Holiday Season-Reset your GPS

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Posted: December 17, 2014

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What am I going to get this holiday season? I really have been good. Maybe a new car or wide screen television will make me happy. But again, what “thing” can actually bring me true happiness?

Like most emotions, real happiness comes from within, right? Although material things, experiences or other people can trigger the generalized emotion (of happiness), doesn’t the “real thing” come from a conscious decision on our part to be happy? Okay, then, this is going to be easy-I’ll just choose to be happy.

Yeah, your right, choosing to be happy and becoming truly happy isn’t all that easy.  But it is a start. Like anything of value, happiness -once chosen-is something that requires action. So, after we decide to be happy there is a decision to be made as to what plan of action to take, in order to reach that destination. Although you should focus on yourself, be sure to pay attention to the other people around you as it is hard to enjoy a feast if your neighbors are starving.

Why can’t I meditate?

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Updated: December 2, 2014

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hopefulWith the advances in neuroscience and better measurement tools such as MRI, scientists are finding hard facts about benefits of meditation. For example, a study by Harvard unveils the cognitive and psychological benefits of meditation that go beyond stress relief and relaxation. Meditation group participants had a significant increase in gray-matter density in the areas of the brain associated with learning and memory compared to the control group. These effects were seen over 8 weeks with an average practice time of 27 minutes each day.

Still, despite the numerous benefits, I found it incredibly hard to sit still for a prolonged period of time when I started. Why? Was there something wrong with me? Why even 5 minutes of “doing nothing” caused such discomfort and pain? I had applied a process of statistical thinking to find the root-cause of my predicament and the means to succeed. The good news is that if I could succeed, you can, too.

Initial condition

Was I always like this? Of course not – as a child I could go the whole day “doing nothing” and being happy. Each one of us had a clean slate and sometime during adolescence we’ve trained ourselves to multitask, memorize, judge, decide and do all kinds of mental work except one – clean and purify at the conclusion of the task. I precisely remember a moment when I realized I finally learned to multitask, but at that moment I also felt I lost something far more precious – ability to just be. I could not retrain myself to switch from a scattered mind to a single mind easily. This was the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning.

Desired outcome

Become the master of my mind. Later on I learned that this goal is not the best goal to have, but for the time being let’s assume this is something a novice practitioner can strive for.

A process

My purpose is not to develop a set of rules to go from A to B, but rather think about what kind of energy and sincerity is needed to be successful in meditation.

  • Time frame: how long did it take for me to accumulate the mental garbage? Years, decades? Is it reasonable to expect all of that miraculously disappear in a short meditation practice? I have a rule of three: any new activity that I want to learn more about, I should give at least 3 tries. With a highly cognitive activity such as meditation, a month may not be enough. It depends on the initial state of the practitioner. The more open and humble attitude helps, but is not a prerequisite.
  • What motivates me? Am I more likely to succeed when I am motivated by the process itself, or when I keep my mind on the end result? In the latter, I educate myself about the benefits of the end result, and remember to have patience and determination to go through. If my goal is to be able to enjoy the process of meditation faster, much more energy and resources may be required to break through the self-constructed barriers and hard-wired habits.
  • Observing the progress. It is the one of the hardest things to measure and acknowledge. Observing self with impartiality means that I have already reached a major milestone! The quality of thoughts, emotions, and relationships can be tracked via writing a diary.

One of my favorite guided meditation methods is listening to “Buddhas’ Fun” CD. When I am struggling with my thoughts, I listen to “breakup meditation” track. When I want to recover fun in my brain and warmth in my heart, I listen to “Buddhas’ fun” track.

The beautiful thing about meditation is that the enjoyment of the process and the end result can grow without limits, irrespective of age, wealth, social status, and fame. Anyone can do it if they set their mind to it. What a wonderful gift we all possess!

Savor ‘Who am I?’ – rider of the storm

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Posted: November 19, 2014

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wave-3

Turbulence – coming and going. Thrown into the storm. Emotions

Turbulence – Life; feeling alive. Do I always appreciate feeling so alive and look forward to its lesson and accept it?

