If life is made up of a round pie and the pie itself represents 100%, then you are the one who decides the allocation of marks on the pie. What do I actually mean? Everyone naturally owns 100%, if you treasure money, you would allocate 70% to earn money and the remaining 30% to share among your family, hobbies and entertainment. In short, this means that you need to spend about 70% of time and effort on your work and sacrifice your time with your leisure and your family.
If you treasure your time with your family, you would need to sacrifice your working hours in order to spend more time on your family. Everything relies on what you give and what you take.
Hence people who equally allocate a quarter of their time onto their career, entertainment, family and society are the smartest out of all. Knowing how to give and take in life would shape a 100% complete pie.
Once, a billionaire saw a beggar taking an afternoon nap in front of his house. He went forward and asked, "Why don't you seek for a proper job?" The beggar ignored the question and asked, "Why do you work?" The billionaire replied, "I work because I wan to ear money." The beggar continued, "Then, why do you need to earn money?" The billionaire replied, "I want to live a carefree life after my retirement!" The beggar smirked and said, "Then I don't think there's a need for me to look for a job because I'm thoroughly enjoying my carefree life!"
The beggar gave up his reputation, status, family and even his pride; hence his life is naturally free from burdens which allow him to live a carefree life. However, we're definitely not implying the idea of taking up the career of a beggar. Instead what you need to do is to truly comprehend on how to 'give' away your mentality of gain and loss and to understand the idea of 'you don't need to own to enjoy'. By doing so, we can possess more compared to the beggar and at the same time live a carefree life.
The current society is very strange, everyone is discussing on how to de-stress themselves and how to lead a carefree life but still they are all immersed in their own busy lives.
During the day they occupied themselves with all the mundane tasks, such as going to work, class, meetings, working overtime and dealing with endless household chores. Finally after work, they would occupy themselves with shopping, gatherings and countless drinking sessions. When it's holiday, they would occupy themselves with outing plans, which they normally spend more time in the car instead of having fun.
When you're expecting your working hours to end, why filled your schedule with all the unnecessary social occasions? When you're expecting your holidays that allows you to relax and unwind, why filled your schedule again with countless road trips that would most likely exhaust yourself?
You work so hard to live, but you have never worked hard to lead a good life every day!
Take a look at the dog that is lazily lying under the sun sunbathing, feel the breeze that touches against your cheeks and look at the people who are idly strolling down the park, everything is so calming and relaxing. So why can't you slow down? Slow down your pace and allow your body, mind and soul to feel the ease.
I am a freelancer hence every now and then when I've earned a sufficient amount of money that could supply me for a year; I'll slow down my pace and lead a leisure and idle life for about 6 months. However, my friends could never agree with me. As time passed, they are still very into their career and when they have accumulated a significant amount of fortune, they would always plan on how to double the amount of money. Unfortunately they always ended up losing money through investment, gambling or sometimes being cheated by business partners. In the end, not only they have to bear the losses, but also have to pay their debts, eventually making themselves more miserable than I am. In some cases, those who have succeeded in their investment have to work even harder than how they normally do in order to sustain or improve their current financial status. Today, after ten years, all the friends have realized and told me, "You are smart because you know how to live life!"
Once there's a Yunnan businessman who hired a group of young Hmong porters to carry his goods to another town's market in order to run a new business. These porters are known to be economical, efficient, dedicated and hardy as they can travel for 3 days without having any rest.
However during the day, all the porters stopped moving, the businessman thought, 'Probably they have used up all their strength!' He told the porters, 'It's okay, take a good rest since everyone is tired, we can continue the journey tomorrow instead.' Surprisingly the porters replied, 'To be frank, we aren't really worn out. But since we have been in a rush for days, our souls just can't keep up with us. We are afraid that our souls might get lost in the woods, so we're sorry that we might need to slow down and wait for our souls to catch up with us.' At that instant, the businessman felt like he had a valuable life lesson.
For instance, a successful boss doesn't need to take care of every single thing instead he/she needs to give up certain things in order to be successful and responsible boss; a successful manager doesn't need to get concerned with every single detail instead he/she needs to know how to disseminate tasks. By doing so you would be able to save time and energy and yet work efficiently and happily.
I would also like to remind parents to let their children be as they are. If there are things that we aren't supposed to butt in, please refrain; if there are things that we aren't supposed to do, please refrain; if there are things that are not meant for them, it is pointless if you would to leave a great amount of inheritance for them, because in the end they would still spend it recklessly and there goes your money! You should be grateful with the fact that your kids are managing well in school. You can help them by nurturing and assisting them into their specific interest, but there's no need to send them to endless tuition classes after school just because you are afraid they might not stand a chance to shine in the society. You are not creating a conducive childhood life for your kids; instead you are creating a mentally and physically stressed environment for your kids. Moreover why put yourself through the extra financial stress that you already have?
You need to clearly differentiate what are 'need' and 'want'. Needs are life necessities, things you have to have. Wants are luxuries, things you would like to have.
Friday 2 May 2014
Thursday 1 May 2014
In a Mirror is Where We Find a Reflection of Our Appearances, but in a Heart is Where We Find a Reflection of Our Soul.
If there are no construction laborers, who is there to build your multimillion dollars house? If there are no car technicians, who is there to fix your convertible car's engine? If there are no subordinates who are willing to work diligently for you, how is it possible for you to be where you are today? If there are no farmers, who is there to provide you with food supplies? If there are no waste collectors or janitors, who are there to keep your place and environment, clean?
The world would be free from nonsensical rumors if we were to embrace everything in life with the 'impartiality' mindset. Don't you agree?
Don't let your behavior expose your inner self.
A hotel jockey said, "Normally most of the rich people pay very little tip, instead, those who are less wealthy pay more. This is because those who are afraid of the unnecessary problems that might entail if they are being known wealthy. On the contrary, those who are less wealthy pay more tip for the sake of face-saving."
A deceitful shaman told Sam that he would be encountering an inevitable mishap that might threaten his life. The shaman said, "But things might change if you fulfill God's request by donating some money to the less fortunate." However, Sam was so poor that he couldn't do anything but to expect the worst day to come.
Weeks later the day came, Sam is still living fine like every other day. The simple-minded Sam was wondering what went wrong, so he decided to pay a visit to the shaman to clarify. He asked, "Didn't you say that I would face an inevitable great mishap?"
The shaman solemnly said, "You have to be grateful to me because I have been praying to the Lord to spare your life! Without me, it would be impossible for you to fend off this great mishap!"
Sam did a little thinking and said, "If it is evitable through praying why did you say I have to donate money in the very first place?" The shaman was irritated and yelled, "Believe or not it is all up to you,but why on earth would I lie to you? It is not as if I would gain anything if I did. All I wanted to do is to help you out and now you think I am deceiving you? Get lost!"
Look! This wily shaman made everything sounds so legit. Usually it's a lie when people try too hard to make everything sound extremely convincing. If you are truly humble, there's no need for you to emphasize the fact that you are humble. If it is a fact there's no need in emphasizing it, unless it is not the truth hence you need to explain and emphasize it repeatedly, because once you tell a lie, you need ten more lies to cover the lie.
Those who talk more are the culprits!
When one did wrong, one would speak loudly to portray that they are innocent in order to cover their wrongdoings as the thief catcher is the thief.
Probably you think there's a need to explain yourself to avoid misunderstanding. But let me tell you, there's no need to do so! Because when you are right and when someone misunderstand you, it's his/her loss but definitely not yours!
There are two hunters arguing intensely over a matter and they couldn't come to a conclusion. At that moment, a Buddhist monk passed by and so both of them agreed to seek for his conviction. They have also agreed on betting over their harvest as the loser has to give up his harvest to the winner.
The hunters were arguing about whether apple grows on the tree or on the ground.
After listening to the explanation of the both, the Buddhist monk gave all the harvest to the hunter who claimed that apple grows on the ground. The hunter left happily with a load of harvests. The other hunter who claimed that apple grows on the tree was extremely furious, he exclaimed, "What's wrong with you master? Even idiots know that apple grows on tree!" The Buddhist monk replied, "If that's the case, why are you arguing with someone who is even more idiotic than an idiot? Although he took all the harvest, he is going home with a lifelong of foolishness; although you lost all your harvest, you are going home with a valuable lesson." After listening, he has dawned with the lesson and left happily.
Sometimes it is better to be kind than to be right, we do not need an intelligent mind that speaks, but a patient heart that listen.
Remember! All we need to do is to do things right, there's no need to be the 'right person'. Trouble wouldn't have existed in the very first place, if no one fights to be the 'right person'. When you are right, you needn't prove anything to be one.
Knowing how to enjoy and value 'the possession of none', as 'the possession of none' truly possessing.
When one possesses money, one fear of death; when one possesses power, one fear of losing their status.
The things you own end up owning you.
For instance, if you own a convertible car, the car you own would end up owing you because you need to service it, polish it and purchase a car insurance for it, moreover, you need to worry whether the car would be stolen or tow if it was left at an illegal parking but that's definitely not the end of your commitment towards your car, you need to spend the time and money to wash your car, to pay parking tickets, to pay car license, to pay for petrol and sometimes you might need to pay the occasional summons. So tell me, who owns who?
Let's say you don't own a car, so subways, buses, trains, and taxis are all at your service and the great thing is you needn't commit or bear any responsibility on them. This is just like possessing nothing but yet you possess it.
When you possess a good career, self-owned house, a nice convertible car, a great wife and a bunch of adorable kids, you are bound to sacrifice for every single one of them as you wouldn't be able to live a stress-free life. You would say these are all too burdensome, but aren't these what you have longed to possess?
Learn how to be content. This is like switching on torchlight in a pitch dark room. When the torchlight is your only light source, the torchlight itself seems to be able to illuminate the entire room. But when the room is already illuminated with equipped lights, the torchlight would be insignificant and no longer plays its role. The insignificance of torchlight reflects how we treasure things, when you possess more, things would become insignificant but when you possess a handful of things, the limited things you own are insignificant to you.
Back in the day, hanging out with friends in McDonalds is one of the most blissful moments. However when we dine in high-end classy restaurants now, we would make ourselves critical by complaining the dishes or the attitude of waiters/waitresses. When one possesses more, one would never be pleased because one expects the impossible.
This is also like having a monthly salary of 2000. If your employer gave you an increment of 500, you would most likely be overwhelmed. But if you earn a whopping 30,000 a month, an increment of 1000 doesn't make any difference to you, isn't it? Let's think over this, do you think you really need to possess this much in life?
The craze and desire of a consumer or in some cases shopaholic has consumed your soul. Swiping credit cards is exactly what people do in this era, spending future money or spending money that one doesn't have. All of these stem from the impulse thought of showing off branded clothes, cards, watches and what not, but in the end aren't you the one who bear for all the bills? Various banks would be hunting you down for your card debts and eventually you resort to absconding or when situation has gotten worse you resort to committing suicide.
Let me ask how long does the happiness last with merely showing off branded goods?
Ironically, all these credit card debt slaves would blame the bank officials for being inhumane in collecting debts instead of repenting on their vanities. Nowadays, politicians and the media only aim to please the people and claimed to have hear the people's voices. However, if everyone insists to be a debt slave, when a bank's debt exceeds its capital and the domino effect happens to the rest of the banks and eventually causes national financial crisis, who should we point our fingers to? When we are facing national financial crisis, don't you think if would affect the entire nation? Furthermore, would it be fair to those who lead a debt-free life to suffer with the fellow debt slaves?
Although bank officials can somehow be mean when it comes to collecting debt, are you acting humane as well? You want others to be considerate to you, but have you ever take into account the future of others and yourself?
The current society is in such a great mess. Some debt slaves would even make up absurd excuses like, "it is all because of our poor economy, which has left us with no choice to resort to." Oh people pleas come back to your senses! The well-being of a country's economy strongly relies on the nation and the government, how can you expect banks to be solely responsible for this?
Most of the people who live in a huge mansion never have the chance to enjoy what they earn due to their busy business commitments. Instead their maids are the one who enjoyed the most, they have the leisure to enjoy every single facility in the house and at times the maid really seems to be like the owner of the house rather than the actual owner. You can only sleep on one bed at a time, regardless how many beds you have; you can only wear one pair of shoes at a time, regardless how many pairs of shoes you have; you can only held onto one bag at a time, regardless how many branded bags you have so why torture yourself?
There's a billionaire who has precious luminous pearl. Because of its value, the billionaire is always afraid of theft hence he has never brought it out, besides he has also hired a team of securities to guard the pearl.
One day the billionaire wanted to show off his precious possession to a wise man, after viewing the pearl, the wise man said, "Thanks for the gift!"
The billionaire hurriedly replied, "I'm sorry but I didn't intend to give it to you!" The wise man smiled and replied, "You have allowed me to 'admire' the beauty of your pearl, isn't it equivalent to granting me a gift? Besides admiring its beauty what else can we do with a luminous pearl? You don't need to own beauty to admire beauty, isn't it?"
Wealth can't be measured by how much we possess, instead it is measured by how little we want. One who lives on needs wouldn't think that they lead a poor and miserable life; one who lives on wants would always think they lead a less wealthy life.
Take your time and ponder the meaning of your truly needs.
To be rich, is not what you have in your bank account, but what you have in your HEART
The world would be free from nonsensical rumors if we were to embrace everything in life with the 'impartiality' mindset. Don't you agree?
Don't let your behavior expose your inner self.
A hotel jockey said, "Normally most of the rich people pay very little tip, instead, those who are less wealthy pay more. This is because those who are afraid of the unnecessary problems that might entail if they are being known wealthy. On the contrary, those who are less wealthy pay more tip for the sake of face-saving."
A deceitful shaman told Sam that he would be encountering an inevitable mishap that might threaten his life. The shaman said, "But things might change if you fulfill God's request by donating some money to the less fortunate." However, Sam was so poor that he couldn't do anything but to expect the worst day to come.
Weeks later the day came, Sam is still living fine like every other day. The simple-minded Sam was wondering what went wrong, so he decided to pay a visit to the shaman to clarify. He asked, "Didn't you say that I would face an inevitable great mishap?"
The shaman solemnly said, "You have to be grateful to me because I have been praying to the Lord to spare your life! Without me, it would be impossible for you to fend off this great mishap!"
Sam did a little thinking and said, "If it is evitable through praying why did you say I have to donate money in the very first place?" The shaman was irritated and yelled, "Believe or not it is all up to you,but why on earth would I lie to you? It is not as if I would gain anything if I did. All I wanted to do is to help you out and now you think I am deceiving you? Get lost!"
Look! This wily shaman made everything sounds so legit. Usually it's a lie when people try too hard to make everything sound extremely convincing. If you are truly humble, there's no need for you to emphasize the fact that you are humble. If it is a fact there's no need in emphasizing it, unless it is not the truth hence you need to explain and emphasize it repeatedly, because once you tell a lie, you need ten more lies to cover the lie.
Those who talk more are the culprits!
When one did wrong, one would speak loudly to portray that they are innocent in order to cover their wrongdoings as the thief catcher is the thief.
Probably you think there's a need to explain yourself to avoid misunderstanding. But let me tell you, there's no need to do so! Because when you are right and when someone misunderstand you, it's his/her loss but definitely not yours!
There are two hunters arguing intensely over a matter and they couldn't come to a conclusion. At that moment, a Buddhist monk passed by and so both of them agreed to seek for his conviction. They have also agreed on betting over their harvest as the loser has to give up his harvest to the winner.
The hunters were arguing about whether apple grows on the tree or on the ground.
After listening to the explanation of the both, the Buddhist monk gave all the harvest to the hunter who claimed that apple grows on the ground. The hunter left happily with a load of harvests. The other hunter who claimed that apple grows on the tree was extremely furious, he exclaimed, "What's wrong with you master? Even idiots know that apple grows on tree!" The Buddhist monk replied, "If that's the case, why are you arguing with someone who is even more idiotic than an idiot? Although he took all the harvest, he is going home with a lifelong of foolishness; although you lost all your harvest, you are going home with a valuable lesson." After listening, he has dawned with the lesson and left happily.
