Sunday, January 29, 2012
"For, love is not love till we show it. Since the other person is not a mind-reader (a helpful assumption), we need at least occasionally, and as spontaneously as possible, to express an appreciation of the other person. A bell is not a bell till we ring it." -Piya Tan
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10:54 PM
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Finally, i found out what is happening to me. negative energy thoughts- they can really bog you down. i needa transform that energy into positive ones through metta meditation.
when i was in the depressed state and wanted people to care for me, i wasnt calm enough. I wanted people to ask me how am I, how i feel, and i realized i put in more of 'I...blah blah' in my convos. at that time, i'd tell myself its okay that i'm feeling this way and that it will pass. now it did, but i have to continue practising. to be able to care for others like i did in the past, i must first be calm. because i did lots of meditation in the past and was at least calmer, i was able to ask about how the others are doing almost all the time. fortunately, i'm becoming calmer now as i start with metta meditation, and it slowly allowed me to see why i was feeling the way i did before and after.
life now is comfortable. nice place, nice bed, nice people, nice teachers... thankew daddy mummy for the opportunities and everything. really. Loving you and come back from Tibet soon to tell us all about your trip!
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9:15 AM
Monday, September 05, 2011
Wu jiu: Ni hui qu duo jiu?
Me: hm.. zhi shao yi nian hou cai hui lai yi xia.
Wu jiu: whoa, bu zhi dao wo hai zai bu zai.
uncle has been saying that for some time. its true, but it made me feel a little sad cause he's my beloved bubbly and funny uncle. i dont know whether its because of health problem or not that made him say that. i asked him and he said he's fine and have stopped drinking. anyways, hope he'll be well, happy and healthy:D
back to Vancouver after 7 months in Singapore and uni is starting tomorrow. am quite excited for the start of it and choosing between 300 ccas to join. the first thing i noticed when i landed is the smell of fresh air. its sooo clear, nice and sweet that it made me really happy. with the scenery of mountain and sea, it feels like heaven to me. life's not too bad for now(:
i'm excited for dad and mum's return to Singapore so that I can skype them to ask about their Tibet trip.
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4:47 PM
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
ohhhh and during CNY we counted:
ONG CLAN(Dad side): 60 of us
CHIN CLAN(Mum side): 67 of us
so manymanymanymanymany! only counting grandparents, parents, uncles, aunties, cousins, nieces, nephews:D
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9:35 AM
I missed my friends. but i never knew i'd miss them this much since i came back. and i never knew i would miss them even more after seeing them. it is really the friends that make the difference in whatever you do. no matter how terrible conditions are, your friends are always there to go through it together. having felt the loneliness and almost depression when i was overseas, i find myself trying to get back the pleasant feeling of being with everyone.
i do envy my friends who are in jc now, they can see and have each other everyday.
i'm more afraid and cautious of the the people i meet overseas. they come from different culture, background, mindset and thinking. there will be those who grew up thinking that stealing, slandering, drugs and casual sex are okay because their society is like that. i did not expect to meet people who are different because the people i meet in singapore are all pure, nice, and has no intention to harm. now that i've met people out of my comfort zone, there is more of a protective sphere around me. this made me less initiative in making friends. i just feel.. lazier... because people i meet just come and go. right now, i'm really glad that i'm back in singapore- feeling so sheltered, in company with nice and harmless people.
the emotions i experienced when i was overseas wouldnt be easily understood. in a way its self created, but sometimes i feel that its unfair that i have to grow up prematurely. i understand that it is inevitable but sometimes i also feel so shitty about it and that i've made the biggest mistake to go overseas. i do wish that i have stayed back in Singapore for at least 6months, which i could afford to at that time. ohwell, Brintha told me that shes experiencing this too. i guess only she would fully understand this feeling.
i was a brighter light to some people in the past. but now that i have become dimmer, I wish for a brighter light to care for me. But they are so rare. there were a few mature people that i sought advice from, but i want someone with longer term care and not so one-off.
