A Lonely Soul

Yes, I must have been a lonely soul in my past lives.

Maybe I was an only child. Growing up around grown-ups too busy to spare five minutes, a hug or a kiss. My only playmates were myself, and my imagination. As I walked the path of life, there was nobody to share my happiness, and everybody was too busy to offer comfort when I was down. Long was my shadow. Alone.

Or perhaps, I was a fugitive in a hostile world, where a wrong word at a wrong time to a wrong person could lead to a wrong end. My distance from others was my protection; my silence, my defense. Every face was greeted with cynicism. At no times, I could let my guard down to let anybody get close, and nobody would let me get close to them. Caution, was my only companion.

Or it could be that I was a lone survivor of an extinct tribe. Living in a foreign land where no one knew my language. The only purpose of my mother tongue was to converse with myself in my mind. Never out loud.

Or perhaps I was Robinson Crusoe in my previous life. Deserted.

Yes indeed, I must have been a lonely soul in my past lives. I like to smile.

Every face I meet, with a smile I will greet. A smile, triggered not by calls of courtesy or etiquette, constructed not by forceful twitching of facial mechanism, drawn by no conscious effort, but sprouts from a seed buried within me. When the seed is watered by radiance emanating from the company of another being, it grows. It blossoms into a smile beaming with happiness, just as when a void is finally filled, a thirst finally quenched, or a yearning satisfied at last. Joy.

Yes, I like to smile.

But, due to perhaps the heavier burden of life, or the fatigue brought by it, I feel the seed is buried deeper and deeper within me, and further and further apart, its blossoms scatter. Tired. Maybe.

Yet, I like to smile. Still.


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Guess What?

It just hit me that, in the tone of my last two posts (this and this), I had missed the zenness that was spilt all over the place from one of the oldest joke around:-



Why did the chicken cross the road?


Because it wanted to get on the other side!


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Putting Something Into Nothing

I have been feeling Zenny since my last post. So I thought I'd give my worldly and lowly 2 cents worth of reflection regarding the Zenness of my last post, which is also my first post - about Zen, in this post.

Please bear in mind that if the journey to enlightenment is a million steps to the west, I'm now at 2 steps to the east, lying on my hammock between two coconut trees, enjoying and admiring the glorious view of the west, while having a sip from my glass of cocktail with a tiny umbrella for inspiration.

So dwell into my words at your own risk. Any bad injuries, physical or emotional, caused by the clumsiness of my words, their un-enlightening nature, their path to noway; you being more lost than before you were lost; you could not find your way back to the proper functioning mind of yours; you bearing physical harm by proclaiming as a Master of Zen through "enlightenment" by my words to others, and hence earn the wrath of your jealous friends, are all none of my business.

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Buddha achieved his enlightenment under a Bodhi tree.

Buddhism believes all of us can become a Budha through enlightenment by not looking externally from us, but within us. Through practices, of which meditation is one of many ways, we'll be able to achieve this.

At times, our perception of the true nature of things or events are distorted by our worldly emotions, thus causing us to be confused and unhappy about the state of things or events.

In essence, this is what the senior disciple was trying to convey with his words:

Our body is the tree of Bodhi; our mind, a reflective mirror. We must clean the mirror of our mind diligently to rid it of any dust of worldly thought.

BUT,

A tree, which is not a tree, is a tree; a mirror, which is not a mirror, is a mirror. When there is no thoughts rippling in your mind as you encounter with things and events, how would it takes on any forms, worldly or un-worldly, when there is none of it?

Hence,

Bodhi is no tree; the reflection, shone not from a mirror. When all is only Nothingness, upon what will the dust gather?

If I see a person smiling a me, hatred might arise because I might be having a bad day, "What the hell is so happy about today that you have to smile like a fool in front of me?" Without worldly emotions colouring my vision of things or events, I'll be happy to see a person smiling at me, which is a person smiling at me, and I'll smile back. And, in the true sense of Zen, we would need no suppression of our worldly emotions to be able to smile back, because the natural reaction to meeting happiness IS becoming happy.

If I fill a glass with water up to its halfway mark, I will neither say it's half full, nor half empty. I'll say it's a BLOODY GLASS OF WATER, and drink it. Why else would I get a glass of water?

A glass of water, is a glass of water. If I look at the glass of water, and keep trying to figure out whether it's half full or half empty, I'd already by affected by my worldly emotion of the moment - half empty when I'm feeling negative, or half full when I'm feeling optimistic - and I'll remain thirsty. My hand will also be tired for holding the glass too long.

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With me so far? Good. 'Cause I'm lost in my own Zenniness, and feeling a little bit of dizziness.

And if you ARE enlightened, in any sorts of way, to whatever degree, by the above craps, please let me know, I'll seriously consider publishing a book on my Zenniness.

Happy Zenning!


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