Insidious Adventures

I have been meditating since I was in primary school, secondary school gotten more serious about it and when I was exposed to Buddhism and Taoism then there is meditation of letting go and meditative stabilisation of working in the spiritual level. Amid all these experiences, I am still a very noob in meditation in the language of my teenage son.

Few years back, I use to have experiences of wandering off in my dreams during my sleep. Meaning dreaming of strange places or neighbourhoods which is dark or usually on a cloudy day. And most of the time these dreams are vivid and lucid. After few adventures of this kind, I enquire with a fellow senior master...he just told me you don't wander off at night after you sleep.

What he meant was, my soul or consciousness likes to go out of my body during my sleep. And most of the time I ended somewhere in Bardo states of consciousness in other words lower realms. Although I did not experience any harm in my dream, usually I would met up with dead relatives and their first word to me would be something like "How come you are here?"

Anyway I have figure a way to lock my consciousness and not to allow myself to uncontrollably wander off in my dreams. Since then work pretty well, coz I do not have weird dreams or vivid dreams anymore. If you know me, you would know that showing up in my dream is usually not a good thing as it is a sign from either Deities that something is coming next few days or weeks for the other person or myself.

Well last week, I had one of those dreams and it was worth sharing here. I dreamt one of my old friend and disciple 'K' was driving me and my family just down a village road, and when the car came to a simple bridge, the bridge was slightly curved. Instead of following the curve and just drive across the bridge, he decided to speed up and make a drastic turn, of course then the car would flew to the left side of the bridge and land on the river...somehow in the dream and he was about to land, I told him land further near the river bed and true enough he did (It was a dream!)

After we had a slight rough landing, we walked out of the car safely, nobody was injured in the dream. But soon a lot of villagers show up, they were not the friendly type, look quite hostile and were pointing towards me and K.

Quickly I told K lets slowly walked out of here, they do not dare to touch us and slowly we walked on the village road arriving to some stores in the village. Slowly however more villagers notice our arrival and they are in not friendly gestures, I told K in my dreams, lets take shelter in this corner shop house, it has chinese wording on it, looks something like a 1960s coffee shop. Anyhow we entered the cafe, locked the door, the we try to take some sneak peek through the windows of the shop. I can see those villagers are not locals of Malaysia. Local here means they are not Chinese, Indian or Malay people. Looks a bit native with languages I could not understand in the dream.

Then after a while, I told K that we better leave this place before the whole village shows up and then most likely we will be trapped. I slowly leave the shop house and walk down the road out of the village. Some stood on the side and stare at us but no harm came to us. Then I woke up in middle of the night, usual time is around 3:30am or 3:45am.

The next day, I called up K and asked him whether he have been doing any smoke offering practice lately. I then proceed to update him on my dream the night before, then suddenly I remembered he told me he was helping a friend to sell or acquire a piece of land. I suggest to him that maybe it has something to do with this piece of land that he was involved with.

Then K proceed to informed me in detail about the land. He told me actually that piece of land belong to his friend and that piece of land also contain their family relative tombs, about 20 of the tombs are located at that piece of few acres land. His friend were planning to develop a columbarium building on part of the land and also some other development. I immediately advised to K that he better forgo this land deal, as obviously the ancestors that are buried there are not so happy with the plan they have in regards to developing the land.

Any relocation of tombs especially on an area needed to be handled with exceptional care and with correct spiritual procedures being done before hand. Well after my advice, K immediately inform his friend that he cannot help him anymore for the development of the land.

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Few days later K update me that actually on that piece of land there is a Thai Temple that houses columbariums. I immediately inform K that this confirm my dream, as the group of people in the dream are not local natives. So this confirm my dream.

K then proceed to advice his friend that he better get the correct approval and procedures spiritually before proceeding further with this project.

Values in the context of Buddhism PART 2 of 2

 

If you would like to read PART 1 of this article

When you have the idea that VALUES are actually driving us in doing the things we do. You can then change VALUES, hence changing your beliefs about those VALUES and changing your behaviour towards things/people and anything that you come into contact with in your reality.

This explains why someone who love to eat meat, may suddenly becomes a full time vegetarian. Many type of experiences could have contributed to it. For example, they develop certain health issues and decided to become vegetarian, because they value HEALTH more than personal food satisfaction in their VALUES hierarchy.