Waves. The ocean. Fighting it – hurting and drowning.

Accept the waves coming and going? People coming into my life and leaving? Luck and trouble intermingled. Luck is trouble.

A rider of the waves
accepting and feeling the waves, moving with their motion, up and down, unwavering. Enjoying the ups and downs, while knowing in the end there is always defeat.

Victorious defeat of me over myself.
Of SELF watching my self.
Elevating to the next wave that comes down at the same time, endlessly.
Eternally – love, being alive – genuine LIFE.

A rider of the waves – to become a master of the waves.

Savoring the power – becoming mine. Becoming me. Becoming ‘Who am I?’.

Becoming.

Being
genuinely

Where Am I? When Am I? Who the Heck Am I ?!?

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Updated: November 4, 2014

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“…So even though you may visit me and we would say that we are here and now, together, consciousness-wise everybody is in very different places.” Harmony Meditation

I was reading this passage this morning while sitting in the kitchen as my wife and mother were doing some dishes.  The second I read that line I saw myself and them as if we were in our own worlds.  Our bodies are here together but really I feel like we are in completely different places.  An impression as if something vaguely above their heads are quite different and mine as well.  Where are we?

Where am I?  Sometimes I feel like I’m in my head, other times in my heart.  Sometimes I feel like I am surrounding my body.  Why?  Which is right, if any?

I make a great effort to stay “Here and now” but what does that really mean to me?  I have my own assumption, I guess it’s because I experienced somethings differently and associate them with “here” or “now” but of course I don’t think it is either completely.  I just figure it is more so than what I am used to.

I make that effort but interact all day with people who these things are not important to.  I find myself wandering away with them.  Sometimes it feels like I’m drunk or dizzy.  Other times I get frustrated and angry.  Sometimes I express that anger and it seems to do no good.  Other times it seems to work most efficiently.

Sometimes I am focusing with a great sense of urgency, then all of the sudden I am swept away by completely random things.  What happened?  Where did I go?  Why is it happening all of the sudden?

Sometimes I feel like I’m Matt and it feels honest and sincere.  Other times I feel like I’m Matt and it is completely false.  A newer experience is Matt is there and I can talk about him without him getting too defensive.  Sometimes he runs loose and now I don’t let that bother me much, when this body is tired there is no winning sometimes.  Who is seeing that?  Who the heck am I?  Sometimes I don’t really care, other times I want to know, most times I want to know and feel fear.  Why do I have to go through this even?!

So I am a me that isn’t me trying to focus on me while others are pulling me away from me but I have to continuously give extreme effort to focus on me while giving extreme effort to focus on them because the they who is not them is pulling them too far away from them that might cause too many problems for us who isn’t really us?!?  Seriously What The Heck!!!  Sometimes this is my 24 hour day experience.

An urgency wakes me up in the morning too early.  My body wants to sleep, my thoughts aren’t choosing this either.  Is this a real me?  Even though it’s pushing me it doesn’t feel like me either.  Why am I waking up?  I don’t know anything at all.

Dear Zombies

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Updated: October 30, 2014

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Dear Mr. and Mrs. Zombies,

I don’t know if I should thank both of you for staying with me for a long time.

In my earlier life, it had been like

“I gave you my money and you enjoyed whatever so,
I gave you my money again and you did the same stuff to come back”

What are you?  I thought your name was Hunger Zombies or Desire Zombies like that.
I didn’t know that you have your king and queen ZOMBIEs though.  Years ago, I realized that both of you are not bad at all, even very good sometimes, compare to your king family.  I accept that I gave you too harsh judgement at that time.  My apologies.  I don’t think it’s appropriate if I reveal their real name here.  I think they like to be unknown.

BTW, I sent a good goodbye to your king.

I’ve got to eat something.  See ya!

