I am the Universal Soul.

And so what transmigrate after you die? If you are a believer in Incarnation and trans migration of the soul or life after death, the question is what or which part of you transmigrate or lives on to another dimension of existence whatever that may be. As a Muslim or a Christian i am to believe that i will end up either in heaven or hell. Science has not really come up with any conclusive answer to this riddle as yet except for those who have declared themselves as being atheist and thus when there is no soul to speak of then there is no transmigration of the soul can take place. In essence death means the end of the physical as a whole where nothing is left to be reckoned with. In this case life is meaningless in reality as we come, eat sleep. shit and die with no trace of who we are after we are gone. We will be remembered for a while by those who knew us or for whatever deeds we left behind good or bad for posterity, but after a while we are buried into oblivion. Atoms back to atoms perhaps to be pieced together again into another mass of an entity given the correct set of circumstances like that which  had happened before; if not well...floating around in the void of space is not bad either.

But what happens to consciousness, this that is making all the observations, mental, physical and spiritual, not to mention the psychological, emotional aspects of our human attributes or characteristics. It is rather hard to imagine that all these will simply fold up and disappear as though nothing had really transpired for the past seventy to eighty years. I am no scientist and as a matter of fact detested anything to do with math or science when I was in school, but I have a very imaginative mind that can envision my life and the universe without a single equation in the mathematical sense or scientific formula to have an insight into what makes the world goes round. Being raised and exposed to the ancient texts and religious values of the East and in my adult life being exposed to scientific understandings of the West, I am more than capable of coming to my own terms of   writing my own conclusion as to how and why the universe is created or what my connection to this whole state of existence amounts to. 

I am whole, complete and perfect, strong and powerful, loving and compassionate, harmonious and happy and I can do what I will to do, so help me God. This statement is made as an affirmation to myself, my mind and my soul almost every day of my life, just so i do not forget that i am more than meets the eye even to myself. I can read and listen to all the arguments and discoveries made by religions and the sciences throughout history and accept that all are a part of my wholesomeness, complete and perfect even those thoughts and ideas that are wrong or in errors, these too are a part of who I am; I manifest these for as long as I am living and perhaps when my physical body is dead. In my universe of existence nothing is lost and nothing is gain they merely appear and disappear just like clouds in an empty sky. The basic laws of cause and effect governs all and space and time are but an illusion that my mind has created in order to coexist along with the rest of the whole while I am in this state of consciousness, this realm. this dimension of existence. 

I am the Dancing Nataraja or the Cosmic Dancer, I am the selfless being of the Buddha, I am a conglomerate of atomic particles bunched together due to various laws of physics, biology and chemistry...I am that I am. I possess the Divine Nature, the Highest state of Consciousness, the Dharmakaya Buddha Nature and I am made out of the star dust of the universe, but all in all i realize that I am this entity this soul this infinite being that has existed and will continue to exist eternally along with the rest of the universe and souls like me. Whether an Einstein or a Picasso, Vladimir Horowitz or whether an Attila the Hun or a Stalin, these are all a part and parcel of my own complete whole as manifested from my own conditioning and evolution and is still in progress as more will come to fill up the empty spaces of my consciousness to completion, until I attain self realization or enlightenment; this is who I am. I am the sum total of what the Universe is in all its aspects a complete whole As the Universe is expanding, so is my consciousness; living life itself is just the taking care of the details in this realm of my existence.

This human life is precious as it is through having this form that I can liberate myself from the bonds of ignorance and impermanence consciously, just as I know I am going to die, I know i have to do all I can to transcend death by understanding life. The great teachings of the ancient masters and the scientific discoveries of the modern day combines together to pave the way for me into my self discovery of my own immortality; my eternal Being, my Cosmic Consciousness, my Divine Nature, call it what you may, but rest assured i will not accept being dubbed as an unconscious, soulless dust in the wind lost in the ever expanding universe; I am the soul of the Universe, I am the universal soul. 





   

Atoms to atoms-Dust to dust.

What am I under an electron microscope but tiny atoms bumping around against one another in an empty space; I am nothing. At least this is what science has to say about my physical status in this universe, I exist as I am in this physical form when all the natural elements come together in a cosmic balance and connects into each o, ther to form this material body I call my own body. When God created man out of clay and water and fire and wind all fused together and blown into life by the Divine wind, He created man out of His own image and endowed man with the mind making him capable of thinking, of feeling, of emotions and with the knowledge that man's life is impermanent; man will die one day. Thus man is , the only creature on this Planet who has the knowledge of his impending doom or  to be reborn into immortality after his physical death. Science is still grappling with the question of death and man's ability to think, to feel and so forth. No doubt under the microscope i am nothing but a gathering of atoms, mentally and psychologically, spiritually and in consciousness I am still an enigma. Science will proof what i am not, but what I am is a mystery yet far beyond the reach of scientific conclusion.

Perhaps one day into the future science will declare it has unravelled the mystery of God's finest creation but it will never be the whole mystery as if the whole truth is uncovered man will have ceased to exist only atoms remains, ashes to ashes, atoms to atoms. The question is where does the soul of man fits in this whole theory? I mean there has to be a programer or a n observer to this experiment; where does the 'I' fit into the picture? 

I am manifested Energy.

The Chinese calls it Chi and the Korean and Japanese calls it Ki and Hara the Hindus calls it Prana, in Malay it is known as 'angin' or wind and we call it Energy and it is what makes us who we are for without it we are as dead as a piece of driftwood. We are a bundle or a sack of skin, flesh and bones that allows for energy to flow in and out of ourselves like a hollow reed that allows for the breath of God to flow through us to make music that soothes the world. We are the machines and tools that the Universe employs in order to express itself and manifest its intentions. When fine tuned, we can manifest a whole lot of manifestations albeit good or bad, just an electrical conduit is capable of delivering maximum amount of electricity form one source to another when there is not obstruction along the way. Hence it is in our nature that we strive for an open channel with as little obstruction as we possibly could for energy to be delivered all through our entire physical as well as mental system.

Thus it is up to each and everyone of us to fully comprehend the workings of our body and mind in relation to the whole if not rest of the universe itself. It is imperative that understand our inner workings more acutely in order to become not merely as conduits and channels but also as boosters and impulses to generate greater energy out put of energy for the universe to operate. When all of us are able to become perfect conduits, channels and vassals of energy flow. collectively we can shape the universe according to our collective intentions. We can achieve this through making sure that our consciousness is not affected by any negative obstructions, like negative psychic energies in the form of anger or envy, greed or simply laziness. We owe it to ourselves to make an effort in keeping a well maintained mind and body status that is fluid and flawless, with all the channels open to receive and deliver energies that flows within and without; it is our practice our discipline.

In the practice of Kundalini Yoga, the energy flows through seven nadis or chakras upwards and downwards these are like your valves that helps to regulate your energy levels and intensities, where each level triggers a different frequency of energy the manifests different kinds of manifestations, such as sounds and colors. In the Chinese healing method of acupuncture and acupressure each point is a valve or a circuit relay that can cause a problem if in any way obstructed and thus has to be released through the piercing of the needles or the application of the pressure and sometimes heat as in moxa treatment. In short the flow of energy in our physical system is crucial just as in the external universal system as when energy flow is faulty it can cause harm to the body like a back pain or a stomach ache or a migraine. This is why it is vital that we make it a practice to move our body in exercises such as Yoga, Tai Chi, Chigung and various other methods and techniques to ensure that our energy flow is uninterrupted, fluid and smooth. 

We need a Saviour!

Things are happening that is leading us further and further into the depth of unhappiness as a specie; humanity is on the brink of self destruction as never before. On top of the climate going haywire and the sea rising and what with all the killing and starvations all around the globe, we are looking at a bleak future, or so it seems. Here at home the political situation is not getting any better with government trying hard to balance the budget and get as much back from the robbers and thieves that had robbed the country blind. Now the trend is racial discord rising as religious mania is being aroused as a tool for getting things done in the name of development. Yes we have to move forward and create more for the well being of the nation while how we go about it is questionable. In the Buddhist view it is called creating karma to destroy karma. The Hindus are up in arms over the attack by a group of hired thugs made of Malays mostly and this is all because the temple in question is located on a piece of land belonging to the developer or so I understand from the News Media. Then some pork meat was discovered in the compound of a mosque in another state that has nothing to do with the Hindu temple incident and so the snowballing  is gathering momentum.

