling" you will come to this consciousness.
You are completely untouched by the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep states of existence.
Absolutely peaceful, ever undisturbed and full of joy.
Non dual, you are the world, you are everything and everything is manifesting through you.
...or something like that.

As I have been emphasizing time and again throughout  my Blog, the ancient texts,the ancient ones, the great minds of old and the modern day gurus and poets of the mind, have all been telling humanity the same truth disguised in different forms and styles. The Truth that is inherent in all of us who is known as the Homo sapiens. We who have been endowed with the power to think, to reflect to feel and to be able to make choices; the truth is that we are One. We are in essence Gods or Divine beings with the capacity to create or destroy, to Love or hate, to share or deprive; we each and every individual have this power if we are awaken to its presence.
Only through 'Right Understanding', 'Right Mindfulness and 'Right words , thoughts and deeds can we come to inherit our birth right of being Divine Beings more so the just Human beings. Having squandered our days, lost in the delusive state of Mayavic existence, we have caused so much strife and discord within and the external world; we are a sick species that needs to be healed from within. The healing will have to begin from deep within our individual consciousness, without sounding like a broken record,; healing has to begin with the will or desire to discover who we truly are. We have to discover and realize what we are made of and how the mind and body function in all these. 
The Ancient Ones, the Sutras, the Teachings, The Holy Scriptures the had left behind for us are the very road maps that can lead us towards our very own self liberation, freedom from living within the confinements of conditioning and bondage of ignorance. To live beyond just the need to survive, the desire to outdo and dominate over others is a waste of the golden opportunity for man to become more than mere men. The Buddha is said to have said, "In this human form,don't waste time!"

Standing with an awakened mind.

"Wakefulness is the Way to life, the fool sleeps as if he were already dead, but the Master is awake and he lives forever. He watches, He is clear. How happy He is for he sees wakefulness is life. How happy He is for He has followed the Way of the Awakened." 
                  The Dhammapada

Sometime in 1984 I was employed as a sweeper and housekeeping for a company involved in servicing ships in the San Francisco Bay Area. H&H Ship Services was also involved in Underground Storage Tanks (UST) disposal which was at the time a recent activity that the company had undertaken. It was a 'fly by night', operation some had called it as it was a trial and error project that was till in the making and which a week before i had joined the company had claimed the life of the yard supervisor who was also the tank cutter. Tank cutting was an still is one of the most hazardous if not dangerous job I have had the opportunity to be involved in and it was carried out by those who lacked education, living on the edge and were in need. I was one of them as I had just been booted out of the Zen Buddhist Monastery  and living practically on the streets of San Francisco.
I must have written this episode of my life several times in the past, however for the sake of sharing a point I am trying to make I am hereby sharing it again. I was hired through my friend Joshua Bowes introduction to his friend whose father was the owner of H&H. Joshua was a drug dealer and was also very interested in Buddhist practice that led us to meet and became close friends at Green Gulch Farm where he and his girlfriend would visit every weekend. Josh had given me the temporary shelter I needed when I left the Gulch; I was homeless then. I slept under the table on the floor in his kitchen, the only space available in his converted garage apartment where he lived with his girlfriend. The basement was located off Haight Street on Ashbury not too far from the Golden Gate Park. I was at the nadir of my life and Josh's kindness had saved me from it becoming worse.
Josh instructed me to meet his friend, Will Harris for a job at his office one morning and I found my way to the office on 20 China Basin,off 3rd Street across from to Tick Tock Restaurant on third. I was met by a black man, bald headed and thick glasses in blue coveralls at seven in the morning. After giving the me the third degree of sizing me up he directed me to the next office of Mr. William Harris Sr. as Will Harris Jr. was not available. I stepped into the office after knocking on the entrance as there was no door and was met by the biggest red neck I have ever seen and I mean it literally as that was what was before me. The huge figure sat with his head bowed in between his knees over a waste basket, letter cutter in his hand and a huge cigar in his mouth. Head did not look up from what he was doing all the while he was talking to me as though I was not even there. On his desk i notice a half filled glass of whiskey or brandy and on the wall was hung a picture of him shaking the hand of President Richard Nixon like they were buddies.    
I explained my intention of being there and that was to meet his son for a job at his home where his yard had needed taken care of. "So you want to clean my son's yard eh!" he said from between his cigar chewing teeth still slitting letter with the knife. " Yes, Sir, I would be glad to after i have done your son's." I replied. " You think you can clean my yard, do you?" He asked, like he was challenging me than offering me a job. The little voice in me whispered, " If you let this man shut the door in your face you will have a very hard time looking for work from here on." " Yes I can and will do a good job of it too!" I told him to his back. For the first time he looked up from his letter opening and looked at me and he pointed out the window just above his head, "Look out there, that's my yard, if you can clean it come to work tomorrow morning at the same time." I did and thus began my employment at H&H Ship Services which later also included H&H Environmental Services.
 In less than a year I became the Yard Superintendent answerable only to the President of the Company. In a year i had helped to turn a company on the verge of being shut down into a multi-million dollar enterprise making a profit of two million dollars in the first year of my employment. Not wanting to go into details of what happened in the process, suffice to say that I turned what was potentially a bad situation for me in all sense into a very productive and exciting experience and all because I was somewhat 'awakened' by my experience with the Zen Buddhist practice at the Monastery. Had I been asleep at the moment of this meeting I would have faltered and left the place with my tail between my legs, but instead i saw the challenge and the need to be standing from my own 'Dharma Position' or my ground of Being which shook 'Big Foot' as he was known to the employees, out of his alcoholic stupor.

