2011 年 4 月 7 日 星期四 【晴】

這本書實在有很多值得記下的東西

(The joy of living, pg 185-186)

Chapter on Compassion: Opening the heart of the mind

"....The first step in formal practice is, as usual, to assume a correct posture and allow your mind to rest for a few moments. Then bring to mind someone or something that you don't like. Don't judge what you feel. Give yourself complete permission to feel it. Simply letting go of judgments and justifications will let you experience a certain degree of openness and clarity.

The next step is to admit to yourself that whatever you're feeling - anger, resentment, jealousy, or desire - is in itself the source of whatever pain or discomfort you're experiencing. The object of your feeling isn't the source of your pain, but rather your own mentally generated response to whomever or whatever you're focusing on.

For example, you might bring your attention to someone who's said something to you that sounded cruel, critical, or contemptuous - or even to someone who has told you an outright lie. Then, allow yourself to recognize that all that has occurred is that someone has emitted sounds and you have heard them. If you've spent even a little bit of time practicing calm-abiding meditation on sound, this aspect of "exchange self for others" will probably feel familiar.

At this point, three options are available to you. The first, and most likely, option is to allow yourself to be consumed by anger, guilt, or resentment.

The second (which is very unlikely) is to think, I should have spent more time meditating on sound.

The third option is to imagine yourself as the person who said or did whatever you felt as painful. Ask yourself whether what that person said or did was really motivated by a desire to hurt you, or whether he or she was trying to alleviate his or her own pain or fear.

In many cases, you know the answer already. You may have overheard some talk about the other person's health or relationship, or some threat to his or her professional standing. But even if you don't know the specifics of a person's situation, you'll know from your own practice of developing compassion for yourself and of extending it towards others that there is only one possible motive behind someone's behavior: the desire to feel safe or happy. And if people say or do something hurtful, it's because they don't feel safe or happy. In other words, they're scared.

And you know what it's like to be cared.

Recognizing this about someone else is the essence of exchanging self for others. "

>>April 10, 2011 at 4:37:43 PM GMT+8

2011 年 4 月 6 日 星期三 【晴】

最近到 internet 四處看我的紫微命盤

我的命盤並不算好

但我卻發現我有一個把不好的東西變好的能力

我想我大概在我的能力範圍內把這個盤活出最好的方式來

真感恩

謝謝

記著佛的教導

不論我身處在黑暗還是光明的的地方

我向著的

也會是光明的方向走

:)


Wanna remember this piece of info (pg. 166-171 The Joy of Living)

"THE SPECIAL CASE OF UNPLEASANT THOUGHTS

'No matter what thought occurs, don't try to stop it - The Ninth Gyalwang Karmapa'

Especially if you're new to meditation, it can be very difficult to observe thoughts related to unpleasant experiences - particularly those aligned with strong emotions such as jealousy, anger, fear, or envy - with bare attention. Such unpleasant thoughts can be so strong and persistent that it's easy to get caught up in following after them. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of people I've met who've discussed this problem with me, especially if the thoughts they're experiencing relate to fights they've had with someone at home, in the office, or some other place that they can't forget. Day after day, their minds keep going back to the ideas they attach to what was said and done, and they find themselves caught up in thinking about how terrible the other person was, what they could or should have said at the time, and what they'd like to do to get revenge.

The best way to work with these kinds of thoughts is to step back and rest your mind in objectless shinay for a minute, and then bring your attention to each thought and the ideas that revolve around it, observing both directly for a few minutes, just as you would observe the shape or color of a form. Allow yourself to alternate between resting your mind in objectless meditation and bringing yur attention back to the same thoughts.

When you work with negative thoughts in this way, two things happen. (Don't worry - neither one of them involves growing horns!) First, as you rest in awareness, your mind begins to settle. Second, you'll find that your attention to particular thoughts or stories comes and goes, just the way it does when working with forms, sounds, and other sensory supports. And as that thought or story is interrupted by other issues - like folding the laundry, buying groceries, or preparing for a meeting - the unpleasant ideas gradually lose their grip on your mind. You begin to realize that they're not as solid or powerful as they first appeared. It's more like a busy signal on the telephone - annoying, perhaps, but nothing you can't deal with.

When you work with unpleasant thoughts in this way, they become assets to mental stability rather than liabilities - like adding weight to the bar when you're exercising in a gym. You're developing psychological muscles to cope with greater and greater levels of stress.

USING EMOTIONS

......Negative emotions, such as fear, anger, sadness, jealousy, grief, or envy - often translated as "nonvirtuous" (or, in Tibetan, mi-gewa) feelings - are emotions that tend to weaken the mind, undermine confidence and increase fear.

.......holding an object of negative emotion in attention tends to reinforce a mental image of that person, situation, or thing as something bad in itself. No matter how much you try to cultivate compassion, confidence, or any other positive feeling, your mind will almost automatically associate the object with the negative emotion: "Whoa, that one is bad. Fight it. Make it go away. Or run away."