What is it about us humans when it comes to suffering? It seems like we cannot have enough of it. Rather than enjoy what we have we would rather go all out to turn a good thing into a load of crap. We cannot simply rest and take it easy from creating more chaos than that has already been created and what we already have we are rarely thankful for cause it is never enough. We cannot see our neighbors having more or enjoying life better than we are without accusing them of one thing or another and most of all we do not really know how to share what we have with our neighbors which makes them feel envious of what we have in the first place. It gets more and more complicated as we think about how sick we have become as a specie and by right we should be removed from this planet like a cancerous virus that is out to destroy its host. 

And we pray, yes we pray to all our Gods, Hindus, Muslims, Christians and the rest of us so that we are spared from the suffering that others are going through in other parts of the world. What a hypocrite we have become claiming that ours is the true faith while others are damned to be thrown into hell and we are willing to die in the name of our Gods, like we will be rewarded for killing or maiming our fellow man and throwing the country that is barely making it from an economic meltdown into a free for all chaos. What is it with us that we cannot collectively live out our lives to the best of our abilities with what we have and make the best out of even the worse of our situations? We are a sick society that somehow refuses to give up the very thing that is making us sick; Greed,Hate and Ignorance.

Let's go fly a Kite!

A close friend passed away today, I felt a lot of mixed feelings about myself in my relationship with others especially those who I have known do more than ten years here in Georgetown. This friend whom everyone calls Nona, passed away last night and was buried this afternoon and I did not know about it until just now, about midnight tonight. None of my other friends told me or called me about it, so I missed my chance to bid my final farewell to this man whose life I had shared over the years. I feel like i have deserted him in his finals days by not being with him in his hours of need. I will miss him now that he is gone but I also felt it was time to for him and there was nothing I could have done and worse give some false hope. My bad Perhaps I was not being compassionate enough, this is my guilt feeling of losing someone and being hopeless and helpless to do much about it. I will have to live with it. Every now and then death knocks on your neighbor's door and you are reminded that your turn is not too far away from the same knocking.

It does not take much to trigger my mind into all kinds of mental discussions when it comes to death and the same question has always presented itself, am i ready for it. The answer is as always i do not really know the answer to that but I do look forward to it when it happens. What must it feel like to be set free from this physical body, to be formless and yet to be conscious of one's beingness? To be liberated from the confines of this breathing in and out, of being trapped in a mental conditioning that is afraid of death and dying. I hope when I die, I will be accompanied by the musical score. Pandora, conducted by Hans Zimmer, in my mind's consciousness, Kitaro's. Heaven and Earth are not bad either. It is said that the sum total of your consciousness is exposed to you at your first moment of death, it is so overwhelming that it is just like a blinding light, a flash of lightning that erases all that you think of who you are and leaves you hanging in the limbo of emptiness.

Maybe so, scary to think of it, but interesting nonetheless like the vision quest of the Navajo Warrior, one can never be prepared for what one is going to encounter on the other side. Perhaps nothing, you simply ceases to be and that's it, end of story, no more traces of tell tales of who or what you once were. The 70 to 60 years of your so-called life just up and poof! Gone! It would be a great waste after all that has been shared, educated and impressed upon you, as you get to where you are on the last breath, is all for nothing.  On the other hand you could be listening to the monk or Lama's voice as he leads you from your moment of death state to the end where you reincarnate after 49 days of your Bardo state that precedes death; this is according tog the Tibetan book of the Dead. Or you could be facing the two angels of Munkar and Nakir, who are designated to ask you several questions of your faith in order to ascertain where you will end up or how you will be treated henceforth the moment the last of the last of your mourners have left your graveside; this is the Islamic view of what happens when you die. 

We will all one day end up in the Happy Hunting Ground sooner or later, and how or when it is a matter up for grabs as none can tell except when it is happening gradually, as in a sickness or through a mortal wound of being shot at or an accident. But the human mind has been preparing for this moment from the day it understood that it would one day die whether it knows it or not. Morbid as it may seem, I have never passed a day without imagining my own death and how I would ride it as it happens to me; yes to die fully conscious of the event happening and beyond. 

Can I too, like the Buddha, declare to myself, "I Am No More." 

Who is the true Malaysian?

Among the concerns that I have of late is this need for development all over the City of Georgetown and it seems like developers are having a field day trying to get more and more projects going in order to reshape the island and its landscape to look more like a Singapore or a Hong Kong. Land reclamation along the shoreline has redrawn the outline of the Island from its original shape and new condos and apartment buildings have sprouted almost everywhere you look, the skyline is no more the same. Who is going to live in those apartments you wonder, how many Penangites are there that an afford these expensive homes? What happens to the environment with so many unites of housing being built and very little done about sewage management. I get tired just thinking about it much less writing as I am quickly finding out making this post entry. But it is happening and it is happening everywhere, we are building and building more and more like there is no tomorrow, "they keep on building higher till there's no more room up there, but tell me, where do the children play...?" (Cat Stevens).

Then there is the racial bigotry and who has the right to be the citizen of the country tripping. You cannot fart the wrong direction without having someone accuse you of being a racist in this country and when all fails politically, the racial card is played to the max to win. For the past past 60 odd years we have lived alongside each other, the Malays Chinese, Indians an the rest of the ethnic groups too many to name and what have we learned? Zip! Nada! Not a bloody thing. We are still short fused when it comes to racial issues, someone is always stepping on our toes where our race is concern. No time in the history of this country are the Malays more Malays, the Chinese more Chinese and the Indians...etc. Ethnic identity has become pandemic among all the races in the country, each claiming to be better and more relevant than the other, sad, but true and getting worse. This racial bigotry is being played by the politicians from both side of the divide all along to set ablaze hatred in the effort to divide and rule or gain support. For so long as Malaysians allows for this to go on, we will know no peace as a nation.

Then there is the religious idiosyncrasies that is inherent in all the various religious denomination that makes up for this nation. Each is crying out louder than the rest from the rooftops and mountains that their faith is the true faith, that their religion is the true religion and so forth and this has been going on for ages like it will never see the end of it at least not in my lifetime and perhaps not even my children's or theirs; it is like we will never ever learn.. The rights to worship, to have temples and churches, mosques and what have you has become an on going issue since the day, God said, build me a home, now we have hundreds and thousands of God's home all over the country and ironically with a growing number of homelessness among the population, while God is seldom home. Religion has become a commodity and like racial bigotry, it has also become a potent tool for politicians  who has ran out of juices to pander their ideas. If and when all else fails, lets throw down the religious card, it never fails.

Then there is education and this is an even more confusing issue that plagues the government of the day as just everyone if not every ethnic group has an axe to grind about it. I feel very fortunate to have been among the last of the educational system that was pretty much the British standard of educational system.    

  After I left the secondary school the educational system went through some major revamping starting with the National Language as the medium of delivery.Then came the rest of the systems of education catering to the different races with the demand made such that the mother tongue is not lost and so forth, Chinese, Indian and Malay schools became the norm. While on the one hand we are screaming nationalism and devotion to one flag and one country, on the other hand we are demanding that our each and every racial identities be preserved at all cost and are willing to kill or die for it. As the saying goes, we want the pie and eat it too. No individual race in this country is willing to make the sacrifice of giving up their racial heritage and fully embrace the New Malaysian identity; it would be a lie if anyone admits to it except for those who are by birthare of mixed nationality; perhaps these are the true Malaysians.