Who is the Master? Man or fire?

The beginning of the the Dhamapada or the sayings of the Buddha, began with, "Choices', we are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world...." Two thousand five hundred years or so ago this great Teacher expounded what modern scientists, religious thinkers and philosophers are still grappling with as to the truth of the matter. Does our mind has the power to think this Universe into being as it is today? How many of us living on this planet today really even care about the question or even come close to asking it of himself? It is insanity to try to unravel what it entails if one accepts the Buddha's words to be the truth. How can billions upon billions of minds with untold number of thoughts, to coin the Buddhist way of counting, as many as the sands of the Ganges, create such a world, much less the Universe that we exist in? But then again how did we ever dream of creating the nuclear bomb towards our own self destruction?
Yes, we have come a very long way from the time of the Buddha and our human history has charted a course towards its own self realization if not destruction. Ironically, the Buddha teachings points towards the letting go of the self or as some would put it, self annihilation as a goal in order to attain liberation from this circle of existence. Are we collectively fulfilling this requirement that we wipe our 'selves' out to achieve this goal of liberation; perhaps unconsciously? The human mind is not unlike the fire. Fire is when under right control a very useful servant to have but when it is in control, it is a very bad master. The great teachers of all religions has in one way or another warned mankind of the dangers of allowing the human mind its free will without any form of restraint. Islam warns us against giving in to our 'nafs', or desires (ego), just as Buddhism does. 
"In this world, hate never yet dispel hate, only Love dispel hate." The Dhammapada went on to say,"This is the Law, Ancient and Inexhaustible. You too shall pass away, knowing this, how can you quarrel?" Herein lies our predisposition towards killing one another, we ever so often forgets that we are mortals and the fact that our mortality can happen at any time. We live in forgetfulness of our mortality and assume that by removing others from this life we attain a longevity in our very own life; or attain immortality itself. In this way we have slowly evolved into a cancerous virus that is eating up our very own guts from within and manifesting itself without. We are a sickness that is affecting everything in and around us while living in denial of this. We are living governed by our Greed, Hate and Ignorance, the three illnesses that has affected us since mankind began to see himself as an entity, a self with the sole purpose of its own survival. 'Taking care of Number One,' 'Do unto others before they do it to you!' 'I am Me and this is Mine, my way or the highway!' This is how we have evolved in our mental and spiritual evolution, we have become 'self-serving', we have become 'self- idolater,' we have become lost in our own self-worship; only fear of the unknown has kept us from declaring ourselves Gods.
The Prophet of Allah (PBUH), declared after winning a battle that, man has a greater battle (jihad) to fight and win and that is the battle within; the battle against his 'nafs' or desire (ego). Today we stand on the threshold of loosing our faith in the teachings of the ancient while allowing for our collective minds to be influenced by decadence and unconsciousness, we are asleep with our nightmares hammering at our doors and yet we refuse to awaken to the reality of the dangers we are drifting towards as humanity itself. We are on the brink of a Third World War! Only Love can dispel Hate the Buddha had warned us in His wisdom through the Dhammapada, or have we gone way beyond Love and Hate; are mere acting now on auto-pilot? Has our mind become as mechanized as the machines we create? Has the fire become the master, or are the flames not the servant anymore?       

