Let's look at your thoughts producing machine

Meditation is an ancient practice used by many different spiritual traditions as the ultimate trainings for the mind to make the connection of the calmness within us  and removing the illusions of the mind. It is not a ritual belonging to any particular religion, culture, or group. It is a method of knowing the ultimate reality from which all religions spring.

 

Moonlight Spirit - Artwork by Sofan Chan

It sounds so wonderful and self nurturing to do, and it is an easy to learn practice - Sitting still with eyes closed and quieting down all the senses turn inwardly pointing to our own self.

Why it is so difficult to take action to just sit and be?

Have you ever suspected that 'stillness' is not one of the natural qualities of the mind? The mind is like a thoughts factory which pumping out thoughts in great and high speed - in all sizes, colour, textures, feels or even emotions - angry thoughts, happy thoughts, joyful thoughts, doing thoughts, upsetting thoughts, abstract thoughts, thoughts in all forms... -  popping up continuously, which creates stresses and inner conflicts.

To take a pause and to observe this thoughts producing machine is difficult to do. It is like to change direction of a couple kilometres long ocean tanker which has been sailing in one direction for a long time and to make the turn around, it takes a respectful length of time and takes a huge amount of energies in forms of commitment, discipline, courage, motivation and willingness. To generate all these positive forces to slow down the thoughts factory's production will take huge amount of energies to break the inertia and them simply sit and be.

Meditation is a practice to slow down the speed of the thoughts production. At the same time,  a so called 'manager' is assigned to observe the coming and going movement of the thoughts. This manager is merely a form of awareness, it is not the mind, it is not the thoughts, not the feelings, not the emotions, not the bodily sensations. It is an observer of its kind in observing how the thoughts, feelings, sensations, the mind and the Dharma (the universal truth) are mutually affecting each other.

 

Sacred Moment - Artwork by Sofan Chan

 To create this observing awareness is very uncomfortable process. In your first sitting in meditation, there are many thoughts swimming like fishes in the pond to pull you off focus, and then, many forms of emotions and feelings, you have been buried for a long time, they will start to come up to the surface for you to experience them again, too. There are no ordinary doubt moment in mediation. Every moment is new, every thought, every feeling and every emotion come to meet you, greet you, or scare you unexpectedly. And you have to observe them, be with them, love them without flinging them away, judging or reacting to them.

As Buddha said: 'You yourself must make the effort. 

Buddhas only point the way.

Those who have entered the Path and 

who meditate will be free from the fetter of illusion.'

 - Dhammapada 276

 

Mind Garden - Artwork by Sofan Chan

What the Buddha taught - Buddha Dharma ( the truth of the universe) cannot be merely absorbed by intellectual understanding, the path of awakening is a path of practices - it needs to be realised thought direct experiences in your lives. Through direct practices, you learn what uniquely works for you an individual. In order to realise Dharma in your daily life, you cannot just do it intellectually and experientially, you have to step into the realm of non-ego and learn how to rest of mind in MEDITATION and honour your spirit with your own inner light. 

Meditation - a personal experience of the peace within yourself.

Meditation is an integral part of mindfulness training in Buddhism. The idea is to simply quiet the mind and create an opening where we can feel the tenderness of the heart.

It is an invitation to see the world as it is, in the presence of your sacred self, as your heart opens. There is no right way or wrong way to practise meditation. It is a personal experience of the peace within yourself in the meditative state.

Self-discipline is essential for daily meditation practise. At the beginning, five to ten minutes of practise in the morning or before bed is enough.

As you practise more regularly, you will know the perfect length of time for your own practise that allows you to experience your own sacred self – one which is pure and full of love, happiness and peace.

Painting is form of meditation to me. The concentration and super focus of the mind, body and heart often take me to a meditative state of no time and no self  of nothingness. The art taking on the life of its own, everything else stood still while the mind is quiet and the heart is wide open. Joy and inner peace reveal themselves and we make connection again. It is so simple.