Impostor of Love

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Updated: October 19, 2014

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“Your body language shapes who you are” – said Amy Cuddy in her TED talk. We are more used to thinking that our body language is a manifestation of who we are, not the other way around. The authors of the controlled experiment inferred that by changing the posture for only 2 minutes they were able to observe significant changes in body chemistry. In the power pose group the average cortisol level (stress hormone) decreased by 25 percent and the average testosterone level increased by 19% from the baseline.

www.vi.visualize.us

What impressed me most is duration of poses: in only 2 minutes the body responded to  postures. My teacher Grand-Master Johwa Choi always said that human body is very honest, it does not lie. You could train your mind by training your body, and the other way around. Then the question is: what value do I want to internalize and project the most? For some people or situations, it may be power, and doing the power poses as suggested in the talk might help. For others, it may be love, freedom, and hope.

Practitioners of meditation have long known of the self-persuasion process. Our feelings are subjective because they are judged by us, the very same object that is feeling them. Feeling love or not feeling love is not a yes/no type of measurement, and over time practitioners can recognize purity, vastness, and subtlety of their own feelings. It is quite possible to feel tired and uplifted at the same time, painful and joyful, sad and hopeful.

I choose to focus on expanding my love, even if I am not feeling it at the moment toward a person or toward myself. Sometimes it is so tiny, I have to send in a SWAT team to make it show itself. The subject of love can be anything, the bigger the better – humanity or even the whole Universe. Love keeps growing with constant care, attention, and practice, until one day it will become 100% love all the time, everlasting and overflowing.  I live for that day.

Dr. Cuddy’s main message was: “Fake it until you become it.” My teacher’s message in the ZEN method workshop is:

“Breathe love until it flows out of your eyes and ears.”

What kind of love? Not the relative love, but the absolute MuAh-centered love. Enjoy your  love!

Life With a Mission

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Updated: October 2, 2014

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sunheart
http://www.healthy-addiction.com

What an experience this has been.  I remember when I started training with Grand Master Johwa and I became more sensitive to feeling energy.  I would sometimes sense negativity from others and want to avoid them.  Then I could sense what seemed like others trying to take energy from me.  It didn’t seem like it on the surface, they were just talking to me with casual chit chat but I could sense something else going on and wanted to avoid them.

Then one day I did a training and sensed something surprising.  I felt what seemed to be my energy body all around me and as I was speaking to some people I could sense my energy pulling at everyone there.  That was the first time I realized how much I was desperately pulling at others all of the time.  I would realize this more and more as time went on.  I would sense myself pulling at others while telling a joke, bringing up some casual chit chat, even with just a look or an expression.

Sometimes I could sense what seemed to be the cause of it.  I can’t be sure about it or describe it that well but basically a very desperate, anxious, and hopless needing sense from within myself.  All of this was wrapped up with a personality and a smile that seems totally normal.  I would look away from this and feel bad about it.  Later I didn’t judge myself as much because I realized this is just a normal human being.  I see this in myself and almost everyone else I interact with everyday.  From what I understand we are going through this because we don’t know who we truly are and look outside of ourselves for a sense of fullfilment.

I have taken on many differnt purposes for my life in the past.  When I made my purpose and mission for the whole of humanity to find their True Self and be truly fullfiled is when I experienced a beautiful break from that anxiousness.

Even though I am not complete myself yet, just hoping for it for others is such a powerful tool.  When aligned with that mission I don’t want to avoid others when sensing something negative happening.  When I am really aligned with that mission people can pull at me and I feel no discomfort, just love and as if a brightness is shining from me out to them that sometimes even seems to ease that anxious sense in them.  When I’m over tired and unaligned it’s a disaster.

I think of how much I pulled, pushed, and flat out faught with my teacher in the past.  How much discomfort did I send his way?  I remember one time sitting there expressing something negative and could literaly feel the darkness around my body.  Then brightness eminating from him gently washing it away.  He never avoids these things.  I really admire him now and want to have that kind of patience.  Lol it’s really tough though.

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