  

Do you see what I see/

See if the experiment is making any more sense so far approaching to becoming a schizoid as I allow for my life to happen with accepting the moment to moment experiences and manifestations before me. I realize that I am nowhere near to the complete detachment of the Buddha's teachings, but suffice to say even at this distant I can already feel the effect of in the moment in space and time, to empty of your own being, to dissolve and merge into emptiness. No, I am very far from being able to give up my souls and step over to the other side just as yet, especially, fully conscious. No Sir, not I. I have a whole lot more to complete before I can call it a date, but it is happening.In small doses i am starting to see what lies beyond the veil, I am beginning to appreciate the beauty of my mind even in its impossible state. How the mind works cannot really be fully explained by any other great or small minds. The mind is the creator of all minds or better known as mental formations, no mind, no Buddha!

If you hold your breath long enough, you will change whatever mental formations thoughts. ideas and so forth in your mind at the present moment. Try to stop your regular breathing while watching  what the mind is up to. Let go of this as you blow out your breath and watch if your are still thinking of the same thing as before. Chances are that you are either in between thoughts or you simply forget what the were before you stopped breathing. This pause between two thoughts is  where you, the 'manager' can influence what kind of thoughts should arise next. As a true practitioner one would off course rather not have any more thoughts to arise for as long as possible, but the mind has its own will to exert new and more dramatic scenarios to counter this effort, I still don't have a clue as to why just yet but i kn this much, that nothing is more illusive and unpredictable than the human mind.

It takes a thief to catch a thief and so it is with the mind, To liberate the mind from incessant thinking it is necessary to employ the mind itself. By what is known as skillful means in Buddhism the mind is subdued and become subservient to the dictates of the soul or spirit or the observer, the witness, atman, call it by what name you will, cause you are it; you are not the mind nor are you the body. These are your vehicles, your tools, that which you express and project yourself and manifest your desires into the world at large. Realizing that you are the master over your faculties is a major step in the direction of self realization. Knowing that you are the charioteer and not the chariot or the horses, you are the puppeteer and not the puppets and that you pull the strings is paramount towards  becoming endowed with your inherent divinity. Most of us are fully aware of these aspects of our being, however not too many are deeply concerned in making it a belief or even a practice in our daily lives. Do you see what I see? Do you feel what I feel? Are we on the same page about who we are what we are capable of?

Life is an Experiment- I believe so.

All there is to being an enlightened being to simply realizing that you are an enlightened being and no two ways about it! You are an awakened  consciousness that is manifesting itself into the physical and the mental formations on this planetary realm of existence. This is how I see it for myself, at least. I am not saying that am an enlightened being like the Buddha or Jesus or Muhammad (PBUH), no, Sir, I am my own enlightened being. I am not saying this to be smart either, nor to endorse any form of religious or spiritual practice, nor am I trying to start any new religion. No sir, I am at the age where writing my conclusion to the experiment of this practice I call life, is paramount and before i kick the bucket it is my desire that it be know how far or how near i have come from becoming one with the whole, the Cosmos, the One, the Infinite and The Ultimate Divine Mystery some call God while others Brahman. Some call The great Spirit, while others Jehovah, but give It whatever NAME YOU MAY: TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED IS TO MERGE INTO THE COMPLETE WHOLESOMENESS OF BEING; I AM THAT, I AM, (typo error being kept.)

The sum total of my entire journey inner and outer, has been to arrive at this point of being able to say it to myself, that I am, that I am. Beyond what the mins is capable of manifesting and beyond what cna ever been imagine, there is no more doubt in this mind that it has at a point of no return, it is unleashing all that is the content of this individual DNA and spiritual unconscious realms or dimensions out into the open and it is time to write the conclusion to this lifelong experiment with life inner and outer beingness. Unravelling the mysteries of the ancient teachings from the cultures that make up the human race, I can say to myself that I 'see the light'. The wisdom the wholesomeness of being awakened being alive, and being aware of being alive; it is nothing special at all. When you can drop the mask from your face and show the real you to the world, the world looks at you differently, with a sense of awe, if not fear. That is why we all wear masks in our daily lives that we may feel secure within ourselves that the external world has no idea who we truly are! A coward at heart wears the mask of a bloodthirsty villain, a merciless soldier, or a zookeeper. The brave at heart dons the mask of a teacher, a chef or a carpenter, a priest or a pauper, even; the Brave at heart is timid and compassionate.

I shed my mask every so often, and I realize that I have done this without making too much out of this, although on looking back, I now realize that I have become conscious of wearing and dropping my masks all along. I am the call it what you may, entity that does the donning and doffing of the masks that I wear. It is the slipping in and out of one's multi-personalities that one has accumulated along the way to cope with the external stimuli of the time and circumstances the I face. Today, I was an uncle giving advice to a nephew and niece, and a father to my son and daughter, and a blogger jotting down my thoughts and feelings, trying to make sense out of the nonsense of this life. Mahatma Gandhi is said to have said that, Life is an Experiment: I believe so.

One for the road.

At  the very edge of the precipes I stood wondering if there is any more questions that need be answered or anymore unfinished business that needs to be completed; should I or should I not take this one last leap of faith into the unknown. I have traveled this road in many guises, of a father, a brother, a friend, a lover, an artist, a writer, a singer and a host of many other personas that had adopted along the way, and often I would arrive at yet another gateway that stands before me beckoning me to enter. I feel like I am standing before a Tori Gate in the Japanese mountain village about to enter into the sacred while leaving the mundane behind me. I have always wanted to make one final journey as an artist traveler before I call it quits, I would like to visit Myanmar or Burma as it used to be called. This is one country that has intrigued me, it is one of those countries that would to me be a challenge to visit in more than one way. Spiritually it is a predominantly Theravada Buddhist country and social and culturally it is quite a mystery yet as it has not really been exposed to the west as much as other Asean countries has been. If possible I would like to do a short practice period of  a Vipassana retreat at one of the monasteries there.

Oh well , I can dream and envision myself being on the road again, but whether my health and my financial status can make it happen is a matter of contention.  Today travelling without money or proper credentials is not healthy especially to countries that is still in a state of emerging from long periods of restlessness and under developed. In the late sixties my third oldest brother was sent to live in Burma as a ward to the drug lord there. My brother Gina as we used to call him was a drug dealer and one of the most wanted criminal in Penang. He was adopted and raised by the Chinese and in his young adult life became their drug dealer and loan shark collector; he was most feared by the criminal underworld or so i    was told. My brother who died some years back told me of his trip to Burma to escape from the law and how he was adopted by the drug lord Khun Sa a Shan tribal warlord who later became one of the most  feared drug trafficker in what was known as the Golden Triangle. Perhaps my late elder brother made up all these stories to brag about his exploits as a tough guy growing up among the Chinese secret societies and drug syndicates. I believe most of his stories as i was witness to a few of what happened to him in his later years and met a friend  or two of his that validated my brother's claims. I met a few Chinese who shuddered at the mention of his name  and who treated me with care and respect even though I was young then while looking for my brother. One of the things Gina had told me back then was that I should one day go to Myanmar for a visit, it is a beautiful country, however this was way back in the sixties.

So here I am, should I or should i not make this one final trip to find out? I am not as keen about visiting the holy land or going to India and visit all the ancient temples as much as i would like to catch the final glimpse of the jungles and rivers of Myanmar and savor the culture and religion of the land. As I stand on the precepes and looking into the future at this point in my life i feel like I have yet some strength and breath left to make this one final journey, as they say, one for the road.

Choose well... or it will come back to haunt you.

All good things and bad , must come to an end, as this too shall pass, nothing stays the same and nothing last forever, this the fate of man; impermanence. Clinging and hoarding on to what is is futile and a waste of good karma as what is available for one to transcend this transient realm of existence is to become enlightened and becoming enlightened means; Become light in the sense it means just that; become light To become light in its physical nature as in weight and light against dark property and in its spiritual nature of good and evil, positive and negative spiritual states. These are merely the opposites or the duality nature of the states of being or the dual thinking mind. The Buddha in His quests for answers had thoroughly  delved into this state of being and recognized it as being one of the root cause of human suffering. The mind acts in relation to what it perceives externally with a sense of choice, this or that, right or wrong, good or bad and the choice has to be made in order for the mind to process further that it is perceiving. Hence some religious practice has what is called free will, the freedom to choose.