Sometimes it is better to be kind than to be right, we do not need an intelligent mind that speaks, but a patient heart that listen.
Remember! All we need to do is to do things right, there's no need to be the 'right person'. Trouble wouldn't have existed in the very first place, if no one fights to be the 'right person'. When you are right, you needn't prove anything to be one.
Knowing how to enjoy and value 'the possession of none', as 'the possession of none' truly possessing.
When one possesses money, one fear of death; when one possesses power, one fear of losing their status.
The things you own end up owning you.
For instance, if you own a convertible car, the car you own would end up owing you because you need to service it, polish it and purchase a car insurance for it, moreover, you need to worry whether the car would be stolen or tow if it was left at an illegal parking but that's definitely not the end of your commitment towards your car, you need to spend the time and money to wash your car, to pay parking tickets, to pay car license, to pay for petrol and sometimes you might need to pay the occasional summons. So tell me, who owns who?
Let's say you don't own a car, so subways, buses, trains, and taxis are all at your service and the great thing is you needn't commit or bear any responsibility on them. This is just like possessing nothing but yet you possess it.
When you possess a good career, self-owned house, a nice convertible car, a great wife and a bunch of adorable kids, you are bound to sacrifice for every single one of them as you wouldn't be able to live a stress-free life. You would say these are all too burdensome, but aren't these what you have longed to possess?
Learn how to be content. This is like switching on torchlight in a pitch dark room. When the torchlight is your only light source, the torchlight itself seems to be able to illuminate the entire room. But when the room is already illuminated with equipped lights, the torchlight would be insignificant and no longer plays its role. The insignificance of torchlight reflects how we treasure things, when you possess more, things would become insignificant but when you possess a handful of things, the limited things you own are insignificant to you.
Back in the day, hanging out with friends in McDonalds is one of the most blissful moments. However when we dine in high-end classy restaurants now, we would make ourselves critical by complaining the dishes or the attitude of waiters/waitresses. When one possesses more, one would never be pleased because one expects the impossible.
This is also like having a monthly salary of 2000. If your employer gave you an increment of 500, you would most likely be overwhelmed. But if you earn a whopping 30,000 a month, an increment of 1000 doesn't make any difference to you, isn't it? Let's think over this, do you think you really need to possess this much in life?
The craze and desire of a consumer or in some cases shopaholic has consumed your soul. Swiping credit cards is exactly what people do in this era, spending future money or spending money that one doesn't have. All of these stem from the impulse thought of showing off branded clothes, cards, watches and what not, but in the end aren't you the one who bear for all the bills? Various banks would be hunting you down for your card debts and eventually you resort to absconding or when situation has gotten worse you resort to committing suicide.
Let me ask how long does the happiness last with merely showing off branded goods?
Ironically, all these credit card debt slaves would blame the bank officials for being inhumane in collecting debts instead of repenting on their vanities. Nowadays, politicians and the media only aim to please the people and claimed to have hear the people's voices. However, if everyone insists to be a debt slave, when a bank's debt exceeds its capital and the domino effect happens to the rest of the banks and eventually causes national financial crisis, who should we point our fingers to? When we are facing national financial crisis, don't you think if would affect the entire nation? Furthermore, would it be fair to those who lead a debt-free life to suffer with the fellow debt slaves?
Although bank officials can somehow be mean when it comes to collecting debt, are you acting humane as well? You want others to be considerate to you, but have you ever take into account the future of others and yourself?
The current society is in such a great mess. Some debt slaves would even make up absurd excuses like, "it is all because of our poor economy, which has left us with no choice to resort to." Oh people pleas come back to your senses! The well-being of a country's economy strongly relies on the nation and the government, how can you expect banks to be solely responsible for this?
Most of the people who live in a huge mansion never have the chance to enjoy what they earn due to their busy business commitments. Instead their maids are the one who enjoyed the most, they have the leisure to enjoy every single facility in the house and at times the maid really seems to be like the owner of the house rather than the actual owner. You can only sleep on one bed at a time, regardless how many beds you have; you can only wear one pair of shoes at a time, regardless how many pairs of shoes you have; you can only held onto one bag at a time, regardless how many branded bags you have so why torture yourself?
There's a billionaire who has precious luminous pearl. Because of its value, the billionaire is always afraid of theft hence he has never brought it out, besides he has also hired a team of securities to guard the pearl.
One day the billionaire wanted to show off his precious possession to a wise man, after viewing the pearl, the wise man said, "Thanks for the gift!"
The billionaire hurriedly replied, "I'm sorry but I didn't intend to give it to you!" The wise man smiled and replied, "You have allowed me to 'admire' the beauty of your pearl, isn't it equivalent to granting me a gift? Besides admiring its beauty what else can we do with a luminous pearl? You don't need to own beauty to admire beauty, isn't it?"
Wealth can't be measured by how much we possess, instead it is measured by how little we want. One who lives on needs wouldn't think that they lead a poor and miserable life; one who lives on wants would always think they lead a less wealthy life.
Take your time and ponder the meaning of your truly needs.
To be rich, is not what you have in your bank account, but what you have in your HEART
Monday 28 April 2014
Grant Yourself a Chance to Break Your 'Life Code'
A company is undergoing layoffs and two of the assistants of the director are listed in the laid off list. One is known as 'Destiny' and the other is 'Chance'. They were notified in advance that this would be their last month. However, both of them are known to have great working etiquette as their abilities are acknowledged by their fellow colleagues. Moreover, both of them get along well with everyone in the office, hence, the colleagues felt sorry for them.
After being notified, 'Destiny' was emotionally affected. She was unstable and started to show her temperamental side by shouting and yelling to her colleagues. Furthermore, she thought to herself, 'the company has decided to fire me anyway, what difference it makes if I put in more effort?' Since then she did all of the work-related tasks hastily and eventually caused her fellow colleagues to dislike her.
In contrary, after receiving the news, 'Chance' thought to herself, I only left one month to bid farewell to my working life and I don't think it is possible for me to seek another job in the future. I have to cherish the remaining time I have by working diligently without causing any future problem to my colleagues and also spend more time with all the fellow colleagues that have been through thick and thin with me.
One month later, 'Destiny' left the company as planned. However, 'Chance' bright and positive attitude has brought all the colleagues to pledge for her stay and eventually the director decided to let her stay and promoted her as his personal assistant.
You can only grant yourself the 'chance' to truly change your destiny by changing the value of your attitude.
Have you ever tried playing Monopoly? There are both chance and community chest (destiny) cards in it. I would decide and embrace my destiny with the 'attitude' that I opt to create 'opportunities' in life. How about you? Are you still thinking of being controlled by destiny? Are you still going to be the coward who surrenders to all the obstacles in life?
How are you supposed to totally chance the value of your attitude? There's only one way, never ever live your life by solely relying on 'the senses of your physical body'. Remember to ponder your life with your 'spirituality' by allowing your soul to entirely embrace destiny and at the same time create opportunities to change your destiny.
You would only be able to fulfill the soul's mission to mortal by doing so and eventually granting your soul freedom.
Now I have revealed everything about the universe and life, if you are still stubborn and insist on your own way, all I can say is "Suit yourself because you're on your own now!"
What does it mean to enjoy the feelings that are brought by the 'mentality of differentiation' with the soul that doesn't possess the 'mentality of differentiation'? We are human and as a human I know it is impossible to live life without any feeling or emotion.
If that's the case, we can just approach things in another method! Go ahead and 'enjoy' all the feelings that the good and bad, fortune and misfortune and happiness and pain bring.
Precisely like the aforementioned assistant 'Chance' as she enjoys every given moment. We are not supposed to determine our lives with the amount of successes and failures in life. If you have never experienced the feeling of falling out of love, how would you have the 'opportunity' to experience the elated feeling of falling in love once more? If you have never experience any pain in life, you would never have the chance to truly know the feeling of happiness.
The 921earthquake in Taiwan has also taught us the same lesson. If you have never tasted a rotten apple, you would not appreciate a fresh apple. You have to experience life to understand life. If misfortunes never happened, how would you have the chance to realize how happy and perfect your life was.
All the misfortunes in life are here to make you realize the existence of happiness, but on the contrary, all the happiness in life awaits you to discover. The only way to eliminate all the pains and misfortunes in life is to embrace them with love.
If you would live solely according to the feelings that the physical body tells, you would never ever know the true value and essence of life. Only people who live with their soul could wisely utilize the feelings that the physical body gives to live in the World with Ultimate Bliss by embracing all fortunes and misfortunes as happiness.
A true devoted monk devotes through his heart. One who knows how to enjoy life from the sou;'s perspective would be able to combine his/her heart and soul and subsequently combines it with the physical body as one. This person is truly enlighten as he/she is fully developed in the aspects of body, mind and soul. Heaven or the world with ultimate bliss is not only restricted for monk, nun or god's disciples, however, one can easily go to the 'mortal heaven' when one truly comprehends how to merge both soul and body as one.
You are helping yourself when you assist others to succeed,
You perceive yourself lowly when you look down upon others.
There's a rich minister who has a daughter. His daughter fell in love with a local farmer but he is strongly against their relationship because he despises the man's occupation as a farmer.
One day, the farmer went to the minister's house to ask for his permission to marry his daughter. The minister rudely replied, 'This is ridiculous! How would my daughter marry to a person from the lower class? Get lost and don't forget to take your dowry that doesn't worth a penny when you leave!"
The farmer went home feeling humiliated and depressed. One year later, due to natural disaster, the country was in famine. All the farmers who were able to harvest hid all their supplies, because they themselves were afraid that it wouldn't even be sufficient for them to sustain hence causing some civilians starved to death as there were no food supplies. The minister's family has also fun out of food supplies as they have been starving for days.
The situation left the farmer with no choice, so he turned up to the minister's house with buckets of rice to help the family. At that moment, the minister felt terribly ashamed and sorry, he thought to himself, "Couldn't have imagined someone who I regarded as a lowly person to save me and my family lives." The minister sincerely apologized to the farmer and consequently gives his full consent to allow the marriage between him and his daughter.
After being notified, 'Destiny' was emotionally affected. She was unstable and started to show her temperamental side by shouting and yelling to her colleagues. Furthermore, she thought to herself, 'the company has decided to fire me anyway, what difference it makes if I put in more effort?' Since then she did all of the work-related tasks hastily and eventually caused her fellow colleagues to dislike her.
In contrary, after receiving the news, 'Chance' thought to herself, I only left one month to bid farewell to my working life and I don't think it is possible for me to seek another job in the future. I have to cherish the remaining time I have by working diligently without causing any future problem to my colleagues and also spend more time with all the fellow colleagues that have been through thick and thin with me.
One month later, 'Destiny' left the company as planned. However, 'Chance' bright and positive attitude has brought all the colleagues to pledge for her stay and eventually the director decided to let her stay and promoted her as his personal assistant.
You can only grant yourself the 'chance' to truly change your destiny by changing the value of your attitude.
Have you ever tried playing Monopoly? There are both chance and community chest (destiny) cards in it. I would decide and embrace my destiny with the 'attitude' that I opt to create 'opportunities' in life. How about you? Are you still thinking of being controlled by destiny? Are you still going to be the coward who surrenders to all the obstacles in life?
How are you supposed to totally chance the value of your attitude? There's only one way, never ever live your life by solely relying on 'the senses of your physical body'. Remember to ponder your life with your 'spirituality' by allowing your soul to entirely embrace destiny and at the same time create opportunities to change your destiny.
You would only be able to fulfill the soul's mission to mortal by doing so and eventually granting your soul freedom.
Now I have revealed everything about the universe and life, if you are still stubborn and insist on your own way, all I can say is "Suit yourself because you're on your own now!"
What does it mean to enjoy the feelings that are brought by the 'mentality of differentiation' with the soul that doesn't possess the 'mentality of differentiation'? We are human and as a human I know it is impossible to live life without any feeling or emotion.
If that's the case, we can just approach things in another method! Go ahead and 'enjoy' all the feelings that the good and bad, fortune and misfortune and happiness and pain bring.
Precisely like the aforementioned assistant 'Chance' as she enjoys every given moment. We are not supposed to determine our lives with the amount of successes and failures in life. If you have never experienced the feeling of falling out of love, how would you have the 'opportunity' to experience the elated feeling of falling in love once more? If you have never experience any pain in life, you would never have the chance to truly know the feeling of happiness.
The 921earthquake in Taiwan has also taught us the same lesson. If you have never tasted a rotten apple, you would not appreciate a fresh apple. You have to experience life to understand life. If misfortunes never happened, how would you have the chance to realize how happy and perfect your life was.
All the misfortunes in life are here to make you realize the existence of happiness, but on the contrary, all the happiness in life awaits you to discover. The only way to eliminate all the pains and misfortunes in life is to embrace them with love.
If you would live solely according to the feelings that the physical body tells, you would never ever know the true value and essence of life. Only people who live with their soul could wisely utilize the feelings that the physical body gives to live in the World with Ultimate Bliss by embracing all fortunes and misfortunes as happiness.
A true devoted monk devotes through his heart. One who knows how to enjoy life from the sou;'s perspective would be able to combine his/her heart and soul and subsequently combines it with the physical body as one. This person is truly enlighten as he/she is fully developed in the aspects of body, mind and soul. Heaven or the world with ultimate bliss is not only restricted for monk, nun or god's disciples, however, one can easily go to the 'mortal heaven' when one truly comprehends how to merge both soul and body as one.
You are helping yourself when you assist others to succeed,
You perceive yourself lowly when you look down upon others.
There's a rich minister who has a daughter. His daughter fell in love with a local farmer but he is strongly against their relationship because he despises the man's occupation as a farmer.
One day, the farmer went to the minister's house to ask for his permission to marry his daughter. The minister rudely replied, 'This is ridiculous! How would my daughter marry to a person from the lower class? Get lost and don't forget to take your dowry that doesn't worth a penny when you leave!"
The farmer went home feeling humiliated and depressed. One year later, due to natural disaster, the country was in famine. All the farmers who were able to harvest hid all their supplies, because they themselves were afraid that it wouldn't even be sufficient for them to sustain hence causing some civilians starved to death as there were no food supplies. The minister's family has also fun out of food supplies as they have been starving for days.
The situation left the farmer with no choice, so he turned up to the minister's house with buckets of rice to help the family. At that moment, the minister felt terribly ashamed and sorry, he thought to himself, "Couldn't have imagined someone who I regarded as a lowly person to save me and my family lives." The minister sincerely apologized to the farmer and consequently gives his full consent to allow the marriage between him and his daughter.
Thursday 24 April 2014
'Self-Cultivation' Means to Cultivate Your Soul With 'Love' and Hence Embracing Your Spirituality
Never define 'self-cultivation' as something too specific or shallow as it encompasses all. Since we were born, we were bound to face every single obstacle in life. Therefore we have started cultivating ourselves since the day we were born.
The only difference between monks/practitioners and laymen is they are able to view life in more thorough and transparent manner thus their lifelong priority is to transform and cultivate their spirituality.
However if you have thoroughly understood self-cultivation, you would realize that everything in life could pose as an ordeal for us to cultivate ourselves. In fact, the places that we can truly cultivate ourselves are at home, office and in our very own lives.
Thus we are all practitioners. Learning how to do good instead of evil, learning how to forgive instead of keeping in the anger, learning how to fulfill your filial piety duties instead of being irresponsible and learning how to sacrifice instead of being selfish. All these practices are cultivated through your thoughts, hence these are all known as cultivated practices.
You're letting go worries and pains once you have let go of the 'mentality of differentiation'.
What you did wrong today most likely would become something right tomorrow. Things at this instant might seem bad but bad things wouldn't last forever. If things were so bad and you couldn't do anything to better the problem or you wouldn't accept the fact, think again, is it really THAT terrible?
