How do you like your coffee?
As I look back at my old posts, it just occured to me that many of them would appear to be... almost bleak or negative in my interpretation of the world. I seem to be presenting the side that is ambivalent towards positiveness.
My posts on hope, for example, might have given the impression that I view hope as a bad thing. Although thats not what I meant, that what I was trying to say was that even hope has consequence which can either be happy or not happy, I can understand how it can be interpreted as throwing cold water on a hot idea.
I guess it reveals the two things that dominate my mind at this stage of my growth. First, I am trying to discover for myself why things are the way they are. While people accept things without question (because everyone says thinking too much is a bad thing) and build their hopes on motherhoods and traditions, I go subterranean to try and learn what makes these wisdoms tick. As others rush to invest in a particular stock because everyone says its good, I take it apart piece by piece to see if something's really there.
I have to accept that because life is hard enough as it is, illusions sell and that I will never represent a popular point of view.
Two, I am trying to understand what happiness is. I've stopped equating it with possessions some time ago. I suppose that'll run against every cell in your body if you happen to devote your entire life to the pursuit of money. I don't deny the reality that you need money to pay rent and buy groceries but the fact that I don't see happiness in million-dollar homes and fat bank accounts scares a lot of people, even my family.
So this is the phase in my life when I'm trying to use my own faculties to separate the wheat from the chaff, the substance from the marketing. Along the way, I learnt a valuable lesson. That people do need masks. Life without masks is like coffee without sugar - its unbearable. I can appreciate that. And I'm happy to make coffee for my friends - with cream, sugar, chocolate sprinkles and a dash of vanilla if they want - as I take mine neat.
This blog is my coffee minus cream and sugar. Its a place where I can pick apart wisdoms without feeling I must conform to one set of values or another. Its my zero gravity chamber. Typing out the words helps me think. Its part of my trying to be more self aware.
10 comments:
I do not know... But it feels weird when you say you want to understand what happiness is.......
Erm... I guess this is what I think. It doesn't require one to learn in order to understand happiness? I mean it will never be a genuine one if you need to put in effort to try and understand it.... Just like the big word, Love?
I do not know if what I said make any sense at all... what do you think? =D
Hi hc. That's a good question and not an easy one to answer but let me give it a shot.
I used to think that happiness was having your dreams come true. Well, many of my dreams did come true - things like being able to run my own little business, having some good friends, having an intact family, having a home in California. But in each case, the happiness has not been what I expected. Its been conditional. Up and down. The good feelings are only there when certain conditions are met.
Even when you have a supportive family, happiness can turn into anxiety when they are uncontactable, and sorrow when one of them passes away.
More specifically my mind is asking - is happiness hanging on to something (like love, which can disappear just like that) or is it letting go of something.
You probably know the spiritual answer to it but I need to make up my own mind by experimenting on myself. That is what I mean by trying to understand what happiness is. What is it made of and how does it arise and fall.
Its a trivial pursuit to most, except that how I perceive happiness greatly influences the choices I make every day from what I eat to where I go after work.
I hope I made sense there...
=) Thanks for the answer. It made me start thinking about it... A word I never thought would be so complicated to explain and understand... Maybe I just prefer simplicity.
I think my view on happiness is somewhat different. I was reading your post last night and figured I do not know how to put into words what I want to say... And then I realized, happiness for me is to see everyone else around me being happy. I guess a utilitarian is what I am....
I too think that.... Happiness or even Love doesn't hang onto something and disappear just like that... It is actually Always there. Unfortunately most of the time, we failed to see its existence...and the reason? Perhaps most people tend to think too much and is as complicated as you are? lol
Well, I think being simple is more beneficial. In terms of obtaining joy in every lil thing... The minus of it would be you might miss out certain details that would cause serious consequences...
The love you refer to sounds a lot like the Buddhist version of compassion.
Yes compassion is all around. Even the water is compassionate. It cleanses and quenches friend and foe alike, without discrimination. Can humans go to that level? I haven't seen it. Whether discrimination occurs because of too much thinking or thoughtlessness, I don't know.
You are one of the lucky ones, probably born with the ability to recognize love everywhere. Many are not as lucky. They have to cultivate compassion by raising their levels of awareness, for example thru meditation. It actually involves a lot of effort (yes, and thinking unfortunately). So I don't see thoughtful effort as necessarily negative.
In fact, I've always seen thoughtlessness a bigger danger to well-being. Environmental pollution is an example of man's thoughtlessness triggered by greed.
Its good to be happy when everyone's happy. Its even better to be happy when everyone is not. In fact, thats when a happy face is the most welcome. ^_^
Dear Damien,
Interesting discussion going on here. For me, the dominant question that's being going ringing in my head for many years now is simple:
What am I meant to do with my life?
Even if one has all the material comfort in the world, it's an ephemeral as a dream. Yes, there are moments of happiness but they are too easily snatched away. Sometimes, when I realize that all the people that I've ever seen, things I've ever touched will soon be as dust, it fills me with great dismay. Such is the vanity of my ego.
For me, it's all to easy to say that I value wisdom above wealth. Yet, when if I am pushed to choose between the two, I fear my answer will too easily be the wrong one.
When I see great spiritual leaders, be it Buddhist monks, Christian priests and the like, part of me envies them... They have taken the Ultimate Gamble. I have not.
As to your question, I'd rather take plain water thanks. Caffeine tends to cloud the mind :)
HI Avatar, I think you're ahead of many people I know. You've asked a question very few are willing to entertain. It means your spiritual seed is awakening. Conditions are favoring spiritual development.
A wise man once said, a fish can lay a thousand eggs but only a handful will survive. Its like that with people. Everyone of human birth has the seed but only a few will experience conditions that takes them a step up the spiritual evolution. I'll tell u from experience its a lot more fun to go downwards.
Personally, I'm thankful for the nonsense in the corporate jungle because it actually provided moisture for my spiritual seed. Dissatisfaction sparked off internal exploration. My curiosity of human nature led me to its roots. Seeing the endless circles and vortexes made it easy for me to decide where I should devote my energies to.
Still, a journey has a thousand possible outcomes. You can still create merits without going off the deep edge in this life. You take the next flight out, spiritually speaking. Buddhists are unique. We have second chances, third chances, etc. Do keep asking the questions and I think your question will eventually be answered.
So you like your water plain. Would that be mineral, sparkling, distilled or just plain tap water. Hehe.
In understanding truth, you will not be happier. Because the core is still and untouched. It is not happy nor sad, It is neither moving nor still. It is there. In balance. It neither moves away nor draws you nearer.
In our life we try to push things a little more positively, a little less negative. But if you realise, that there will be negative in the positive and vice versa.
You are right, at the core things are neither happy nor sad, neither moving nor still. I think happiness, positiveness and negativeness are human concepts, and they are arbitrary (what looks good to me might look terrible to you). This translative layer of emotion separates us from the animals. It has also been the source of our creativity and our troubles.
Have you ever felt that thing before? i dont know how to call it. it's a ball of...... something.
Not since I nearly swallow my chewing gum. We harness balls of energy during martial arts, what they call qi. Or were you referring to something else?
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