The Age of darkness

Just got  home from watching , "Guardians of the Galaxies" at the cinema with my two children and we had a good time together. I enjoy Marvels movies as there is not much to really think about if you follow the script closely enough, the rest is pure action and adventure and in this case with allot of good humor thrown in. It was also good to see my two children catch up with each other as they hardly see one another during the regular working days, They are both doing well at their jobs and both has the potential for growth in their careers. Their mother would have been proud of them if she still around, but sadly enough this is not so.
If you have to feed this insatiable mind, feed it with a whole lot of positive vibes like listen to Hans Zimmer's Pirates of the Caribean being played by various great violinists accompanied by great orchestras. Watch great movies that moves the spirit, like 'The Last of the Mohicans' or Gandhi', stand and witness the sun rising or setting, draw or paint from your imagination; do not let the mind simply drift aimlessly, it is bound to drag you down your memory lanes . especially those you least want to revisit. "You cannot go back and make a new beginning, but you can start right now and make a brand new ending...there ain't no overtime in life, no do-over...if you do not use your gift then you sell not only yourself but the whole world short!" ...Omeleto.
A goal, a motive, even a dream to set the mind in motion towards it achievement or fulfillment, to allow for the mind to dwell upon a more positively motivated aim. This is one of the ways in which we have to hone th mind and harness its potential rather than allow for it to run our lives helter- skelter without any sense of direction, rhyme or reason, day in day out. To be able to carry this out one has to be aware that the mind is a problem when left on its own without any form of conscious observation; the human mind is as slippery as an eel and has much more up its sleeve than Wily Coyote does. To be awaken to this realization takes a personal effort of some form that will allow for it to happen,  Meditation is the most surest form that thus far has been proven to be more successful than most others like taking of drugs, alcohol, prayers or chanting and so forth. To bring the mind to a quiet state and place in a more constructive and productive state is a life long endeavor which not many has the time nor the inclination to take on especially in this day and age.
IN this age of information technology the human, at least hose who knows how to use a computer is so heavily bombarded by useful as well as useless information that we as human will soon see a generation of mentally overloaded, sycophants running around. These product of this new age of unlimited supply of information will be the inheritors of our future where there will be all brains and no feelings; geniuses with petrified hearts.The mind will have  a field day and the insane asylums will be filled to maximum capacity with deluded patients. Only those spared by the lack of ability to surf the net might stand a chance to live a life of sanity and they will serve those who has a good grasp of the use of this internet resources to exploit and manipulate and to control the masses. It is already happening from the most advanced to the poorest countries as more and more people are being exposed to the gadgets on the market. From the youngest to the oldest, people are becoming more and more addicted to these so called technological wizardry in the form of I phones and computers.  The collective human mind is slowly being led towards a false sense of understanding of what life is or what being human is; life today is as cheap as a bullet in the barrel of a gun.
We are living in an age of darkness while believing we are enlightened.  
  

  
  

When all else fails....

I cannot say that i have lived an uneventful life and for what it is worth I am still sitting here putting the pieces together to make sense out all that is non sensible. All the lies and the facade that i have created along the way, all the trials and errors that i have tried upon myself and others, I am now trying to resolve and re- conciliate within so as to find some recompense towards all the errors I have allowed to occur throughout my life. Such is karma, even if you do not believe in it, it still is in motion as a reminder of the faults I have and those that needs to be accounted for before I pass on.  This is in essence, what unburdening or letting go is all about now that I am facing the final curtain as the show winds down to its end. 
I don't even know where to begin as my life has been so filled with self manufacture dramas, as my daughter once pointed out, that I am at a loss when it comes to choosing the worse of scenarios. Deep rooted Karma, born from beginning-less time, through  body speech and mind, where do I begin? Do I really need to? Is it so crucial that i keep digging into the worm holes to uncover all my past errors?  Perhaps it is as according to some ancient wisdom at least for those who seek liberation from this realm of existence, which  really is not too dad if you know how to maneuver the terrains of this landscape we call life. But, it is still suffering none the less, like what Gautama saw in his time and set out to remedy the situation for himself. The fruit of His labor is what Buddhism is all about, just a Way to step out of this circle of Life, Death and Rebirth. To stop and refuse top lay this game of life. Refuse to submit to rules and dogmas that is mind created by those who seek to control, to refuse to submit to the ignorance of the fact that we exist in a world of make believe no matter how real it may seem to be. 
Although a long time ago I had come to a realization that this existence is all a mind created stuff to occupy itself from the lack of  activity if not insanity itself, it is still a factor that as an entity it holds sway to all that is, will and has happened to me in the course of my lifetime. In seeking to grapple with this demon I call my mind or to be more specific, my ego, I have set about keeping this ongoing journal, it has become my outlet for expressing all my hidden thoughts conscious or otherwise. Nothing else matters that much other than the fact that I have to exist among other sentient beings and have had a strong connection with some to which I hold a sense of bond between us to help each other in finding our way into the light or enlightenment. In my small effort to unravel my own so called mysteries of life, I hope to shed some light along the way for those who stumble upon my discourse on the matter. This journal is for those who consciousness has led them to click into my blog by chance or accident and for those who like me are in their own way looking for answers, more than what it seems as the mind would have us accept.
" I am not the body, Nor am I the mind," this is the mantra I keep reminding myself with whenever I fall upon my face due to some misjudgment or wrong assumptions. My body and my mind are tools for my presence here in this physical realm and as such they are a part of me but not who I am. Just as i am employing this computer to transmit this message, I am at the same time employing both my body and mind to attain this. If either body or mind fails to function accordingly, this message would not be transmitted with its full intention being transmitted. Mind and body has to become one synchronized tool in order to perform in optimal. When there is perfect balance between the two physical as well as mental forces, the action performed is spontaneous and there is credibility as well as originality that comes from within; just like a beautiful piece of music, it mesmerizes.
I may not be able to recount much less undo all my transgressions of the past, but I sure can at the very least learn not to repeat them and avoid making the same error now and into the future. As the curtain is slowly descending I will make all effort not to fall off from the Grace and this glimpse of enlightenment that i have been accorded by being unmindful or negligent in making my choices. If i have to keep this mind from being restless and mischievous, I will try to tie it to making itself useful in making this Blog entry.   

