Happiness

Two or three weeks ago, i had a new insight to happiness. It wasn’t so much as a new intellectual understanding, but a deepening of the understanding. I was walking and then realised that the true path of happiness was if i could be happy while walking, happy that i was walking, not thinking or being distracted by future-stuff.

When i ate dinner, i noticed myself lying down there and again, realised that if i could be happy just lying there, that would be true happiness. When the small things are loved, when the doing is enjoyed, the having loses its importance.

There’s this sort of evolutionary scale of happiness. The most common one is currently feeling happy when you have something, gained something, where you derive happiness from the result. On this level, you feel dissatisfied most of the time, with glimpses of happiness only available to you when you gain something. Notice that the people who are the most competitive, most possessive, always comparing themselves to other people, the result-oriented people are also nearly always the more unhappy, less genuine, more unfriendly people.

The next scale is “doing”, where you derive happiness from doing, from the process. I think i’ve moved away from having and am at this level of happiness, where i like doing. I like playing football, talking to people, interacting and being involved in things. At this level, happiness is a much more common occurence and you stop feeling disappointed or unhappy when you are unable to get what you want. People at this level are likely to be far more genuine, and you get the sense that they aren’t trying to get anything from you, not trying to project an image or impression or gain favours. You are likely to be a lot more comfortable with them.

And the final stage of Being, where you feel happy just by being who you are. Being alive, or conscious, is all you need to be happy. The activity of inactivity is enough to let you feel joyful and peaceful. Nothing needs to be done, no doing is required, no-thing is needed for happiness. People who enjoy doing things, actually feel the enjoyment not from the activity, but because the activity allows them to move into a state of Being.

This is in contrast with “having” people, who are likely to feel bored, feel that they are unproductive, and dislike inactivity. They feel that when they aren’t doing anything, they are wasting their time and feel the urge to keep moving and doing in order to have and even as they do, they are unable to enjoy the doing. Their only relief comes when they “have” something.

“Doing” people are more content with inactivity, but being unable to derive happiness from inactivity, still look towards activity and things to do. They may be able to appreciate the peace of inactivity, but being unable to fully and truly feel complete peace and joy through just Being, they have urges to do things.

At the state of Being, you don’t look towards doing certain things for happiness. All things are honored, no things give you happiness or peace, because it comes from you. You don’t seek happiness from outside of you, it emanates from you. Babies and children are often in this state and being so, are often the most active participants of life. They fully immerse and enjoy themselves in the dance and play of life and learn extremely quickly, are extremely genuine and infect the people around them with joy and love. Society conditions us towards “having” people, so as people grow up, they gradually become more unhappy, less capable, and less genuine.

So how do we move towards the state of Being?

First, we must recognize the insanity of “having”. “Having” is the cause for wars, arguments, stress where people want to have more land, power, glory, superiority, money and all of that. Most people are stuck at “having”, and the world is still entrenched in the “having” state, so it is normal to be a “having” person. But being normal does not mean being sane. If unhappiness is the norm, isn’t it insane to create more unhappiness and be part of the insanity?

Second, since “having” is so common, it means that it takes a lot more courage to be different from everyone else and make a change. If you recognize that “having” is insane, the next step is to dare to be sane. Have the courage to be a sane person. Humans are known to conform even when conformity may mean unhappiness, suffering, injustice is done to themselves or other people. Conformity is also the recipe for mediocrity. The courage to break out of conformity and insanity is necessary, or even with the knowledge, people will simply continue being insane and continue suffering.

Many people are at least partially aware that a world of “having” is insane. I have friends who desire and crave for the innocence and happiness of babies, children and long to be there, yet they resign themselves to a life of “having”. They go “life sucks, but we have to deal with it” and pat their friends who also face the same shit, resigning themselves to a life of “having” rather than having the courage to break out of their insanity and say, “Fuck this, i’m not going to lead a life like that”. Indeed, some people resort to suicide to escape the insanity but there is no courage in that.

Third, the knowledge…how to be happy? Simply recognize the dysfunction and be aware of it at all times. Observe your unhappiness when you don’t have what you want to have, observe your unease at inactivity, observe how, when doing mundane things like walking, sitting on the bus, you are sucked into thinking about the future, the past, things, not enjoying Being there.

When you have an image of yourself being a certain way and people insult that image, you feel hurt because you lost what you had. Feel that hurt and unhappiness. When you realise that you are feeling anxious, thinking and planning about the future, feeling fearful and competitive, observe and be aware of all of that.

