Stonepeace Old Archives Page 20 of 27

Saturday, October 05, 2002
Your Favourite Song



When you find yourself singing a song with meaningless or anti-dharma lyrics,
you know your emotions are ruling over your rationality.
It is attachment to the tune despite the words.
What's your favourite song?
What are its words?
Does it sound happy or sad?


Getting the Film of Life Right



Why do you wipe the slate (clapperboard) clean for each take? Because it's a brand new take. With each take, are things getting better or worse? It doesn't matter- just give your best shot for each take, till the final take when it's perfect. The more diligent you are for each take, the less takes you will take.
You are the producer, the director and the actor... of the film of life. When the producer, the director and the actor is perfected, the film is perfected. And your movie becomes an inspirational classic- a true story of how a sentient being won Nirvana! A story of how a Buddha came to be.


Being Wrong the Right Way



Before we make genuine forgivable mistakes,
we should be thinking what we were doing was going to be right.
Any otherwise, making a mistake knowingly is making a real mistake!
It'll be something done in bad faith to oneself and others.
Who do you think you were bluffing anyway?

The first victim is yourself.
A case of an ostrich burying its head in the sand,
trying to believe harm out of sight is out of mind and unreal.
Yet as long as he is buried in the dark, he KNOWS he is bluffing himself.
Fundanmental delusion is simply the bluffing of oneself by oneself.


Romance

Zephie: Samsara is a romantic poignant song.
Sophie: Romantic my foot!
Zephie: We are here because we romance Samsara. It's a love-hate affair, a habit hard to break. But that's understandable- its the ultimate habit! The habit of loving and hating everything we encounter in Samsara itself. It is greed and hatred at play... coming from our ignorance. See? You didn't even know you were romancing Samsara!


Losing My Religion

Michael Stipe the monk-like skinhead singing the song in his inimitable voice- on TV now. Sounds drastic, seriously existentially disturbed... I refer to the words "Losing My Religion." Seems like nothing can be worse. But what is religion? It is something that holds us together, something that we hold on to- be it religious or not. It is our highest refuge. But I would like to see losing one's religion as ultimate freedom- the detachment from our greatest attachment and need. When we do not even need refuge anymore, we have become the objects of refuge. When we no longer need to venerate the Buddhas, that is the day we have become Buddhas. By the way, "Losing My Religion", not that I do it often, is the song I sing best at karaoke haha. Ironical that it has subtly become my religious anti-religion anthem. Last words of the song- "But that was just a dream. That was just a dream."


Samsaran

Zephie: You are one of the more fascinating characters I know- not sure exactly why yet.
Sophie: Precisely because you don't know me well- that's why you find me fascinating. Once you know me better, then... haha
Zephie: Hey! You could be Samsara talking as a person! Precisely because we do not know Samsara well- that's why we find it fascinating. Once you realise its dukkha (dissatisfactions), then... you want out! Haha!

Friday, October 04, 2002
Should or Should Not?

Lynn came up with a way for answering the conscience that I found quite sound-
provided one know that the conscience always tells one to avoid evil
(deeds done from greed, hatred and ignorance) and do good
(deeds done from generosity, loving-kindness and wisdom).

Here's how it works-
If there is something that should be done and the thought keep recurring to you,
hesitate no more; just do it immediately.
If there is something that should not be done and the thought keep recurring to you,
hesitate no more; give it up immediately.

Thursday, October 03, 2002
Karma

If you take care of
your karma,
your karma
will take care of you.

-Uen

Thursday, October 03, 2002
Movie Dharma Review : Flatliners

Sypnosis from http://us.imdb.com/Title?0099582 :
"Medical students begin to explore the realm of near death experiences (NDE), hoping for insights. Each has their heart stopped and is revived. They begin having flashes of walking nightmares from their childhood, reflecting sins they committed or had committed against them. The experiences continue to intensify, and they begin to be physically beaten by their visions as they try and go deeper into the death experience to find a cure."

Writing about this after seeing half of the rerun on TV just now. This movie is about the need to forgive others and ourselves, and to seek forgiveness- in time... so that we can let go and leave this life in peace. Four students return from their NDEs bringing back "old ghosts", personal demons- not in the physical but hallucinatory sense. It is said that in the process of dying, one's life flashes by, and whatever it is that we cannot let go will stick as our final images. These are our sources of strong attachment or aversion (including fear)- the stuff that keeps us bound to rebirth. The students realise that the cure for the hallucinations was to resolve their unfinished business- largely a matter of being repentant or forgiving oneself. The punishment they went through was self-inflicted, a result of the rudely awakened dormant conscience springing to life. It is not unlike oneself manifesting demons to exact punishment on ourselves when reborn in hell.