The choice we make will have its effects and consequences and these will manifest further down the road as we progress towards our destination, whatever or wherever that may be. So you sow and so shall you reap is the dictum that is most common in most all religions. Most of human beings are oblivious to these simple equations of choice- effects-consequences- manifestations.=free will. In order that we may become more aware of the choices we make in order that we will end up with better more positive results at the end of the day, we have to get to know up close and personal of who is making these final choices; who is saying yes, this is my choice. Through intelligence and through wisdom, having experienced and made observations in the past, I make my choice this over that, it is not unlike a chess master making the choices of his moves three or four steps ahead of the game when he becomes good at it. For a Way seeking Mind, a Mind that is on the way to becoming enlightened, a mind that is free from mental and spiritual formations, free from distractions and vexations caused by the external stimuli, for this type of mind, there is no choices to be made; for this type of Mind there is no chooser.

The ultimate nature of Sunyata or the emptiness teachings of the Buddha is that that there is inherently no self to talk of, there is only a state consciousness of being and this is not subjected to the laws of cause and effect as this state of being has no form to be considered as a permanent nature. A state whereby that cannot be subjected to time and space and the causation of  time and space. This perception of the non existence of an entity called 'I', the self or the personality, is what sets apart Buddhism from most other religions even Hinduism. It is a very tough act to follow for most of those who cannot fathom the ramifications of the Buddha's teaching on this ultimate truth. For so long as there is an Individual, an identity, to be identified with, life will contain suffering...you suffer,birth, death and rebirth.

It is the I that makes the choice, that clings on to ideas and perceptions, that allows for the mind to create more and more mental formations to choose from in the course of a lifetime. It is the I that becomes blinded by the emotional states of pain and pleasure, of good and evil, it is the mind that sees itself beyond redemption other than being saved by some higher divine grace or miracle. It is the I that is lost in fear and ignorance and it is the I that acts out of self aggrandizement and wanton disregard for the well being of others. When the i becomes egotistical in nature than it is subjected to karmic consequences that had to be dealt with in the course of a lifetime or the next.  In the realm of the existential there is time and space to be content with while in the karmic realm time and space ceases to operate; shit can happen at any given moment and in any given form.  
  




    

The Way of the Sword - Miyamoto Musashi.

Shinmen Takezo or better known as Miyamoto Musashi embarked upon the journey of self discovery through wielding the katana or the long samurai sword.; he was a truth seeker to the very end of his life. Throughout his illustrious life as a student of the martial arts, Miyamoto developed his own philosophy about life depending on no one but his own determination to live despite all the challenges that could have ended his life  as a student of the samurai sword technique.  From every worthy opponent he met along his journey he learned the deeper meaning of life as a swordsman. One of his mentor was a Zen monk Takuan Osho who had him tied hanging from a tree as a punishment for killing a man and later became his spiritual guide throughout his life. Through this relationship Miyamoto was honed to the spiritual side of his nature. 

At his younger age Miyamoto was a very reckless and angry young man whose childhood days was spent growing up on his own as he was abandoned by his father. He grew up with the believe that he was dependant upon no one and nothing but his own strength and fortitude. With an unquenched anger in him he called his path with the sword as the path of carnage.In one of his most famous of battles was against the Yoshioka school in Kyoto where he had to kill a ten year old boy set up as the head of the school, a ploy to deter him from winning the fight. Heartless as it may had seemed, Miyamoto went on to become one of the most celebrated if not feared samurai in Japan.  When asked why he killed the child Miyamoto replied, 
"A swordsman cannot loose a match. As long as i killed the commander- in chief I would have been victorious even if I had died fighting later at the hands of many... to a swordsman, loosing means death."
This was the passion and commitment that Miyamoto had towards his quest to understanding his own nature. The fact that death was a constant equation in the Way of the sword the outcome justifies the means; there is only one way and that is to stay alive to Musashi Miyamoto. The Way of the swordsman in Japan was similar to that of the Way of the Gunfighter in the Old West of the American frontier and in modern days it is in the Ways of the extreme sports like the racing cars and motorcycles or the mortal combats in the ring. It is the ultimate test of human endurance and discipline. In the life of Miyamoto Musashi and the likes of him, it was walking the razor's edge between insanity and enlightenment and few in history survived to be hailed as the supreme victor of man over his dark nature and fewer still has survived to be revered as historical figures. 

Sometime in the early eighties I was introduced to the life of Miyamoto Musashi when I stumbled upon his book entitled, A Book of Five Rings." and one of the quotes from the book Musashi wrote,

 " Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the World." 

“there is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.” “Do not sleep under a roof. Carry no money or food. Go alone to places frightening to the common brand of men. Become a criminal of purpose. Be put in jail, and extricate yourself by your own wisdom.” 

― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings:  Quotes from GOOD READS.

From the life of an outcast of his village and living in the woods by himself as a child growing up, Miyamoto Musashi grew in fame to become a household name in the Japanese culture and an artist and profound thinker in human history. 

An Honor to a great Artist of my generation.

An honor to have made an acquaintance of a 75 year old master painter , educator and a although a humble and gentle man yet a very solid individual whose art works were celebrated at the Penang State Art Gallery today. The retrospective exhibition  of  Dato' Tan Hon Yin's paintings more than 70 of them covered two galleries, works that span over the years of his career and what a career it has been for this mild mannered gentleman. Ever since I first met him some year ago I felt his warmth and friendliness towards everyone he dealt with, Chinese malay or Indians. This to me is a man who is truly a Malaysian at heart and it is felt by most who has had anything to do with him. I rarely am easily taken to admire a man without finding some small fault to gripe about and very few in my life measures up to my expectation, my fault, not theirs, however Dato' Tang won my admiration. He is an inspiration and I am honored to have met this artist in my own backyard.

Most of my peers as an artist I find promotes their art in every which way they can and selling their works is a mark of success, perhaps they are right. It is my fault perhaps that i do not do enough to sell myself and make my name through making a good living as an artist and as a result i am as I am financially in need. Dato' Tang Hon Yin is one person that I know of who keeps a very low profile of his talent and great accomplishments which to me is one facet of his life that I admire; he lets his works does the promotion themselves. This is what i admire in great masters like Hokusai and the likes of him. I raise my hat to this gentleman for his lifelong accomplishment and his humility towards those who benefitted from him.      

Life has no meaning until you give it one.

After all the trials and tribulations, upon reaching the summit of the mystique mountain, after all pleasures and pain, after all that is said and done, what else is there to be experienced in this life? 

" Listen ye children of immortal bliss,
There is an infinite being that I have known,
Blazing forth like the rays of the sun.
Forever beyond darkness, 
Knowing that alone, one transcends death...
This infinite Being is who you are."
                                                        Advaita Vedanta

Or something like that, believe what you may according to your faith, but believe you must or you will allow humanity to dive into the pits worse than the animals.My personal mantra has alway been; I am Whole,
          Complete and Perfect,
          Strong and Powerful,
          Loving and Compassionate,
          Harmonious and Happy!
          I can do what I Will to do,
          So help me Lord.
For as long as i can remember I have carried this mantra within me, this affirmation  that I recite to myself every time I sit to meditate or when mind impose upon me thoughts of discord and vexations. If it works or not remains to be seen when I arrive at the final completion of my journey. This mantra I use to hone my mind if not my brain cells to work towards self realization, that I am more than just a bag of skin and bones existing in space and time, existing like a cork being buffeted down the rapids of consciousness to the ocean of reality. What is it worth or how does it benefit me as a human being? I ask myself, what have i got to loose? How does this helps towards healing myself and humanity at large and what do i hope to gain in the long run? The answers have been this whole process of  self discovery through Blogging, through daily trials and errors, through meditation and yoga, through prayers and contemplation, through the gathering knowledge and wisdom. through my relationships with others and through  the desire for liberation and enlightenment. 