Whenever you are unhappy, it means you have “lost” or failed to “have” something, and are stuck in a mental and emotional pattern of having. You have been conditioned to become a “having” person. When you become aware of it, when you feel the emotions generated by these patterns, when you see the thoughts of these mental patterns, you are already aware of these patterns. When you are aware, you are no longer a “having” person. A “having” person is unaware of these patterns and takes them to be normal. The more you are aware, the more you observe your thoughts, the more you are in the state of being aware and observing. Being aware and observing means you are not playing out the mental and emotional pattern. You have detached yourself from it, and the more you do so, the faster the “having” patterns will erode away. It is a process, a gradual thing, so you will have to keep observing and being aware until the patterns erode and “having” stops being your way of life.

Try meditation. What is meditation? Meditation is stillness, being free of your thoughts and just Being there. The more people are geared towards “having’, the more they are trapped in thinking and the more they think. When i first began meditating, i was very much a having person and it was reflected in the way that tt was very hard for me to get more than 10 or 20 seconds of a state of no thoughts. Being more a of Doing person now, i find it a lot easier to go into a state of thoughtlessness. That is “formal” meditation, where you place particular emphasis on entering a state of Being. Now bring this state into all your activities. When you walk, place all your attention on walking. When you sit, feel your butt on the surface you sit, feel how the air feels to your skin, completely be there. When you find yourself thinking, break away from thinking and return you attention to whatever you are doing.

So how does one meditate? One of the easiest ways is to feel your breath. Feel and be aware of how your breath feels like, how your organs move, how your breath moves through your nose, throat lungs, the inhale and exhale. Don’t think “oh this is my nose, this is my throat”, don’t think about feeling it. Just feel it and be completely aware of how it feels. Place all your attention on feeling your breath. Do this for 5 minutes and you may find that after awhile, your thoughts stop and you are just there, being aware of your breath. The essence of meditation is to be completely present and BE, rather than being absorbed by “having” and “doing”.

Thinking is the common state of a “having” person, since the having person is always thinking about how to have, what he wants to have, and not being satisfied with what is. A Being person thinks, but only when it is necessary. A Having person is always thinking and is completely absorbed by it. The more you are in a state of no-thought, the more you are in a state of Being. In your life, think only when it is crucial and necessary, when you are completing an assignment or solving problems.

Happiness is simple to attain. Just be, lose the need to have or do, and be happy with Being. It is simple, but not easy. To have a more profound and deeper understanding, i suggest reading The Power of Now or The New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. In these two books, he clearly explains the dysfunction of a Having person and how to become more of a Being person. Okay, love me and send me hugs.

Love Signs

Okay, i just realised that i’ve been hit by a wave of “Love” synchronities lately.

Firstly, there’s the “Heart Essence Method” by Susan Castle

Then, i’ve been listening to the audiobook Zero Limits by Joe Vitale and it speaks about using Love to mend and heal all the disharmonies in your life, epitomised by using the phrase “I love you” whenever you feel or see disharmony, negativity and unhappiness.

And then, a newsletter Quantum Mind Power i subscribe to has “Love” as its central theme in this issue

All of them speak of the greatest force being Love, and using that to empower you.

Love!

EEE day 14-16

Continued with my feeling meditation

I regularly reread the instructions for feeling meditation for some sort of encouragement. Recently, i noticed that the explanation for the feeling meditation was that one must ‘experience his suppressed acute symptoms” of the disease before the chronic disease is healed.

And then i thought, hey, maybe that’s why my eyes and facial muscles do an assortment of twitching, squeezing, and spasm movements when i place my attention on them.

I have a feeling my astigmatism has reduced but it isn’t conclusive yet. Something that is conclusive is that i’ve accepted my eyesight more and more, and feel less frustration or anxiety about it.

Today 25/7/08

Today there was half-day, joseph did an impressively concise presentation on  vietnam and prevented it from being the dry presentation it would otherwise most likely have been. And then in class, the ego came back again, and i think the need is the need to be free of the ego. I’m very aware of whenever i’m slipping into ego-patterns and the only issue that crops up right now is my need to be free of the ego. Inside, i’d want to be the loud, cheery, spontaneous, guai lan, crazy person that i take to be who i really am, but when i become self-conscious of it, its hard to access it back. Right now, i decided that whenever it happens, i’ll just go deep into meditation.

My class was thinking about going to class outing but the lure of footie was too great and i decided to play it instead! I had a strong team, me kaiye aran mj fabian, but there was still some soreness left from Monday?’s injury, When i sprinted or smashed the ball, it would jar it, so at the start i was really getting used to the leg and really letting the injury affect me.