'Sacred Moment' - by Sofan Chan

A daily meditation practise 

This practise is as easy as sitting comfortably in a chair in a quiet place with your palms open and receptive, resting on the top of your knees. Make sure your spine is straight and upright with dignity. Gently close your eyes. Now, in a relaxed manner, take a long, deep breath in. Simply be aware

that you are breathing in. 

At ease, take a long deep breath out and just notice that you are breathing

out. Keep following the deep breath in, and naturally letting the deep breath out. When thoughts come and go in your mind, just be aware of the movement of your thoughts. Know that you are not your thoughts. 

As you become aware of feelings and sensations in the body, know that you are not these physical feelings or sensations of the body. As you notice streams of subtle emotions flowing through the

emotional body (such as stress, resistance, defensiveness, anxiety, fear, tiredness or excitement), know that you are not these emotions. 

Instead, you are the observer of the mind, of your thoughts, feelings, sensations and emotions during the meditation. Observe every moment as it comes and pay attention to the tenderness of the heart.

By simply observing and realising the presence of the heart in every moment that the mind is still, you are cultivating kindness and compassion of the heart.

'Lily Of Consciousness' - by Sofan Chan

Buddha path is pathless.

Buddhism Reading Cards - Card 4 - The Path.

Your life becomes a game in paradise when you are willing to work on your mind, body and spirit. When you resist what reality is, you turn the mystery of life into hell and you become a prisoner. Stuck and life becomes problematic.

Many great spirits, saints, Buddha, Jesus, and spiritual masters before us, had created a rich body of ‘Dharma’ pointing us to the path of enlightenment.

Buddha said, “When you come upon a path that brings benefit and happiness to all, follow this course as the moon journeys through the stars.”

The one who want to know how to bring heaven on earth there is a path, whatever you want to call it – the path to the heart, the path of love, the path to enlightenment, Buddha’s path, Zen or as simple as the Way.

The name is not a matter. When you are on it, there is an inner knowingness, this is it. This path has no end; only process after process and game after game.

Buddhism Reading Cards Deck - Card 4 - Front Of the Card

If you understand the process to perfection well, you become daring, free and fearless. You will be the dreamer who dreams awake and your dreams become reality that you live in.

You know you are not perfect and you do the work and go through endless processes to achieve perfection. You will not demand perfection on yourself, your spouse, your children, friend and family. Even though our path across each other at times; nevertheless we are individual working on our specific field to achieve perfections of our own. You are the one who know that we are imperfectly perfect.

So if you have chose to be a game player in heaven on earth, you understand imperfections is part of life, you are a work-in-progress, your pain and sorrow, your happiness and joy, your tears and laughter as well as your sadness and disappointments are all part of this grandiose of life.

So as you choose, your pains and sufferings are part of the richness of life as you become wise on the path. When pain comes, you breathe it in and know that it is you; you breathe it out and know that this is a process to perfection. Then your pain will become workable and it gives your enormous power to evolve into someone so much bigger and so lovable beyond all imaginable. 

 

Buddha Artworks by Sofan Chan

“Hearts are meant to be broken.” - Oscar Wilde

'The search for a spiritual path is born out of suffering. It does not start with lights and ecstasy, but with the hard tacks of pain, disappointment, and confusion.' said Bhikkha Bodhi, one of the contemporary American Buddhist teacher.

'Dreaming in the Garden' Artwork by Sofan Chan

So called Suffering is a layer of distorted reality you believe is the only truth for you. This distorted reality trapped you like fishes caught in the fisherman's net. You lost your capacity to be free and wild. Some of you may have a sense that you are trapped in a false reality and even a false identity, but don't have any ideas how to get back to your true nature and experience love, happiness and inner peace. Like fishes in the net, get pulled out from the water, gasping for the air, tightly binded with no room to move. Look deeper, this process of investigation the pain and suffering so deeply buried in your psyche will take you back to experience the divinity within. During the investigation, your built-in survival mechanical protective devices have to all cracked open, like the fish finally broke free from the fishing net, the prisoner free from the jail confinement... the heart free from the shackles and chains of the past pains; and then you can perfect your own capacity to love again. 