What differences do they do to your soul with a successful career, happy marriage or relationship, loved ones are still healthy and alive and you're in good health or an unsuccessful career, unhappy marriage or relationship, losing loved ones and when your body is giving in? Think carefully, all these things have never exited before we set foot into the world. Let's say if it would to happen, all these people and things regardless whether if is good or bad would eventually come to an end when you bid farewell to the world. The same applies to your happiness and unhappiness that the 'delusional you' experienced as it would never come along when death tears you apart.
Destiny is unpredictable.
To be frank, a person who thoroughly comprehends cultivation wouldn't even bother about 'destiny'. Because they clearly know that 'destiny' merely serves as a 'tool' that poses as an ordeal to test their spirituality.
Life is merely the universe's examination hall. Those who fare badly would be doomed to the hungry ghost realm, animal realm or hell; those moderate achievers would be sent back to the world again; those who fare well would be sent to heaven to serve as deities; those top achievers would leave the rebirth cycle and become a free soul that stations at the highest realm.
Remember don't go differentiating good or bad destiny. Destiny merely serves as a tool to truly seek for your true self (soul).
What we really need is a 'chance' to change our destiny, being attached to our destiny doesn't provide us chances. We can only provide ourselves opportunity by changing 'the magnetic filed of your state of mind', thus providing you 'chances' to change your destiny.
Changing the environment is merely treating the symptom but not the cause. Treat it by changing your attitude and viewing life through your sou;, only then you would be able to face all the challenges that the destiny brings!
The only difference between monks/practitioners and laymen is they are able to view life in more thorough and transparent manner thus their lifelong priority is to transform and cultivate their spirituality.
However if you have thoroughly understood self-cultivation, you would realize that everything in life could pose as an ordeal for us to cultivate ourselves. In fact, the places that we can truly cultivate ourselves are at home, office and in our very own lives.
Thus we are all practitioners. Learning how to do good instead of evil, learning how to forgive instead of keeping in the anger, learning how to fulfill your filial piety duties instead of being irresponsible and learning how to sacrifice instead of being selfish. All these practices are cultivated through your thoughts, hence these are all known as cultivated practices.
You're letting go worries and pains once you have let go of the 'mentality of differentiation'.
What you did wrong today most likely would become something right tomorrow. Things at this instant might seem bad but bad things wouldn't last forever. If things were so bad and you couldn't do anything to better the problem or you wouldn't accept the fact, think again, is it really THAT terrible?
What differences do they do to your soul with a successful career, happy marriage or relationship, loved ones are still healthy and alive and you're in good health or an unsuccessful career, unhappy marriage or relationship, losing loved ones and when your body is giving in? Think carefully, all these things have never exited before we set foot into the world. Let's say if it would to happen, all these people and things regardless whether if is good or bad would eventually come to an end when you bid farewell to the world. The same applies to your happiness and unhappiness that the 'delusional you' experienced as it would never come along when death tears you apart.
Destiny is unpredictable.
To be frank, a person who thoroughly comprehends cultivation wouldn't even bother about 'destiny'. Because they clearly know that 'destiny' merely serves as a 'tool' that poses as an ordeal to test their spirituality.
Life is merely the universe's examination hall. Those who fare badly would be doomed to the hungry ghost realm, animal realm or hell; those moderate achievers would be sent back to the world again; those who fare well would be sent to heaven to serve as deities; those top achievers would leave the rebirth cycle and become a free soul that stations at the highest realm.
Remember don't go differentiating good or bad destiny. Destiny merely serves as a tool to truly seek for your true self (soul).
What we really need is a 'chance' to change our destiny, being attached to our destiny doesn't provide us chances. We can only provide ourselves opportunity by changing 'the magnetic filed of your state of mind', thus providing you 'chances' to change your destiny.
Changing the environment is merely treating the symptom but not the cause. Treat it by changing your attitude and viewing life through your sou;, only then you would be able to face all the challenges that the destiny brings!
Dont be a Soul Who gets Contaminated by 'Cleanliness'
We have always been saying how we must cleanse and purify our soul and how to prevent your soul from the contamination of 'cleanliness'.
One who has obsessive disorder loves things to be clean and free from germs. It would pose as an emotion 'obstacle' for them whenever there's some dirt. Especially, when they put on white outfits they would be afraid to touch every single thing around them because they are 'afraid' to dirty their clothes. You might say they are really clean, but don't you think their 'heart' has been contaminated by 'cleanliness'?
Once there's a Brahman believer who went to the Ganges River to bathe early in the morning. The Brahman believes that the Ganges River can cleanse and purify him. After bathing, he headed to the market for breakfast, while walking he accidentally bumped into a beggar. He was disgusted and shrieked, "See where you're heading to! I need to go all the way back to the Ganges River to bathe again because you made me dirty!"
The beggar replied, "All I did was briefly brushing up against you as I walked by. If the Ganges River can cleanse and purify you and I am able to de-cleanse you, then I supposed I'm even greater and more powerful than your great Ganges River."
The Sakyamuni Buddha says, "There's nothing absolutely contaminated or neither pure." The differences are made up by mankind. Bear in mind that the pristine water lily raises from the depths of a murky pond.
Many who seek to live a perfect life tend to live in an imperfect life because they want every single thing in their lives to be perfect.
They put too much emphasis on the matter to be cleansed and purified at all times hence their soul is severely polluted by everything.
A master monk and his apprentice monk are meditating in a room. Suddenly a visitor accidentally barged into the mediation room, the apprentice said, "Why did you act so heedlessly? You have interrupted our tranquil meditation." However, the master didn't move an inch when the visitor came and left. After the meditation, the master asked the apprentice, "Who interrupted you just now?" He replied, "An imprudent visitor:. The master said, "I assume it's not the visitor who has interrupted your peacefulness, instead it was the tranquility of the environment that has interrupted you."
True peacefulness can never be interrupted. There are two types of peacefulness, one is the 'environment" and another is the 'state of mind'. The appearance of the visitor proves the true peacefulness within you.
There were two monks at the river bank. One of the monks is tall and well-built whereas the other is short and petite. While they were about to cross the river, there was a young lady struggling to cross the river due to the rapid water current. The young lady noticed the well-built monk and requested the monk to help her over. The well-built monk lifted the young lady and crossed the river without any hesitation. The young lady showed her appreciation and left. For the remaining of the journey, the petite monk glared at the well-built monk in disgust. On the following day, the petite monk couldn't hold it in anymore and questioned him, "Master told us that we're not supposed to have any contact with woman! But you just lifted the lady without much thought and crossed the river yesterday!"
The well-built monk smiled and said, "My little junior! I have already 'put down' the lady once I crossed the river. But why are you still holding on to it after a whole night? I suppose your 'heart' is still not able to 'put down' the lady.
You can only seek for true tranquility by changing your state of mind.
The soul doesn't know how to differentiate; the differences come within your heart.
Being attached to everything in life itself is contamination. Because all pains in life root from attachment, when there's attachment there's the thought of gaining and losing in life, when there are gains and losses there's when pain entails.
Let's get back to the point, pain stems from gains and losses, gains and losses stem from attachment and why are we attached? Precisely! Attachment stems from differentiation.
To be frank, the culprit behind human pain is the 'mentality of differentiation'.
Since young we were being brought up to differentiate what's good and what's bad; what's long and short, what's big or small and what's good or evil.
Our society and culture have implanted the concept of women being fully responsible on household chores whereas husbands and male are responsible to make a living. The Chinese society still practices the same old belief where they perceive men to be more superior than women. When the husband cheat on the wife, she would be asked to be more open and embrace the fact because it is acceptable for man to go cheating around. However when the wife is caught cheating on the husband, the consequences are daunting. She would not only suffer from being called names, such as immodest woman, slut, whore, and countless other terrible names, besides she also suffers from being discriminated by the society due to the standard of perceiving woman.
When man checked-in to a hotel it is known as socializing, however when woman do so they would become a total immodest whore. Above all the irony, man is good for nothing if they're unsuccessful in their career, but it is a virtue when women is unsuccessful in their career.
Moreover, you expect and hope your daughter to be treated well by the in-laws after marriage, in contrary, when you have a daughter-in-law, all you think of is how she can treat you well and how must she fulfill her task as a daughter-in-law. Besides, you would expect your son to live under the same roof with you after his marriage but the irony is when you have a son-in-law, you would also wished that he would stay with you after marriage.
When your friend fell out of love, you would console them to move on; when you yourself fell out of love, everything seems to fall apart and it's like the end of the world to you. You like butterfly but you're afraid of the hairy caterpillar. You would complain how messy and filthy it is to eat ice-cream, but still you can't resist it. The very same candy looks disgusting when it's spitted out by someone else, but it is nothing close to disgusting when you salivate while eating the candy. Other's booger is extremely gross but at times you'd swallow your own booger. Why would all food become disgusting when it comes in contact with the saliva? Is it because saliva is filthy? If that's so, what are those slimy liquid in your mouth? I reckon you're filthier.
Stool sickens and disgusts you, but before it was excreted, it is inside your body and wouldn't that make you even more sickening and disgusting? Visiting the gastrologist is fine, but visiting the urologist or gynecologist makes you feel all embarrassed. Both are body organs but why would you feel this way?
I threw my fist to you in order to protect my family, consequently I became a bad person to you; but if you are one of my family members, I would become a good person. In other words, if you to become one of my family members, I would be the person who gives someone else a lesson.
Why? Precisely! All of these are all because of your 'mentality of differentiation'.
At this moment, can you feel your soul is imprisoned in your body? Your physical body has nerves, arteries, feelings, and preconceived notions that you have accumulated throughout your life that misled your soul and eventually causing you to have the 'mentality of differentiation'.
Once you have the 'mentality of differentiation', all trouble and pain would entail naturally. I like this person, I hate that person, this is delicious and that tastes awful. Even a mere outbreak of a pimple could affect your day.
Why is it so difficult for human to live through a day? This is because the world is filled with 'temptations'. 'Temptations' can only take effect when there's 'feelings' and 'feelings's stems from the 'mentality of differentiation'. If we couldn't tell the difference, we would have the same feeling at all times, hence 'temptations' can't take effect on us.
Normally when we mention about 'evil', our 'mentality of differentiation' would naturally tell us that these are bad things that bring bad luck.
Conversely, if there's no encounter of any 'evil' ordeal in life, what are the things that you can do to transform your soul? If the jerk didn't dump you, how would you have the chance to enjoy happiness as it is right now? What is good; what is bad; what is right and what is wrong?
For instance, when you're meeting someone sincerely and in terms of faithfulness you felt like you have invested all our feelings into it. However after some time, the significant other realized that there are differences in belief and perspective between both and decided to end the relationship. At this instant, you might be able to take it easily as you might swear and call him a jerk of thought of revenge and create nonsensical dramas.
But have you ever thought of putting yourself in someone else's shoes? One day if you would have to experience the same exact thing when you realized there are so many dissimilarities that you can't take the relationship anymore or if you have met a better and more suitable person and decided to end the relationship. Cast all dramas that you would have done when you were dumped to yourself, I bet you wouldn't think that you are a jerk instead you would reply by saying "You're crazy" "You're ridiculous" or "That's the reason why I want to end this relationship". this is how ridiculous human are, when they're dumped they'd call someone a jerk, when they dump someone they'd call it as a a choice.
Here's another example. A driver ran over one of your family members which caused your loved one to be paralyzed or in worst case scenario, passed away. At this very moment, you might be agitated like how those family members would do on television as you might swear, curse or beat the person up. But what if you or one of your family members is the one who did the mistake? Would you stand from the victim's family point of view and apologize by saying, "I'm sorry! I'm truly sorry about what has happened! It wasn't my intention" Although your family might be apologizing earnestly from the bottom of their heart and repent for what they have done, the victim's family still insist in swearing, cursing, or applying brutal threats. How would you feel? Wouldn't you feel the other party was being too much and you were being treated unfair? Wouldn't you feel aggrieved for you and your family members?
There's no way to clearly determine what's yes or no and what's right or wrong in life. There are two sides to every coin. If you could have used your soul to calmly and correctly to view these two sides without being influenced by any of it and embrace everything with love, you would achieve the ultimate self-cultivation and you would see the cultivated practitioner in you.
One who has obsessive disorder loves things to be clean and free from germs. It would pose as an emotion 'obstacle' for them whenever there's some dirt. Especially, when they put on white outfits they would be afraid to touch every single thing around them because they are 'afraid' to dirty their clothes. You might say they are really clean, but don't you think their 'heart' has been contaminated by 'cleanliness'?
Once there's a Brahman believer who went to the Ganges River to bathe early in the morning. The Brahman believes that the Ganges River can cleanse and purify him. After bathing, he headed to the market for breakfast, while walking he accidentally bumped into a beggar. He was disgusted and shrieked, "See where you're heading to! I need to go all the way back to the Ganges River to bathe again because you made me dirty!"
The beggar replied, "All I did was briefly brushing up against you as I walked by. If the Ganges River can cleanse and purify you and I am able to de-cleanse you, then I supposed I'm even greater and more powerful than your great Ganges River."
The Sakyamuni Buddha says, "There's nothing absolutely contaminated or neither pure." The differences are made up by mankind. Bear in mind that the pristine water lily raises from the depths of a murky pond.
Many who seek to live a perfect life tend to live in an imperfect life because they want every single thing in their lives to be perfect.
They put too much emphasis on the matter to be cleansed and purified at all times hence their soul is severely polluted by everything.
A master monk and his apprentice monk are meditating in a room. Suddenly a visitor accidentally barged into the mediation room, the apprentice said, "Why did you act so heedlessly? You have interrupted our tranquil meditation." However, the master didn't move an inch when the visitor came and left. After the meditation, the master asked the apprentice, "Who interrupted you just now?" He replied, "An imprudent visitor:. The master said, "I assume it's not the visitor who has interrupted your peacefulness, instead it was the tranquility of the environment that has interrupted you."
True peacefulness can never be interrupted. There are two types of peacefulness, one is the 'environment" and another is the 'state of mind'. The appearance of the visitor proves the true peacefulness within you.
There were two monks at the river bank. One of the monks is tall and well-built whereas the other is short and petite. While they were about to cross the river, there was a young lady struggling to cross the river due to the rapid water current. The young lady noticed the well-built monk and requested the monk to help her over. The well-built monk lifted the young lady and crossed the river without any hesitation. The young lady showed her appreciation and left. For the remaining of the journey, the petite monk glared at the well-built monk in disgust. On the following day, the petite monk couldn't hold it in anymore and questioned him, "Master told us that we're not supposed to have any contact with woman! But you just lifted the lady without much thought and crossed the river yesterday!"
The well-built monk smiled and said, "My little junior! I have already 'put down' the lady once I crossed the river. But why are you still holding on to it after a whole night? I suppose your 'heart' is still not able to 'put down' the lady.
You can only seek for true tranquility by changing your state of mind.
The soul doesn't know how to differentiate; the differences come within your heart.
Being attached to everything in life itself is contamination. Because all pains in life root from attachment, when there's attachment there's the thought of gaining and losing in life, when there are gains and losses there's when pain entails.
Let's get back to the point, pain stems from gains and losses, gains and losses stem from attachment and why are we attached? Precisely! Attachment stems from differentiation.
To be frank, the culprit behind human pain is the 'mentality of differentiation'.
Since young we were being brought up to differentiate what's good and what's bad; what's long and short, what's big or small and what's good or evil.
Our society and culture have implanted the concept of women being fully responsible on household chores whereas husbands and male are responsible to make a living. The Chinese society still practices the same old belief where they perceive men to be more superior than women. When the husband cheat on the wife, she would be asked to be more open and embrace the fact because it is acceptable for man to go cheating around. However when the wife is caught cheating on the husband, the consequences are daunting. She would not only suffer from being called names, such as immodest woman, slut, whore, and countless other terrible names, besides she also suffers from being discriminated by the society due to the standard of perceiving woman.
When man checked-in to a hotel it is known as socializing, however when woman do so they would become a total immodest whore. Above all the irony, man is good for nothing if they're unsuccessful in their career, but it is a virtue when women is unsuccessful in their career.