A more constructive approach to negative emotions, similar to working with negative thoughts, is simply to rest your attention on the emotion itself rather than on its object. Just look at the emotion without analyzing it intellectually. Don't try to hold on to it and don't try to block it. Just observe it. When you do this, the emotion won't seem as big or powerful as it initially did.

This is the same sort of process I practiced during my first year of retreat, when the fear and anxiety I felt around other people forced me to run back to sit alone in my own room. Once I began to simply observe my fears, I began to see that they weren't solid, indivisible monsters that I could never overcome, but instead a series of small, fleeting sensations and images that popped in and out of awareness so rapidly that they only gave the semblance of being solid and whole (similar, as I would later discover, to the way a whirling mass of subatomic particles produces the appearance of something indivisible and solid). And after observing my fear this way, I started to think, Hmm, that's interesting. This fear isn't so big and powerful at all. In cat, it's pretty harmless. It's just a bunch of transitory sensations that appear, hang around for a second or two and then simply disappear.

This didn't happen overnight, of course. I had to spend a few weeks completely immersed in the process, like some sort of mad scientist utterly absorbed in an experiment. I also had the benefit of several years of training to support me. ....

Sometimes, thought, the object associated with a negative emotion - whether it's a person, a place, or an event - is just too clear or present to ignore. If that's the case, by all means don't try to block it. Use it. Rest your attention on the form, smell, taste, or any of the other sensory perceptions you learned to work with earlier on. In this way, the object of the emotion can become, in itself, a very powerful support for meditation.

This approach is useful when you begin to work directly with the basic mental afflictions described in Part One of this book. When I was introduced to the subject of mental afflictions, I thought, 'Oh no, I'm flawed. I'm ignorant. I have a lot of attachments and aversions. I'm stuck with unhappiness for the rest of my life.' But then I heard an old proverb. I don't know if it's based on fact, but it goes something like this": 'Peacocks eat poison, and the poison they eat is transformed into beautiful feathers.'

....Every mental affliction is actually the basis of wisdom. If we get caught up in our afflictions or try to repress them, we just end up creating more problems for ourselves. If, instead, we look at them directly, the things we fear will kill us are gradually transformed into the strongest supports for meditation we could ever hope for.

Mental afflictions are not enemies. They're our friends.

That's a hard truth to accept. But every time you recoil from it, think of the peacock. Poison doesn't taste very good. But if you swallow it, it turns into beauty.

......we're going to look at meditative antidotes we can apply when facing our most fearsome and unpleasant experiences. As we examine these practices, we'll come to recognize that the degree to which any experience repels, frightens, or seems to weaken us is equal to the degree to which such experiences can make us stronger, more confident, more open, and more able to accept the infinite possibilities of our Buddha nature."

may be it's good to remark about the idea of 'objectless meditation' as well:

(pg. 140, The joy of living)

"That's how to rest the mind in objectless shinay meditation: as though you've just finished a long day of work. Just let go and relax. You don't have to block whatever thoughts, emotions, or sensations arise, but neither do you have to follow them. Just rest in the open present, simply allowing whatever happens to occur. If thoughts or emotions come up, just allow yourself to be aware of them. Objectless shinay meditation doesn't mean just letting your mind wander aimlessly among fantasies, memories, or day dreams. There's still some presence of mind that may be loosely described as a center of awareness. You may not be fixating on anything in particular, but you're still aware, still present to what's happening in the here and now.

When we meditate in this objectless state, we're actually resting the mind in its natural clarity, entirely indifferent to the passage of thoughts and emotions. This natural clarity - which is beyond any dualistic grasping of subject and object - is always present for us in the same way that space is always present. In a sense, objectless meditation is like accepting whatever clouds and mist might obscure the sky while recognizing that the sky itself remains unchanged even when it is obscured.....

Objectless shinay practice is the most basic approach to resting the mind. You don't have to watch your thoughts or emotions - practices that I will discuss later on - nor do you have to try to block them. All you need to do is rest within the awareness of your mind going about its business with a kind of childlike innocence, a sense of "Wow! Look how many thoughts, sensations, and emotions are passing through my awareness right now!"

In a sense, objectless shinay practice is similar to looking at the vast expanse of space rather than focusing on the galaxies, stars, and planets that move through it. THoughts, emotions and sensations come and go in awareness, the way galaxies, stars, and planets move through space. Just as space isn't defined by the objects that move through it, awareness isn't defined or limited by the thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and so on that it apprehends. Awareness simply is. And objectless shinay practice involves simply resting in the "is-ness" of awareness....

simply straighten your spine while keeping the rest of your body relaxed and balanced. THen allow your mind to relax in a state of bare awareness of the present.