I would deem this life a waste of time and breath if I have no understanding of who I truly am in the scheme of life or how i am a part and parcel of the Whole. I would consider my life  unworthy of being a member of the human specie living off the Planet like cancer cells eating away at it's host; merely a parasite. Like every human being I fully realize that I will die sooner or later, it is imminent and am I prepared to face this eventuality, perhaps like everyone else, No! The unknown that lies ahead are explained to me by numerous scriptures and revelations on one kind or another, they may be true or they may be just human imagination at its best, but they are just that, the truth is yet to be seen. Yes, fear is the key and I am afraid for what I cannot yet explain or have yet to experience first hand and out of this fear I grope for the ultimate truth and understanding failing which I have accept what has been foretold. But death is not the issue at the moment in time, not while I am still breathing and in this physical form and mental states, a the moment I have to lie my life to a completion. Before i close my account I have to make sure that it is all in balance, the good and the bad, the light and the dark etc. Before I write my conclusion to this life's experiment albeit religious or faith, scientific or philosophical, I intend to end this journey with a thorough understanding if not awakened mind of a Buddha, or as an Al insan kamil of the Prophets and Saints, short of these i have failed my experiment and perhaps in the Buddhist sense will reincarnate to the next life and return to carry on the next phase and the next.

What is the meaning of life? Life has no meaning until you give it one.      

God is Out there somewhere! Is he?

Man was created in the image of the Divine and in this most all  theistic religions concur and in Vedantic Hinduism it is even taken a step further to the declaration man is God incarnated in physical form or the Ultimate Being in Consciousness itself. This is who we are, our true nature our Birth Right, but most of man fails to see beyond his physical and mental formations and declares himself as and entity existing in form, time and space; we become who we think we are. Our thoughts and perceptions are the instruments of our Mayavic or delusional understanding of our state of being, we become enamoured by our upbringing and conditioning and through our erroneous thoughts and perceptions we manifest ourselves as 'human beings', subjected to the laws of cause and effect; the laws of karma. We have forfeited our divine nature for the impermanence and the ephemeral and transitory, we have hidden ourselves behind the veil of ignorance from seeing our true and inherent nature; our Divinity.

Through the ignorance of our inherent nature we have created the 'I', the me and the mine nature and thus causes us to become subjected to suffering in this life. In the effort to overcome this self manifested suffering we have created Gods and Deities, believe systems and religions in order to make sense out of all that we are confronted with throughout our life on this plane of existence. We create angels and demons in order to assist us and something to blame on our errors. We live ourselves in bondage at the mercy of the unknown stuck with crutches to help us stand and blinders to narrow our visions of the whole before us; we are afraid to see the larger picture of our own destiny like at the stars through a telescope. With the conception of the 'I', we have become removed from the whole state of beingness and we see the world with a dual thinking mind, the world out there and the world within. Within and without, light and dark, great and small, pain and pleasure, our lives is subjected to striving to make the right choices between opposites. This primarily the cause of our suffering, we are an entity that is subjected the laws of our own creation and not being aware that we are.

All over the world we build churches, temples and mosques calling them the House of God to satisfy our religious needs and to please our Maker and yet we commit heinous crimes against our fellow man in His name. Man women and children becomes victims to our insatiable appetites in demanding more and craving for power and dominion over others. Our God is nailed to the cross, has his abode in the Holy Lands, we perceive Him out there somewhere watching over us and making judgements over the choices we make in order that we may be judged at the end of the day and yet we lie our lives by all standards worse than the animals; we worship a new God, the God of Materialism. The teachings and wisdom of the great minds of our ancestors has lost our interest, we are in the pursuit of happiness in acquisition of fame and fortune at the expense of our fellow beings. The 'I' has become more than God in essence; I am number One, I take care of myself first. Our churches, mosques and temples are mostly empty except on special days and we have our brothers and sisters sleeping on the street for lack of a place to call homes. Our Gods out there is still watching over us to see how much more can we exist with our ignorance until we destroy ourselves remaining oblivious that we are taking our divinity to our graves with us.

I am writing as I always have done to remind myself of who I truly am for whatever good it may do, but I feel deep in me that the'Temple of the Living God is in me, not out there. With the faith in materialism man is creating his hell on earth, he has lost his divine birth right through worshipping what his mind has led him to believe. Man is living is a dream state that will end up in a nightmare that he will find hard to wake himself up from unless he wakes up to the reality and claim his inherent right as a divine entity of Love and Compassion; man is headed for a rude awakening.    

Mind Benders.

What is the imperturbable mind? This was what my first Zen Teacher, Jun Po Denis Kelly, threw at me one day while we were driving in his BMW towards Green Gulch Zen Center in Marin County California. Denis today is an Abbot of his own Zen center somewhere in the Midwest. The question or as in the Zen tradition called koan or mondo, has stuck with me over the years and although I never grappled or given it too much attention it is still there in my mind somewhere and keeps popping out every now and then to be noticed. What is the imperturbable mind or what is the immovable mountain, or what is the vast mirror-like ocean of consciousness. The Japanese Movie 'Ran' by Akira Kurosawa often comes to my mind whenever the question of the imperturbable mind arises. It is the image of the Shogun sitting on the hillside witnessing his military in action like a solid mountain, transfixed. The ability to stay still and calm amidst all that is going on around you is the most powerful expression one can have in the Zen tradition; this is meditation in action.

My mind unfortunately is still like four wild horses trying to pull a chariot while headed in four directions simultaneously. I am not a good charioteer and my mind still holds sway over my everyday activity and even in my sleep, especially in my sleep. There is such a thing as trying too hard and I am making too much effort to still my mind and as a result the mind is reciprocating likewise or more so. What is beneficial in meditation is that at least I am noticing what is happening where my mind is concern in relation to being who I am; ! am able to step away from and becoming a witness to how my mind behaves. It is a small step but I hope with more practice I can master the technique and attain to my goal of having a quiet mind if not an imperturbable mind. I would like to become a 'Mind Bender' if I could and I am far from it at the moment, but who knows with practice and persistence, I just might get the hang of it. I think magicians and mystiques are Mind Benders. We should all become Mind Benders.

  

The Pilgrim of life.

Earthquake hit Canada soon after the legalization of marijuana use in the country; ha! ha! that's what the religious minds would have it, the Gods are not happy. Joke aside, I hope not too much damage or lost of lives expected. Not like the one the hit the island of Palu Indonesia a week or two back where thousands lost their lives and homes. Italy suffered from a flooding, while back here in Penang we had a landslide incident which claimed  at least three lives so far with a handful missing. Mother nature is not too happy of late and it is understandably so witnessing all the challenges man has been throwing at her. If man were to go extinct I believe almost all other creatures would survive an live happily ever after. Maybe so, but there is hope yet for us as we see all over the world there are those who have awakened from  this nightmare that we have called life and see life for what it is. People are waking up to the changes that are needed to be made in order to elevate our human conditions from the base ignorance that we have come to accept through conditioning and the powers that be, seeking to dominate and exploit humanity for their own egotistical needs; collectively although small in numbers, they are powerful in resources.

In just about every country today these power mongers holds sway to the fate of humanity, they are like the the virus that eats out its host from within and moves on to the next and the next host through corruption and false flags. The ordinary man has become a pawn in the game of life, he is at the mercy of those that holds sway the power over him knowing or unknowingly. The conditioning of our mental formations has arrive at the most critical stage that we believe absolutely what we see or touch, hear or smell without doubt. we are being led by the nose to accept and obey laws that are meant to govern us but in actuality are meant to control; we are prisoners of our own ignorance of our own inherent nature. We are blinded from seeing the reality that is hidden behind all the shades of illusions that is being manifested to delude us. I may seem like headed towards a conspiracy theory type of reasoning, like the few leading the masses and so forth, I am not. I am talking about the lifelong conditioning that we go through from the home to the educational system, the working conditions, the cultural and the rest of it. We are a product of the conditioning since the day we were born and probably the day we die unless we are awakened from it with a self realization that  we are more than who we think ourselves to be.