Moreover, you expect and hope your daughter to be treated well by the in-laws after marriage, in contrary, when you have a daughter-in-law, all you think of is how she can treat you well and how must she fulfill her task as a daughter-in-law. Besides, you would expect your son to live under the same roof with you after his marriage but the irony is when you have a son-in-law, you would also wished that he would stay with you after marriage.
When your friend fell out of love, you would console them to move on; when you yourself fell out of love, everything seems to fall apart and it's like the end of the world to you. You like butterfly but you're afraid of the hairy caterpillar. You would complain how messy and filthy it is to eat ice-cream, but still you can't resist it. The very same candy looks disgusting when it's spitted out by someone else, but it is nothing close to disgusting when you salivate while eating the candy. Other's booger is extremely gross but at times you'd swallow your own booger. Why would all food become disgusting when it comes in contact with the saliva? Is it because saliva is filthy? If that's so, what are those slimy liquid in your mouth? I reckon you're filthier.
Stool sickens and disgusts you, but before it was excreted, it is inside your body and wouldn't that make you even more sickening and disgusting? Visiting the gastrologist is fine, but visiting the urologist or gynecologist makes you feel all embarrassed. Both are body organs but why would you feel this way?
I threw my fist to you in order to protect my family, consequently I became a bad person to you; but if you are one of my family members, I would become a good person. In other words, if you to become one of my family members, I would be the person who gives someone else a lesson.
Why? Precisely! All of these are all because of your 'mentality of differentiation'.
At this moment, can you feel your soul is imprisoned in your body? Your physical body has nerves, arteries, feelings, and preconceived notions that you have accumulated throughout your life that misled your soul and eventually causing you to have the 'mentality of differentiation'.
Once you have the 'mentality of differentiation', all trouble and pain would entail naturally. I like this person, I hate that person, this is delicious and that tastes awful. Even a mere outbreak of a pimple could affect your day.
Why is it so difficult for human to live through a day? This is because the world is filled with 'temptations'. 'Temptations' can only take effect when there's 'feelings' and 'feelings's stems from the 'mentality of differentiation'. If we couldn't tell the difference, we would have the same feeling at all times, hence 'temptations' can't take effect on us.
Normally when we mention about 'evil', our 'mentality of differentiation' would naturally tell us that these are bad things that bring bad luck.
Conversely, if there's no encounter of any 'evil' ordeal in life, what are the things that you can do to transform your soul? If the jerk didn't dump you, how would you have the chance to enjoy happiness as it is right now? What is good; what is bad; what is right and what is wrong?
For instance, when you're meeting someone sincerely and in terms of faithfulness you felt like you have invested all our feelings into it. However after some time, the significant other realized that there are differences in belief and perspective between both and decided to end the relationship. At this instant, you might be able to take it easily as you might swear and call him a jerk of thought of revenge and create nonsensical dramas.
But have you ever thought of putting yourself in someone else's shoes? One day if you would have to experience the same exact thing when you realized there are so many dissimilarities that you can't take the relationship anymore or if you have met a better and more suitable person and decided to end the relationship. Cast all dramas that you would have done when you were dumped to yourself, I bet you wouldn't think that you are a jerk instead you would reply by saying "You're crazy" "You're ridiculous" or "That's the reason why I want to end this relationship". this is how ridiculous human are, when they're dumped they'd call someone a jerk, when they dump someone they'd call it as a a choice.
Here's another example. A driver ran over one of your family members which caused your loved one to be paralyzed or in worst case scenario, passed away. At this very moment, you might be agitated like how those family members would do on television as you might swear, curse or beat the person up. But what if you or one of your family members is the one who did the mistake? Would you stand from the victim's family point of view and apologize by saying, "I'm sorry! I'm truly sorry about what has happened! It wasn't my intention" Although your family might be apologizing earnestly from the bottom of their heart and repent for what they have done, the victim's family still insist in swearing, cursing, or applying brutal threats. How would you feel? Wouldn't you feel the other party was being too much and you were being treated unfair? Wouldn't you feel aggrieved for you and your family members?
There's no way to clearly determine what's yes or no and what's right or wrong in life. There are two sides to every coin. If you could have used your soul to calmly and correctly to view these two sides without being influenced by any of it and embrace everything with love, you would achieve the ultimate self-cultivation and you would see the cultivated practitioner in you.
Sunday 20 April 2014
Change the State of Mind Instead of the Environment
There's an old woman who leads a very unhappy and worrisome life. This is because she has two sons; the elder sells straw hats and the younger sells umbrella. If today's weather is good, she would be worried about her younger son who can't make profit on a sunny say; if today's weather is bad, she would be worried about her elder son who can't make any profit on a rainy day. Hence there's always a frown on her face.
One fine day, a monk passed by the old woman's hose, seeing her distress, the monk asked, "Grandma, it seems like there's something bothering you. I might be able to help you if you would like to share your problem." The old woman gladly shares her problem with the monk.
Upon listening, the monk smiled and said, " Don't worry! Let me teach you a trick. From now on, during the days when the weather is good just think about your elder son, in contrary, when it's rainy day think about your younger son. By doing so wouldn't you be happy everyday?" At the very instant, the old woman showed her smile that has been absence since ages.
It is very important to change one's state of mind. Everyone wants to make a difference in their life, but everyone would think - "things don't change if I am the only one who puts in the effort, the world can't be free from evil people!"
However if everyone could change their perspective to - "I'll just practice good starting with myself regardless of what others do, and eventually I believe that it would be a better world to live in!"
There's nothing impossible and impossible is nothing. Beethoven was deaf but still he is a renowned musician.
President Sun Yat-sen's belief - "The world belongs to all, a world with universal harmony." So what does "the world belongs to all" and "a world with universal harmony" mean?
Before civilization, there's no difference between human. The young an capable ones hunt, the others sought foods are all shared among everyone and it doesn't matter about who will take the credit for gathering the food. Moreover, no hierarchy existed as there's no difference between the tribal chief and the tribe. No surname existed as they bring up their child together and take care of the elderly together. There's no difference between whose child, parent, wife and husband are, because all they strive to do is to bear the responsibility together in the continuation of human race.
If we could have just possessed half of the mentality of the indigenous, do we still need to lock our doors when we leave the house? Do we still beed to be afraid of pickpockets and snatch thieves? Do we still need to worry about our food supply if we have lost our job?
The question is - Would "the world belongs to all" truly be realized? Impossible! Why would I say so? Because how can it possible happen if everyone believes it is impossible! Hence impossible doesn't stem from others but from your 'heart'!
If you have been failing again and again for the same thing in life as relationships never work out for you and your career life is miserable because it seems like you're never acknowledged by anyone. At the very moment, try to think whether there's a problem with your attitude and mentality.
Remember to embrace the 'bright side' of the destiny with positive energy. When sunlight shines upon you, there's only one way to see your own shadow, which is to turn your back against the sunlight.
Precisely! All you need to do is to turn yourself around and face directly into the sunlight. Remember to embrace life's 'bright side' with your soul as if would ease away most of the pains in life.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. You are not here to change the world. The world is here to change you.
One fine day, a monk passed by the old woman's hose, seeing her distress, the monk asked, "Grandma, it seems like there's something bothering you. I might be able to help you if you would like to share your problem." The old woman gladly shares her problem with the monk.
Upon listening, the monk smiled and said, " Don't worry! Let me teach you a trick. From now on, during the days when the weather is good just think about your elder son, in contrary, when it's rainy day think about your younger son. By doing so wouldn't you be happy everyday?" At the very instant, the old woman showed her smile that has been absence since ages.
It is very important to change one's state of mind. Everyone wants to make a difference in their life, but everyone would think - "things don't change if I am the only one who puts in the effort, the world can't be free from evil people!"
However if everyone could change their perspective to - "I'll just practice good starting with myself regardless of what others do, and eventually I believe that it would be a better world to live in!"
There's nothing impossible and impossible is nothing. Beethoven was deaf but still he is a renowned musician.
President Sun Yat-sen's belief - "The world belongs to all, a world with universal harmony." So what does "the world belongs to all" and "a world with universal harmony" mean?
Before civilization, there's no difference between human. The young an capable ones hunt, the others sought foods are all shared among everyone and it doesn't matter about who will take the credit for gathering the food. Moreover, no hierarchy existed as there's no difference between the tribal chief and the tribe. No surname existed as they bring up their child together and take care of the elderly together. There's no difference between whose child, parent, wife and husband are, because all they strive to do is to bear the responsibility together in the continuation of human race.
If we could have just possessed half of the mentality of the indigenous, do we still need to lock our doors when we leave the house? Do we still beed to be afraid of pickpockets and snatch thieves? Do we still need to worry about our food supply if we have lost our job?
The question is - Would "the world belongs to all" truly be realized? Impossible! Why would I say so? Because how can it possible happen if everyone believes it is impossible! Hence impossible doesn't stem from others but from your 'heart'!
If you have been failing again and again for the same thing in life as relationships never work out for you and your career life is miserable because it seems like you're never acknowledged by anyone. At the very moment, try to think whether there's a problem with your attitude and mentality.
Remember to embrace the 'bright side' of the destiny with positive energy. When sunlight shines upon you, there's only one way to see your own shadow, which is to turn your back against the sunlight.
Precisely! All you need to do is to turn yourself around and face directly into the sunlight. Remember to embrace life's 'bright side' with your soul as if would ease away most of the pains in life.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. You are not here to change the world. The world is here to change you.
Accept the Pain and Misfortune in the Past
You needn't try to forget it, instead choose to embrace it. If you want to forget a person, the more you thing of forgetting the person, the more you will think about the person. When you are about to forget the person, you have to remind yourself again that you have to forget him/her. Forgetting is remembering, because you remember you have to forget someone or something, when you constant;y remind yourself to do so, the shadows of the person of incident would reappear. Therefore the thought wouldn't disappear, instead the feeling grows stronger.
Once upon a time, a Taoist priest entered a small village and he has the power to turn sand into gold. All he need is to place sand into a normal bowl and recite a 10 minutes charm. Magically, the bowl of sand would turn into a bowl of golden sand.
Hence the locals pleaded the priest to teach them how to turn sand into gold and surprisingly the priest happily agrees to their request. The priest said, "All you need to do is not to think about gold while reciting the charm, after 10 minutes I will assure you that the sand would turn into gold." Next he taught the locals the charm and reminded them to not think about gold while reciting.
The locals joyfully recite the charm. However, they just couldn't keep their mind free from the thoughts of gold, the harder they try, the harder it is to not think about it and eventually no one could make it through for even 30 seconds. Don't believe it? Try to recite Amitabha and don't think about gold for 1 minute. I assure that you wouldn't succeed!
Therefore, don't try to forget pain and misery instead accept and embrace it! Pain and misery are merely thoughts, because they don't have any power to break you.
Life i just like a beautiful stalk of rose. Under the beautiful blossom, it is filled with thorns and these thorns are just like the people and things around us as there's always something that we're unsatisfied about others. This is known as the "Life of a Rose".
Why not open your heart to enjoy this beautiful life? For instance, some might feel their parents of their significant other is very long-winded. However, have this crossed your mind if one day they are no longer around and ll we can do is to miss and longed for their long-winded nags? There are two sides to every coin, thus use your wisdom to make out what is right and wrong in order to lead a life of a thorn-free rose.
Never ever let the cycle of life to affect yo! What does this really mean? For example, love for one that has changed things that went bad and health that deteriorates. I might be alive today but dead in the very next moment, this is so called the cycle of life. If we couldn't accept the gains and losses in life, life would be filled with struggle. Hence we must know how to let things be and understand sometimes things are not meant to be, only then we can appertain the different stages in life and eventually understand the true happiness in life.
Accept all the past misfortunes. If you still have the time and strength to complain, don't forget, this is only possible for fortunate people. Live in the moment, embrace the past misfortunes, enjoy the life as it is with obstacles and through it you would be able to vision your true happiness.
Once upon a time, a Taoist priest entered a small village and he has the power to turn sand into gold. All he need is to place sand into a normal bowl and recite a 10 minutes charm. Magically, the bowl of sand would turn into a bowl of golden sand.
Hence the locals pleaded the priest to teach them how to turn sand into gold and surprisingly the priest happily agrees to their request. The priest said, "All you need to do is not to think about gold while reciting the charm, after 10 minutes I will assure you that the sand would turn into gold." Next he taught the locals the charm and reminded them to not think about gold while reciting.
The locals joyfully recite the charm. However, they just couldn't keep their mind free from the thoughts of gold, the harder they try, the harder it is to not think about it and eventually no one could make it through for even 30 seconds. Don't believe it? Try to recite Amitabha and don't think about gold for 1 minute. I assure that you wouldn't succeed!
Therefore, don't try to forget pain and misery instead accept and embrace it! Pain and misery are merely thoughts, because they don't have any power to break you.
Life i just like a beautiful stalk of rose. Under the beautiful blossom, it is filled with thorns and these thorns are just like the people and things around us as there's always something that we're unsatisfied about others. This is known as the "Life of a Rose".
Why not open your heart to enjoy this beautiful life? For instance, some might feel their parents of their significant other is very long-winded. However, have this crossed your mind if one day they are no longer around and ll we can do is to miss and longed for their long-winded nags? There are two sides to every coin, thus use your wisdom to make out what is right and wrong in order to lead a life of a thorn-free rose.
Never ever let the cycle of life to affect yo! What does this really mean? For example, love for one that has changed things that went bad and health that deteriorates. I might be alive today but dead in the very next moment, this is so called the cycle of life. If we couldn't accept the gains and losses in life, life would be filled with struggle. Hence we must know how to let things be and understand sometimes things are not meant to be, only then we can appertain the different stages in life and eventually understand the true happiness in life.
Accept all the past misfortunes. If you still have the time and strength to complain, don't forget, this is only possible for fortunate people. Live in the moment, embrace the past misfortunes, enjoy the life as it is with obstacles and through it you would be able to vision your true happiness.
Don't Hurt Anyone. "It Only Takes a Few Seconds to Hurt People You Love and It Can Take Years to Heal or Never".
Up until this point of the story, some might say if she didn't steal for the very first time, things wouldn't have blown up like this. Others might say who has never done wrong in their life? The teacher could have just told the students that although Lyn shouldn't have to steal, it is still not nice for all of you to tease her family's financial status as you could have just shown some compassion and love by helping her out. Think about it, if you're Lyn's shoes, would you like to be teased?
If the teacher could have just asked the classmates to gather some money to buy Lyn a pencil case after she was asked to apologize, Lyn would not only feel grateful as she would understand what is sacrifice and gratefulness. Besides, it might also change her life, in the future she would influence others on what she has learned about spreading love around. Furthermore, the teacher might educate students on what does love means. Imagine this, if all the students are taught what love is, how much influence can it brings to the society?
This is the reason why our current education system is a great failure. Parents are busy with earning big bucks and hence they have no time to keep track of how their children are doing in school. Teachers only know how to fulfill the entire required syllabus and judge the students based on their academic performance; they're not even a little bothered about the importance of personality shaping.
Education is supposed to develop one's personality. However our society values success with the achievement of status and quality of life. Everyone focuses on children's academic performance rather than educating them to properly develop their personality and to live life in the correct way.
Now some might say, it would be great if someone could just let May know Lyn's past, she would probably forgive Lyn's mistake. This is exactly the message that I want to convey!
To err is human, to forgive is divine. People tend to forgive themselves easily but find it difficult to forgive others. This is because you know what's happening inside yourself but you don't know someone else's side of story.
Buddha says, "There's no person who is truly bad or evil, there's only people with 'bad habit'". Everyone is born as blank sheet or tabula rasa as there are no evil in nature, our surroundings are the ones who shape us who we are today.
In the story, the reason behind why Lyn is always the scapegoat and she has never gained any trust from others is due to the environment that she was exposed and that shaped her personality.