'Gaia' Artwork by Sofan Chan

 
Who to love – yes, the one who you live with 24 hours day – yourselves. What to love – your goodness and your ugliness, the flaws and the perfections, the mistakes you have made as well as the successes you think you have worked so hard for and well deserved.
How wise was Buddha as a spiritual teacher and the healer of the mind, who did not teach people on how to pursuit happiness. Instead, he taught in his first sermon after he became awakened on how to investigate where we were entangled with - our distorted reality – anger, hatred, frustration, disappointment, shame, guilt and all other lower forces.
Buddha said it clearly, ' there is suffering in world and there are also ways out of suffering.”
Aren't you intrigued by this simple statement? It goes straight to the heart and by pass all the distorted reality of the mind.

To be wild and freeagain, you have to go into your deeply buried demons of the past and to experience them, meet them, be with them and accept them as our faithful friends. In this encountering you look them in the eye with love and compassion, knowing the pain were there to enrich your capacity to love. Now, you allow yourselves to unpack this bundle of burden, like unloading the rubbish that you have been carrying for so long. 
 
As you know , it is the human nature to love pleasurable feelings as much as possible and avoid unpleasurable experiences at all costs; even if you experienced unpleasurableness , we tend to suppress them into the dim dark corners of the psyche. Deeply buried. Just in case these demons come out to haunt us again. To investigate these demons in order to experience true happiness, you may question, “Are you kidding me?”

Should the spiritual path be light hearted, glory and full of joy and happiness. Why can't we just come together sing the ancient Sanskrit words and dance to the Shiva and Krishna to experience ecstasy in psychedelic ways?

As ancient sage said, ”you burn your incense, ring the bell, light the candle and pray to god for betterment. Be prepare, eventually god will come and put you into the raging fire of the furnace, burn you and burn you until pure gold comes out from the raw iron ores.”You scream  out loud for the unbearable raging fire you have to endure, you cry out for justice and ask: why you give me so much pain to endure. “I did not ask for punishment as such,” you said to yourself.

Are you a true seeker on this spiritual path? If you are, be prepare to uncover the depth of your wounds, your grief from the past, unfulfilled longing, the sorrow that you have stored up during the course of your lives in order to come to inner integration and harmony.

As Oscar Wilde wrote, “Hearts are meant to be broken.” The cracks of our broken heart are the springs where the pure gold pours out, drops by drops, to enrich the human capacity to love again.

Buddhism Reading card Deck by Sofan Chan

'Mind Garden' Artwork by Sofan Chan

 

Walking through life as a practice of walking Meditation.

Forest Of Light - Artwork by Sofan Chan

The simple instruction in walking mediation is like this - Be mindful of every single step as the foot get lifted up from the earth, carried in the air while the body weight is supported by the other leg, gently get placed on the ground with the sole of the foot touching the ground first and the front part of the foot easing into the ground slowly.

Although walking is a everyday mechanical function of the body, we don’t have to consciously instruct the feet to walk. Walking is a learnt mechanical bodily function. There is a way we walk, some walk quickly, some walk slowly, some walk waddly, some walk with certainty, some walk bouncily, etc. In general, we are not giving any precise instruction to every muscle, bond or even the blood vessels involved. We just walk. It happens to life as well; rarely we give precise instructions to how to live a wholesome life. We eat, excrete, make a living, procreate, drink, play and do everything else possible to forget how to live a life full of joy, love and spiritual development.

Walking meditation is down-to-the-earth spiritual practice in using a everyday mechanical function of the body to bring in a quality of spirituality to it. In doing so, we create beauty, joy and peace in every step we walk and it is certainly a challenge. As the mind loves to do everything and anything mechanical at its best.

In practising walking meditation, the mechanical function of the body has to slow down, so the awareness can take place in the body – what the body is feeling, what are the thoughts streaming through the mind, what are the sensations in the body and the mind. 

Awareness then can expand into our thoughts – noticing how thoughts coming and going like wind passing through the leaves of the trees, thoughts have their own movement though time and space. Next what will happen in the walking meditation is the awareness will slowly expand into the surrounding, through the sights and sounds. 