Inevitably, all sorts of thoughts, sensations, and feelings will pass through your mind. This is to be expected, since you haven't trained in resting the mind......open to all the possibilities of the present moment. Don't criticize or condemn yourself when you find yourself following after thoughts. The fact that you've caught yourself reliving a past event or projecting into the future is enough to bring you back to the present moment and strengthens your intention to meditate. Your intention to meditate as you engage in practice is the crucial factor.

It's also important to proceed slowly..."Drip by drip," the old text say, "a cup gets filled."

>>April 7, 2011 at 3:18:45 AM GMT+8

2011 年 4 月 5 日 星期二 【晴】

超喜歡做實驗

對於舌診和火灸

so far 的效果也很 amazing

繼續觀察


最近家人病了

她說她每次傷風都很麻煩

要一個月才好

但這次試了我的方法

她說比以前康復得快了

yeah~~~

這實在是莫大的鼓勵

:)


最近弟弟在他的 fb 罵我

由於已經不是第一次

而佛陀和爺爺教導的方法也很管用

所以繼續使用

:)

我觀察著我在看到他 wall 後我身體的感受

憤怒生起了

呼吸急了

心跳快了

觀察觀察著

然後入睡了

看 the joy of living 時

看到作者說每個人都喜歡 happy and avoid suffering

然後了我看通了他這樣做的動機

以前我可能會回應, 罵回對方

或是認為是自己該有甚麼應做好一點

但這次我用了不同的 approach

書內提醒了我

"Just think, for example, about the number of people who desperately look for a sense of excitement by

going to a new restaurant, staring a new relationship, or moving to a different job. For a while the

newness does seem to provide some sense of stimulation. But eventually the excitement dies

down....so they try a new strategy.....The trouble with all of these solutions is that they are, by nature,

temporary. All phenomena are the results of the coming together of causes and conditions, and

therefore inevitably undergo some type of change. When the underlying causes that produced and

perpetuated an experience of happiness change, most people end up blaming either external conditions

(other people, a place, the weather, etc.) or themselves ("I should have said something nicer or

smarter," "I should have gone somewhere else"). However, because its reflects a loss of confidence in

oneself, or in the things we're taught to believe should bring us happiness, blame only makes the

search for happiness more difficult.....The more problematic issue is that most people don't have a very

clear idea of what happiness is, and consequently find themselves creating conditions that lead them

back to the dissatifastion they so desperately seek to eliminate." (pg. 112, The Joy of Living, Yongey

Mingyur Rinpoche)


我發現

原來我的自信心一直在增加

觀察憤怒後

檢視自己的行為

對方說得對的

便改過來

對方沒理的

便保持默然

佛陀說

這個世界是沒有人不被批評的

我反思著

我覺得我沒有做錯甚麼

反而我覺得我該更勤力一點

終極希望每天能早上五時起床

但先由早上八點做起

:)

feeling grateful

feeling blessed

THANK YOU!! :D

>>April 6, 2011 at 9:17:19 AM GMT+8

2011 年 4 月 4 日 星期一 【晴】

清明節

不過家人說今天不掃墓

說去年重陽已經去了

去了跟姨婆喝茶

一去來回五小時

晚上又躲懶

終於整天也沒有做功課......

>>April 6, 2011 at 3:59:36 AM GMT+8

2011 年 4 月 3 日 星期日 【晴】

跑步跑步

>>April 6, 2011 at 3:57:45 AM GMT+8

2011 年 4 月 2 日 星期六 【晴】

朋友最近很喜歡看紫微斗數

她說想找我作練習

靜待她的回覆


這也挑起了我對紫微的興趣

今天看了很多有關的 site

突然覺得

很感恩我仍相信自力的重要

>>April 6, 2011 at 3:57:10 AM GMT+8

2011 年 4 月 1 日 星期五 【晴】

去了 topdeck 吃 brunch

今天天氣又好

藍藍的天

坐在露天的梳化上

跟好友聚舊

很 hea

很開心

:)

>>April 6, 2011 at 3:53:07 AM GMT+8

2011 年 3 月 31 日 星期四 【晴】

眼睛不好的朋友

請每天早上空腹吃8-10粒黑苺 (blackberry)

幾天到一星期後

你會發現你看東西突然 sharp 了

顏色 vibrant 了

心情也廣闊起來


今天晚上的演藝人籌款活動

雖然早前已經捐過款了

但是很感謝演藝人的 effort

所以還是值得支持和鼓勵他們

謝謝演藝人

日本ganbaro~~

>>April 1, 2011 at 2:38:21 PM GMT+8

2011 年 3 月 30 日 星期三 【晴】

hm.......

>>March 31, 2011 at 4:58:32 AM GMT+8

2011 年 3 月 29 日 星期二 【晴】

我真的很喜歡嘗試新的東西

最近試了火灸和蒸頭

很有趣

>>March 30, 2011 at 3:25:03 PM GMT+8