Creative Lines

Recently I started to like lines drawing after seeing some. It is therapeutic when you take up a pen and start drawing without thinking. Whatever designs that eventually surfaced are unpredictable and a surprise at own creation.

Sunset

The awesome and mesmerising sunset on 10,7,2020 at 1900 hours from my window. I love watching the sky and look out for displays like these. The beautiful hues of various colours painted across this canvas is truly art. Enjoy this presentation 🌈🌈🌈

GE 2020

GE lots of sharp edges and everyone tells their own stories and promises.

A son stands opposite the father's party. He should have done so when LKY is alive. Siblings confrontation not uncommon and to wash dirty linens in public, this also should happen when LKY is alive. I am just a bit heartache on all the ruckus caused by the family members over a property and it is none of the business of public but we are dragged into it. Knowing what human nature is like, many will add salt, pepper and the like.

LKY earned my respect. Being in the education arena, I know how children are like. There were times you need to be strict and direct. Love must come with wisdom and compassion. So at the end you are seen as a controlling figure. It is as always “I cannot get my way “ and you are bad. There will be the obedience, the wise, the never mind, the follow blindly and surely the rebellious.

My mum said gratitude is priceless and the sufferings the older folks endured not something we younger ones treasure. We make noises with little discomfort and I can imagine when it comes to sufferings. Isn’t it that’s what we saw during this pandemic.

Now we have many imports and what are their agenda? Should we all go through all the sufferings again and let's see if we can find another brilliant LKY to lead or sink in garbages. We saw all the physical and verbal attacks in other countries government. Really bad examples that adults behaved these ways and shared on social media. Monkeys see monkeys do without thinking.

Good luck Singaporean to your wise choice.

Stay Home Stay Safe

I have not left home since Thursday 9th March 2020 night.

From sitting room to bedroom to kitchen to dinning rooms. From sofa to my big bean bag to bed. My prayer room and prayer beads. My prayer beads is my constant companion at home.

The fridge filled with meat, veggies, fruits, snacks, ice cream and eggs. I locked myself in. Purpose not to give others problems and to put myself in danger. Let the Doctors and nurses save those that need them and I don't want to add on.

My iPad and Handphone are my contact with loved ones and to get updates of news. My heart is with All sufferings in hospitals and at home. I watched my feelings and I knew it is not easy when it's so habitual to move around.  Fortunately for me, I am used to stay home.

Covid-19 is not going to let us off easily. I am blessed to be living in Singapore.  I thank PM Lee HL and the Government for doing what they thought best. YES, when people are deprived of income and food, it will be chaotic on top of Covid-19. A rise in crime is not helpful at this moment.

All compounded things will end. Stay calm.

Huaishan Greenbean Soup

I have been staying at home. There is no lockdown in Singapore but we have Stay Home notice. To curbed Covid-19, going out without a mask is against the law and so is gatherings. All food need to be packaged and to consume at home. No one is allowed to eat in hawker centers, restaurants and outlets in the open. Shopping malls are closed. Except for essential services, all are closed.

I did not stepped out since yesterday. With so much time in hand, I tried making a dessert to pamper myself. It is the Huaishan Greenbean Soup.

Green bean contain Vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, C, E, K and minerals like iron, magnesium and potassium. It can be taken warm or chilled.

Huaishan or Shan Yao or Chinese Yam. It improves digestive system, reduce blood sugar, nourishes lungs and kidney.  Being an antioxidant it also boost immunity. It is also beneficial for both male  and female reproductive system. Huaishan can be eaten fresh or put into soup or stir-fry with other vegetables.

You may take it and improve your health.

Teaching from a Precious Guru - Dujom Rinpochel

An Introduction to the Great Perfection

Homage to my teacher!

The Great Master of Oddiyana once said:

Don’t investigate the roots of things,

Investigate the root of Mind!

Once the mind’s root has been found,

You’ll know one thing, yet all is thereby freed.