It's a pilgrimage this life of ours, a journey towards being fully awakened and liberated from this yoke that has been hung around our necks. It is a pilgrimage that liberates us from being a victim to becoming a victor, from a slave to a master. We are masters of our own thoughts and consciousness, our environment and circumstances, master our own destiny and until we realize this and act on it we will our entire life be an object not the subject. This pilgrimage is dotted with pitfalls and we have to lift ourselves time and again and proceed with greater determination everytime we fall. The more you fall the more you learn to raise yourself back up and the effort of rebound every time you fall becomes your lessons not to fall. 

To become a Buddha in this lifetime.

Why do I do it or why am i doing it still? This self enquiry, self discovery, this effort to answer an age old question that man has been asking himself to no avail; what's the deal here? Have i not wasted so many hours of my time even writing it all down almost daily over the years; why? Have i gained anything out of it? have i made any significant amount of money off of it? Have I made more friends or touched the lives of many significantly through laying it all out in this manner? Perhaps it has become an addiction like most of what i have decided to undertake for myself in the past, I like to drag shit all the way to the end of time and this has been my habitual way. The question of why I am doing it was raised in my meditation at dawn this morning and I decided to let the mind dwell on the answer all out by going through all my old files and antique closets where ancient skeletons still drag their chains along the floor boards demanding release.

The call for the morning prayer came loud and clear from the nearby State Mosque but i did not answer, instead I continued to sit on my bed and dealt with my issues, God has no problem and as far as I am concern God will always reside in my heart and I have  faith in His infinite Grace and Compassion at the end of the day. Praying would only add on to my already convoluted sense of guilt and would raise more questions than answers. I imagine God laughing away at all my ignorance and I take it as a cop out to take refuge in prayer, an escape from having to find out the truth for myself. I had it in my mind that by the time I am called back to my Maker I would have most of the questions i have been grappling with answered and resolved, that i would have lightened myself of my loads of baggage; that i would be en-lightened. Further more had I prayed i would have gone back to sleep immediately after, which i usually do as in the past, taking for granted that God will handle my case; it's how my mind works, unfortunately.

Call it stubbornness, egotistical or call simply dumb and ignorant, but I am bound and determined to see this so call experiment with my life through to the end and for whatever it is worth I hope to be able to keep on my entries as things happens. Its tedious, it often is boring and senseless, but it is my way of keeping a record of my progress or regress as the case may be. I have often said to myself in the past that i would like to fully understand why i was alive in the first place before I die and this I hope will become a reality. I'd hate to think that all my effort had been in vain amounting to nothing and that i would depart this life blind as when i had arrived. What is you heartmost desire i have often been asked and my answer is always to become awakened if not enlightened in this lifetime such that I am able to share the experience with the world like the Buddha did. It is a tall order to be expecting but what else could be a higher goal than to fully come to a realization who you truly are in the course of a lifetime? If you fall short, well, get up and continuing walking what else is there to do? The path the leads to liberation of the spirit is no ordinary path; it is like walking out of a prison you yourself have erected. 

   

The Journey towards Enlightenment.

Woke up this morning with the mind unleashed, like the subconscious the strata of my consciousness decided to turn on the release valve and unload loads of toxic fumes that has been accumulating for some time now ever since i decided to take on this solitary retreat. Like bubbles rising from the fermented waste at the bottom of a bog, thoughts rose from out of nowhere to remind me of how bad a boy i was from way back when i realized that my penis has more functions than just to pee and that my hunger and thirst for self satisfaction knew no bounds and all the people that I had stepped and tromp upon and all the actions i had indulged in has caused untold pain and suffering upon others. I was and perhaps still is incorrigible as one of my friends told me. Nothing new really, these uprising of negative vibes and emotions and i have become somewhat okay with them. I pretty much shelf them back where they belong after letting them run their gamut through my sitting meditation; my ancient twisted karma as the Buddha would have called it.

I have been carrying my past negative experiences in my mind like a worn baggage, often ending up with a depression that twice in the past had caused to take my own life and failed. This has been my punitive punishment to myself and if I were a staunch believer of a certain sect of Christianity I would be whipping my with a cat o nine tails bloodied, but I do not believe in self mortification and so that is that. Through my practice and thus through my practice and discipline I have been trying to heal my splintered soul hoping against all hope that I will be able to forgive and love myself without reservation before i die. It has been a long road as long as it had taken me to walk on the dark side of my life before i made the choice to find my way back from being lost for good. I have to die before i can truly find death in this physical realm or I will die still carrying my baggage into the afterlife and God knows what lies beyond for me. It would be comfortable to accept the atheistic stance that nothing would as i would end up simply merged back into the void of non existence, but I have my doubt about that. Unfortunately I feel deep in me that I will have to answer one way or another for my past transgressions.

Who am I? This is who I am as far as my mind goes and it makes sense in as much as logical deductions goes in the realm of the spirit; as you sow, so shall you reap. What I had been sowing was pretty much weeds and hemlocks and thistles, poison ivies and poison oaks. The only way to remove these is to uproot them from my subconscious bed and till the earth thoroughly before regrowing healthy produce that can become my healing diet. This has been my effort throughout my adult life, as life that began when I decided that enough was enough. It all began when i landed at the San Francisco International Airport sometime in 1983 when i left green Bay, Wisconsin with my bag pack and a portfolio of artworks to start a new life; join a Buddhist monastery was the goal. I had left GB with a trail of good relationships that had ended in bad taste and with the money I had on me it was a one way trip. In Islam it is called a Hijrah or a change of venue if not life. I have had several of these moves which began by being moved to the East Coast of Malaysia from Penang where I frew up for 12 years and then to the US at the age of 25,married and with a child. I then moved to Alaska where I lived for two years in the Aleutian Isles, after which I made the error of moving back to Wisconsin for two years before I moved to SF where I settled down for 10 years. I then moved to Japan with my lat wife and two of my children where we lived for 3 years before I decided to return to Malaysia, another error, perhaps. After five year in the East Cost i moved back to Penang where it all began; full circle.

This too is who I am in my physical existence and impermanence has always been the characteristic of my experiences. It came o my realization that no matter where or in what culture or religious back ground i had grown up till now, I am still who I am, asking the same questions and making the same errors but moving step by step towards my destination into the unknown. my mind has not really grown in any significant ways other than that it has become more acute in seeing the ways things have manifested as I had at one time or another envisioned it to be in my distant past; the seeds i had sown are slowly but steadily grown into my own sense of reality. I have achieved many of my goals in life even if they had not really meant much to brag about, but none the less these were thoughts and ideas I have had since i was a child, to travel, to see the world, to become and artist, a writer of sorts, a spiritual mind, a father to children who were conceived, and  through my own choices of women who bore them and to last but not least to heal my own soul from so much stress and challenges; to become and enlightened being will be the crown of my existence on this earth.     

The Voice of God.-OM

Lessons to myself :

Om is the sound the Universe makes when listened to as a collective whole and it permeates all like an energy source in the form of vibration. Everyone knows this already, at least all those who cared to find out or those who has realized that there is more to life than meets the eyes. As a matter of fact there is a whole lot of syllable and words used as chants, verses from the Holy scriptures, all carry vibrational qualities of sound that reverberates throughout the Universe if not the human physical and psychic system. These sounds sends electrical impulses throughout the body and mind creating jolts of impulses and shaking loose stagnated obstructed channels where energy motion is flawed. The Chinese calls this the block of the Chi and applies acupuncture treatment among others to help with the continuing smooth flow of energy force. Om, the ancient Hindu Yogic Mantra used by the masses of devotees Hindus or otherwise today is a reverberating sound that encircles the planet with it energy force like a protective coating or blanket and acts a a protective shield against the onslaught of negative energies and forces that threatens from outside. 