I made several conky mistakes, much to the displeasure of my teamates…boo…and then when i played defender, there was once the ball looped in the air but i didn’t know where it went so i turned behind and when i turned back, the opponent had volleyed it into our goal so i could sense my teamates being pissed at me and i knew it was my fault but i didn’t think they ought to  be so pissed with me. I could actually feel myself feelin scared of playing and making mistakes, or taking on the belief that i would play badly today because of my left leg.

Howeverrrrr, i just kept aware and told myself to just play without worrying what happens, and guess what, i eventually got used to my left leg and did pretty good.

After that i floundered around the school and ended up bringin a tub of ice cream to the ares fac comm banner painters with zenghao and shufan and it was nice to hang out with the people there and so i did.

I went away for awhile, then went back, and then mr teh was there and then we talked for a bit and i always like sharing eckhart’s teachings with people. later he asked me if i wanted to join the ares fac comm for dinner and mmm why not.

Then some thoughts came to my mind, like “what if they think you’re bein extra…” and all that nonsense…and i just laughed at it and went ahead.

Oh, aafter the dinner we went to play pool nd sometime during the fac comm dinner plus outing, i became self-conscious again, and the need to be free of the ego came back.  When i spoke to some people, i was completely free of it, but when i talked to soome others, it sort of triggered immediately/ The first pool game i had…the first time i played!…(i hit some balls before but never really tried during those times and they weren’t games) was really fun. I was my crazy, spontaneous, natural, cheery, funny, loud, self. Then the second game wasn’t that good, and we shuffled players and it just stayed that way, and all the while the self-consciousness was there.

I decided not to play pool because it wasn’t fun anymore and went to meditate…and guess what, after the meditation i felt myself feel better and was more of my crazy self…somewhat more but still not fully that………

but hey, when i got home, i had a really cool experience. I had a similar experience a few days back, but this tim it was much stronger. I got off the bus and suddenly i felt the beauty of the world. The buildings seemed like toys, the staircases, the trees, the landscape was suddenly so fresh and enjoyable even though i was used to seeing it for months and years…they suddenly gained a sense of freshness and beauty…

they gave me the feeling like i was in toyland, all the buildings were toys, the landscape was too…and then i looked at my hands and legs and…i saw them with a somewhat detached feeling of…oh i have a body, i have arms, legs.. they are moving….for me. Its a sense of “wow i have all of these…a child-like wonder at seeing new things except i was seeing the same things i had been seeing the past few months/years, yet today, their freshness and “new”ness was recaptured.

As i passed buldings, i imagined the people living in there…humans with problems and feelins like myself…and there was some sense of belonging, sense of knowingness and attachment to them, as if they are part of me…

23/7/08

Woopee, the meditation thing worked. I just found it a lot easier to speak and all my self-consciousness went awy, along with the unease and discomfort i previously felt.

EEE day 12-13

Continued with feeling meditation, sparsely throughout the days.

21/7/08- inner peace

Today, i rediscovered the meaning of living in the present. Even though i intellectually grasped the concept of living in the present, i didn’t practise it correctly. I mistook my ordinary mind for my awareness, and for the past two weeks, i’ve been feeling a stagnant feeling of discontentment. I thought that by observing it, it would dissolve, but that wasn’t the case.

The situation here was more of a thought problem than an emotional one. Emotionally, i allowed myself to feel whatever i felt, but as long as my thoughts pulled me out of the present moment, i would keep adding suffering to myself. I glanced through The Power of Now again and did the inner body meditation, where i focussed on my inner body, feeling it thoroughly.

When i did it, i had problems popping up where thoughts would drift in and out, and i’d tried to retain the awareness behind those thoughts. Whenever those thoughts came out, i tried to embrace the awareness behind the thoughts. I did it for awhile, but then it became confusing, and soon, whenever a thought came up, i’d be confused as to how to deal with the thought. My practise wasn’t going so good because i kept trying to move into a state of pure awareness but that state is an empty state, not something your mind can grasp. In fact, that state is an absence of thought and mind. The discontent was still there and i relooked at the book

Then, i realised how to do my meditation. The purpose of it was to keep me in the present. As long as i was in the present moment, being aware of the present moment, i was already in the state of pure awareness. I realised that the inner body meditation was meant so that i could focus my awareness on my inner body and since my inner body was in the present moment and not a thought from the past, future or somewhere imaginary, i realised it easily anchored me into the present moment. Whenever a thought came up, rather than trying to embrace pure awareness, i simply returned my attention to my inner body. Automatically, my awareness was focussed on the present moment and i became in the state of pure awareness again.