But if the root of Mind you fail to find,

You will know everything but nothing understand.

When you start to meditate on your mind, sit up with your body straight, allowing your breath to come and go naturally. Gaze into the space in front of you with eyes neither closed nor wide open. Think to yourself that for the sake of all beings who have been your mothers, you will watch awareness, the face of Samantabhadra.

Pray strongly to your root teacher, who is inseparable from Padmasambhava, the Guru from Oddiyana, and then mingle your mind with his.

Settle in a balanced, meditative state. Once you are settled, however, you will not stay long in this empty, clear state of awareness. Your mind will start to move and become agitated. It will fidget and run here, there, and everywhere, like a monkey. What you are experiencing at this point is not the nature of the mind but only thoughts.

If you stick with them and follow them, you will find yourself recalling all sorts of things, thinking about all sorts of needs, planning all sorts of activities. It is precisely this kind of planning all sorts of activities. It is precisely this kind of mental activity that has hurled you into the dark ocean of samsara in the past, and there’s no doubt it will do so in the future.

It would be so much better if you could cut through the ever spreading, black delusion of your thoughts. What if you are able to break out of your chain of thoughts? What is awareness like? It is empty, limpid, stunning, light, free, joyful! It is not something bounded or demarcated by its own set of attributes. There is nothing in the whole of samsara and nirvana that it does not embrace.

From time without beginning, it is within us, inborn. We have never been without it, yet it is wholly outside the range of action, effort, and imagination. But what, you will ask, is it like to recognize awareness, the face of rigpa? Although you experience it, you simply cannot describe it—it would be like a dumb man trying to describe his dreams!

It is impossible to distinguish between yourself resting in awareness and the awareness you are experiencing. When you rest quite naturally, nakedly, in the boundless state of awareness, all those speedy, pestering thoughts that would not stay quiet even for an instant—all those memories, all those plans that cause you so much trouble—lose their power. They disappear in the spacious, cloudless sky of awareness. They shatter, collapse, vanish.

All their strength is lost in awareness. You actually have this awareness within you. It is the clear, naked wisdom of dharmakaya. But who can introduce you to it? On what should you take your stand? What should you be certain of? To begin with, it is your teacher who shows you the state of your awareness.

And when you recognize it for the state of your awareness. And when you recognize it for yourself, it is then that you are introduced to your own nature. All the appearances of both samsara and nirvana are but the display of your own awareness; take your stand upon awareness alone. Just like the waves that rise up out of the sea and sink back into it, all thoughts that appear sink back into awareness.

Be certain of their dissolution, and as a result you will find yourself in a state utterly devoid of both meditator and something meditated upon—completely beyond the meditating mind.

“Oh, in that case,” you might think, “there’s no need for meditation.” Well, I can assure you that there is a need! The mere recognition of awareness will not liberate you.

Throughout your lives from beginningless time, you have been enveloped in false beliefs and deluded habits. From then till now you have spent every moment as a miserable, pathetic slave of your thoughts! And when you die, it’s not at all certain where you will go. You will follow your karma, and you will have to suffer. This is the reason why you must meditate, continuously preserving the state of awareness you have been introduced to.

The omniscient Longchenpa has said, “You may recognize your own nature, but if you do not meditate and get used to it, you will be like a baby left on a battlefield: you’ll be carried off by the enemy, the hostile army of your own thoughts!” In general terms, meditation means becoming familiar with the state of resting in the primordial uncontrived nature, through being spontaneously, naturally, constantly mindful. It means getting used to leaving the state of awareness alone, divested of all distraction and clinging.

How do we get used to remaining in the nature of the mind? When thoughts come while you are meditating, let them come; there’s no need to regard them as your enemies.

