“Change rooms in your mind for a day”
Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out
Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day. . .
Ahhhhh. There’s nothing like Sufi poetry. The above excerpt from the poem, All the Hemispheres, by Hafiz, a Persian poet in the 14th century (amazing!), is like a close description of what I went through in the past 2 days. As some of you know, I was attending the 3rd Global Conference on Buddhism. Your immediate question would be “Are you a Buddhist?” No, I’m a person interested in the intricate science of living happily. (Are there people who are not?!) So I would not miss an opportunity to meet and listen to a group of speakers who have made it their lives’ work to be scientists and teachers of happiness.
Some of you have asked me if I plan to go anywhere for vacation. The past 2 days have been a better vacation than any vacation I’ve been on. When I returned from a holiday still feeling sad and depressed, a wise friend once told me that I needed not a vacation from work or from Singapore, I needed a vacation from being me. When I listened to what these wise, humourous, earthy speakers have to say about issues like terrorism, compassion, gender inequality, rituals, daily living, dying, etc, the roof of my everyday mind lifted and I felt indeed removed from the usual me. I felt the fresh waves of wisdom urge me onwards to the other shore of liberation and the rising tide of excitement and love wash away any tiredness and doubt.
Sometimes I feel inadequate to teach. What do I know? Yet, following the wise advice of my yoga teachers in obedience, I started teaching and realised that there is a deeper learning to be got by sharing with others: it helps us to practise what we preach. We are in a way, forced to realise the teachings we have learnt. What do I know? All I needed to know really is to practise what I know.
There were many issues discussed in the conference. (I would be happy to share the info if you guys are interested to find out more. Ask me in OmIm. I’ll also have some books and CDs of lectures from the conference placed in OmIm. Also look at the noticeboard for a list of post-conference talks by some of the speakers.) I feel though the strongest message of the conference is the importance of PRACTICE. Someone asked during the Q & A session, how come after so many conferences on Buddhism we are still not enlightened. (Everybody laughed but, I think, quietly panicked.) This is because we may know what is the way to happiness but we do not PRACTISE our knowledge. We can sit around and argue all day about what Buddha said or what Jesus did or what the Prophet Mohammad advised but this is all pointless without practice. Practice is hard. Practice is necessary RIGHT NOW. Even one simple advice of being patient is very hard to actualise in all the dimensions of our interaction with others. Yet, as I learnt from my recent experiences in volunteering, TRYING to practice patience is itself something that makes you very happy. There is a joy in realising that you are living in a way that you choose and in a way that you know benefits others. The other problem with practice is that no one else can do it for you. I can teach you but only you can practise: yoga, meditation, patience, compassion, etc.
Ah well – Why not try something different. "Change rooms in your mind for a day" and forget about your own problems through realising what you’ve learnt and “Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness/And giving” on us all. All that you already know is enough.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out
Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day. . .
Ahhhhh. There’s nothing like Sufi poetry. The above excerpt from the poem, All the Hemispheres, by Hafiz, a Persian poet in the 14th century (amazing!), is like a close description of what I went through in the past 2 days. As some of you know, I was attending the 3rd Global Conference on Buddhism. Your immediate question would be “Are you a Buddhist?” No, I’m a person interested in the intricate science of living happily. (Are there people who are not?!) So I would not miss an opportunity to meet and listen to a group of speakers who have made it their lives’ work to be scientists and teachers of happiness.
Some of you have asked me if I plan to go anywhere for vacation. The past 2 days have been a better vacation than any vacation I’ve been on. When I returned from a holiday still feeling sad and depressed, a wise friend once told me that I needed not a vacation from work or from Singapore, I needed a vacation from being me. When I listened to what these wise, humourous, earthy speakers have to say about issues like terrorism, compassion, gender inequality, rituals, daily living, dying, etc, the roof of my everyday mind lifted and I felt indeed removed from the usual me. I felt the fresh waves of wisdom urge me onwards to the other shore of liberation and the rising tide of excitement and love wash away any tiredness and doubt.
Sometimes I feel inadequate to teach. What do I know? Yet, following the wise advice of my yoga teachers in obedience, I started teaching and realised that there is a deeper learning to be got by sharing with others: it helps us to practise what we preach. We are in a way, forced to realise the teachings we have learnt. What do I know? All I needed to know really is to practise what I know.
There were many issues discussed in the conference. (I would be happy to share the info if you guys are interested to find out more. Ask me in OmIm. I’ll also have some books and CDs of lectures from the conference placed in OmIm. Also look at the noticeboard for a list of post-conference talks by some of the speakers.) I feel though the strongest message of the conference is the importance of PRACTICE. Someone asked during the Q & A session, how come after so many conferences on Buddhism we are still not enlightened. (Everybody laughed but, I think, quietly panicked.) This is because we may know what is the way to happiness but we do not PRACTISE our knowledge. We can sit around and argue all day about what Buddha said or what Jesus did or what the Prophet Mohammad advised but this is all pointless without practice. Practice is hard. Practice is necessary RIGHT NOW. Even one simple advice of being patient is very hard to actualise in all the dimensions of our interaction with others. Yet, as I learnt from my recent experiences in volunteering, TRYING to practice patience is itself something that makes you very happy. There is a joy in realising that you are living in a way that you choose and in a way that you know benefits others. The other problem with practice is that no one else can do it for you. I can teach you but only you can practise: yoga, meditation, patience, compassion, etc.
Ah well – Why not try something different. "Change rooms in your mind for a day" and forget about your own problems through realising what you’ve learnt and “Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness/And giving” on us all. All that you already know is enough.