I did the exercise for about…i don’t know 15 minutes+? and after doing it for a period, there was a strong calm and peace that descended upon me. The discontent and unease i felt the past two weeks were totally absent, replaced by a sense of contentment and peace.

Okay, anyway, if you want to try this out and haven’t been able to figure out how to do this, i’ll teach you. When you feel frustrated, discontented, uneasy, this may help you.

Step One, sit with your eyes closed

Step Two, try to feel your inner body, try to feel your body from within

Step three, try to feel it as a collective energy field

Step four, breath normally while maintaining your attention on your inner body.

Whenever a thought comes up, don’t worry. Just refocus to your inner body.

If you want, you can also focus on your breath, feeling it go in and out, if the inner body isn’t right for you, or combine both.

EEE DAY 9-11

Continued with feeling meditation and turned on subliminal messages for one day…

Right after i finish my feeling meditation, i find my eyesight improves but after awhile, the improvement doesn’t seem to last yet. I suppose the changes may take some time to become permanent.

Fuck the future and your ‘purpose’

Lately, as me and my friends move towards the A levels, i’ve been seeing more and more of them feeling anguish, struggle, uncertainty, anxiety about the future. There’s a longing, a clinging on to right now, when we’re free of the imagined troubles of working life. They seem to dislike the future, not wanting to meet it, yet they can’t help thinking about it. What will we do? What should i do with my life? With my future? What’s the point of scoring As if i don’t know what to do with my future? This post is meant to hopefully give them an answer to all these troubles.

The reason for this clinginess, this desire to avoid the future and hang on to the present, right now, is because we fear the future. We imagine the future to be worst off than the present. Why else would we avoid it? We always look forward towards something better, and shy away from something worse. Even though we may not consciously project our imagine our future, even though we may not logically know what our future will be, we unconsciously already pictture the future to be bad. We hear stories from society, newspapers, parents, about how working life is so stressful, full of back-stabbing and crap, and the shitty thing is we buy into all of it.

The next problem is when we take in all the assumptions of the future that society throws at us. Assumptions such as “YOU MUST HAVE A PURPOSE IN LIFE”, “EVERYONE HAS A PURPOSE IN LIFE”, “YOU MUST KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE”…and when we accept these, we unconsciously also accept that “EVERYONE KNOWS THEIR PURPOSE. YOU OUGHT TO, TOO”, “YOU WILL DIE/SUFFER IF YOU DON’T HAVE A PURPOSE IN LIFE”, “IT IS WRONG TO NOT HAVE A PURPOSE IN LIFE”. You take in all these assumptions and assume that because society takes them to be true, they must be true for everyone. Not many people talk about this, so you assume that you’re the only one having this problem. You make “findin a purpose” right and not having one, “wrong”.

So, as we seem to move closer and closer to all these future projections, these problems become more and more glaring. Right now, i’d just like everyone who has these problems to take the step of courage and consider what my opinions on these are.

1. The future doesn’t exist. It may be better, it may be worse. No one knows! All you know is society bombaring you with their realities of it but you have no idea if its true for you or not. Even if what they say is true, what can you do about it? Worrying about it won’t help, avoiding it won’t help because you can’t avoid it. All you can do is to accept that whatever will be, will be. Relinquish resistance, stop trying to avoid or delay it. Be at peace with whatever may come, and the only way you can be at peace is to focus on this moment right now. Whenever you project yourself into the future and think about it, whether unconsciously or consciously, you’re trying to deal with something that you can’t! How can you deal with a problem that doesn’t exist? The only thing that is real, that exists, is now, the present moment, so put your full attention and focus on it. When the future comes, it will come through Now, you will face the future in the present, and when it comes, deal with whatever comes.

But seriously, you have absolutely no idea what the future holds for you, so why let yourself be so bothered by it? Who’s to say the future isn’t more fun, more enjoyable, happier than it is now? Why make so many silly assumptions based on what others think and trying to make you think? When people try to convince me that life in the future is going to be hard/stressful, in my mind, i’m going “fuck off, my future is goin to be way more fun and happy than it is now. you can have the unhappy future, i’m going to have the happy one.” And if they try to convince me by talking, i’m guessing i would probably tell them “i don’t believe in that.” That’s what i did when my mom told me how we needed to brush our teeth or else they will decay. I told her,”i don’t believe in that.”

