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

TESTIMONIAL : Obtaining Visa

One of my client in the Philippines, JE What'sapp me a while back. Asking me whether I can help her in some prayers for her brother who was rejected in his application for student visa to Australia.

JE's family had plans for migration to Australia from Phillippines. In fact she has already bought a house for her family in Australia prior to her brother's visa approval.

Anyhow, with our Kam Dong San Taoist Deities agreement, I have decided to help her through spiritual means.

Talisman used in helping her brother's application

Official Edict 表文 that was send, to summon the help of Heavenly Army & Generals

Finally few days ago she What'sapp me again, informing me that her brother's student visa has been approved.

I wish her family well in their steps towards their family dream.

Email content from JE
On behalf of my entire family, I would like to thank Master Ham and his temple for praying for my family and especially to my brother who just received his student visa from Australian embassy. He was denied last May and he was so depressed whether he could be able to pass the application for the second time. We tried our best at the same and we also asked Master Ham for helping us to pray for his successful application. Eventually after two months of waiting and hoping, we finally received an email that the application of my brother's student visa was granted.

Thank you Master Ham and also to your temple who always put our family in prayer. I know that we will also have many tears in the days to come, helping and praying for us made me feel more confident that Buddha's  grace will be with us.

May Buddha bless you and your family also. Thank you so much.

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