The Art of Drinking Tea

Early in the morning while people are asleep, I brewed my first cup of tea. I don’t know how to brew tea like the Japanese. For my cup of tea, it is just normal hot boiled water with tea leaves. I like to observe how the dried tea leaves gradually enlarge as they soak up the water. I enjoy watching the tea leaves flow inside the cup. They go up and down like our life. I don’t know how to do tasseography but I can read when each tea leaf has oozed their essence. It expands, and releases its fragrance and colour into the boiling water. It has offered it’s best to me. How often do we live to our life to the fullest like a tea leaf? We need to reflect!

I watch the steam evaporate from my cup. It forms all sort of shapes and sizes. I feel its warmness. From my tongue, I could feel the sun, the moon, the dew, the rain, the earth, the labour work and the fragrance from the tea. I feel the whole universe in my tea cup. You just don’t know how grateful I am to sit here and enjoy my cup of tea. This is my Pure-Land. I gaze out my window and see the crack of dawn.

The Art of Napping

In this hectic 21st century, who has the time to have an afternoon nap? I am one of the lucky people who can enjoy a power nap after lunch. That is why you need to retire early to be able to relish these nectars.

I remember when I was little after morning session from school, my father used to have a 10-20 minutes nap with me. I hated afternoon nap as I was too energetic at that time. My father put his arm around me and said: “Quick go to sleep then we can go back to school for the afternoon session.” It sounds gross to sleep under your father’s armpit. To me it was awesome.

Nowadays life is full on with team meetings, things that we need to deliver, deadlines to meet and so on. Even during the weekend we have so many things to do such as cleaning up the house, shopping for food and catching up with friends. We have a million of things in our little minds, yet there is no time to relax. People at work who fall asleep at their meeting are laughed at. And when we doze off, we feel guilty.

We don’t know how to enjoy life as my dog does. She is having a nap in the morning after breakfast and after lunch. A dog’s life is much better than a human in this case.

The term siesta is the traditional daytime nap, once popular in Spain. A power nap can be a very powerful tool that keeps us from performing at our best and enjoying our life to the fullest. History has showed and you can search on the internet for more information.

It is simple. We just need to have somewhere to lay our body down (on a lawn, couch, bed, inside your car or carpet), relax and fall into sleep.

The Art of looking at the sky

Lately my hubby got into the hobby of watching the stars. He bought an expensive skywatcher reflector telescope. He is like a chook without head, lost in space. He doesn’t know what he is looking for.

Eight years ago we built our pergolas with a special cubby house on top of it. At that time I asked to have a sliding roof so we could watch the stars up high but I got rejected because it costed too much. Now he washed and repainted the cubby house and wants to make the roof slide. He said he will make it happen. What he wants to get out from gazing at the stars, I don’t really know. I am not sure whether he wants to see the beauty of the planets, moon and stars or he wants to find some answers about his mid-life crisis. All he needs is a planisphere to help him get around.

I love staring into the sky whether it is at night or during day time. My mother used to watch the evening sky with me. She pointed to some of the stars and said: “This is the ruler in the heaven. It rules good and bad. That is the star which tells you the direction when you get lost. Those stars are the cow boy and weave girl, so on and so on.” She also told me the beautiful girl with a rabbit who lives on the moon. Every time I gaze at the sky, I will look for all these stars that my mother told me. She also taught me how to tell the weather by watching the moon and clouds. There are so many stories about the stars and the moon from my mother.

I used to fall into sky fantasies with my son when he was little. We read all the books from his school and local libraries about astronomy. My son was only four at that time and he knew all the planets and their characteristics. I remembered at that time there was an article in the Advertiser about a black hole on a flat plane. He had a great debate with us that black holes could not be flat. He had his own theory. He often told me he would build a spaceship to take me to space, visit some galaxies, may be to Mars but never Jupiter or Venus because its intoxicated with poisonous gasses. There was once at Wilpena Pound, my son and I climbed up to a hill before 5am. We sat on top of the hill with a sleeping bag wrapped around us. We could only hear the wind whispering and a symphony of rippling sounds from the inhabitants of the wilderness. Both of us were gazing at the sky. I told him all the stories that my mother told me about the stars. We went back to our tent after we watched the sunrise. It was one of the most enjoyable moments in my life. Another great time that my family and I had was at Arkaroola. We had a bonfire, roasted marshmallows and hot chocolate. The stars were much brighter at Arkaroola and they seemed so close to the earth. I can’t find the same feeling when I watch the stars in suburban Adelaide.

