Letting Go

If you let go a little, you gain little peace. If you let go a lots, you gain a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you are free.

It is counter intuitive from the worldly view. Why would you want to let go of the good stuff? Isn't life about holding on to the good things. Gardafi won't step down even on the brink of collapse and destruction. Many examples you can find around you.

The desire to holding onto fame, power and wealth make you suffer. The desire for predicability and certainty make you suffer. Even Bill Gate did not stay as the richest man forever. Someone else take that place. It is also about impermance. Things come together as condition arise. Things fall apart as conditions dissolve. Trying to control the uncontrollable is sure thing for suffering.

Seeing that holding on to desire cause suffering, it entice me to let go a little. I want to have power at work. Moving up the chain. Who else does not want that? I want to be VP, CEO. Yeah, that comes with power and fame. I want it badly. Seeing other achieve it make me jealous as well. This is all source of suffering. Let go a bit and I feel relieved. Some colleagues are sharing my responsibilities. Yes, it take away my power, I should be upset as I do not desire that to happen. Seeing that cause suffering, I let go a bit. I feel better. In fact, I also feel better because the heavy burden come with power is lessen.

Let go, but do not give up. Only work on the things we have controlmof. Otherwise, I will sure be disappointed and suffer. This can apply to other part of my life. Let go a little, gain a little peace. That is what it is.

Equanimity

Equanimity means accepting things as it is, without blaming anything or anyone, include ourselves. It is not indifferent which is another type of aversion.

I am going to loss the team I built and worked with for the past few years due to re-organization. My work is going to change. That is OK. It was a good run and and enjoyed it. I cannot control the pending change. I could learn new things in the new job, get better satisfaction and help the organization in different ways. That is all good just as it is. I accept the change without resentment, not blaming my boss or myself. It is all good. Perfect excuse to try something new. Yes, that is how I feel. This is equanimity. I am not indifferent, I care and accept it.

Mental Model

I have this mental model of a wheel circling around. There are fire at all the spot except there is a small gap where there is no fire and you can jump off the wheel. It is kind of like a computer game where it test your skills to avoid the obstacle. Mario comes to mind. If you miss the gap that jump off the wheel, you enter into the wheel of suffering with fire that will burn you badly.

When I am about to get into any aversion, I picture this and tell myself that the gap is right here, get off the wheel of suffering or else. Useful tool.

Hard Wired

Our response to pleasant, unpleasant and neutral experience are very much hard wired. Eating good food, pleasant. Being criticized or getting sick, unpleasant. It sounds so natural. If we feel otherwise, that must be close to insanity!

Not being appreciated for good work, I felt resentment and aversion. This made me upset and turn into a cranky person that cannot make sound judgement. The outcome is suffering, not what we want but we get ourselves into this. Before the resentment feeling set in, I have a chance to control how I feel and get out from this wheel of suffering. Recognize this is unpleasant. Leave it at that and don't own the experience. Say to myself, I am glad that I have the opportunity do the work and I am satisfy with it. Hence I avoided turning into an angry person, suffer, make poor judgement and suffer more. I control my own experience. My very awaring mind can re-do the wiring and get out of the wheel of suffering before it happen.

Extend this to larger context and by the same logic, I can get out of the wheel of samasa by not getting into desire or aversion. I think this is related to the 12 links of dependent origination. I think it is a good start of my understanding.

Being mindful means we catch these moments and do the right thing. Understanding is one thing, being mindful and do the right thing take lot and lot of practice. Now, I understand what is being mindful mean. Being aware of the moment and avoid falling into the suffering trap. Being mindful mean being aware that I am able to be reborn into a cranky and resentful person and get out of that being it grab me.

Changes

Changes are the only constant and sure thing in life. It is a catchy phrase but we all learned that is true. Of course, we attach to things that bring us pleasure, satisfaction and pride. This kinds of attachment make changes painful and bring suffering. Embrace change. Things are just fine as it is. Experience no gain nor loss when changes, either with desire or aversion.

Split Second

I can't get enough of reading and re-reading of the book "how to be sick". So much wisdom coming from author's personal experience.

The split second between the experience of an unpleasant encounter and the negative reaction to it, there is a way out of suffering. We can acknowledge the unpleasant experience and just leave it at that. Treat it as just hundreds of such unpleasant moments that will come and go. We cannot avoid the experience, getting yelled at, will no doubt be unpleasant. We can acknowledge it and not react negatively. Before we know it, we have moved on to one of the thousands of contact in a day. Why linger with hard feeling or even plot for revenge?

This is a profound realization. I understand and even able to practice this in some occasions. However, I find this hard to master. Just think about how many times I get upset in a day, I know I have way to go. I shall see the obstacles coming my way are chances for me to practice.

Today I was engaging in a conversation and thought I was being snapped it. I reacted and raised my voice. I missed the split second and suffered mentally. I realized that a few seconds later and made amend to the conversation. I shall catch all these situations and note them done.

Nothing Changes For Real

Things not quite happened my way at work today. There are a lot of reasons to be upset, at others and myself. Well, it is practice time for Zen. Heard quite a few stories of others. Nothing does better than my own experience. I have a small awakening. It seems some of my responsibilities are being taken away. Well, look at it the other way, I am getting help. I should be grateful instead of feeling dissatisfied. I can choose to be upset, or I can choose to be thankful. It is all my mental construct. Nothing really change either way I choose to react. Observation: our feeling are entirely base on our thoughts, there is no solid substance to it. We can extend this to other things. Our thoughts form our experience, our habit and our identification (false self). In actuality, there is nothing real to it. If we can see through this, we can relief mental suffering which is a far greater dukka than physical pain.

A quote from a sutra come to mind that summed up this awakening nicely.
"Experience neither gain nor loss".