Whereas for some people, they may have terminal disease, but would not even consider changing their diets. For this type of people, they would usually say “If I could not eat what I wanted to eat, life would be meaningless”. You can then know that they VALUE the taste of food more than survival itself. Because they have a high VALUE that Life Must be Meaningful. And for that to happen, they have a governing belief inside their head that says ' eating what you want to eat at any time is giving my life its meaning'.

Literally they would rather die than not being able to eat what they want to eat. BUT this beliefs about achieving the VALUE of Life Must be Meaningful is not helping them in this situation. You want to know a big secret? They also don't know that they have such damaging beliefs, sometime they pick it up when they are small and don't understand much. Yet slowly it becomes an important part of their life. If they are able to change their beliefs from Life Must be Meaningful WHEN I am able to spend more healthy times with my love ones – IMMEDIATELY this person can change their diet preferences with no regrets, hang ups or any chances of reverting back to their original way. All it takes is a shift of beliefs to fulfill the VALUES that they hold.

Now comes the ultimate question, how do we view VALUES in the context of Buddhism. Buddha in his ultimate quest towards reaching enlightenment, is about how humans can be free of suffering and be happy.

Teachings of Buddha often mention how humans create suffering for themselves by clinging on towards what is not real in their emotions and also physical things that we view as permanent.

If we are ask enough questions to find out about a person's high VALUE and what it ultimately means to them. We will often discover one common word and emotion. And that is being HAPPY.

For example, when you ask a person who has a high VALUE on MONEY in their life, what does it mean to have money in your life? They would answer something like ' so that I can feel secure', 'I can do whatever I want , with whomever I want, at any place I want' , ' so I can be free' . Then if you probe further, 'What does it mean to be free? ' What does it mean when you can feel that sense of security?' What does it mean to be able to do all these things?' Finally they would say that ' then I would feel truly happy!'

Buddhism mentioned that all sentient beings wants to be happy and to be free of suffering. And Buddhism went a step further.

For all the VALUES that you may have and fulfilling those values, some of it are base of a 'false' perception. VALUES and BELIEFS based on material things, ability to evoke emotions, and people will not make a person happy forever. They will ultimately be causes of suffering for you. Because life itself is impermanent, material things, emotions and people will also one day be lost through time or separation upon your own death.

Because of the existence of Karma and Reincarnation, you may have already experience many lifetimes as many different people with different values. And because of attachments towards those various false perceptions, the mind takes on reincarnation again and again in hope to search for something that provides ultimate happiness. But each time, we view those material things, people, emotions as the source of our happiness, those in the end will become our suffering and hence the cycle is unending.

To be free of suffering and be happy, one would need to realized that the unending cycle itself is emptiness. Emptiness here does not mean that it does not exist, but realizing the sense of meaningless of attaching to things that are not permanent if we look at it from across many lifetimes.

Then you may ask what are the VALUES of Buddhism? Reducing attachments towards all things, in this sense even reducing attachment towards the SELF. Without the SELF, there is no EGO, hence no attachment of any kind. Meaning, SELFLESSNESS is one of the higher VALUE in Buddhism. Why Selflessness? Because when we don't think about the SELF, thinking about the happiness of others, the welfare of others, then Compassion develops naturally and happiness is realized automatically.

Buddhism encourages as human beings, we need to collect more merits, do more good deeds in order to have the wisdom to realized full Selflessness. Collecting merits and do good deeds itself is an exercise towards being selfless. It is those merits from the good deeds, that propels each rebirth to have a much better chance of realizing the Values of Buddhism and finally being able to achieve Enlightenment 

Values in the Context of Buddhism, needs a person to have a realization of how values actually governs our life. And whether those values and beliefs are actually giving the real happiness that we seek for not only in this life but in all our future lives as well. To check on what are our current values, whether they are aligned towards being more selfless or actually our current value is aligned towards the self. If it is aligned towards the self, we can never achieve lasting happiness. As most likely it is only temporary.

A lot of people go through life, behaving the way they behave without actually knowing what are the things that are driving them. They often think, it is their birth 'gift' which sometimes can be a curse in disguise. The important realization to have, is that we all have the power to change our values and beliefs. Nobody is a victim of circumstances, all are only victims of their own values and beliefs!

My short article here on VALUES and also BUDDHISM will never be extensive enough for you to know all about it, but if reading through this article creates enough curiosity in you to start searching for answers, then I would have achieve what I set out to write. And most likely it is written for you.

May you be Happy !