because of changes in environment, i learnt to cherish and appreciate things a lot. I realised that if you have something nice to say, say it. if you have something you are grateful for, thank the person. because if the opportunity passes by, there wont be any more chance to do so. seize the present moment and there will be no regrets. i deeply appreciate my parents for everything. i will never exist as me if it were not for them. they are just like arahants(:
time is precious. i do have a lot of things to tell the people who matter to me, but i hadnt got the chance to tell each of them. most of my friends are in jc and they are really busy. even if its holiday now, i cant really make time because of my commitments and work-i got roped into TCC by my friend.
after seeing and hearing how hard they work due to manpower shortage, i feel sorry for them and wished i could relief them even just a little. but sometimes you are the one that will get burned out. i met an experienced F&B waitress today. she told me to just let them know when are my available hours after giving time to family and some 'me' time. if they want or force more from you, just quit. I went in telling them of the commitments i already had, but my heart softened to sacrifice. my sister said i'm being bullied, and, i think i am, hiahia. I've been a waitress for one week and i did learnt a lot from the work. gonna work 1-11pm tmr and off to Camp LIONS this wed! :D
9:34 AM
Monday, December 20, 2010
i'm going back to Singapore after staying in Vancouver for slightly more than a year. i'm naturally quite excited :D
I was in the midst of writing about all my troubles and was interrupted by my trip to Birken. Finally, after the trip, all of the troubles do not matter anymore. they were all just works of the confused mind, clinging, and being tangled in intellectualising.
'Its not about solving questions, its about dissolving them.' -Ajahn Sona. totally agree. :D YAYYYY.
so heres what the confused Gin was confused and trying to write about, which all do not matter anymore:
CAN I BE A MEANIE PLUEASE. my mean side of me just wanna be bigger, purple-er and meanerrrrr. i'm going crazy and i think i might just go into depression.
my piano teacher showed me photos of her younger times and her friends, fast fowarding my life for 20 years. she was saying how she realised it was wrong to just sprout out what she thinks when she was younger. she thought everything was okay and felt good because she was able to express her opinions. but for others, not necessarily so. i knew how speech can affect others, her reminder came in time to deter me from becoming meaner.
'people that are always criticizing others is that they are deeply unhappy, have a low self esteem and perhaps even depressed.'
i'm glad that I am of help when she can feel better about herself after criticizing me, but another part of me tries to comfort my ego that 'its okay'. my tolerance level (being unaffected in the past) dropped naturally after not meditating for so long. I do try not to let it out by using harsher tones and meaner words. But it actually feels quite good to do so. this experience is not too bad, at least now i understand how people who are more involved in their emotions feel.
i used to hate myself for being so absorbed into this 'self'. but everybody has this huge ego that no one has the idea on how to deal with. without this self you will be completely lost in the world, because everything in the world is so relative to your senses. i was at UBC and got lost. i see my destination on the map but i didnt have any idea which direction i should go. then, i saw the student union building (SUB) and the bus stop. only from the postion of the SUB relative to the bus stop, and my destination being relative to the SUB, could i only find my direction. without your senses and idea of self, without relativity, you will really go crazy. you wont know where to go and head to. theres a saying that goes: your flaws are what connects you to other people.
i used to think that 'since everything is relative, what are we doing all these while?' but no, these senses are the tools that will help to make sense of the world, and through the tools, you learn and upgrade yourself, aiding you in your cultivation. I learnt to acknowledge and accept the relativity, and move on.
i remember not crying in Singapore for years, or maybe at most once per year. but after coming to Vancouver, i cry at least once every month; be it because or happiness, frustration or sadness. I thought I would be the last person to get depression, but now, I think I would be the first. I thought i will not blog about 'emo' stuff, but here i am, starting. I think having all these emotional turmoil helps me understand people better and help me in my therapy work if i really do it in the future.
I feel that Singapore education system is the one that shapes the thinking 'if you are not good at it, dont do it'. we have to make the decision about subjects we take since sec2, and people tend to choose subjects they are good at according to their grades, but not necessarily have the passion in. slowly, we start forming the idea that 'if you are not good at it, dont do it'. thats quite some bullshit(<-see, effects of not meditating). intention is the start of success. If you start working on something that you want to be good at, the right effort and intention set on it will drive you to improvement. even if you havent become a master at it in this lifetime, the heightenment(sp?!) of the senses and mind will follow you to the next life. from there, if conditions are met, you can working on it again. Famous composers like Beethoven dont appear overnight or in one lifetime- there has to be some sort of build up in previous lifetimes.