    

The First of May

It is the First of May, a long weekend all over the world where the labor force of humanity comes to observe a holiday in tribute to Labor Day. Also known as the International Worker's Day in some countries or May Day in others, for me it has a different meaning this date, the First of May.  On the First of may in 1981 I had returned from the United States to Malaysia for a short visit after being away for many years. I was having dinner at one of my auntie's home when a stranger came to the door and told me that my uncle had collapsed at the junction to the main road while on his way home. He had parked the van he was driving by the roadside and climbed out holding his chest and collapsed on to the road. Passersby had helped to lift his body back into the back of the van and that I should do something about it.
I left for the site with the stranger on his motorcycle and found my uncle already dead in the back of his van. With some difficulty i drove the van back to his house, I had not driven in Malaysia for many years since I was living in the United States and there they drive on the wrong side of the road as far Malaysians goes. Getting used to it take some doing especially when you are transporting the deceased body of the man who have adopted and raised me as his child for twelve years of my life. I carried his body into the house where his wife and I set about cleaning him up as he had defecated himself while suffering the heart attack he had earlier. I did all these as though I was on auto mode, or like I was in the twilight zone not much feeling but totally absorbed in action. I knew somehow that I could not allow my emotions take a hold of myself as the task of getting my uncle's funeral squared away laid on my shoulders then being the eldest in the family even if I was just and adopted kid.
So, whenever the First of May comes around this sad episode keeps surfacing in my mind given the fact that no one from my family came to pay their last respect to the deceased who was my mother's younger brother and the man who raised me when my own family could not afford to do it. There is little sense in looking back on how or why about my own brothers and sisters without knowing the facts of life, that they too had suffered untold emotional pains and at the hands of my uncle. Hence I will bury this episode of my life as one of those non-recycle materials that is best buried for good with the deceased.
 " and guess who will cry comes First of May...." from the song by the Bee Gees, The First of May.

The Rolling Stone.

Sitting meditation may take many forms


Having traveled widely for a good part of my life I do not feel the need so much for a permanent residence nor do i care to keep pets or accumulate excessive personal belongings. I have avoided  often subconsciously making long lasting commitment with others as i often doubted myself in being able to keep them. I once practically lived in boxes and basement when I was going to college in Green bay, Wisconsin. IThe closest i came to having my own home was while living in an old farmhouse that was over a hundred years old and my landlord/owner was never around thus leaving to place to myself pretty much of the time. This farm house, if it is still around was located on Humboldt Road, about two kilometers from the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. It was one of the most memorable times of my life living out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by cornfields in summer and the white of snow in winter.. 
Home is where the heart is, so it is said, but for me my heart has been all over the place and rarely does it seems like it was destined to settle down long enough. It was not because I loved to travel as much as I was pretty much forced to moved from one location to another out of necessity often against my will. But on looking back i am very glad that i had made the choice to live as i had willingly or otherwise. Today I see my past as very rich in experiences as well as much lessons learned about what it is like to be a drifter. It was both a curse and a blessing to be drifting from one location, one venue, one episode to another as life often offers many challenges that the normal person often does not know what it is like.
When one has been able to detach oneself from missing ones's loved ones, especially the children, one is practically free to weigh anchor and set sail, with no destination in mind, one set drifting for uncharted waters and where one ends a new life begins. As nothing in this life is permanent, being transient and in motion makes more sense to me than being stuck in one place for the most part of one's life. I have always maintained that the farther away one travels in the external world the deeper one travels into the inner being of oneself. A new environment, a fresh scene, new faces and characters, new routine in daily activities, all lend to a form of challenge for the mind to cope with and the intelligence to grow. 
It is said that a rolling stone gathers no moss as this may or may not be true, I feel like I have gathered a hell allot of moss along the way as evidenced by this Blogging, this never ending tale of the Cheeseburger Buddha. If memories serves me well, i can write an episode for every pit stop I had made throughout my journey in this life so far. I may not have gathered any moss, however i have sure sowed enough wild oats in my younger days wherever I hit a port. I have had many relationship that i have lost count with the opposite sex  most of which i would rather not recount. I have left many an unfinished businesses and cut off many dependencies that I may set myself free to move on. Now i am getting up there in my age I do not regret all that i have been through for better or worse; I only look at them as my 'grist for the mill', my compost for fresh crops to grow. Yes I have lived my life to the best of my ability and it may not have been all pure and simple, but it was all a part of who I have come to be.    

Another Beginning.

From my window overlooking a part of Georgetown and the State Mosque.