I do not subscribe any meaning to the sound Om other than for what it is, simply a sound vibration originating from within me and with proper understanding and execution the benefit of its powers can be felt to manifest from within its forms least expected varying from one person to another. However the general feeling one gets from meditating on the sound of OM is one of Peace and often leading on to Bliss. Expect the unexpected or simply do not have any expectation whatsoever when one carry out this meditation, just allow for what comes to appear and disappear, arise and subside, remain just the witness. Initially the mind will insist on playing it roll of upsetting the effort one is about to perform, but the Mantra, Om is a formidable mantra not easily swept aside by mental formations or the egoic demands for attention. Mantras of any kind when utilized as a tool for meditation has its main purpose as tot silence the dual thinking mind or remove any obstructions that the ego lays down on the path. It is like a laser beam that cuts through all the veils and walls that obstructs the  meditator from seeing the light beyond. It also acts as a shield that repels all negative energy charges aimed at the meditator's consciousness as he forges forwards into the inner silence of his Being.

If and when you feel boredom or anxiety, frustration of simply negative, put your ear phones on and listen to the Chant of OM on You Tube. Yes we live in an age where there is less and less excuse we can give ourselves for not acting, for not finding ways and means to counter our negative tendencies, when it is all at our fingertips; but it is more effective if you can do it manually. Muslims have numerous words and verses to utilize such as Allah and Ar Rahman, Ar rahim and so forth; if the word Om is too much of a Hindu word. Christians have a host of verses and psalms to utilize from whil Buddhist has chants from the sutras that can be used, the Native American sings out loud while beating on the drums and dancing; man in all his shapes and forms has long since found ways and means to touch the Collective  Universal Sound and Vibration; the Voice of God.    










  

The never ending search...

To understand beyond any trace of doubt or suspicion in your heart is Right Understanding and for this to happen one has to dig deep and leave no stone untouched without fear or favor. Even if it challenges your very core of belief systems or your faith, it is imperative that you give it your utmost attention and investigate, learn and unravel any and every mystery that comes your way; it is your Divine right to do so. When your soul is in question especially when you are on your last track of your existence on this planet, it is your inherent duty to realize the truth of who or what you are before you can stand before your Maker and declare that you are a true believer and have done you homework and footwork in order to get to Him. Life is not simply the accumulation of wealth and fame, nor is it to be a blind follower of any religion or faith without having earned to right of passage towards the Divine. To remove yourself form the herd does not imply that you defy the Creator, all it is is that you are purifying your path leading up to His presence. Only in the purification of your being from all doubts and impurities is your worship of the Holy most meaningful.

Only you can purify your soul and it has to come from within you  for truth resides within and not from without. The amount of time and effort you give towards searching for the right answers is your worship and devotion towards your Maker. No amount of knowledge or revelations from the holy scriptures, no amount of reasoning or threats you may face in the quest for answers to your longing for the right way is valid until you have discovered for yourself what  the whole truth is where you are concern; they can only be the guide and the pointer of infinite possibilities that is out there for you to grapple with; the absolute truth is from within you, find it and live with it. All that you are exposed to in the form of religions, of ancient wisdom, or modern sciences are guideposts and signs to help you navigate yourself towards the ultimate truth, the truth that only you can accept as your ultimate consciousness of being who you are or what you are; you are the master of your own destiny.

I have studied almost all the religions and as much philosophies as i can in my lifetime as this Blogging has testified and I am still on the path towards my self discovery; I have laid my soul on the line taking chances that I may be in error but at the end of the day only The Lord will decide. Whether I was created in His image or that the 'I' iself does not exist, is yet to be be fully understood and assimilated, but the journey must go on towards discovering what is. Tat Tvam Asi, That Art Thou as the Vedantic philosophy prescribe and the Buddha insisted that the self does not exist and Islam holds you to fulfilling your covenant with the Lord even before you were born in to this worldly existence, the right choice is mine to make and choose I must that i will not die in vain. What is 'free will' if I allow for others to make my choice for me? Whether I am Christian a Buddhist or a Hindu, whether I am an atheist or a free thinker, I make my own choice and the choice will be ferry me across the river or sink me in the middle along the way, but it will be my choice made through thorough and intense study of who I am and why I am the way I am; life is a long process of learning and it is never too late to start even at seventy: The Divine in me is my true guide.  

    

Getting to Understand Vedanta.

Advaita Vedanta philosophy points towards each and everyone of us being Brahma or the Ultimate Consciousness of Being or God in Divinity, at least this is my understanding. How we get to this God realization is the teaching of Vedanta in essence and this is achieved primarily through, as the Buddha would have it, Right Understanding, Right Consciousness, Right Impulses and Right Perception. To understand vedanta one has to have a good sense of Insight into what is Being who we are is all about. Who am I, or what is this 'I' that we call ourselves everytime we talk about ourselves. This close identification of I to the self has to be looked into with a clear and perfect understanding before we can identify ourselves with our inherent Divinity. We have to have a clear cognition of the inner workings of our mind and consciousness, how we relate to reality as it is, The question of what is reality immediately pops up and demands explanation and clarification, but I am not going to attempt it here as it is in itself a whole chapter that most of humanity is still grappling with. I will settle for the answer that reality is relative to each and everyone of us and in a simplistic way I for now accept that my reality and someone else's can never come to meet on common ground; only perhaps at the deepest level and it will take a whole of diving to get there.

The Atman or to put it its most simplest translation, the soul, is the key to   the Advaita Vedanta; the Atman is that which Is the Supreme Being, the God Head hidden in the form of man or consciousness. Perhaps through the manifestation of an enlightened soul we can find this Divinity in essence and thus it is most rarely that we get to experience God in a lifetime as the enlightened soul is as rare as the manifestation of a Buddha or a Christ in history. The ancient Vedic and various other teachings has allowed us to catch a glimpse of what it is to become an embodiment of an enlightened soul. These souls have evolved to the point of becoming Gods in the eyes of the masses who worshipped them. The evolution of the soul or spirit through time is a primary believe in most Eastern Religions and spiritual transmigration or incarnations plays a pivotal role in understanding the teachings of Vedanta philosophy in order to make it work; a man does not wake up one day and becomes a Christ or a Buddha, they evolve on the spiritual level.

It is said that there are as many Gods as there are sentient beings, only few realize their true nature as such as most exist in ignorance of even who they are as human beings. Most who made it to a high level of understanding more often than not succumbs to becoming trapped in their self aggrandizement, egotistical self serving tendencies causing them to fail in their final moments to attain to the highest level of divinity. Through lack of faith and determination, through self doubt and lack of commitment, most  of us slides back into this cycle of existence in an effort to make right what went wrong in former lives. It takes eons of lifetime to finally attain Buddhahood or become a Deity,  so it is said and the journey began from beginningless time and the path it takes is littered with pitfalls from which one rises and falls in order to get from one level to the next; it is a journey of purification of the soul. Most of humanity is oblivious to such notions as it is beyond their grasp in understanding. Hence to most of us,  life is more or less a matter of survival, making the best of what is and than die.  

The cat that believed she is a butterfly.

Well Firby our cat found out the hard way that she is not a butterly when she fell from the twelve floor to the concrete ground below this morning. She suffered a broken front leg so far that I can tell but will see what the vet says tomorrow. When i found her missing I thought she had disappeared a few floors downstairs but i decided not to look for her to see if she returns. The I decided to leave the apartment to have my lunch and when I was on the ground floor I decided to just look around for her just incase she was splattered somewhere on the ground. I found her cowered  against one of the pillars whimpering and wet and I picked her up gently and took her back to the apartment. When we got into the apartment she slowly walked into my daughter's room and laid down in the far end corner under the bed. I left her alone as i knew she was in pain and perhaps in a shock.

Not wanting to trouble her i decided not to tell my daughter just yet, however a few minutes later my daughter called and told me that she had enough with her employer and was coming home definitely. I told her what had happened with the cat and my daughter's mind was made up that she was coming home this very afternoon. It is early in the morning now and both my daughter and her cat are asleep and I am here putting it all down in writing. Earlier I had decided to sit and meditate on my bed before i fall asleep and as i set I visualize healing the cat from where I was. I imagined her as she had always likes to do and that is sit right in front of me and demand my attention. I would stroke her and she would lay very still and then I would my hand and assume the 'Mudra' with my hands on my lap and she would leave. After sitting in this manner for a while I heard my daughter talking to the cat in her room next to mine and a few minutes later I noticed the cat limping into my roof and with great effort lept on to my bed like she always does only this time she peed on the bed in front of me. This was the first time she ever did so, I guess she was holding it back all this while after her accident having fell twelve floors and survived.