For instance, if you were to be brought up in the red light districts, your dad lives by drinking and visiting prostitutes daily and your mum earns from selling her body. Under this environment your values in life would be deviated and in addition to the people that you would meet under these circumstances would severely affect your behavior. As a result, your 'bad habits' that you have cultivated while growing up would be perceived as rude and improper.
This is why Buddha said, there's no person who is truly bad or evil. The so-called bad people are the ones who are severely affected by the environment that they were brought up from which caused their kind-hearted nature went bad. Eventually, they perceive things in the wrong way and do wrong. I believe everyone has 'bad habit' but most of us have no idea how it became a habit, because habits are formed unconsciously regardless they are good or bad.
If you have completely comprehended this idea, when someone did wrong to you, all you need to do is by letting down your pre-judge mental thought and try to touch the person's heart with a forgiving heart. Treat people by holding on to the belief of 'returning good for evil' as we can help people by changing their lives and we can also do ourselves a favor by eliminating hatred that brings pain and misery.
So far, what is the truth behind the story? Don't assume that Lyn's past explains the truth. We are not God, we would never know the relationship between an individual with another and it is also impossible to find out everyone's past. What I would really like to convey is - everyone makes mistakes. Making mistakes it doesn't mean you have sinned if you don't even know you have done wrong due to your bad habits.
The fact is everyone makes mistakes and everyone wishes to be forgiven. It is inevitable and you're not excluded from the joys and sorrow of meeting and departing with your loved ones and the cycle of life.
Here comes the highlight. Truth to be told all these are known fact, but why can't you just control your temper at that moment? This is because you have wasted all your strength on the thoughts of not being the one who was benefitted in the process. Thoughts are merely thoughts; it couldn't harm nor threaten your life. As if the person would really die if you hated the person so much, it doesn't actually turn out this way, isn't it? Thoughts are merely thoughts, you need not to eradicate the feeling because all you need to do is to be bystander, quietly observe the thoughts and allow it to come and leave naturally.
Not a single person could hold onto their thoughts forever, when it comes all you need to do is to be a soul of a bystander. You would come to realize that the thoughts would only affect your emotion and the time interval between transmitting the thoughts to emotion is extremely short that you wouldn't even have the time to think from the perspective of a bystander. Thus your emotion was reflected without any deep thoughts which result in incorrect judgements. This is just like a small quarrel that blows out of proportion which eventually turns into hate.
What does 'calm' mean? When others are in the midst of a fight, you would ask them to calm themselves down but why can't you do the same when you're the one who is involved? This is because you're viewing things from a bystander perspective when you asked others to calm down. You would be very objective in analyzing the problem because you're not emotionally affected, this is known as "lookers-on see most of the game".
The physical body is like a machine that specifically brings obstacles for you in life as if misleads you in perceiving that this is your true self by constantly producing various emotions. Karma! Karma! That's what we always say. Let me tell you what Karma really means. It comprises the meaning of "building up" and "obstacles". Simply put, Karma means your life is to be filled with obstacles due to the terrible habits that are developed.
For instance, your relationships always turn sour, hence in order to protect yourself from being dishearten once more, you would raise your guard by being extremely suspicious and possessive. Thus in the future even you have the chance to meet someone great, you would still mess things up due to your over suspicious and over possessive trait. These two traits are the habits that cause your life to be filled with obstacles and this is what we call Karma!
If you could have changed your habit, try to observe things wisely, clearly understand to let things be as it is and embrace the joys and sorrow of meeting and departing with your loved ones. This is because all these obstacles in life would instantly disappear into thin air if you practice perceiving things in this way. While analyzing a problem with your true self (soul), you would realize all these thoughts are nothing close to being harmful, this is provided that you're not as foolish to be concerned of it.
The only difference between saint and layman is that saint can perceive things with their true self. Laymen always perceive things negatively because they only distinguish things through the physical body. Having the thought of revenge is karma, because you're trading your happy moments with hatred.
I have never seen anything that could resolve well with an eye for an eye but I have seen many cases that end well with forgiving and embracing others' mistakes.
"Fate brought us together, fate also tear us apart." Meeting and making great ties require us to change our bad habits in order to cherish the given fate whereas bad encounter allows us to learn how to develop good habits and virtues because no pain no gain.
Just remember to let your true self (soul) to be in charge while handling problems and calmly observe the emotions or thoughts that are stirred up by your physical body. By doing so you would be able to lead a happy life.
The first line of the Heart Sutra says, "Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, when deeply practicing the Prajna-paramita, clearly saw that the five skandhas (senses) are all empty". This is to convey that the form is no other than emptiness and emptiness is no other than form. Form is exactly emptiness and vice versa. It tells us to perceive things through soul with emptiness (like Bodhisattva) and make use of your wisdom (practicing Prajna-paramita) to perceive thoughts that are produced by the five skandhas are eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. Ironically, you would come to realize the culprit behind the unhappiness is because of your own emotions, not from the person that you thought that he/she has harmed you. Hence we should keep calm at all times, regardless it's a good or bad incident. You wouldn't want yourself to get carried away and eventually end up with a sting in the tail.
You ought to be calm if you're ought to take control over your thoughts. However you have to constant;y practice. IT is acceptable to get overwhelmed with good news but remember to seek your true self when you're going through difficult times. Seize the moment before your reckless thoughts are expressed through your emotions and regain your calmness before that moment as time goes by, you would be able to seek the Bodhisattva in you.
If you want one to change for the better, praising is the best punishment.
I have never seen one truly change for the better with punishment. Most of the people refrain from doing wrong because they are afraid of the punishment that entails; it is not because they sincerely want to strive better. Especially younger children, their evil roots still exist, they are afraid of punishment hence they follow the tule. After punishment, there are indeed people who change for the better; however it is because they sincerely want to be better, and it has nothing to do with reprimanding or punishment.
Many have this mentality - "If you judge for what I have done, I'll show you what I am capable of doing." If this is what's happening, wouldn't the student behave even worse after the teacher publicly deemed him/her as bad student? The fact is many students are just less bright when they don't excel well academically which is not because they are lazy. However, once we deemed less-bright students as lazy students, they would think that it doesn't matter if they try harder since everyone stereotypes them as a lazy student. This is as if you want river water to be crystal clean despite polluting it by dumping rubbish into it every day.
Therefore, punishment doesn't work. Look at the prisoners, what did they learn from being locked up in the cell? All they have learned is to not get caught net time for the same offenses, eventually when they are released they are still the same old person who doesn't learn from mistakes and change for the better.
What should we do if others have sinned? Are we supposed to praise them for their deeds? Precisely! We should praise and encourage them, I was a chatterbox when I was in elementary and I would talk all day long regardless how much my teacher reprimands and punishes me. However everything changed when I was being elected as the disciplinary monitor, since then I have never uttered a single word during class. I strongly agree on this teacher's method of approaching, people normally heed encouragement but not punishment. Praises and encouragements drive one to perform well, because it makes them eager to perform what you are expecting. Hence don't forget if you want your loved ones to change the for the better, please praise and encourage them!
If the teacher could have just asked the classmates to gather some money to buy Lyn a pencil case after she was asked to apologize, Lyn would not only feel grateful as she would understand what is sacrifice and gratefulness. Besides, it might also change her life, in the future she would influence others on what she has learned about spreading love around. Furthermore, the teacher might educate students on what does love means. Imagine this, if all the students are taught what love is, how much influence can it brings to the society?
This is the reason why our current education system is a great failure. Parents are busy with earning big bucks and hence they have no time to keep track of how their children are doing in school. Teachers only know how to fulfill the entire required syllabus and judge the students based on their academic performance; they're not even a little bothered about the importance of personality shaping.
Education is supposed to develop one's personality. However our society values success with the achievement of status and quality of life. Everyone focuses on children's academic performance rather than educating them to properly develop their personality and to live life in the correct way.
Now some might say, it would be great if someone could just let May know Lyn's past, she would probably forgive Lyn's mistake. This is exactly the message that I want to convey!
To err is human, to forgive is divine. People tend to forgive themselves easily but find it difficult to forgive others. This is because you know what's happening inside yourself but you don't know someone else's side of story.
Buddha says, "There's no person who is truly bad or evil, there's only people with 'bad habit'". Everyone is born as blank sheet or tabula rasa as there are no evil in nature, our surroundings are the ones who shape us who we are today.
In the story, the reason behind why Lyn is always the scapegoat and she has never gained any trust from others is due to the environment that she was exposed and that shaped her personality.
For instance, if you were to be brought up in the red light districts, your dad lives by drinking and visiting prostitutes daily and your mum earns from selling her body. Under this environment your values in life would be deviated and in addition to the people that you would meet under these circumstances would severely affect your behavior. As a result, your 'bad habits' that you have cultivated while growing up would be perceived as rude and improper.
This is why Buddha said, there's no person who is truly bad or evil. The so-called bad people are the ones who are severely affected by the environment that they were brought up from which caused their kind-hearted nature went bad. Eventually, they perceive things in the wrong way and do wrong. I believe everyone has 'bad habit' but most of us have no idea how it became a habit, because habits are formed unconsciously regardless they are good or bad.
If you have completely comprehended this idea, when someone did wrong to you, all you need to do is by letting down your pre-judge mental thought and try to touch the person's heart with a forgiving heart. Treat people by holding on to the belief of 'returning good for evil' as we can help people by changing their lives and we can also do ourselves a favor by eliminating hatred that brings pain and misery.
So far, what is the truth behind the story? Don't assume that Lyn's past explains the truth. We are not God, we would never know the relationship between an individual with another and it is also impossible to find out everyone's past. What I would really like to convey is - everyone makes mistakes. Making mistakes it doesn't mean you have sinned if you don't even know you have done wrong due to your bad habits.
The fact is everyone makes mistakes and everyone wishes to be forgiven. It is inevitable and you're not excluded from the joys and sorrow of meeting and departing with your loved ones and the cycle of life.
Here comes the highlight. Truth to be told all these are known fact, but why can't you just control your temper at that moment? This is because you have wasted all your strength on the thoughts of not being the one who was benefitted in the process. Thoughts are merely thoughts; it couldn't harm nor threaten your life. As if the person would really die if you hated the person so much, it doesn't actually turn out this way, isn't it? Thoughts are merely thoughts, you need not to eradicate the feeling because all you need to do is to be bystander, quietly observe the thoughts and allow it to come and leave naturally.
Not a single person could hold onto their thoughts forever, when it comes all you need to do is to be a soul of a bystander. You would come to realize that the thoughts would only affect your emotion and the time interval between transmitting the thoughts to emotion is extremely short that you wouldn't even have the time to think from the perspective of a bystander. Thus your emotion was reflected without any deep thoughts which result in incorrect judgements. This is just like a small quarrel that blows out of proportion which eventually turns into hate.
What does 'calm' mean? When others are in the midst of a fight, you would ask them to calm themselves down but why can't you do the same when you're the one who is involved? This is because you're viewing things from a bystander perspective when you asked others to calm down. You would be very objective in analyzing the problem because you're not emotionally affected, this is known as "lookers-on see most of the game".
The physical body is like a machine that specifically brings obstacles for you in life as if misleads you in perceiving that this is your true self by constantly producing various emotions. Karma! Karma! That's what we always say. Let me tell you what Karma really means. It comprises the meaning of "building up" and "obstacles". Simply put, Karma means your life is to be filled with obstacles due to the terrible habits that are developed.
For instance, your relationships always turn sour, hence in order to protect yourself from being dishearten once more, you would raise your guard by being extremely suspicious and possessive. Thus in the future even you have the chance to meet someone great, you would still mess things up due to your over suspicious and over possessive trait. These two traits are the habits that cause your life to be filled with obstacles and this is what we call Karma!
If you could have changed your habit, try to observe things wisely, clearly understand to let things be as it is and embrace the joys and sorrow of meeting and departing with your loved ones. This is because all these obstacles in life would instantly disappear into thin air if you practice perceiving things in this way. While analyzing a problem with your true self (soul), you would realize all these thoughts are nothing close to being harmful, this is provided that you're not as foolish to be concerned of it.
The only difference between saint and layman is that saint can perceive things with their true self. Laymen always perceive things negatively because they only distinguish things through the physical body. Having the thought of revenge is karma, because you're trading your happy moments with hatred.
I have never seen anything that could resolve well with an eye for an eye but I have seen many cases that end well with forgiving and embracing others' mistakes.
"Fate brought us together, fate also tear us apart." Meeting and making great ties require us to change our bad habits in order to cherish the given fate whereas bad encounter allows us to learn how to develop good habits and virtues because no pain no gain.
Just remember to let your true self (soul) to be in charge while handling problems and calmly observe the emotions or thoughts that are stirred up by your physical body. By doing so you would be able to lead a happy life.
The first line of the Heart Sutra says, "Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, when deeply practicing the Prajna-paramita, clearly saw that the five skandhas (senses) are all empty". This is to convey that the form is no other than emptiness and emptiness is no other than form. Form is exactly emptiness and vice versa. It tells us to perceive things through soul with emptiness (like Bodhisattva) and make use of your wisdom (practicing Prajna-paramita) to perceive thoughts that are produced by the five skandhas are eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. Ironically, you would come to realize the culprit behind the unhappiness is because of your own emotions, not from the person that you thought that he/she has harmed you. Hence we should keep calm at all times, regardless it's a good or bad incident. You wouldn't want yourself to get carried away and eventually end up with a sting in the tail.
You ought to be calm if you're ought to take control over your thoughts. However you have to constant;y practice. IT is acceptable to get overwhelmed with good news but remember to seek your true self when you're going through difficult times. Seize the moment before your reckless thoughts are expressed through your emotions and regain your calmness before that moment as time goes by, you would be able to seek the Bodhisattva in you.
If you want one to change for the better, praising is the best punishment.
I have never seen one truly change for the better with punishment. Most of the people refrain from doing wrong because they are afraid of the punishment that entails; it is not because they sincerely want to strive better. Especially younger children, their evil roots still exist, they are afraid of punishment hence they follow the tule. After punishment, there are indeed people who change for the better; however it is because they sincerely want to be better, and it has nothing to do with reprimanding or punishment.
Many have this mentality - "If you judge for what I have done, I'll show you what I am capable of doing." If this is what's happening, wouldn't the student behave even worse after the teacher publicly deemed him/her as bad student? The fact is many students are just less bright when they don't excel well academically which is not because they are lazy. However, once we deemed less-bright students as lazy students, they would think that it doesn't matter if they try harder since everyone stereotypes them as a lazy student. This is as if you want river water to be crystal clean despite polluting it by dumping rubbish into it every day.
Therefore, punishment doesn't work. Look at the prisoners, what did they learn from being locked up in the cell? All they have learned is to not get caught net time for the same offenses, eventually when they are released they are still the same old person who doesn't learn from mistakes and change for the better.
What should we do if others have sinned? Are we supposed to praise them for their deeds? Precisely! We should praise and encourage them, I was a chatterbox when I was in elementary and I would talk all day long regardless how much my teacher reprimands and punishes me. However everything changed when I was being elected as the disciplinary monitor, since then I have never uttered a single word during class. I strongly agree on this teacher's method of approaching, people normally heed encouragement but not punishment. Praises and encouragements drive one to perform well, because it makes them eager to perform what you are expecting. Hence don't forget if you want your loved ones to change the for the better, please praise and encourage them!
Thursday 17 April 2014
Let Go the Past, Live in the Moment and Lead A Happy Future
Observing calmly leads you to the truth, live happily without sorrow.
When you feel as if your emotions are taking over your senses, all you need to do is to view things from the bystander perspective because everything would look so simple and clear when you do so. Emotions are merely the very instant and natural physiological responses that are carried out with only going through the brain process as it doesn't in involve the heart and soul.
What's truth? Let me share a story with you.
May and Lyn are best friends. There's an incident where Lyn was caught red-handed while stealing May's favourite watch, as expected, May was extremely mad and asked the police to handle this incident. Later, May went around spreading the news with all her friends as she wants to ensure that Lyn can't live her life holding her head up high.
For now, let's put down all your opinions and judge mental eyes on this incident as I would like to share Lyn's story.