I enjoy putting my thoughts in writing as it allows me to reflect upon the movement and the content of my mental faculty; my mind. I like writing it all down as it helps for me to keep a record of the course of my life and how it has changed or remain unchanged over the years. As it is I am in the process of making a major change in my life by moving in with my daughter who has rented a fully equipped apartment at the top most floor of the building overlooking a portion of the City of Georgetown as seen from the Scotland Road area or better known in Malay as the Batu Gantung area. On the opposite side the apartment  overlooks the Penang Turf Club on one side and the Kek Lok See temple at the foot of Penang Hill at the other. You can barely see the towering statue of the Goddess of Mercy or Kwan yin at the temple site. In between there is the Chinese cemetery that covers the hillside a waste of good prime land that developers must yearn to get their hands on but cannot and will not as there would be hell to pay as nothing is more sacred to the Chinese than their ancestral burial grounds.
It is peaceful and quiet up here, just the opposite of living at the Sungai Pinang house where the restaurant and catering business is a constant distraction with the never ending traffic as the background theme. There is no one to react to or answer to here other than my daughter and in essence i have what i have been asking for even if I had not planned it so consciously to happen. I have the peace and quiet and the space to do my creative work as well as my meditation practice. So as my friend at the fisherman's jetty said when i told him of my situation, "Hell, what's wrong with that? That's is the way it should be for you. Not this living with your cousins and putting up with all the noise and mental aggravations where you were at!"

A t sunset overlooking the Race track to the bottom right hand corner.

Yes, now i have my space to shift my life into a change of pace, to put to my spiritual practice with a little more intensity and do some serious Art while i am at it. Perhaps when i can afford it i will start to do some serious cooking for my daughter and I. Yes the wa

The kiving room with all the convenience. 

y I see it, life begins at 67 and it is never too late to change if it makes a difference for the better. All the pieces are in place, all I need is to take the plunge into this new dimension of existence and create something worthwhile yet in the process. Yes, there is really no planning to my life, I am destined to live life as it presents itself one moment and one dimension at a time and it is how i live it to the fullest that matters, When I say living it to the fullest, what i mean is to take it all in and make the best of what is available at the moment in time. To handle what worse case scenario that can or will happen to the best of my ability; always learning, always understanding. 
         

Don't Look back- it's alright.

What is it that i am really aiming for or to be more accurate, what is it that i really want? To be honest, i do not really know as it often changes in time for one thing. I have no clue as to what i really desire for myself other than the normal needs of the common man that he may live day to day in peace and comfort. I cannot claim that i do not need much but i also am not in need of too much to find the comfort and peace that is needed. Perhaps at my age my desires have watered down to the bare essentials of having just enough to make it to the end when the end comes.
I can safely say that i have tasted life, the best as well as the worse it has to offer, I have committed as much sin as i have worked towards accumulating my virtues and to date i really have no idea why or what i am aiming for if I am asked the question what is it that you want with this life. Yes i will most probably say, I want to know who I am am, just like I have always been yapping all these while, but that too is merely a concept or a thought process that really has very little to live by. Yes i wish to become enlightened, just like the Buddha or close enough, but what does it really mean , to be enlightened or awakened; I am still finding out after all these years. So, do i really want o be rich like my twin brother who practically has all if not more than enough or do i really want to be famous like my friends in the Art world. These are material needs that if i had truly wanted I could have had them by taking the necessary paths towards them at an earlier stage in my life. But I had chosen a different route and the route has no defined path, it has been a route where there is very few road signs for me to follow; I merely followed my own instinct.
If i were to read backwards all my Blog entries, I am sure I will come to the starting entry with a feeling of being riding on a roller coaster of uncertainties an inconclusive mind trails. This whole Blog is a product of this thinking m,ind that projects it delusions in  the  effort to make sense out of all the non sense that it has experienced and to justify itself of all the bad moves and errors that it has committed along the way. Often it is like the flip flopping of a broken record telling and retelling the same old tale of what the moral of the story is all about. As for what i really want for myself, if i have to answer the question, it would be to live life to the fullest, experiencing each and every moment good or bad with my whole being and stepping out of it at the end totally drunk or dead sober with no rhyme or reason to attach myself to. I simply was born and i lived and having lived i die without much regret to look back upon.

Arriving at the End.