   

In defend of Ed Brown.

I found out that one of my former teachers at Green Gulch Farm Zen Community has been barred from giving anymore lectures and classes; in short he has been excommunicated from the Zen center. Edward Brown or better known as Ed, the author of several Zen related books like the Tassajara cook book and Greens cook book in which he coauthored, was found guilty of bad language and morally despicable during one of his latest class at green Gulch. I say these in such harsh words only because this is what it would take to remove a long standing ordained priest of Ed's caliber. Ed was my teacher and friend when i was doing my practice at Green Gulch and I was most indebted to him for his friendship and understanding and accepting me as who I was then without any judgement or condemnation as i was never a good student to most others there then.
Ed gave me his old robes which he said were the first he ever wore and i wore them with pride most of the time  was at GG and he invited me to his home where he cooked and entertained me in Inverness a little north of GG along the coast. At one of our Dokusan or one on one chat with the teacher I told Ed that I was a Muslim by birth and have difficult prosterating to the statue of manjushri on the altar in the Zendo. Ed told me that if i consider the statue as some object of worship I have problem, but if I can look beyond the form,at the emptiness, i might get away with it. He also added that if i were to become a member of the club, I  will have to abide by the rules of the game and I did. I survived almost two yeas at GG through his guidance and friendship and mostly his sense of humour. I never found him to be pretentious about being a Zen Master but loved and respect him for his genuine care for others and their well being. He may seemed shallow in his presentations and lectures about Zen and the everyday life but he was never boring. He gave his students a view of Zen with a touch of simplicity that accords with our modern day quirks.

The year that i entered GG Zen Community was the year that the community was recuperating from the Baker Roshi scandal where most of the activities were put on hold and GG was sliding into neglect. With the leadership of Paul Disco and a few others like Lou and Blanch Harman,Peter Rudnick and wife, Wendy Johnson, Norman Fisher and wife Kathy and the practice group of hardy students under Paul set about rebuilding the GG Zen Community. Initially one hardly found any SF Zen Center, or the City Zen Center as we knew them, visited the Gulch. I started seeing them only after we got The Farm up and running and most of those on the Board of Directors today were among those who showed up to make their appearances known. Ed Brown remained throughout our practice period as one of the Practice Teachers. GG if not the SF Zen Center itself, came back to life on account of these individuals i have mentioned, for if it had not been for them the Zen community would have been dragging their feet like Zombies in Black robes moaning and groaning over the fall of Baker Roshi.  

The Prophet of Allah has a saying which said that, when you are pointing in accusation, just remember that the four other fingers are pointing right back at you.  

The Yogic Way.

I must have watched half the videos on You Tube, listened to talks and spiritual teachings, it is like i am am taking a course in school, but mostly I watched movies. For one who is trying to empty my mind I am embarked on a mission of garbage collecting. I am feeding my mind with more junk than it can handle but that too is part of the experiment. Seeing that the mind likes to think so much, I let it take its flight of fancy and see how far it will go, like see if it will ever get overload. On top of making this Blog entries and listening to lectures on just about any given subject, watching all the movies and reading novels and serious literature, I keep in touch with as many fb friends as i can, talk my cat and keep my daughter and son motivated in their ives. I worry over little things and pt my nose where it does not belong often enough, just to see where it will all lead me to at the end of the day. The human mind, how much can it take before it blows a fuse!

However i tell myself sometimes, hey, you are becoming a good writer if nothing else on top of being and artist, of which i have put in the back burner for sometime now just to let the creative ground take a break. Doing nothing is really and actually doing more than I could have if I had kept myself busy trying to do something just to fill the time or justify that i am not lazy; I get to know myself better than I ever did and am able to fulfill a whole lot more responsibility than I thought I could. I know I might not become a Millionaire or famous like most others, but i discover more about myself that i would not have had i been pursuing life just like what is deemed the norm. Call it what you may,but I am and i feel like I am a better person in more than one way, I feel good about myself more than I have ever felt and a whole lot freer than in the past when i was charging around thinking i was free.

Doing nothing and being free from the hooks that had their hold on me mentally and physically has been an eye opener, it woke me up,  now I am ready to do something and what that may be is yet to be seen. My daughter who has been living and working in Kuala Lumpur will be returning to pick up her life where she had left it; perhaps by being away for many months now was part of the plan for my own experiment. By her returning I hope that it will give some time and space to venture out again towards he next horizon on this landscape of my journey. In the old days man venture into the mountains to find peace  and solace, to meditate and contemplate, I found my cave in this apartment living with a cat that constantly demands attention but a good companion none the less. I am glad I had brought her home as a gift for my daughter; she has been a gift for me.

My own Jihad.

About a year and a half ago when I decided to move in with my daughter into this apartment, I had made a decision not to work for a wage anymore and as a matter of fact to do nothing except whatever chores that needs to be done in and around the house. I cut off most of my relationship outside by not frequenting the places that I would normally visit and hang out and and a few simply fell apart for no apparent reason which I look at as part of the process of what i called non- doing. I realize it sounds lame to most people, an excuse or a cop out from being involved or worse yet earning a livelihood and yes I am being accused by a few who think they have me figured out. But I have persisted and now it has been more than a year as i sit here trying to make some sense out of my experiment;; the Art of Doing Nothing or the lazy man's path to enlightenment.

What i have accomplished can only be testified through my Blogging which is like my report of what had transpired day in day out. Most of what I have written are not worth the time of day but they still reflects my mental state while in dealing with such emotions like loneliness and boredom, guilt feelings and anger leading to depression. The Blog tells of days when I felt like i was losing control over my sanity and how much I wished to leave this comfort zone and become the wandering soul on the road again. On the other hand being in this state also has opened my eyes to my own strength and weaknesses and how I have overcome most without too much difficulty   through continuing my spiritual practice of looking deeper and deeper into my being, Who am I? Who or what are my enemies that stands in my path or threatened to dislodge me from my ground of  being and how do I remove these vexations. Bit by bit I am beginning to recognize the demons and the angels from within me as they play out their roles of building me up or tearing me down. I am beginning to feel a little more lighter as i realize that I am free to be who I chose to be or to become what I chose to become as i allowed for more and more of the garbage that I have accumulated throughout my life to slip away from holding me down. I am beginning to feel a small sense of being able to see through beyond this realm of illusion that my mind has been attached to and making it a reality.

I realize too most importantly that it takes time for an everlasting awakening to happen, at least for me; it happens bit by bit and often without my being aware it is happening. I learn that I have to clarify my expectations and not become greedy for the outcome of my practices. Sitting up straight and breathing is all it is and it is called meditation, nothing special; it helps to watch the mind better, is all it does. Mental formations are the major distraction that one encounters especially when the body is not being fully put to use and so doing a routine of Yoga exercises and working out with the stick and the dumbells, helps to compensate this. It does not only keeps your body in good shape but also keeps the mind from occupying your consciousness for that amount of time taken. The thing is you have to do it and do it without giving in to laziness or distractions. This is the battle you have to wage against your mind, not to give in to negative thoughts and emotions that the mind is ever setting into motion from your subconscious to your external stimuli; anything and everything that arises in your consciousness the mind will attach to it and turn it into a negativity. Being aware of this bit by bit, slowly, one becomes free from mental formations as they arises.

One day I am God and the next, I am the Devil, this is how the mind operates and I just have to be aware of what it is that I am being fed by the mind every single thought of the day. This is the battle that the Prophet of Allah talked about after having won a major battle,"The war that you have to win is the one that is within you, this is your Jihad," something to that effect.

"The best jihad is [by] the one who strives against his own self for Allah, The Mighty and Majestic."