Lyn's father passed away due to liver cancer when she was in elementary, since then her mother is the family's breadwinner for 3 of the siblings inclusive Lyn. They led a very difficult life. The classmates would tease about Lyn's rag clothes and her poor family.
One day, one of the classmates brought the latest and coolest multifunctional pencil case to school, everyone gathered around with amazement while discussing about the pencil case. Lyn thinks that the pencil case is absolutely beautiful since she doesn't even own one. She asked her friend, "May I have a look at your pencil case?" The friend glanced and said, "You're so filthy! I'm not going to let you touch my pencil case!" When the friend blurted out, everyone teamed up and started to tease Lyn as she is so poor that she's not even able to afford a pencil case.
After some time, one of the classmates' money went missing and eventually the money was found in Lyn's bag. The teacher questioned her, "Why are you stealing your classmate's money?" Lyn said, "I wanted to buy pencil cases for both of my siblings and myself, because everyone teases that I'm so poor that I couldn't even buy a pencil case!"
The teacher was furious and said. "You shouldn't have stolen your classmate's money even if you can't afford to buy one!" In order to punish Lyn's deed, the teacher asked her to be on the pedestal and asked every single classmate to come forward and shout "You're a thief!" " You're a thief!" to humiliate her. Furthermore, the teacher asked Lyn's mother over to notify Lyn's behavior. Her mother was extremely sad and she reprimanded Lyn for what she has done. Things didn't just end at this point, since then as long as anyone lost their belongings, Lyn would be the one to blame. Some who like to make fun of others would intentionally place unimportant things into Lyn's bag to make her look as if she's a thief in her blood. Lyn's mm was utterly broken-hearted as she gave up upon her because she thinks Lyn is such a terrible kid.
All these growth experiences have planted a deep scar on Lyn, as time passed she became the regular scapegoat for all the bad deeds. She thought to herself, "Although I didn't steal, I would still be the one who take the blame and since everyone insists that I'm a thief, I'll just be one!"
3 lessons to be learn from a Pencil.
When you feel as if your emotions are taking over your senses, all you need to do is to view things from the bystander perspective because everything would look so simple and clear when you do so. Emotions are merely the very instant and natural physiological responses that are carried out with only going through the brain process as it doesn't in involve the heart and soul.
What's truth? Let me share a story with you.
May and Lyn are best friends. There's an incident where Lyn was caught red-handed while stealing May's favourite watch, as expected, May was extremely mad and asked the police to handle this incident. Later, May went around spreading the news with all her friends as she wants to ensure that Lyn can't live her life holding her head up high.
For now, let's put down all your opinions and judge mental eyes on this incident as I would like to share Lyn's story.
Lyn's father passed away due to liver cancer when she was in elementary, since then her mother is the family's breadwinner for 3 of the siblings inclusive Lyn. They led a very difficult life. The classmates would tease about Lyn's rag clothes and her poor family.
One day, one of the classmates brought the latest and coolest multifunctional pencil case to school, everyone gathered around with amazement while discussing about the pencil case. Lyn thinks that the pencil case is absolutely beautiful since she doesn't even own one. She asked her friend, "May I have a look at your pencil case?" The friend glanced and said, "You're so filthy! I'm not going to let you touch my pencil case!" When the friend blurted out, everyone teamed up and started to tease Lyn as she is so poor that she's not even able to afford a pencil case.
After some time, one of the classmates' money went missing and eventually the money was found in Lyn's bag. The teacher questioned her, "Why are you stealing your classmate's money?" Lyn said, "I wanted to buy pencil cases for both of my siblings and myself, because everyone teases that I'm so poor that I couldn't even buy a pencil case!"
The teacher was furious and said. "You shouldn't have stolen your classmate's money even if you can't afford to buy one!" In order to punish Lyn's deed, the teacher asked her to be on the pedestal and asked every single classmate to come forward and shout "You're a thief!" " You're a thief!" to humiliate her. Furthermore, the teacher asked Lyn's mother over to notify Lyn's behavior. Her mother was extremely sad and she reprimanded Lyn for what she has done. Things didn't just end at this point, since then as long as anyone lost their belongings, Lyn would be the one to blame. Some who like to make fun of others would intentionally place unimportant things into Lyn's bag to make her look as if she's a thief in her blood. Lyn's mm was utterly broken-hearted as she gave up upon her because she thinks Lyn is such a terrible kid.
All these growth experiences have planted a deep scar on Lyn, as time passed she became the regular scapegoat for all the bad deeds. She thought to herself, "Although I didn't steal, I would still be the one who take the blame and since everyone insists that I'm a thief, I'll just be one!"
3 lessons to be learn from a Pencil.
- Pain always sharpens you!
- Everything you do leaves a mark!
- What's inside you is useful, not what's outside!
If you want to feel rich...simply count the things you have that money cannot buy!
Saturday 12 April 2014
Whilst Forgiving Others, You Are Also Forgiving Yourself
Amongst all creatures under the sun only man learned the word 'forgive'. You're just like other creatures if you have been living life being the one who is always forgiven by others or one who doesn't know how to forgive others.
Try to treat others as you would want them to treat you. Try to picture how others feel and try to perceive things from their perspective and most importantly don't expect things that you can't even do from others. Remember when you're pointing one finger at others, three fingers are pointing back to you. Besides, who are we to judge others' wrongdoings? It is not as if we have been living as noble as God without making any mistakes in life. Have you ever wondered why we can shamelessly scold or blame others on their wrongdoings regardless of what we have done? This is because we are not even aware that we're actually showing our superiority on others! Therefore, you did yourself a greater favour by forgiving others than being forgiven!
The bible says from Matthew 6:14-15, "for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Mark 11:25 further explains as if says, "and when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins."
Jesus said that he would revive one who has an earnest forgiving heart, because you're forgiving yourself when you're forgiving others.
Anger - indirectly punishes yourself for others' wrongdoings, hence one who knows how to forgive i definitely a happier person.
Moreover, if you have never lost anything from being cheated, how would you learn to value the things you currently have and how would you realize how important it is to manage your finance wisely? Therefore, forgive your enemies and those who persecute you and be grateful to them in return because they make us realize our shortcomings, reminded us the pain when we were harmed and matured us up to be stronger in the process.
American civil war General David Allen Russell said, "Don't waste even a single minute to hate our enemies." Exactly! Vengeance and anger would only bring more misery to your life because it is like plunging a fist into the wall as the pain would be the amount of strength that you have exerted. If the enemy is a trash to you, why hold on to the grudge? By the time when you haven't even succeeded in revenging, you would have already stunk as bad as the person.
Forgiving is a great deed and it is also a virtue. Hence let go all the vengeance and anger in you.
Let me share a small tip on how I try to make myself a forgiving person. I try to live in the moment by living as if today is my last day and I'll try to make the most out of every day by being happy. Hence I don't have the spare time to be concerned about unhappy happenings every day.
In reality, death is not very far apart from us, it would just turn up and knock on our doors one day without any prior notice, the sole difference is in what form are they going to appear in front of us.
A true wise man lives their life once every day, because to them every day is their entire life!
I truly hope that you can let go everything. Let us start by forgiving the ones who have hurt us, because only by doing so we are qualified to plea for forgiveness from the ones that we have hurt.
Try to treat others as you would want them to treat you. Try to picture how others feel and try to perceive things from their perspective and most importantly don't expect things that you can't even do from others. Remember when you're pointing one finger at others, three fingers are pointing back to you. Besides, who are we to judge others' wrongdoings? It is not as if we have been living as noble as God without making any mistakes in life. Have you ever wondered why we can shamelessly scold or blame others on their wrongdoings regardless of what we have done? This is because we are not even aware that we're actually showing our superiority on others! Therefore, you did yourself a greater favour by forgiving others than being forgiven!
The bible says from Matthew 6:14-15, "for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Mark 11:25 further explains as if says, "and when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins."
Jesus said that he would revive one who has an earnest forgiving heart, because you're forgiving yourself when you're forgiving others.
Anger - indirectly punishes yourself for others' wrongdoings, hence one who knows how to forgive i definitely a happier person.
Moreover, if you have never lost anything from being cheated, how would you learn to value the things you currently have and how would you realize how important it is to manage your finance wisely? Therefore, forgive your enemies and those who persecute you and be grateful to them in return because they make us realize our shortcomings, reminded us the pain when we were harmed and matured us up to be stronger in the process.
American civil war General David Allen Russell said, "Don't waste even a single minute to hate our enemies." Exactly! Vengeance and anger would only bring more misery to your life because it is like plunging a fist into the wall as the pain would be the amount of strength that you have exerted. If the enemy is a trash to you, why hold on to the grudge? By the time when you haven't even succeeded in revenging, you would have already stunk as bad as the person.
Forgiving is a great deed and it is also a virtue. Hence let go all the vengeance and anger in you.
Let me share a small tip on how I try to make myself a forgiving person. I try to live in the moment by living as if today is my last day and I'll try to make the most out of every day by being happy. Hence I don't have the spare time to be concerned about unhappy happenings every day.
In reality, death is not very far apart from us, it would just turn up and knock on our doors one day without any prior notice, the sole difference is in what form are they going to appear in front of us.
A true wise man lives their life once every day, because to them every day is their entire life!
I truly hope that you can let go everything. Let us start by forgiving the ones who have hurt us, because only by doing so we are qualified to plea for forgiveness from the ones that we have hurt.
Contentment and Retracting
There are actually no specific reasons to be happy. Happy people don't possess more things in life, what they're lacked of is dissatisfaction in life.
Fame and wealth are the things that can't be measured in life. If it's not yours it would never be, no matter how hard you try. If you would to work hard and accumulate all the money to be wealthy, the time would come when your future heirs spend all your hard-earned money recklessly. Besides, fame and status are not up to us to determine, isn't it? With just a mere natural disaster, accident, war or sickness can ruin all the fame and wealth! So what can be measured and what can you take control of?
Man has this peculiar tendency to picture the worst as we could always look forward to the future but not cherishing what we have in front of us. In other words, man can't see nor enjoy what they already have, because how is it possible for them to slow down their pace to see the great things in life when they're so focused in achieving 'the intangible and invisible future'?
The external temptations have overruled the love that exists between human beings and hence man has forgotten how to live in the moment.
This is as if a person who is not contented in leading satisfactory life, he gave up and sacrificed precious family time and enjoyment in life just to achieve more in his career. Eventually he succeeded in achieving his goals but it is too late when he realized how many things he has missed out. Trading happiness in life with career achievement doesn't worth the sacrifice, in the end you would only come to realize that happiness stems from leading a simple life because only an ordinary person has the time to slow down their pace to enjoy this beautiful life.
Religion teaches us to live in the moment. So what exactly is living in the moment? Living in the moment is to embrace all great and bad times. Great times brings us happiness whereas bad times educate us by maturing ourselves up and most importantly cherish all the fate of encountering with different people in your life.
Man has to live in the moment! One has to accept all the irreversible facts, don't frown over things that are in the past. A blind philosopher said: "It is not the most depressing if you are not able to see instead the most depressing is you can't accept the fact that you're blind." He confessed that after he has gone blind, he was able to see the world through his heart. Therefore a difference in perceiving things can make things so different.
As a matter of fact, how you perceive yourself doesn't reflect the true self, instead you are how your 'heart' perceives.
The philosopher let go of the gains and losses in life and through that he learned to view life with contentment. He understands the value of retracting a step to embrace, the one step of concession that allows him to see things better which made him more fortunate than many others in life.
What man can really possess is a pure and earnest heart. A person who possesses this trait is able to understand the actual meaning of contentment.
Contented people would perceive that they have gained a lot in life whereas greedy people would only complain how life has been unfair to them as they are not as successful as others. Greedy beings would only realize how beautiful their life was when they lose their limbs, gone blind and become disfigured. It is all too late when it has reached this stage and all they wished is just to turn back the time.
99% regrets can be eliminated, if only man knows how to live in the moment through the soul.
"If I knew this beforehand, things wouldn't be the same anymore', that's what people always say. Time is priceless, there's no amount of money that can revert the irreversible situation. Unfortunately, man would only come to realize when they have to live their entire life under the shadow of regrets. Let go all of the gains and losses in life, live your life with contentment today!
Let me share an inspiring phrase that serves as a life principle to me and I constant;y remind myself by pasting it onto my bathroom mirror. I would never miss seeing it while brushing teeth in the morning and evening and whenever I see it I'll silently repeat the phrase again and again to remind myself. It has never fail to make my day regardless if how bad my day was after seeing the phrase. You have to display this phrase at the most visible place, because man is forgetful. It would make a difference in your life if you would to look at this phrase single day.
The phase is - "When I am so bothered with the fact that i don't have a nice shoes to put on, I came across a person who has no feet, at the moment I felt as if there are completely no problems in life!"
We are living almost in paradise if we would to compare the occasional hardships that we have in life with those who are really unfortunate. Seek your pure and earnest heart and lead your life with contentment!
Fame and wealth are the things that can't be measured in life. If it's not yours it would never be, no matter how hard you try. If you would to work hard and accumulate all the money to be wealthy, the time would come when your future heirs spend all your hard-earned money recklessly. Besides, fame and status are not up to us to determine, isn't it? With just a mere natural disaster, accident, war or sickness can ruin all the fame and wealth! So what can be measured and what can you take control of?
Man has this peculiar tendency to picture the worst as we could always look forward to the future but not cherishing what we have in front of us. In other words, man can't see nor enjoy what they already have, because how is it possible for them to slow down their pace to see the great things in life when they're so focused in achieving 'the intangible and invisible future'?
The external temptations have overruled the love that exists between human beings and hence man has forgotten how to live in the moment.
This is as if a person who is not contented in leading satisfactory life, he gave up and sacrificed precious family time and enjoyment in life just to achieve more in his career. Eventually he succeeded in achieving his goals but it is too late when he realized how many things he has missed out. Trading happiness in life with career achievement doesn't worth the sacrifice, in the end you would only come to realize that happiness stems from leading a simple life because only an ordinary person has the time to slow down their pace to enjoy this beautiful life.
Religion teaches us to live in the moment. So what exactly is living in the moment? Living in the moment is to embrace all great and bad times. Great times brings us happiness whereas bad times educate us by maturing ourselves up and most importantly cherish all the fate of encountering with different people in your life.
Man has to live in the moment! One has to accept all the irreversible facts, don't frown over things that are in the past. A blind philosopher said: "It is not the most depressing if you are not able to see instead the most depressing is you can't accept the fact that you're blind." He confessed that after he has gone blind, he was able to see the world through his heart. Therefore a difference in perceiving things can make things so different.
As a matter of fact, how you perceive yourself doesn't reflect the true self, instead you are how your 'heart' perceives.
The philosopher let go of the gains and losses in life and through that he learned to view life with contentment. He understands the value of retracting a step to embrace, the one step of concession that allows him to see things better which made him more fortunate than many others in life.
What man can really possess is a pure and earnest heart. A person who possesses this trait is able to understand the actual meaning of contentment.
Contented people would perceive that they have gained a lot in life whereas greedy people would only complain how life has been unfair to them as they are not as successful as others. Greedy beings would only realize how beautiful their life was when they lose their limbs, gone blind and become disfigured. It is all too late when it has reached this stage and all they wished is just to turn back the time.
99% regrets can be eliminated, if only man knows how to live in the moment through the soul.
"If I knew this beforehand, things wouldn't be the same anymore', that's what people always say. Time is priceless, there's no amount of money that can revert the irreversible situation. Unfortunately, man would only come to realize when they have to live their entire life under the shadow of regrets. Let go all of the gains and losses in life, live your life with contentment today!
Let me share an inspiring phrase that serves as a life principle to me and I constant;y remind myself by pasting it onto my bathroom mirror. I would never miss seeing it while brushing teeth in the morning and evening and whenever I see it I'll silently repeat the phrase again and again to remind myself. It has never fail to make my day regardless if how bad my day was after seeing the phrase. You have to display this phrase at the most visible place, because man is forgetful. It would make a difference in your life if you would to look at this phrase single day.