If there ever was a time i felt most energetic and full of vigor in my life was when I spent two odd years at the Green Dragon Zen Temple at Green Gulch. This was when I decided to let go of all of my past and embrace whatever came my way albeit physical, mental or spiritual; in short I threw caution to the wind. I started off with a debilitating effect of a serious form of pleurisy condition in my chest and ended up feeling like a super man by the time I had left the Zen Center.. My recovery happened gradually over a period of three or four months where i spent days and nights in pain in a small room that was formerly used as a cattle coral. The cold and wet weather of the coastal area along the Pacific coast did little to help but i survived. I was set and determined to rebound from my fall and Green Gulch was the place to do it  especially with the Soto Zen tradition of practice. 
Upon entering the practice session I was full of pain and anger and my head was in so much turmoil that I thought I was going insane. I had no one that i can turn to except the strangers who happened to be there at the time and we soon became friends as we realized that we were in the same boat, all needing some form of healing. I admit that i was a very sick man and very frightened of what the futre held for me as I have been estranged from my family back home in Malaysia for many years.I was alone and felt loneliness like i have never felt before and there i found friends, people who arrived at the place with the intention of taking a refuge and healing in the Buddha's teachings in the form of Zen Buddhism. This was where i truly began learning all about sitting meditation and it was also at the center that i started demanding of myself towards discovering my true nature. I have always assumed myself to be a Muslim as i was converted to Islam at the age of 12 and as it is said. once a Muslim always a Muslim. 
Being a Muslim and practicing Zen Buddhism with al its rituals of bowing and prostrating to the idols on the altar in the meditation hall was a spiritual battle in itself for me. But as one of my spiritual Instructors told me during our "Dokusan' or one on one talk with the Master session. " If you want to joint the club you will have to pay the dues." And he went on to to say that, " If you imagine yourself bowing to something then you are indeed an idol worshiper, but if you are bowing to emptiness, then there should not be any problem." Hence, with this understanding I moved on to dive into Zen Buddhism in the Soto tradition of Dogen Zenji and the American Zen Tradition of Sunryu Suzuki Roshi. I had my mini Satoris along the way and might even say that i was awakened at some point to a whole new perspective in looking at life from then on.
Zen Practice was like a 'spring cleaning of the mind' whereby mental states was fully laid out and dissected and analysed , scrutinized and let go of. The primary idea was to empty the mind of all its accumulations and to bring it into complete focus in the here and now facing what is. Zazen or sitting meditation is one of the most effective method of bringing the mind to a standstill or single pointedness. It is like watching the Astro Channel and switching from one to the next until the is no more to choose from or the mind becomes tired of the choices and gives in to silence and the emptiness within. To arrive at this state is no easy matter as some would take almost a life time of sitting and facing the wall for years of end and still not accomplish it. Essentially the key factor in sitting meditation is breath and the awareness of the breathing process. Watching thoughts rise and fall with every breath helps one to have a good sense of control over one's mental state. 
The sitting posture plays a very vital role in sitting meditation and the spine is kept into a locked position to allow for a direct flow of energy from the abdomen to the top of the head without any obstruction and this too is managed through proper breathing. To allow for a comfortable locked in position of the spine it is advisable to place a pillow or Zafu underneath one's seat which helps to raise the buttocks and push the spine upwards. This also helps to place your knees anchored squarely on the mat as you sit, solid as Mount Sumeru. Achieving the most comfortable posture while sitting is half the battle won while doing sitting meditation and this should in time become effortless.
When you enjoy your sitting meditation, you have arrived at the gates of consciousness where your experience of life becomes pure and simple with all its trappings dropped. You become one with life itself like you have suddenly found Love itself with every breath you take. Sitting meditation can bring you to the edge of your consciousness where you become one with all that is around within and without of yourself. This is the state of Satori, or Samadhi, a state of complete awakened mindfulness of being who you are.   

Right and wrong is just a sickness of my mind.

I was once a Zen student living at a Zen Buddhist Monastery at a place called Green Gulch Farm aka. Green Dragon Zen Temple, located on Star Route One along the coastal road towards Muir Beach in Marin County, California. It was one of the most memorable times of my life that saw me through some very hard times as well as moments of brilliant lightness of being. I was brought back to life after suffering a very painful illness called Pleurisy where after a Yoga practice accident my lungs were filled with liquid and i had a very hard time breathing. Although it felt like it, i knew that it was not my time to die just yet back then , but i suffered tremendous amount of pain in my chest for a month or so surviving on pain killers and my own guts to survive I willed myself to self heal and transcend my pains. This happened at Green Gulch Farm where with the help and support of the Zen Buddhist community there i fully recovered.
What bought me to this past moment in my life? I was watching and listening to Mooji giving his Satsang at Rishikesh in India at an abandoned Ashram that once was the original Ashram of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Transcendental Meditation Guru known World Wide in the sixties. In the video i noticed as in most of Mooji's Satsang Videos, there were mostly Europeans or perhaps Americans in the audience and very few locals. The veneration they give the Guruji as they call him is becoming more and more idolize and ritualistic that at times it has a negative effect on my perception of Mooji. So i ask why this is so. Why do i feel like i do when i watch a bunch of Europeans, (Whits) salivating over a spiritual teacher. Does Mooji has such a strong impact upon these 'truth seekers' to the point of idolatry. Is this going to be another fall of a spiritual leader who is riding the wave of fame and perhaps even fortune while delivering the words of healing spirituality. Only time will tell, time and how this whole Guru worship scene plays out itself.
At 'The Farm' as we used to call the Zen center at GG, there were similar groups of students who would lick the robes of their favorite teachers and nothing wrong can be done by these teachers. I have a naturally bad tendency towards these kind of situations where i would do all that is within my scheming mind to destroy such a development. It was my 'bad', I was never good at boot licking and hate to see anyone taking advantage of their position of authority in exploiting the weaker minds. I realized that in spiritual practice or learning it is the content and not the container that is of prime importance, however, I was not mindful enough to accept any wrongdoings where spiritual practice is concern and speaking of wrong doings I also realized back then that i was one of the worse Zen Student there perhaps ever was at GG Zen center. I was practically booted out of the Monastery after almost two years of residency, for being a 'disrupter', among other unspoken accusations. But my instructor on telling me this also winked his huge eyes from behind his thick glasses and said, " The temple gates is always open for you when you feel the need to return.