I don’t like to look at the stars with a pack of people especially with the astronomy club. I like to watch it with my love ones, relaxed and let my imagination run wild. The more I watch the stars the more I feel small. Years ago my GP told me I am a universe. It took me years to realise what he meant by ‘I am myself is a universe’. As I grow older, my interest of watching the stars has phased out but if I go into the wild again then this will be a different story.

My teacher, my Kalyana Mitra

Five years has gone by, the fig tree at the front yard is still blooming. I am standing next to it and am thinking about you. You used to look for figs from this tree. You told me you had a great feast of figs somewhere in Turkey while you did your morning walk.

You just don’t know how much I have missed you. I cannot find someone to discuss my love within. I remembered I told you I love all sorts of pebbles and stones. You didn’t say a word but showed me you have lot of stones in your pocket. We could spend hours talking about stones (thunder eggs and geodes), travelling, Buddhism, books, music, religions in general and anything that happen during the day.  Now I am into Hetian pebble and who I can discuss with about this?

Life is different without you. I have no longer to have someone listens to my whinge and swear, to have someone to challenge me to think deeper and wider, to have someone to tell me off when I am mischief. I remembered there was one occasion that we discussed the topic of the first precept ‘Not to kill’. You told me something that you had done and I said you had no compassion. You didn’t rebuttal back but few months later, I went to India. You asked me how I spent my first night in India. I told you I committed into killing. I killed more than fifty mosquitoes inside my hotel room. You asked me under what circumstances did I commit the killing. I said to prevent my son to get sick. You then brought up the first precept and the compassion concept. You made sure I understood the first precept and the correlation between compassion and wisdom. I apologised to have said you ‘lacked compassion’ and you laughed. You then challenged me to reveal my killing to the world, especially to all the monks who lived in my state.

Today is the day you said farewell to all of us five years ago. Thay TP said in 10 years’ time he can start looking for a young boy who needs accommodation or his help in Dharma. To tell you the truth, I don’t want to see you in this samsara, but I will never know whether you might come back and continue your preaching job.

At the suffering deep and wide sea you preach

Beyond preferences we ought to see

Here and now is where we dwell

Inside ourselves happiness and joy we should seek

No enlightenment button that we can press to be free

Yin-Yang, the symbol of balance and harmony should be indwell

Alive is the biggest of our achievement we should reach

Not a super-monk you keep retell

Around you go to give the wake up speech.

20/04/2013

无生法忍/ Anutpattika-dharma-ksanti

What is Anutpattika-dharma-ksanti? In 2000, I asked a young monk about this question. He gave me a load of Buddhism jargons which made me utterly confuse. Then another young monk stepped in and gave me another load of Buddhism jargons which made me more puzzled. I’ve read many books and Buddhist dictionaries and still couldn’t understand. I’ve gave up on this until last Sunday when Thay talked about Anutpattika-dharma-ksanti.

Ksanti means to endure, but this endurance is different from the worldly endurance. My mother used to tell me: “Endurance is gold.” What she meant was we don’t fight with others, we just accept and tolerate/endure. I told my mother if we just accept and endure when someone is doing bad things to you; we will explode when we surpass the level of toleration. A good example was how my aunties used to make my mother suffer by telling something bad in front of my father. My mother told me she endured it,  but until now she is still holding the grudge on my aunties. All her stories were more than 50 years ago but when she re-tells her stories, she is ignited with anger. I told my mother to let go of them. This kind of endurance is not Anutpattika-dharma-ksanti because she couldn’t see the nature of all these hurtful words from my aunties.

Anutpattika-dharma means no arising and no perish. It is stated in the Heart Sutra that all phenomena are expressions of emptiness or the interconnection relationship of nature. Because phenomena are empty nature, they are neither born nor destroyed; neither pure nor defiled; neither coming nor going. 

So all phenomena are impermanent and non-existent that is why we should not grasp on the worldly things (material, and verbal praise and criticism). Once we understand the impermanence and the nature of all phenomena (forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touches and thoughts), we should accept these truths. This acceptance is called Anutpattika-dharma-ksanti. By accepting these truths, we come out of misery. We are no longer chained by the phenomena around us; this includes our most treasurable body. Anutpattika-dharma-ksanti can also mean equanimity.

Notes: The following are the definitions from different website.