The phase is - "When I am so bothered with the fact that i don't have a nice shoes to put on, I came across a person who has no feet, at the moment I felt as if there are completely no problems in life!"
We are living almost in paradise if we would to compare the occasional hardships that we have in life with those who are really unfortunate. Seek your pure and earnest heart and lead your life with contentment!
Friday 11 April 2014
What is Fixed Karma?
For instance, everyone has to go through the pain of losing their loved ones, it is inevitable. The fixed karmas that everyone needs to go through are the joys and sorrow of meeting and departing with their loved ones and the inevitable cycle of life. Therefore there's no sense of gaining or losing because all you need to do is to cherish the time you have with your loved ones, appreciate and value the fate to meet all the lovely people in your life.
For instance, treasure the chance to fulfill your filial piety when your parents are still around. It doesn't matter how long you can fulfill as long as you cherish and appreciate the sacrifices that your parents have made to bring you into this world. This also serves the same to parents by appreciating the joy that the children have brought into their lives. This applies to romantic relationship as well. You should enjoy and value the experience given to develop and enrich you regardless of the result as it only benefits us by maturing ourselves up in the process. Some would feel that their lives are filled with losses because they don't know karma and they don't know things are no longer meant to be. Consequently it brings pain as they live in the shadow of regrets because they have not been cherishing things around them by living in the moment. This brings us back to what I've been emphasizing on. That is, you have not been living life with your soul, instead you live with the senses of your physical body that brings the feeling of gains and losses which is also known as karma in religious speaking. If you would have to totally put down the thoughts of gains and losses, karma, wouldn't have existed in the very first place. For example, in your past life you've cheated on your significant other, so naturally in this life you would need to experience the pain of being dishearten as to learn from your wrongdoings and rectify your mistakes. If you have realized the meaning of "all's well that ends well", once you have put down the thoughts of gains and losses, there would have no pain and if there's no pain, no karma would have been formed.
Therefore through the knowledge of religion, man would be able to see clearly that the gains and losses in life are rooted from karmas and blessings. When misfortunes end, it tells you that you have fulfilled in repaying your karmas, whereas when fortunes end, it tells you that you have used up all your blessings.
This brings us back to the secretary story that I previously shared. As she was actually the saviour of the businessman in his lifetime, she owes the businessman a favour because she received his kindness in the past life. Therefore she is destined to work under him and to save his life, when she has accomplished all these, it means she is over with repaying her deeds and it has also come to the end of their fate. She left regardless of the pay increment and promotion because there are no lingering feelings left as their fate has ended.
This is also applicable to romantic relationship. We always overlooked and missed the opportunity of meeting great people in life, when we have come to realization about how great the person is, it is already too late to revert their broken hearts. This is because they are done repaying their deeds through love which also signifies the end of fate.
Let us get back to the businessman. Although in the end he firmly believes that the secretary is his life saviour, he's still trapped in the karmas of gains and losses because he changed his mind due to the plane crash, if it didn't happen it wouldn't have changed his thoughts. At the end of the day, he's still unstable to break free from the karmas of gains and losses.
This is why man needs to transform his soul in order to comprehend the wonders of life and through soul transformation one would be able to clearly determine the gains and losses in life which helps one to avoid going through unnecessary pain. By realizing what are the gains and losses beforehand like the stable master, it would ensure us to be ahead of our destiny and by doing so we would have the opportunity to live life to the fullest that truly changes our destiny.
God is fair. If there's an obstacle, there's a way out too. Just like what I've mentioned previously, people who have lost their parents since young would live a life without parents' love, but at the same time they are omitted from the task of fulfilling filial piety to parents, those childless couples are free from the burden of raising a kid but they also lose the chance to enjoy their carefree late lives, a president of a country is above all, but they need to sacrifice their privacy and peaceful tranquil lives because all eyes are on them to correctly manage and protect the country.
We are always surrounded by life's gains and losses but if you would to look into it wisely by determining which are caused by karmas and which are not, you would be able to create a sorrow free life.
There's once I lost my wallet, I was despaired and saddened with the fact. Grandpa comforted me by saying: "There's nothing to feel sad about, most likely your money was used by someone else and you never know if the person who used the money might be the one who you have owed in your past life!" Back then I hold strongly on to gains and losses in life, but after some experiences in life. I found out that grandpa was the one who has come to realize to cut down unnecessary sorrows in life by putting down the gains and losses. Moreover there are things which are beyond our control, when things are not meant to be there's no point in insisting it.
Based on my current realisation of life, losses are also gains. For example, if there's no bad or evil person on earth, how would we have the term to describe 'good or nice person'? If you haven't experienced any pain and loss in life, how would you know how great it is to be happy? If there are no losses in life, how would you cherish and treasure what you've gained? At the time when you possessed the most precious thing on earth, you would always need to worry about losing it. That's why happiness is to let go, while gains and losses in life is only process.
For instance, treasure the chance to fulfill your filial piety when your parents are still around. It doesn't matter how long you can fulfill as long as you cherish and appreciate the sacrifices that your parents have made to bring you into this world. This also serves the same to parents by appreciating the joy that the children have brought into their lives. This applies to romantic relationship as well. You should enjoy and value the experience given to develop and enrich you regardless of the result as it only benefits us by maturing ourselves up in the process. Some would feel that their lives are filled with losses because they don't know karma and they don't know things are no longer meant to be. Consequently it brings pain as they live in the shadow of regrets because they have not been cherishing things around them by living in the moment. This brings us back to what I've been emphasizing on. That is, you have not been living life with your soul, instead you live with the senses of your physical body that brings the feeling of gains and losses which is also known as karma in religious speaking. If you would have to totally put down the thoughts of gains and losses, karma, wouldn't have existed in the very first place. For example, in your past life you've cheated on your significant other, so naturally in this life you would need to experience the pain of being dishearten as to learn from your wrongdoings and rectify your mistakes. If you have realized the meaning of "all's well that ends well", once you have put down the thoughts of gains and losses, there would have no pain and if there's no pain, no karma would have been formed.
Therefore through the knowledge of religion, man would be able to see clearly that the gains and losses in life are rooted from karmas and blessings. When misfortunes end, it tells you that you have fulfilled in repaying your karmas, whereas when fortunes end, it tells you that you have used up all your blessings.
This brings us back to the secretary story that I previously shared. As she was actually the saviour of the businessman in his lifetime, she owes the businessman a favour because she received his kindness in the past life. Therefore she is destined to work under him and to save his life, when she has accomplished all these, it means she is over with repaying her deeds and it has also come to the end of their fate. She left regardless of the pay increment and promotion because there are no lingering feelings left as their fate has ended.
This is also applicable to romantic relationship. We always overlooked and missed the opportunity of meeting great people in life, when we have come to realization about how great the person is, it is already too late to revert their broken hearts. This is because they are done repaying their deeds through love which also signifies the end of fate.
Let us get back to the businessman. Although in the end he firmly believes that the secretary is his life saviour, he's still trapped in the karmas of gains and losses because he changed his mind due to the plane crash, if it didn't happen it wouldn't have changed his thoughts. At the end of the day, he's still unstable to break free from the karmas of gains and losses.
This is why man needs to transform his soul in order to comprehend the wonders of life and through soul transformation one would be able to clearly determine the gains and losses in life which helps one to avoid going through unnecessary pain. By realizing what are the gains and losses beforehand like the stable master, it would ensure us to be ahead of our destiny and by doing so we would have the opportunity to live life to the fullest that truly changes our destiny.
God is fair. If there's an obstacle, there's a way out too. Just like what I've mentioned previously, people who have lost their parents since young would live a life without parents' love, but at the same time they are omitted from the task of fulfilling filial piety to parents, those childless couples are free from the burden of raising a kid but they also lose the chance to enjoy their carefree late lives, a president of a country is above all, but they need to sacrifice their privacy and peaceful tranquil lives because all eyes are on them to correctly manage and protect the country.
We are always surrounded by life's gains and losses but if you would to look into it wisely by determining which are caused by karmas and which are not, you would be able to create a sorrow free life.
There's once I lost my wallet, I was despaired and saddened with the fact. Grandpa comforted me by saying: "There's nothing to feel sad about, most likely your money was used by someone else and you never know if the person who used the money might be the one who you have owed in your past life!" Back then I hold strongly on to gains and losses in life, but after some experiences in life. I found out that grandpa was the one who has come to realize to cut down unnecessary sorrows in life by putting down the gains and losses. Moreover there are things which are beyond our control, when things are not meant to be there's no point in insisting it.
Based on my current realisation of life, losses are also gains. For example, if there's no bad or evil person on earth, how would we have the term to describe 'good or nice person'? If you haven't experienced any pain and loss in life, how would you know how great it is to be happy? If there are no losses in life, how would you cherish and treasure what you've gained? At the time when you possessed the most precious thing on earth, you would always need to worry about losing it. That's why happiness is to let go, while gains and losses in life is only process.
Thursday 10 April 2014
Let Go of the Gains and Losses of the Physical Body, Live with Your Soul
Live with your soul, as all the obstacles and miseries in life would strengthen your soul! Live with your soul, as it would bring true happiness! By doing this, you would be able to spread your benevolent love to everyone.
Let me share a story.
Once upon a time, there's a king who is very dependent towards his smart assistant. This assistant seems to be able to solve any problem under the sun. One day the king accidentally cut off two of his fingers while practicing sword, he was very upset with what had happened. The assistant comforted him by saying, "Your Majesty, misfortune doesn't really exist in life, moreover, this is nothing much, don't be upset". Upon hearing the assistant, the king wondered, "Why on earth would my closest assistant gloat over my misfortune?" As the king was blinded by his anger, he summoned the assistant to be locked up in the dungeon.
One day, the king went out for hunting. Unfortunately he got lost in the forest and ended in the land of the man-eaters tribe. The tribe decided to offer the king to their God, however, while they were in the process of preparing, they found out the king lost two of his fingers, hence they immediately remove him from the offering altar. This is because they believe that it is disrespectful to offer defected beings to the God. Later the tribe decided to release the king's, as the defected beings are known to be inauspicious to the tribe. The loss of his two fingers actually saved the king from being killed.
Return to the palace, the king gave a second thought of what his smart assistant has said and he realized that what he has said was true, thus he released him from the dungeon. However, the king was still very doubtful, he questioned the assistant, "My small misfortune have yielded me from bigger misfortune! But you were locked up because of my misunderstanding towards you, this has brought you misfortune. The assistant smile and replied, "If it wasn't because of your decision to lock me up in the dungeon, who would be the one that accompanies you for hunting?" The king was flabbergasted, since then it has changed the way of how he sees life.
"Everything Happens For A Reason.........Just Believe"
Let go of the gains and losses of your physical body, experience and enjoy your life through your soul.
Whenever there are any misfortunes, you might blame and resent by saying "Why it has to be me? Why? Why am I so unlucky? Why I have to be the one who goes through all the pain?" But when you were showered with happiness and good things in life, why won't you ask "Why is this happening to me?" Why everything seems so perfect and beautiful, why won't you question it?
We have always been seeking for perfection in life, but all the intentional efforts to make a perfect life are the cause of imperfection.
There's a millionaire, he spent fortune to build a perfect garden. After the completion of the garden, he hired 50 gardeners to preserve the perfect garden. He instructed the gardeners to keep the garden free from a single piece of dried leaf or twig and to constantly trim the plants.
One day, a wise man came to visit the millionaire's house and the millionaire brought him to the garden for a walk. The millionaire asked how he feels about the garden. The wise man replied, "It's very beautiful! It is exactly like a perfect cemetery!"
Extreme perfection is a defect, or I should say perfection itself is a defect. A garden is supposed to have dried leaves, twigs and weeds, nature is beauty, and the imperfection of nature itself is perfect.
Sichuan's earthquake victims might think that life isn't perfect before the earthquake, but after the incident when they have lost their loved ones, house, job, property and limbs, they would only realize how perfect life was. Living a life itself is perfect. Live in the moment, natural is beauty.
Intentional acts to make things perfect are unnatural, thus natural things wouldn't be perfect anymore. Don't regret only after you have lost something in life, it would be too late to realize how perfect life was.
Happiness is to let go. Gains and losses in life is only a process, Fortunes and Misfortunes in life are blessings.
Man has so much pain because we can't let go of people and things in life, everything is attached with the word "My", "My" car, "My" house, "My" job, "My" wife, "My" children, "My" parents, it's all mine! In the end, even God became mine, my God is the best and my religion is the holiest of all.
All the "My(s)" are the wants from your body, and it is done in order to fulfill the desires of your body, for the body that was meant to be a tool for your soul, a tool which was supposed to help you to enrich and purify your soul. Instead, it turns out that our soul has become a slave for our body and this is all because you have treated the tool as your true self. At the end of the day, you would only realize you have strive so hard in life only for a tool, a tool which is not even your true self.
This is the reason why Buddhism teaches us to break free from the attachment of "my", because the attachment towards "my" would break you. This teaching has been repeated again and again because it intends to imprint this into your mind as breaking free from "my" also free you from the gains and losses in life, when you have seen past the gains and losses in life you will naturally see the nature of God. Many spirits from the higher realm come to the mortal world to not only meet fated beings; they also come to this place which is filled with evil in order to hone their spiritual belief.
There's a great amount of space in the universe, we can't see through all the spaces due to the limited abilities of your physical body. Our body can only see the world in 3 dimensions, for instance, the car can only run on land and the plane can view the world from above.
The world of soul is made up of 4 dimensions and certainly you can't see it through your 3 dimensional eyes. There's the existence of the higher in the universe, which awaits our soul to discover, this is exactly like playing computer games as you have to advance level by level until it reaches the highest. After you have been through all the levels, you would be able to roam freely in every corner of the universe and enjoy life to its fullest.
All decisions can't run from gains an losses; things come and go.
Fu found a magic lamp and the genie granted him three wishes. He gave some thought and said, "My first wish is to become a billionaire; my second wish is to become a mafia boss and my third wish is to marry Mary, the most beautiful girl on earth. The genie said, "All these wishes are a piece of cake! Are you sure? I think it's better to let you see things clearly before deciding".
The genie brought Fu to the billionaire's mansion, Fu saw him lying sickly on his bed as he has to run his large cooperation, socialize and his gluttony that caused him diabetes and high cholesterol. What's worst is he doesn't even know his sons are all wishing that he would pass away soon so they can inherit his wealth.
After that, Fu was brought to the restaurant where the mafia boss takes his dinner. He saw the mafia boss was surrounded by bodyguards and they never leave a single inch away from the mafia boss. Since the mafia boss has been making enemies along his way due to his job, he is afraid that his enemies might assassinate him any moment. After seeing, Fu said, "This is even worse than being locked up in a cell!".
Next, Fu was brought to Mary - the most beautiful girl on earth's house. He saw Mary scolding the maid, later she even threw an ashtray towards her maid. After reprimanding the maid, she picked up the phone and said, "Hey you! Who do you think you are? So many people are falling head over heels for me and you don't even appreciate me? Who do you think you are? Take a look at yourself in the mirror! I want to file a divorce, go ahead and look for a lawyer! Fu was left astonished and speechless.
The genie said, "If there's no problem with you, I have to proceed with to realize all three of your wishes" Fu replied, "Wait a minute! I realize that there's nothing I lack of, because I possess a healthy body which the billionaire doesn't have, I have the freedom which the mafia boss couldn't have and my wife is much more virtuous than Mary!
Everything has two sides of the coin as the universe's truth has no definite right or wrong and good or bad.
For example, people who have lost their parents since young would seem to have led a very difficult life, but when they have grown up they are not bound to the burden of taking care of their parents concerning about their health, taking care of their funeral ceremonies and could certainly avoid in-laws problem. One who has lost their parents since young is more mature and would be able to adapt to the society easily.