What good does it do?

So, what am I trying to proof with all these so called practices and spiritual quests for answers that have been everyone's mind since the dawn of time? Am I simply wasting my precious time living this moments day to day hoping to make some kind of out of this world self discovery that would revolutionize the human perception of itself on a collective scale or am I merely killing time. I have no idea myself as to what i hope to gain with all these having spent years in writing everything that comes to mind on practically a daily basis like a diary as though I am being pressured to do so by some unseen force from within me. If i am being paid for every entry i have made in to this Blog, i would by now have a comfortable income made. Unfortunately this is not to be so and every hour i spent on this computer is on my own time and expense which sadly enough creates a sense of guilt every time i dwell on the economics of the matter.
When I dropped by to say hello to my twin brother while i was visiting the East Coast last week, I was accompanied by my close friend Mohammad Rafi who played the roll of the go between as my twin and i hardly said a word to each other throughout our visit. The negative experience of my last visit to his home still lingered on making me felt so very uncomfortable to be in the presence of both my brother and his wife. My small mind kept asking, what the hell are you doing here? Like what are you trying to prove. You do not like the guy, but have no guts to let him know this to his face and yet you make the effort to pay him a call simply because he is your brother. Not only is he your brother, he is your twin, born on the same day out of the same womb. So how come there is such animosity between you that is thicker than bad blood between an Israeli and a Palestinian!? Such is, what can i say except that this in itself is one of the very reasons why I am writing and spending a good amount of my time trying to disentangle the tangle of my past. 
For what good it does, I feel a whole lot lighter than I used to with regard to my immediate family especially my two elder brothers the ones still alive. It is not an important issue anymore as far as I am concern, i visit them as it is my duty as a younger brother to do so in the eyes of my sisters and their children. Islam demands that one keeps a close tie with all family members and not break the bonds of bloodline; I was fulfilling my Muslim duty, like it or not. No sense in looking back anymore where my past is concern as i am very sure that I will end up uncovering more worms than gold in the process. There are some issues that is best left buried in the ground as there is really no solution to the negative effect they generate and nothing good really can be expected out of dwelling in them. The rights of passage between brothers has gone beyond respect and understanding between us, there is only judgement and accusations left hanging in the air. So, with deep regret I bow my way out of this unfortunate situation in my life, i say my final farewell to both of my brothers here and now.

Still trying to Wake up!

 So when you have been able to detach yourself as much as possible from the external infringements, what do you expect to happen that is worthwhile all that practice you have put into this achievement? Nada!, nothing! These is nothing to expect from whatever that you have thus far arrived at in your quest towards your liberation, your final cut from the phenomenal realm of existence that you find yourself in. You are still stuck in it like everyone else, you still are groping in the dark for that light switch that would enlighten your inner being from this realm of illusions. But all is not lost, you still have a good handle on your self determination and self expression that will keep you from fading off into oblivion where all the mediocrity ends up after having spent their allotted time on this earth.
You at the very least have learned the difference between  what is genuine and what is fake, when to strive on and when to brake; you have seen your inner face. You have come to realize that this body is not you and neither is the mind and therefore you are free to manifest as you please without any kind of expectation in return for there is none to return to. All is just moments in time expressed by the mind through the physical form and this will keep on manifesting until it is time for you to give up the physical form and the mental accumulations. Liberation is not something that will happen to you but has always been a part of you, but you have not been awaken to it for having fallen asleep in this realm of Maya, where not all that you see,touch, smell. taste or feel is what it truly is. 
How you live this life having opened up you wisdom eye and waking up to the reality that is not what you had expected is a matter of how deep a conviction you have towards your goal of self liberation. What are you trying to be free of? Why do you need to be free from this life as it is? Does death liberates you from your delusions? These are simple basic questions that a seeker asked when he or she sets out to find all that can be discovered of his or her own being-ness. The question of ,Who am I? still hangs before one's vision reminding of the original intention of this whole journey right from the day of its inception. Along the way you have floundered and fallen by the roadside or taken a deviation from the chosen path as protest of out of frustration and even despair. But you rise and you forge on along without looking back for there is not a thing to look back into; you are driven on your journey and the wheels are turning ever faster and gathering momentum as you go along heading towards that kingdom called Nirvana.
Still you look and listen to the cries of the world around you knowing fully well that there is little that you can do for what is out there but very much you can still work on with what you can achieve within. So live life if you must with all the dignity and the pride of a lion and walk this earth like a Thatagatha, the awakened Adhi Buddha, for that is truly who you are and who you aught to strive to become if you are not truly awaken to it; Become a Buddha! Pluck the Lotus of life without wetting your fingers, kindly bend to ease the burden of others along the path, pour out your spring of Compassion wherever you be and rejoice in who you truly are without counting your merits. There is not a thing to expect and nothing to gain, become at peace with this phenomenal realm but know that you are not influenced or attached to it.
If not here, where? If not Now, When? Can you let go of that which is tying you down, nailing your feet to the floor? Can you remove that which is standing in your path, can you become fluid like water and find your way through it all that obstructs your progress. Wake up! Stay Awake! 

