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