Japanese English dictionary: Anutpattika-dharma-ksanti is the recognition that nothing really arises or perishes.( http://www.eudict.com/?lang=engjpk&word=%28Buddh%29%20anutpattika-dharma-ksanti)

The Zennist: Anutpattika-dharma-ksanti, that is, the acceptance that inevitably all phenomena are illusory and nonexistent, is realized by the Bodhisattva in the eighth bhumi (acalâ, i.e., immovability) being completed at the stage of Buddhahood according to some accounts (cp. Yogacarabhumi Shastra).  (http://zennist.typepad.com/zenfiles/2011/07/accepting-the-illusory-and-nonexistent.html)

From an introduction to MadhyamakaPhilosohpy by Jaideva Singh : Anutpattika-dharma-ksanti means capacity to endure and sustain the truth of the unborn dharma, then he enters the true status (nyama) of the Bodhisattva.

From the classification of Buddhismby Bruno Petzold, Shinsho Hanayama: The state of acquiescence with the insight of the non-origination of dharmas; the insight of which acknowledges non-arising of psycho-physical phenomena.

The Art of Equanimity

My friend asked me why I haven’t written something about mastering our anger. Last week my son made me a ring for Valentine’s Day. It has a Chinese word - 忍 (endurance/toleration). In 2004 he also gave me a Happy Buddha statue for Christmas. Happy Buddha’s big fat tummy represents equanimity (大肚能容 容天下难容之事 慈颜常笑 笑世间可笑之人).

What are these two words (toleration and equanimity) mean to me? As a person who has a hot temper, it isn’t easy to practice on these two words. When something or someone that make us upset or angry; when the condition does not fall into our will; when someone says something hurtful to us, we become aggravated. There are few things we will do:

• We will say something bad to the person who upsets us 
• We hold onto the grunge and will take revenge in the near future. There is a phrase in Chinese – It’s not too late for a gentleman to take revenge in 10 years’ time. 
• We torture ourselves because we will repeat the event again and again in our mind 

I told my son these are the habits that we like to hold onto and react to things. To break this habit we need to understand why we become angry. Who aggregates us? Why we are angry? We need to analyse our emotion. To be angry or not to be angry, it’s all up to us. Most of the time, we choose to be angry. In most cases we become angry because someone has shattered our ego. If we see things in a different angle then we might not be upset nor feel angry. Here are some ways to cool down our anger:

• Take some deep breathes 
• Don’t say anything because words from an angry person are hurtful and that will make you regret later on 
• Ask yourself why you are angry? Try to analyse it. 
• Have something to remind us to calm down. In Thich Nhat Hanh’s ‘Pebble in a pocket’, he used pebbles as an object to remind him not to become angry. 
• Feel sympathy for the person who has made you angry. Anger takes up lot of energy and creates harmful toxin in our human body. 
• Keep oneself in equanimity like the Happy Buddha 
• See thing as it is, not as what you want it to be - Yathabhuata 

A way to prevent one from getting angry before we explode is by observing ourselves closely. We can practise this daily. We just need to spend 15 to 30 minutes to listen to our mind daily. During this time, we can observe our emotions and feelings, and not react to them. We can acknowledge them but not react to them. The more we practise there will be more chances that we can catch our anger before we let it out. My son and I have a lot to learn on these two very important words – equanimity and toleration.

Note: Anger/upset from defame/bad repute, loss/devastation, blame/ridicule and pain/suffering is the negative emotions and feelings; gain/benefit, fame/acclaim, praise/approval and pleasure/happiness are the rest worldly conditions. A true equanimity is we can deal with all these worldly conditions with ease.

The Art of Doing Nothing

During our daily life, we often rush into things. As we get older, the day gets shorter. Why? This is because we have lots of things to do and plan. It seems as though we are constantly in a hurry.

People asked me on my last day of work: “What are you going to do when you retire in such young age?”  There was no trace of any hesitation, nor was there a whiff of concerns in answering this question. I explained I am not young. I want to take a moment to appreciate life-the citrus smell of the gum leaves to the organic shapes of the pebbles by the creek. I want to watch a spider spin its web and gaze into the endless sky.  I want to enjoy yawning like my father does and sneeze like ‘Sneezy*’ at work.

People asked me, “won’t you feel bored for doing nothing?” I said I have plenty of things to do. I will watch my garden plants grow; I will count the morning dews if any on my fig tree and watch the sky to see the clouds pass by. We can learn lots of things from the sky. I will meditate when my family members are busy working. I will walk my old mum up and down the street to strength her leg muscles.
  

I need to take my time to experience all these again, as we grow older we tend to forget. Doing nothing used to be a dream and now I have all my time for doing it. Doing nothing is not hard to do, I think I can do it and do it well.

*Sneezy- one of my work colleague who sneezes obnoxiously.