I know, some of you may be going, “just because you believe in it doesn’t make it true”. Well, i believe in the law of attraction, and basically, it means that you get what you believe. There is evidence for it, scientifically, in the form of placebo, the phenomenon where people’s illnesses suddenly go into remission when they believe that htey are cured even if they haven’t.

2. The next point deals with the assumptions that we blindly take in. Who told you you NEEDED to have a purpose? Why can’t you not have one? Okay, so people tell you that you must have one. But you don’t know your purpose right now, and do you think that worrying about it, thinking about it, will lead you to your purpose? Why not just accept that you don’t know what your purpose is right now, and it may or may not come to you. For now, your purpose is to live your life as it is, in the present moment, not to worry about the future because worrying does absolutely shit. Alternatively, you can go one step further and accept that you may not have a purpose at all.

Sometimes, you get that argument…if you have no purpose, you may as well die now…i would say…not really. Babies, children don’t seem to have any “purpose”. Their purpose, as far as they are concerned, is to be completely present and enjoy whatever there is now, and they seem happy enough. I would think that your purpose should be something you love to do, something you feel enthusiastic and happy about doing, rather than something you think you should be doing, something you think makes a big contribution to society or whatever. If you do what you are happy doing, what you feel you should be doing, then you will naturally contribute in your own way. On the contrary, if you THINK that you should be doing something and then you do it, you’ll end up unhappy and burden the world with your complaints, unhappiness, and resentment.

I believe that when people tell you that you ought to have a purpose in life, the true meaning to that is that you should live a life where you find meaning and happiness, doing something you like and love to do. This is in contrast to people who lead their lives according to what society tells them they should be doing, getting a job that society deems acceptable, not daring to do what they would really like to do, and basically living their lives like a machine. When you have a purpose, it means you take charge, you are in control, you do what you want and not what others tell you you ought to be doing.

Realise that there is NOTHING WRONG with not knowing your purpose or having a purpose. The only thing that sucks is when you live your life according to what people tell you. Stop needing to have a purpose! When you have a purpose, it should come naturally and spontaneously to you. You should innately, instinctively know what it is, rather than trying to think, analyze and figure out what it is. If you don’t know, be completely fine with it. Why take the insane route of trying to fight and figure out your purpose, a purpose that might not even exist, a purpose that exists out of the infinite purposes there are in this world? What if you have more than one purpose? What if your purpose changes from time to time? Fuck, are you seriously going to try to analyze and figure it all out?

Right now, this is my purpose: My purpose in life is to lead the happiest life i can lead, to become completely present, to inspire and teach others how to become enlightened in my definition of it. My purpose may change later, but for now, this is what i like to do. I like to help people, to inspire people, and to enjoy my life. So i make that my purpose. Oh, another part of my purpose is to not make the future a problem and to stay completely present and enjoy the present moment.

19/7/08 – The Pain-body strikes back! (football)

Yesterday, my pain-body reactivated while i was playing football. It could have been the fact that i was playing in a really good team, or that the soccer seniors were watching. In any case, i stopped playing in the flow all of a sudden and began feeling anxious and nervous. I began having tunnel vision, couldn’t focus properly, and simply began playing a lot more badly. Even though i realised it quickly, it didn’t fade away, and i had to remind myself to accept it, accept that there was nothing wrong with playing badly and all that. As i played badly, my mood changed also. I became more withdrawn, quiet, and just didn’t feel comfortable.

Our team got knocked out only after we played for quite a long time, despite me not playing very well. I observed and accepted all my feelings and stopped tryin to regain the flow state, or trying to make myself play well. I just let myself feel whatever i was feeling.

I went to drink water, and then iype, wilson and wincoln left the court so i had a new team. This time, i recovered my flow state and a big change came over me. I became cheekier, louder, and suddenly dared to tease and mock and do all the funny stuff. I had a sense of assurance and calm, very relaxed and not anxious at all. And then my vision opened up too, and i began to see and spray passes around. Mr tok came and played with us and i just knew from the way he played that he was in the flow state.

It was fun, playing with the seniors again, and being my true self, not obsscured and hidden by all the egoic mental patterns and emotions. I always had the same awkwardness with samuel as i did with iype and as iwrite this, i suddenly realise its my ego’s way of protecting me from their antics…but to my pleasure, the second time i came back, i went back to my real self and found i wasn’t as uncomfortable or awkward anymore. And as we played on, samuel being on my team, i think the discomfort kept on dissolving until at the end of the day, there wasn;t much of it left.