Reflections of Friendship that has lasted.

Hashim, Master Boat builder of Pulau Duyung. He is also an expert sailor, a member of the Monsoon Cup Team for the Sultan of Terengganu. I have known him and his family for over twenty odd years now and it seems like life has not changed much for him despite his expertise in the traditional boat industry.

Only my friend Rafi, an ex-seaman with the Malaysian Maritime office knows Hashim's weaknesses! But that is his opinion and as far as i am concern i sit and watch and listen. Rafi is one of my closest friend ever since I returned to this country with my family sometime in 1998. He was originally from Penang but was married to a local and settled down in Terengganu for good.

These pictures were taken a few days back when I visited Terengganu as my elder sister was  admitted into the Hospital there. It is like a deja vu these pictures as they reminded me of my last visit here almost a year ago, we did the same routine. It seems like not much has chnaged in their lives except that we are all of us getting older and perhaps less wiser.

These are the men who has been a part of my life giving it some spice and meaning at times when i needed it. Throughout this Blog you will come across sniped of this part of my life spent among my friends on the East Coast in the State of Terengganu. 

I will meet you there....

"When you see the Buddha on the road, kill Him!" A Zen saying that implies the spirit of non attachment that is the essence of any form of spiritual practice. Islam prohibits any form of graven images in the Mosques and even the Muslim Homes. The depiction of the Prophet of Allah in any art or painting is prohibited for the same similar reason of avoiding any from of attachment towards the forms that is projected by the human mind. The images of the Buddha has today become an idol of veneration and even of worship in many parts of the Buddhist World; this is very much contrary to the teachings of Gautama. 
The  Maha Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra or the Great Wisdom Beyond Wisdom, Heart Sutra of the Buddha's teaching primarily expounds the nature of form and emptiness in this realm of phenomena of the Trikayas of the Buddha.

"Success in Spirituality Means Cultivating the Father-Son-Holy Ghost of Christianity, "Three Pure Ones" of Taoism, dharmakaya-sambhogakaya-nirmanakaya of Buddhism, and Hinduism's Brahman-Vishnu-Shiva Triumvirate. They all Refer to Mastering Fundamental Essence, Appearance and Function." MeditationExpert.com.

In this day and age of endless manifestations of forms and images that bombards our senses, we are drowned in our own inability to sieve and shield ourselves from the illusions that our mind is subjected to on a daily basis. The masters of old have laid down numerous ways of facing down this mental formations and distractions and inherent within just every religious faith are means whereby one is taught how to allow all these manifestations to bounce off one's personal consciousness. The need for silence and serenity is paramount to every religious as well as spiritual practice, this need for the attainment towards equanimity within oneself is the prop that allows for deep self realization. One has to be like the leaf of the lotus that repels water while existing in water.

In the immortal words of the Buddha, a line that has embedded into my psyche ever since i came by it. " May we exist with the purity of a lotus in muddy waters!" This image as painted by the Shakyamuni Buddha is the essence of how Buddhism helps to elevate man from this life of bondage and suffering. The Buddha is said to have later been reborn as a Lotus Born, Padmasambhava who propagated the Vajrayana Buddhism primarily in Northern India and the Himalayas countries.

In Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, in addition to worshiping Shakyamuni Buddha, they also worship Padmasambhava. It is said that Padmasambhava is the reincarnation of Shakyamuni Buddha, born eight years after the Buddha's passing. The Buddha was born of the womb and there were many things he could not teach as the founder of the orthodox teachings. Therefore, to found the esoteric teachings, he returned born of a lotus transformation. - MeditationExperts.com.

Esoteric Buddhism such as practiced in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition is not dissimilar from that of Sufism of Islam, or Chan- Zen Buddhism of China and Japan. The essence of these schools is Agnosticism, -a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.  

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing 
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.” 
― Jalaluddin Rumi