 **Those who like to know more about Feng Shui, please visit my blog at http://gkhamconsulting.blogspot.com

Values in the context of Buddhism PART 1 of 2

This article was inspired by a dream I have had on 25 November 2013 morning. In my dream I was teaching a class of students on Values and their important in change. When class was about to be over, one student asked me a question " How do you explain Values in Context of Buddhism ?". That's a good question I answered, and this is what that have been explained in the dream.....strange?

Value is a broad and deep subject for me to be writing and in the context of Buddhism, just almost never crossed my mind. However I gave a lecture in my dream, and before I woke up, I heard an inner voice that tells me I need to write this up. This is a 2 part blog, as the subject I am trying to explain does take more words than usual.

What is personal Values? Values are the driving force that governs your every thought and behaviour. What you personally deem as important, not important in your life. Each person raise in human society will slowly grow up to 'value' certain things/ thoughts or behaviour in which the person will recognize as important.

These Values serve as the filter in our existence in everyday life. Everyday there are millions of events happening simultaneously around us from the most minute bodily function to the gross change of the weather surrounding us. Our brain definitely cannot and will not take in ALL the information that is happening. Therefore our brain will only selectively FILTER out what is important to us. That is crucial for our survival, or else we will go mad in even few minutes of trying to comprehending all that is happening around us.

Our SUBCONSCIOUS mind is already handling our bodily function, from how many times your heart is supposed to be pumping to distributing all the nutrients in your body and more.

So where does VALUES comes in? VALUES are the pre-programmed prime importance that we have given our brain to lead our daily lives. Most of our actions are checked by our own subconscious on whether it is fulfilling those VALUES or detracting us away from the VALUES that we have.

For example, a person will UNCONSCIOUSLY have the values hierachy of

1. Love
2. Money
3. Family Relationship
4. Health
5. Serving the community

So for this person, he (presuming its a male) will find it very difficult to have time to exercise. He does not understand why? He keep telling friends and family members that he knows the important of good health but somehow there is not any time in his life to do it. Or somehow he cannot start.

If you look at his value list, you can instantly know why. Health is ranked number 4 in what he view is important in his life. Therefore, getting signal that he is loved, earning enough money (whatever the amount) and good family relationship are more important than health. Therefore no wonder he cannot find time to exercise.

Because each VALUES will have certain criteria that is already set by his UNCONSCIOUS mind of what needs to happen in order for that value to be viewed as fulfilled. WHAT IF his Love Value has a condition that he must do activities together with his spouse in order to fulfill this LOVE value?

Presuming if the spouse have a Health Value of no 10 in her list. Then what are the chances of this person being able to start even a simple exercise routine?

Exercise is definitely not in the Value list...

The most amazing part of VALUES are that MOST people go through life, behaving the way that the behaving, making the decisions that they make WITHOUT every realizing WHY they do it.

It is because, most people don't ever sit down and sort out what is the thing that they VALUE in life. Therefore they picked up VALUES that sometimes may not be valuable any more with their present life condition. For example, if a person that grows up economically deprived (poor) in a bad neighbourhood, as he/she grew, they picked the value of the need to be recognized/respected by others. And when they looked around the neighbourhood, they adopted the beliefs that in order to fulfill this value, I must have luxurious items to show my status in society and among friends.

This person will then have No 1 or No 2 Value in life and Recognized/Respected. So their behaviour will constantly seek out to buy luxurious item, branded items even at the expense of bursting their credit cards to fulfill his/her beliefs that the owning of the product needs to happen to fulfill the Value of being Recognized and Respected.

Friends and society, who does not understand this, will then view them and insane, slaves to branded products etc.

Each and everyone of us have a VALUE list in our UNCONSCIOUS mind that is governing our behaviour. Our behaviour are also attune to our BELIEFS system which governs our every thought in handling and fulfilling the conditions that are in it. Once the conditions are fulfilled, then we will think that we are in 'congruent' (your are aligned with your purpose in life) with our VALUES. And when we are in congruent, finally we will FEEL satisfied, complete and HAPPY.

Can Beliefs and Values change? Definitely. As most people does not consciously find out their beliefs and values. Most changes happen after strong experiences in life, traumatic events such as death of loved ones or strong realization of a need to change.

Hence most of the time, you will see people setting New Year Resolution, Goal Setting that never seems to happen. It is because their Beliefs and Values does not change, therefore the behaviour is unable to be congruent with their resolution and goals. It is just that simple.

CONTINUE TO PART 2.........

 **Those who like to know more about Feng Shui, please visit my blog at http://gkhamconsulting.blogspot.com