There are so many infertile couples nowadays. Do you think it is misfortune to not be able to bear child? To be frank it might be something great! You wouldn't have the extra burden of raising a child because you needn't worry about their health, safety, bad peer influences, future spouses and much more other agonizing matters. Everything has it gains and losses and try to view the gains and losses in life through your soul! Please don't let your body and the people who don't live their life through their soul to influence your ability to view your life through your soul!
What is the nature of life? The gains and losses in life and the revolving of people are a part of the nature of life. When your lover leaves, it signifies a brand new love life is ahead of you; when you have your own children, it notifies you that your parents are about to leave' when you buy a house by loaning, you would be able to own a house but at the same time you have to sacrifice by cutting down unnecessary expenditures as you need to allocate money for the house loan; or maybe you were disabled in your past life and if you didn't "die" how would you have such a perfect life now? Everything has its gains and losses, when you gain something you lose something, when someone leave, someone would come and enter into your life. If you're able to comprehend and accept the nature of life, living a life is very easy!
You have to imprint the thought of "letting go" at every waking moment of your life. "Letting go" doesn't tell you not to pursue anything in life, "letting go" is not to be attached with every single thing in life, "letting go" is to live in the moment. Only with this mentality of "letting go" the pasts allows you to focus on your present life; ad by focusing on your present life, it allows you to experience the best in life!
You will begin to "HEAL" when you are "letting go" of the past hurts, forgive those who have wronged to you and learn to forgive yourself for your mistakes.
Most of the religions constantly remind us to "Let go! Let go! Let go!", so what are we supposed to let go of? Let go of the gains and losses in life precisely, let go of holding onto or getting attached over everything in life because all of these stems from the mentality of gaining and losing in life.
However, if you would to look into your soul, our existence was created and brought on to this earth from nothing, the moment when you were born, you have nothing but a bare body. Therefore, regardless whether you're living a wealthy life or a frugal life, it only tells you that every piece of clothing that you put on, every single thing you eat and every penny you spend are all the gains in life. Because when you first set your foot into this world, you brought nothing! even your life is granted by your parents and the God, hence there are only gains but no losses in life.
Since there are only gains but no losses in life, why people are still complaining how miserable their lives are? That is because people blindly live their lives, people work their socks off in order to ensure the well-being of their future so when they gained more, they would certainly think that those are their own possession, if they lose it due to some accident or negligence, they would be in great pain because they mistakenly perceive that those are their possessions.
We don't even have the power to possess our own physical body. Let's think this through, if you have the power to control and possess over it, why can't you do anything when your body shows signs of deterioration?
Hence there's nothing in this world that you can possess entirely. The only thing that you can possess is the pure and earnest love, because that is the only thing that can transform your spirituality, only love brings good without a trace of evil and love can transcend through soul by passing onto your future lifetime. Here's an advice to the people who are severely attached to things in life, "You would never know whether you can live through tomorrow, so why are you so concerned with the unforeseen future and neglect the actual living moment?"
Moreover, the gains and losses in life can't be identified instantly; here are two anecdotes to enlighten you:
There's a businessman who is heading to Italy to associate business, however his secretary who has been serving him for over 10 years lots his passport right before his flight. At that instant moment, he was blinded by anger and fired the secretary on the spot. However, no one could have guessed that the plane that the businessman was supposed to board crashed, at that moment he realized that the mistake that have been made by the secretary saved his life and she is his life saver. The businessman felt sorry and grateful towards the secretary as he visited and offered her with pay increment and promotion to show his sincerity. Unfortunately, the secretary turned down his offer. Now you might wonder why the secretary did that, this is the wonder of karma of gaining and losing, I'll get into that later, let's continue with another story.
There's a stable master, once one of his stallion went missing. His worker was anxious and rushed over to inform him the bad news, however he didn't bother much about it and told his worker there's nothing to worry about. After some time, the missing stallion came back and brought along another wild stallion, the worker was overwhelmed and reported the good news to the stable master, yet this time around he didn't show any response. Later the stable master's son broke his leg while training the wild stallion and still he didn't feel bothered with the fact. Soon after, war was ignited by the neighboring country, the government recruited most of the young adults as armies and his son was excluded due to his broken leg.
These two stories tell you that the gains and losses in life are all destined and it serves as an ordeal by the consequences of your doings. If you have practiced bad, you're destined to lose things that allow you to experience the pain of 'losing' and to make you learn how to cherish. What is contentment? If you have practiced good, you lose something but you're destined to gain that allows you to enjoy the happiness of giving and to understand the underlying meaning of 'giving brings more happiness than receiving'!
In fact, all these gains and losses are essential for transforming your soul as it is all well laid out to serve as a lifelong ordeal. Many doesn't know that the gains and losses in life are predetermined based on the deeds of your past and current life, some might even be fixed karma!
Let me share a story.
Once upon a time, there's a king who is very dependent towards his smart assistant. This assistant seems to be able to solve any problem under the sun. One day the king accidentally cut off two of his fingers while practicing sword, he was very upset with what had happened. The assistant comforted him by saying, "Your Majesty, misfortune doesn't really exist in life, moreover, this is nothing much, don't be upset". Upon hearing the assistant, the king wondered, "Why on earth would my closest assistant gloat over my misfortune?" As the king was blinded by his anger, he summoned the assistant to be locked up in the dungeon.
One day, the king went out for hunting. Unfortunately he got lost in the forest and ended in the land of the man-eaters tribe. The tribe decided to offer the king to their God, however, while they were in the process of preparing, they found out the king lost two of his fingers, hence they immediately remove him from the offering altar. This is because they believe that it is disrespectful to offer defected beings to the God. Later the tribe decided to release the king's, as the defected beings are known to be inauspicious to the tribe. The loss of his two fingers actually saved the king from being killed.
Return to the palace, the king gave a second thought of what his smart assistant has said and he realized that what he has said was true, thus he released him from the dungeon. However, the king was still very doubtful, he questioned the assistant, "My small misfortune have yielded me from bigger misfortune! But you were locked up because of my misunderstanding towards you, this has brought you misfortune. The assistant smile and replied, "If it wasn't because of your decision to lock me up in the dungeon, who would be the one that accompanies you for hunting?" The king was flabbergasted, since then it has changed the way of how he sees life.
"Everything Happens For A Reason.........Just Believe"
Let go of the gains and losses of your physical body, experience and enjoy your life through your soul.
Whenever there are any misfortunes, you might blame and resent by saying "Why it has to be me? Why? Why am I so unlucky? Why I have to be the one who goes through all the pain?" But when you were showered with happiness and good things in life, why won't you ask "Why is this happening to me?" Why everything seems so perfect and beautiful, why won't you question it?
We have always been seeking for perfection in life, but all the intentional efforts to make a perfect life are the cause of imperfection.
There's a millionaire, he spent fortune to build a perfect garden. After the completion of the garden, he hired 50 gardeners to preserve the perfect garden. He instructed the gardeners to keep the garden free from a single piece of dried leaf or twig and to constantly trim the plants.
One day, a wise man came to visit the millionaire's house and the millionaire brought him to the garden for a walk. The millionaire asked how he feels about the garden. The wise man replied, "It's very beautiful! It is exactly like a perfect cemetery!"
Extreme perfection is a defect, or I should say perfection itself is a defect. A garden is supposed to have dried leaves, twigs and weeds, nature is beauty, and the imperfection of nature itself is perfect.
Sichuan's earthquake victims might think that life isn't perfect before the earthquake, but after the incident when they have lost their loved ones, house, job, property and limbs, they would only realize how perfect life was. Living a life itself is perfect. Live in the moment, natural is beauty.
Intentional acts to make things perfect are unnatural, thus natural things wouldn't be perfect anymore. Don't regret only after you have lost something in life, it would be too late to realize how perfect life was.
Happiness is to let go. Gains and losses in life is only a process, Fortunes and Misfortunes in life are blessings.
Man has so much pain because we can't let go of people and things in life, everything is attached with the word "My", "My" car, "My" house, "My" job, "My" wife, "My" children, "My" parents, it's all mine! In the end, even God became mine, my God is the best and my religion is the holiest of all.
All the "My(s)" are the wants from your body, and it is done in order to fulfill the desires of your body, for the body that was meant to be a tool for your soul, a tool which was supposed to help you to enrich and purify your soul. Instead, it turns out that our soul has become a slave for our body and this is all because you have treated the tool as your true self. At the end of the day, you would only realize you have strive so hard in life only for a tool, a tool which is not even your true self.
This is the reason why Buddhism teaches us to break free from the attachment of "my", because the attachment towards "my" would break you. This teaching has been repeated again and again because it intends to imprint this into your mind as breaking free from "my" also free you from the gains and losses in life, when you have seen past the gains and losses in life you will naturally see the nature of God. Many spirits from the higher realm come to the mortal world to not only meet fated beings; they also come to this place which is filled with evil in order to hone their spiritual belief.
There's a great amount of space in the universe, we can't see through all the spaces due to the limited abilities of your physical body. Our body can only see the world in 3 dimensions, for instance, the car can only run on land and the plane can view the world from above.
The world of soul is made up of 4 dimensions and certainly you can't see it through your 3 dimensional eyes. There's the existence of the higher in the universe, which awaits our soul to discover, this is exactly like playing computer games as you have to advance level by level until it reaches the highest. After you have been through all the levels, you would be able to roam freely in every corner of the universe and enjoy life to its fullest.
All decisions can't run from gains an losses; things come and go.
Fu found a magic lamp and the genie granted him three wishes. He gave some thought and said, "My first wish is to become a billionaire; my second wish is to become a mafia boss and my third wish is to marry Mary, the most beautiful girl on earth. The genie said, "All these wishes are a piece of cake! Are you sure? I think it's better to let you see things clearly before deciding".
The genie brought Fu to the billionaire's mansion, Fu saw him lying sickly on his bed as he has to run his large cooperation, socialize and his gluttony that caused him diabetes and high cholesterol. What's worst is he doesn't even know his sons are all wishing that he would pass away soon so they can inherit his wealth.
After that, Fu was brought to the restaurant where the mafia boss takes his dinner. He saw the mafia boss was surrounded by bodyguards and they never leave a single inch away from the mafia boss. Since the mafia boss has been making enemies along his way due to his job, he is afraid that his enemies might assassinate him any moment. After seeing, Fu said, "This is even worse than being locked up in a cell!".
Next, Fu was brought to Mary - the most beautiful girl on earth's house. He saw Mary scolding the maid, later she even threw an ashtray towards her maid. After reprimanding the maid, she picked up the phone and said, "Hey you! Who do you think you are? So many people are falling head over heels for me and you don't even appreciate me? Who do you think you are? Take a look at yourself in the mirror! I want to file a divorce, go ahead and look for a lawyer! Fu was left astonished and speechless.
The genie said, "If there's no problem with you, I have to proceed with to realize all three of your wishes" Fu replied, "Wait a minute! I realize that there's nothing I lack of, because I possess a healthy body which the billionaire doesn't have, I have the freedom which the mafia boss couldn't have and my wife is much more virtuous than Mary!
Everything has two sides of the coin as the universe's truth has no definite right or wrong and good or bad.
For example, people who have lost their parents since young would seem to have led a very difficult life, but when they have grown up they are not bound to the burden of taking care of their parents concerning about their health, taking care of their funeral ceremonies and could certainly avoid in-laws problem. One who has lost their parents since young is more mature and would be able to adapt to the society easily.
There are so many infertile couples nowadays. Do you think it is misfortune to not be able to bear child? To be frank it might be something great! You wouldn't have the extra burden of raising a child because you needn't worry about their health, safety, bad peer influences, future spouses and much more other agonizing matters. Everything has it gains and losses and try to view the gains and losses in life through your soul! Please don't let your body and the people who don't live their life through their soul to influence your ability to view your life through your soul!
What is the nature of life? The gains and losses in life and the revolving of people are a part of the nature of life. When your lover leaves, it signifies a brand new love life is ahead of you; when you have your own children, it notifies you that your parents are about to leave' when you buy a house by loaning, you would be able to own a house but at the same time you have to sacrifice by cutting down unnecessary expenditures as you need to allocate money for the house loan; or maybe you were disabled in your past life and if you didn't "die" how would you have such a perfect life now? Everything has its gains and losses, when you gain something you lose something, when someone leave, someone would come and enter into your life. If you're able to comprehend and accept the nature of life, living a life is very easy!
You have to imprint the thought of "letting go" at every waking moment of your life. "Letting go" doesn't tell you not to pursue anything in life, "letting go" is not to be attached with every single thing in life, "letting go" is to live in the moment. Only with this mentality of "letting go" the pasts allows you to focus on your present life; ad by focusing on your present life, it allows you to experience the best in life!
You will begin to "HEAL" when you are "letting go" of the past hurts, forgive those who have wronged to you and learn to forgive yourself for your mistakes.
Most of the religions constantly remind us to "Let go! Let go! Let go!", so what are we supposed to let go of? Let go of the gains and losses in life precisely, let go of holding onto or getting attached over everything in life because all of these stems from the mentality of gaining and losing in life.
However, if you would to look into your soul, our existence was created and brought on to this earth from nothing, the moment when you were born, you have nothing but a bare body. Therefore, regardless whether you're living a wealthy life or a frugal life, it only tells you that every piece of clothing that you put on, every single thing you eat and every penny you spend are all the gains in life. Because when you first set your foot into this world, you brought nothing! even your life is granted by your parents and the God, hence there are only gains but no losses in life.
Since there are only gains but no losses in life, why people are still complaining how miserable their lives are? That is because people blindly live their lives, people work their socks off in order to ensure the well-being of their future so when they gained more, they would certainly think that those are their own possession, if they lose it due to some accident or negligence, they would be in great pain because they mistakenly perceive that those are their possessions.
We don't even have the power to possess our own physical body. Let's think this through, if you have the power to control and possess over it, why can't you do anything when your body shows signs of deterioration?
Hence there's nothing in this world that you can possess entirely. The only thing that you can possess is the pure and earnest love, because that is the only thing that can transform your spirituality, only love brings good without a trace of evil and love can transcend through soul by passing onto your future lifetime. Here's an advice to the people who are severely attached to things in life, "You would never know whether you can live through tomorrow, so why are you so concerned with the unforeseen future and neglect the actual living moment?"
Moreover, the gains and losses in life can't be identified instantly; here are two anecdotes to enlighten you:
There's a businessman who is heading to Italy to associate business, however his secretary who has been serving him for over 10 years lots his passport right before his flight. At that instant moment, he was blinded by anger and fired the secretary on the spot. However, no one could have guessed that the plane that the businessman was supposed to board crashed, at that moment he realized that the mistake that have been made by the secretary saved his life and she is his life saver. The businessman felt sorry and grateful towards the secretary as he visited and offered her with pay increment and promotion to show his sincerity. Unfortunately, the secretary turned down his offer. Now you might wonder why the secretary did that, this is the wonder of karma of gaining and losing, I'll get into that later, let's continue with another story.
There's a stable master, once one of his stallion went missing. His worker was anxious and rushed over to inform him the bad news, however he didn't bother much about it and told his worker there's nothing to worry about. After some time, the missing stallion came back and brought along another wild stallion, the worker was overwhelmed and reported the good news to the stable master, yet this time around he didn't show any response. Later the stable master's son broke his leg while training the wild stallion and still he didn't feel bothered with the fact. Soon after, war was ignited by the neighboring country, the government recruited most of the young adults as armies and his son was excluded due to his broken leg.
These two stories tell you that the gains and losses in life are all destined and it serves as an ordeal by the consequences of your doings. If you have practiced bad, you're destined to lose things that allow you to experience the pain of 'losing' and to make you learn how to cherish. What is contentment? If you have practiced good, you lose something but you're destined to gain that allows you to enjoy the happiness of giving and to understand the underlying meaning of 'giving brings more happiness than receiving'!
In fact, all these gains and losses are essential for transforming your soul as it is all well laid out to serve as a lifelong ordeal. Many doesn't know that the gains and losses in life are predetermined based on the deeds of your past and current life, some might even be fixed karma!
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