Whenever sounds occur, our consciousness immediately go out to detect and examine what it is, like a faithful guard dog. Simultaneously whenever there are moving objects, or just physical object around in term of colour, words or any kind or visual elements that the mind is interested in – the same thing happens, our bodily consciousness goes out and examines what it is or maybe taking fancy of what it is. The awareness which has been concentrating on walking shifted to other sounds, visual elements or thoughts. Momentarily, the concentration is distracted by inner factors – thoughts and bodily sensations, or external factors – sights and sounds.

In the beginning of the walking meditation, the body was tensed and was still in its own habitual way of walking, When we consciously place the awareness in every step of the walk, the body resists a new way of walking. The body, the mind and the consciousness all have to working together with huge effort in concentrating on the slowly movement of the walk. Walking conscious in life is the same, slow down and be aware every doing and every events that we created - what is our motivation behind it all? Wholesome? Or unwholesome? 

As the mental and the bodily faculties in such a heightened concentrated in the new way of meditative walking, our consciousness expands in the inner world as well as the external world. The consciousness becomes an observer who observes the event which is taking place in walking as walking, the bodily sensations as bodily sensations, the sights of the external visual elements as external visual elements without reacting to each of every events, thoughts and sensation that happening external and maintaining the equanimity internally.  

As we walk through life as a practice of walking meditation. The body becomes calm, there is inner peace arises.

As we are consciously placing no resistance to the sights, sounds, bodily sensations and thoughts as they happen; we are in fact creating inner calmness in the walking meditation as inner peace and joy arise from within. Every step becomes our inner peace imprinted onto our trusty earth, both benefited.

Buddhism Reading Cards - Card 14 Front - Awareness

Buddhism Reading Cards - Card 14 Back  - Awareness

Dharma speaks from the heart

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” -  Helen Keller.

Strangely that we fight for security and certainty at all cost in exchange for a secure job that pays well, a comfortable home to provide security to the family and a stable partner who is socially responsible, like we are fighting for our last breath.

How on earth then in amongst the well paid job, the comfortable home, the stable partner and the academically advancing children as well as all insurance policies for the home, health, children accident, the cars, the boats, the possessions, the investments; we are still feeling unsecured in so many ways and caused our heart to suffer. Suffocated. Empty. Our heart pants while we run so fast in chasing security.

Are we seeking security against the nature of things – impermanence, ebbs and flows, destruction comes after construction, constant changes that we call evolution are the norm of life? As a result, we become the prisoner of security  to insure our life and possessions against the nature's odd for our mental comfort only. 

The truth - our heart yearns to experience the unknown and life as a mystery. When every moment is renewed and brings about the impulse of joy that gives us directly experiences of being alive and free. Just like children jumping into the river in a cold day without asking what the water temperature is; they strip, they swim, they laugh and they get out. It is so simple when the impulse of life is what we are in sync with.

We build a swimming pool to provide clean water for the children to swim, but god knows that their heart yearns to swim in the wild river to experience freedom. We build a fortress as a home to keep the rain out and hold the warmth inside, but the soft animal of our body loves the feel of raindrops washing off the city dusts while the summer breeze awakes the spirit inside our flesh and bones.

How often we trust the impulse of our wild spirit – our passion - can navigate through the complexity of life and take us to experience the freedom of being alive. The irony is that only when we use our innate passion as a compass to cut through the mental derbies like fear, self- unworthiness, self-hatred and frustration hat we are unconsciously covering up with a fabricated mental concept called security and certainty; then WE COME ALIVE.
 
In choosing the path that seems the most certain and secured, we are guaranteed only one thing: that we go through life wondering how things could have been if only we weren’t so afraid.

Today if you find yourself tightly wrapped within the blanket of security, comfort and certainty; and yet - the heart is feeling suffocated and lonely. Ask yourself - "Are these the moments I want to remember when I look back on my life some day?"

 “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” - Helen Keller.

Is there a path leading to a daring adventure that your heart yearns for? If you so choose, let's the truth - Dharma - speaks from the heart! 

Buddhism Reading Cards Deck - Card 4 Front - The Path

 

Buddhism Reading Cards Deck - Card 4 Back - The Path

Buddhism Reading Cards Deck