When they arise, relax in their arising. On the other hand, if they don’t arise, don’t be nervously wondering whether or not they will. Just rest in their absence. If big, well-defined thoughts suddenly appear during your meditation, it is easy to recognize them. But when slight, subtle movements occur, it is hard to realize that they are there until much later. This is what we call namtok wogyu, the undercurrent of mental wandering. This is the thief of your meditation, so it is important for you to keep a close watch. If you can be constantly mindful, both in meditation and afterward, when you are eating, sleeping, walking, or sitting, that’s it — you’ve got it right!

The great master Guru Rinpoche has said:

A hundred things may be explained, a thousand told,

But one thing only should you grasp.

Know one thing and everything is freed—

Remain within your inner nature, your awareness!

It is also said that if you do not meditate, you will not gain certainty; if you do, you will. But what sort of certainty? If you meditate with a strong, joyful endeavor, signs will appear showing that you have become used to staying in your nature.

The fierce, tight clinging that you have to dualistically experienced phenomena will gradually loosen up, and your obsession with happiness and suffering, hopes and fears, and so on, will slowly weaken. Your devotion to the teacher and your sincere trust in his instructions will grow.

After a time, your tense, dualistic attitudes will evaporate and you will get to the point where gold and pebbles, food and filth, gods and demons, virtue and nonvirtue, are all the same for you — you’ll be at a loss to choose between paradise and hell! But until you reach that point (while you are still caught in the experiences of dualistic perception), virtue and nonvirtue, buddhafields and hells, happiness and pain, actions and their results—all this is reality for you.

As the Great Guru has said,

“My view is higher than the sky, but my attention to actions and their results is finer than flour.”

So don’t go around claiming to be some great Dzogchen meditator when in fact you are nothing but a farting lout, stinking of alcohol and rank with lust!

It is essential for you to have a stable foundation of pure devotion and samaya, together with a strong, joyful endeavor that is well balanced, neither too tense nor too loose. If you are able to meditate, completely turning aside from the activities and concerns of this life, it is certain that you will gain the extraordinary qualities of the profound path of Dzogchen. Why wait for future lives? You can capture the primordial citadel right now, in the present.

This advice is the very blood of my heart. Hold it close and never let it go!

- Dudjom Rinpoche - Counsels From My Heart

Covid - 19 and my thoughts

As Covid-19 rages on around the World, uncertainty is in the air. From taking it lightly like a Flu to it telling you ‘I take lives’. My big brothers are pointing fingers at each other losing sights of the big picture (showing off muscles) while the younger ones exhausted trying to stop infection spreading and killing more people. The people who made the movie ‘Independent Day’ can make a new one now....this Covid-19 can clear us out. It travels on lands, up the mountain, nook and corners, young and old, poor or rich, weak or powerful....you name it and there is nothing it cannot infect unless you are not alive. The difficult times are here but total impact not yet. Politicians are nothing in its eyes! Buddha taught Cause and Effect and Interdependent, reminded us about Impermanence and to keep a good and compassionate heart. We always find a reason to justify ourselves not for this one. 

I am watching while made to take leave and work at home. So busy and no time to seriously reflect. Putting rice on the table and clear about Yours and Mine, running around to fulfil a fake existence. Practicing the Dharma with a heart? No, I am trying but not there yet. I don’t need to pretend, I fake myself and others but cannot fake Lord Karma. Many are fearless thinking Cause and Effect is nothing...didn’t this Covid-19 comes from excessive killing of animals over years, Yes? No? We caused pain and now we are suffering the lost of jobs, depleting our accumulated wealth, lost loved ones, curbed freedom of moving around (some cannot even stay still for themselves and put others in danger) and feed our mouth ( clear out supermarkets, must eat and eat the best, not eating what is needed but overeat or throw food). This selfishness prevails, craved into our CPU life after life. Our kindness is selected, our compassion too. The rushing for food too, I am rich enough to clear out shelves, others don’t matter whether they have food,,,,first come first served. How about first come first die? I think hunger is good, clear our system and at the same time help us to build empathy.

The Healthcare and Frontlines are doing their best. We can only try to keep ourselves safe so as not to add on to more count of infected and death.