timely reminder,.. thank you

Jealousy and pride can be tricky and are difficult to recognize; they sometimes manifest as a subtle feeling of dislike. For instance, when someone tells you how great you are, you feel good about it. But then the person continues, “You are great, but he is still better.” Then a feeling of discomfort arises.  When others are praised, we do not like to hear about it. When these subtle thoughts of jealousy and pride remain unrecognized, they grow into overwhelming emotions that cling to one’s own happiness and to hostility toward others. The root of all this is the grasping at a self. Because we strongly believe in this self, we feel alarmed by everything that threatens it. When others criticize us, we get angry.

In fact, when others blame you, they cannot add a fault to you that you do not possess. When others praise you, you are not becoming a greater person because of that. Whatever others say about you does not affect your faults and qualities. Only you can see whether you have this fault or not. If you do not have the fault for which you have been accused, there is no need to be upset, since criticism does not make you have the fault. If you do have that fault for which you have been accused, then the person pointing it out to you becomes your kind teacher helping you to improve. Dzogchen Patrül Rinpoche said, “Never look at your own qualities, but never look at others’ faults. Always look at your own faults, but never look at others’ faults.”

It is important to recognize each and every subtle arising of jealousy and pride. This requires a great deal of diligence in mindfulness, as these emotions in particular are very difficult to identify. Whenever such a thought arises you must apply a method to abandon it. Ideally you eliminate it through recognition: if you have trained your mind in mindful awareness you will see the thought the moment it arises and recognize its empty nature. If you recognize this, this thought is rendered powerless. It will not affect you in one or the other way. If your mindfulness is not yet strong enough you can apply the bodhisattva approach, considering that the other person is your mother, your best friend, your child, and therefore give rise to love and compassion for them.
And if this is too difficult in a certain circumstance, you can apply the pratimoksha approach, and that is to contemplate the faults of this emotion, understanding that as a result of acting on such an emotion you will fall into the lower realms. You should apply one of these three approaches according to your mental capacity in the moment of affliction. You have to practice according to your capacity, just like a child must wear children’s clothes and an adult wears adult’s clothes. A child in an adult’s cloak would be troubled. In brief, Lord Buddha summarized, “Perfectly tame your own mind; this is the Buddha’s teaching.”

not knowing enough, more information always needed?

i have some business plans and some potential business partners, and recently, it has progressed to a stage where we are going to incorporate a company..

being an analyst, i want to know there is everything to know about my potential partners before going into an agreement with them, afterall, settting up a company together is easier, it’s the breaking up part that is messy.

i was really obsessed about whether my potential partners are of the right type.. are they honest? with integrity? diligent? clean? etc..

i really was going around in circles without a definite answer to those, and so i approached my guru, and i wanted my guru to guide me and tell me if i should go into partnership with them..

my guru came back with a very simple reply;

if your partners have the same objectives, then just have faith and learn to deal with ups and downs of being involved in businesses.. there will be ups and downs, guaranteed,.. there is no need for you to know their background that much, each people has their own dark secrets that they don’t want to let other people know.. and there is really no point in you knowing into that kind of minor detail..

it is the same with being in a relationship, being in a relationship, as long as the couple both have the same objectives, then just go with it and learn to deal with the ups and downs of being involved in a relationship..

those words are truly words of wisdom, in our age, we have learnt to disassociate ourselves from downs, we tend to want to not get involved in bad things, and can’t stand the sight of bad things, so much so that we have become control and intellectual freaks, that we have lost the ability to learn how to deal with ups and downs.. or that we have learnt that the only way to deal with bad things is to not have it in the first place? if we don’t learn how to deal with downs, and only know how to deal with downs is to not have them in the first place, then, we would devoid ourselves with more and more things in the long run!

why have we come to this point? where we only know how to deal with freaking ourselves out with the outer, but lost focus that it’s the inner that we have to learn? this self-precious ego thing is suffering!!

thanks guru.. dealing with the inner and learning how to manage myself in ups and downs of the society and relationships, and be faithful with people is more important than knowing everything there is to know..

to be on top of matters is not to know every little minute detail out there that there is to know, and be an intellectual and control freak..

to be on top of matters is simply to manage yourself well on the inner and the outer situation will then be well.

Protected: wkend acrossed towns

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

human life is unique

Every spiritual tradition has stressed that this human life is unique and has a potential that ordinarily we don’t even begin to imagine. If we miss the opportunity this life offers us for transforming ourselves, they say, it may well be an extremely long time before we have another.

Imagine a blind turtle roaming the depths of an ocean the size of the universe. Up above floats a wooden ring, tossed to and fro on the waves. Every hundred years, the turtle comes, once, to the surface. To be born a human being is said by Buddhists to be more difficult than for that turtle to surface accidentally with its head poking through the wooden ring.

And even among those who have a human birth, it is said, those who have the great good fortune to make a connection with the teachings are rare, and those who really take them to heart and embody them in their actions even rarer—as rare, in fact, “as stars in broad daylight.”

Protected: JP meets HHJP

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

reminder on love and attachment

Often it is only when people suddenly feel they are losing their partner that they realize how much they love them. Then they cling on even tighter. But the more they grasp, the more the other person escapes them, and the more fragile the relationship becomes.

So often we want happiness, but the very way we pursue it is so clumsy and unskillful that it brings only more sorrow. Usually we assume we must grasp in order to have that something that will ensure our happiness. We ask ourselves: “How can we possibly enjoy anything if we cannot own it?” How often attachment is mistaken for love!

Even when the relationship is a good one, love can be spoiled by attachment with its insecurity, possessiveness, and pride; and then when love is gone, all you have left to show for it are the “souvenirs” of love, the scars of attachment.

thanks Khenpo

Khenpo is a very qualified teacher on meditation and dharma teaching, and he was once a teacher in the famous Yarchen Gar..

He taught our visiting group from Malaysia some very high teaching, and he also taught me individually some unsurpassable teachings, and answered a few meditation questions that i had stumbled upon when i meditate…

i am truly truly very extremely grateful for his words of wisdom. i hope to visit tibet soon and meet you again..

make me feel that love is true..

i were at the airport arrival hall recently welcoming back a friend from overseas… he took a while to come out, and whilst waiting, i saw love filling up the air… true emotions that is, and i suddenly recalled what Hugh Grant mentioned in the movie, Love Actually..

“whenever i get gloomy with the state of the world, i think about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport, and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends and families welcome their arriving loved ones.”

so my dear friends, whenever you feel that sincere uncomplicated love is lacking, just imagine the scene at the airport..

while waiting, i saw people coming out hugging, displaying banners, waiting with flowers, some cried.. the one beside me hugged her mum for a few minutes! love can be, and is indeed real, fills the air, and so uncomplicated…

dinner to ashes in >72hrs

the jaws of yama strikes you out of nowhere and before you know it… without any warning.

my uncle was having dinner and chit-chatting with his usual group of friends on sunday evening, complained of some dizziness, and collapsed at a clinic.. his body will be cremated on wednesday morning. what long term planning? what far sightedness? what long term vision are we talking about here?

i’m perplexed..  just like that… in less than 72hrs… gone.

what am i doing without you?

ok, besides the subject header sounding like a westlife song, i recently bought a great book.. in fact, i have heard about this book for a while, i downloaded mp3 commentaries to this book, but nothing beats reading it in its original text, direct translation to the text and commentaries to each sloka..

i wasn’t really looking to buy this book when i entered that book shop, i was searching for a green book, the innermost essence by jigme lingpa, but i was looking around for gems, and i chanced upon it.

thank you Shantideva, for your book.. i hope i can emulate your footsteps..