In Singapore everyone goes through the same education system partly because the government is afraid of revoke and would want to make things the same and the norm so that people will not go against things so much. conformation- is the thing i love to poke and ask why. when somebody tells me not to do something, i need reasons. because if i dont have reasons, i do not see why things lead, and i wont feel compelled to accept. that makes me a bad employee because the manager might need to spend all of his time explaining to me, which doesnt happen. (After going to Birken, i realise some things do not need reasons. The fact is there is no reason, its all up in the mind. it arises there, it ceases there.)
humans being humans will always find something to say in anything if they want to. the people who say that you can't do it shouldn't interrupt those who are doing it. well, the human potential is so vast. if you listen to people's condemning comments, you would also be the one who limit and suppress yourself.
neurons need ATP (energy) to work and all these thinking has a lot of brain activity. Sometimes I just think its not fair that I am experiencing such good life when my parents are working hard. it feels like I am feeding off them, but thats just how life is. Sometimes I feel like asking my parents to stop giving me money and let me go hungry, so that i wont think so much, and at the same time, experience some suffering. but i know that their hearts would ache so much because they've been through hardships and didnt want us to undergo the same thing. thinking so much is causing me to be crazy. but the beauty that is to be found is what wen jie said: the ceasation of thinking.
many people can pull through in times of need because they are able to think of the better side. they pray because they feel that somebody is there to listen, it is easier for them to connect. for me, its harder for me to create a figure out there fully and talk to it because i know that its the mind ultimately. People who believe that everything is planned wont have to worry because when bad things happen, they would be able to pull their minds toward the positive side and prevent sinking into depression. of course there will be those who start questioning the fairness.
my piano teacher tried to convert me. i used to reject the idea because they have the idea of self. people identify themselves as buddhist, christians etc, but ultimately the truth is the truth and there is no religion. now i dont mind anymore, i could be in all the religions: i can be a buddhist, a christian, a muslim and a hindu all at the same time. those are only labels, and it would be impossible to explain to a religious person (defined as a believer of a creator or god) that those are just labels and god is born out from a perceived self. its only an idea of 'self' is capable of projecting a 'god'. People wonder about the world, and people prefer to believe in a creator because if there is none, their questions cannot be answered and they will feel so clueless and insecure about the world, which they wont like. I could be all of those labels, yet being none of them. I guess i am now open to any religion. converters, minus the delusion of a self, are people who are full of love for others. i would glady accept this metta that is shown to me and more love to come. i think i would wanna explore the different religions.
sometimes i wonder who still reads my blog other than my family. actually i'm assuming no one does and so i treat this as a personal space to just express myself, like writing a diary to keep check of my thoughts as it might be useful to me to help give someone advice lest they face the same confusion as me. If anyone of you are still reading this, please note that there is no intention to offend anybody. :D
in PLR, problems are brought into present lives just because of a thought in the past that: I am not going to enter water again. and this life, you have phobia of water. Therefore thoughts themselves are really powerful.
During spiritual development, one do find the world becoming less interesting. sometimes i feel that i dont belong to the world, that nobody understands me. I was blamed and scolded all my confusions and for being who i am. kee asked me what had i accomplished in my whole life, i only had just enough courage to say PSLE in primary school and LEAPS in secondary. Sometimes people dont know how bad people like me are feeling. You start to feel incapable, you start to get used to failing, you start to feel lousy. and yet you cannot help it because you really cannot find the drive and purpose. i remember giving a leaders presentation in bf before, and i said how i want to be able to achieve more because i 'felt like i have wasted my whole 4 years'. i felt soooo bad afterwards i had to go off to look for my parents and sob. people like me are really confused. you think we dont want to do better? you think we dont wanna feel good about ourselves? its because we can't, its because we feel so helplessness. during summer semester when kee was back in singapore, i cried quite badly because the confusion kicked in again. they tell me the same old thing because i tell them the same old thing. it cannot be solved so easily because it is our very foundation that is in trouble and without a strong foundation you cannot build on it.