The Dharma message in this movie is clear to me. We do not have to experience NDEs to resolve our inner demons. We can do it now. No, we should do it now. It is the best time. Waiting for death's descent to discover what our demons, and to face them in our last minutes, can be a most horrendous and heartbreaking experience! Just as the movie characters realised they had the second chance to put things right after returning to life, this very life we have now IS our second chance- after our previous life. Well, miss this chance and you'll have another second chance, again and again- till you get things right, till Enlightenment! So the question is- Why not get it over with as soon as possible? Samsara is a school not fun to be retained in- learn the Dharma well, apply it well and graduate to Nirvana!

Wednesday, October 02, 2002
Rash Rush

Just as mysteriously as an inexplicable rash appeared on my hands,
and persisted for 3 weeks, it mysteriously disappeared.
Inexplicable, yet there is a reason for everything.
Reddish patches like blotches of bad karma that surfaced.
Makes me wonder what other forms of bad karma blotches I have coming.
Will they be big? It's all very humbling indeed.


Reply 1 : Hellfire

Karl: But sometimes life is so hellish, that I don't see why it shouldn't be ended! Even if it means going to hell!
Zeph: If life comes to feel like an ultimate hell, then why go through the hassle of killing yourself to go to another hell? Bear with it! Whatever comes, be it hell or not, will come to pass! Remember your second worse experience to this? If you'd been through it okay, why not this time round too? You might be trained enough already! If not, this is training! As Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, "Hell is not punishment; it is training."

Buddhism states that committment of suicide is a highway to hell-
since the person will die in an incredibly negative state of mind,
while bearing the ill karma of taking precious human life.


On/Off-line

"When you are cultivating the Way and a demonic state appears,
if you are the slightest bit not in accord with proper knowledge and views,
you will be caught up in deviant views."
-Venerable Master Hsuan Hua

"If you are not online now,
you are offline now!"

-Zeph

If you are not online now as you read this, you are offline.
There is no two way about it!
Either you are on the Eightfold path or not.
Not taking care of one or a few aspects of the path
means you are already off-track- not "somewhat" on track!


Wrong Side

SMS Dialogue:

Sophie: Damn it! The taxis are always on the wrong side of the road!
Zephie: Funny! If this is so, it means you are the one on the wrong side! Haha.
Shiqin: There is no wrong or right side! A cab driver with an empty car who sees a customer on the other side thinks he himself is on the wrong side! If you go to the other side and miss a cab on your original side, does it mean the side you thought was wrong is right?
Sophie: Exactly! I crossed the road twice but the taxis are always on the other side!
Zephie: Haha... a case of karmic conditions ripening to present "the grass being greener on the other side!"


Happy Ending

Sophie: I only read books with happy endings.
Zephie: We will all become Buddhas. That is the happy ending.
Most writers don't know that but we do- so we can read any book happily!
Sophie: Yes! That's the happy ending we can all look forward to if we work hard :>


Hair, There, Everywhere

Sophie: Darn! Another white hair!
Zephie: I have stubble blues. Don't like to shave. White hair,
facial hair, this is Samsara after all!
Sophie: Haha. That almost made me feel better.


Wake Up Your Obnoxious Colleague

Some simple advice for simple people problem at work:

Tell him nicely it isn't good for him to bug people.
Maybe he don't know.
Talk to him slowly, mindfully.
Do it with compassion.
It will jolt him to his senses if he is not too dense!


All My Fault

It's a sense of relief that it's always my fault-
there is absolutely no one out there to truly get me-
I can save all the energy from being angry to discover the real faults that lie in me.
No I won't use the energy to hate myself instead-
because that does not rid my faults-
I can use all the energy to love the world (which includes me) instead.

When I trip over my own feet-
and when I trip over something else,
it's never that thing's fault-
it's my carelessness.
And when someone comes to trip me over,
I must have done something to make him do so.
And if I can't remember,
it only means I was real careless, unmindful,
of what I'd done in this life,
or in a past one.

Likewise, for the person who tripped me,
it's entirely his own fault for becoming angry and expressing his anger.
As much as it is my fault to be tripped,
it is his fault to trip!


Fuzzy

What is hot or cold?
Hot to a polar bear might be freezing to me.
Are the definitions of hot and cold fuzzy?
They are so fuzzy they don't really exist!
The same applies to all other dual definitions,
all of which are empty in nature by themselves.


Things Must Change

Was doing my personal life stock-taking about a week ago when I heard the following from Depeche Mode's old (second) album, "A Broken Frame". It is a coincidental idea to my stock-taking.

Things must change
We must rearrange them
Or we'll have to estrange them
All that I'm saying
The game's not worth playing
Over and over again

-The Sun & The Rainfall http://archives.depechemode.com/lyrics/songs/thesunandtherainfall.html

Recurrent dream, haunting nightmare! Samsara- a game of eXistenZ!

Tuesday, October 01, 2002
Hellfire

Even when life is hell, hell keeps me from killing myself.
I know I'll be jumping from the pan into the fire if I do,
from a shallower hell into a deeper one!

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