so far, i think the only people who encourage me on are Wenjie, Venerable Sundara and Bikkhu Jayanto. Wenjie have been through it and congrats to him he came out of it. He's like my guiding senior :D Venerable Sundara told me its good that i am having these things because people ignore them during teenage until it surfaces during mid age and thats when they have middle age crisis. I would need to just learn how to hold it there skillfully. now, i just need more time and space. its my own inner journey and theres no right or wrong, i just have to figure it myself. Bikkhu Jayanto told me i sounded exactly like him when i told him about my thoughts and he said thats why he went to monastics. there are definitely wrong views on my part, but i have to figure out whats wrong myself too.
and wen jie was right. if I do not do something about it, it will come back again and again.
In reality, we have to face what is needed. parents wont wanna work too if they have a choice but they have to make money to bring their children up. i have started to face up to reality already, just do what you need (: there is no me me me, and looking for a point in things is born out of a me.
before i left singapore, i use to be unhappy that singapore does not have freedom of speech. but now, it doesnt matter anymore because those things you have to say are all formed from opinions, perspectives and relativity to a 'me'. in every country you go, you will find the same phenomena that people complain that they want something more and there is no end to it if you keep comparing. there are always the good and bad side.
daddy said that my blog pic was nice. i picked that picture to put on my blog after it started not long ago. guess i just liked that picture. now that i look at it, i think i liked it because it gives me a feeling of lightness- i wanna be free.
----- as i said, all of the above doesnt matter anymore, as they are just ideas and clinging(:-----
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11:50 AM
Sunday, November 28, 2010
ohmy, i'm speechless.
'Some might say this is just being clever with words. But we forget that we ourselves could excel so, given a chance to speak before an audience, or post something about it online, or write a book. Words, words, words. We can be naked and lost without them.
Imagine we are suddenly deprived of words and language. How then can the Zennists blurb their zen? Or the preacher sell his God? Or the conmen con? Notice how children, not so sophisticated in language, befriend one another as easily as they quarrel. We smiled at their childish squabbles, and thought we knew better. Then we ourselves squabbled, only to know much later how childish we were. Aren’t we still living in the past?
Amidst the words and noises of our lives, we vitally need to feel a constant silence in between. Our wisdom arises from the spaces separating each letter and mark, the silence spacing every word; and do beauty, harmony and peace. They are like the still spaces in between our beautiful breaths. It is from such stillness that our vision of joy, beauty and truth arises. This is the vision of emotional independence, of being truly happy for itself.
We need to cut down the forest of words, but not the tree of wisdom. Religion is a forest, Buddhism is a forest; the Dharma is a tree. Cut down the forest, but not the tree (Dh 283).'
- Piya Tan ©2010 101129
I LIKE.
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9:02 PM
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
i dont really care if i look like a tourist anymore. its -8 degrees and i have to wrap myself like a eskimosnowmancabbage. i'm going to school alone when the sky is dark, when the temperature falls even lower, and when everybody returns back home from school. what a hearty scene.
yesterday in class, it was so cute seeing everybody strolling in with a red nose because of the cold. heehee.
my piano teacher shared a little with me about jesus today. After coming here, I realise why the idea of god appealed so much to someone who is in times of need. the idea of somebody guiding you, the idea of putting all your troubles & burden onto somebody, the idea that everything happen for a purpose, the idea that everything turns out the way it does because its planned by somebody who loves you, the idea that everything will be okay.
the frustration i experienced dealing with various things in the new environment deepened my need of having someone to take the load off me. at the times when frustration hits, i'm torn apart- i think that i should be contented and stop complaining because my life is so much better than other people. other times, I feel so blessed as if i were the most fortunate girl in the world.
I know the model answers, but I am just expressing my feelings now.
the truth is always ugly and less appealing, and people don't like that. the truth that you have to depend on yourself makes you feel more helpless, more uncertain. that is why people prefer to have a father figure to make them feel better with a sense of security. I want that feeling too.
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10:50 PM
