Welcome Home

Do you want to know what my secret is? You see, I don't mind what happens.

(J. Krishnamurti)

Has it happened to you that you show up at a family gathering and you have to admit to everyone that you are not doing so well? Have you ever observed that we always have the tendency to show our best sides to people and try to hide our dark shades from them? What would happen if we just show everyone our real self instead?

Be honest with yourself! How hard it is to admit to others when we are not doing so well. Sometimes it is even hard to admit to ourself that we struggle. It is just not nice if we suddenly are no longer gleaming, young, healthy, and successful. We hate these moments of truth. It seems that our ego feels threatened if we dare to see reality as is. We identify with that image of happiness and success and somehow expect that we could be fixed in this mood and status forever. It is these false expectations that create the sufferings. If we can realize and accept that our mood, appearance, our health as well as social status can be fluid just like the weather, we will be at ease when we experience change. If you really open up to what is, when you truly face whatever comes your way, you will realize that behind all these appearances there is something real and beautiful. Nothing really can threaten us.

Only when we notice that we are running after an illusion can we realize that we in fact are "real" and always will be; only when we can realize what we identify as "me" is actually a phantom, only then can we really connect with our Self and experience the eternal peace that is always at our disposal. You already have what you long for -  Welcome Home!

By Christian and Su Zhen

Open Your Heart and Open Your Mind

The Master doesn't seek fulfillment.

Not seeking, not expecting,

She is present and can welcome all things.

(Tao Te Ching)

There is a time to be enthusiastic and there is a time to be depressed. There is a time for rain and a time for sunshine. There is a time for birth, a time for death, a time for decay and a time for renaissance. There is a time for being quick and there is a time for being slow. There is a time for activity and there is a time for resting. At every point in time, be true to yourself and true to the moment. 

All the struggle that you experience comes from the fact that you resist what is. How would you feel if someone wise told you that by tomorrow you will finally realize that things are going your way? Wouldn't you already today rejoice despite your hard labor and the pain? Open your mind and your heart to the moment and things will turn out to be just as they should. If you don't seek, and if you don't expect, you can welcome all things.

There is a time for being ahead,

a time for being behind;

a time for being in motion,

a time for being at rest;

a time for being vigorous,

a time for being exhausted;

a time for being safe,

a time for being in danger.

The Master sees things as they are,

without trying to control them.

She lets them go their own way,

and resides at the center of the circle.

(Tao Te Ching)

The Time When a Man Was Still a Man

Your whole idea about yourself is borrowed - borrowed from those who have no idea who they are themselves. 

(Osho)

As I was flipping channels the other night I came across a couple of scenes out of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". Clint Eastwood at his best - the time of the Wild West was the time when a man was still a man, or was it?

Male energy is different from female energy even though from an individual perspective, yin and yang energies can be all over the place. You can have "feminine" men just as "masculine" females. And yes, there probably always will be a few Clint Eastwood's around. For every individual it is hard to tell what exactly is nature and what is nurturing, but that's what a spiritual path is all about. You find out who exactly you are after all the false expectations have been washed away after years of traveling the Path.

 

No doubt, each gender and each individual has to cope with big expectations from parents, friends and society. Michael S. Kimmel in "The Gender of Desire" quotes the four phases of society's imprint of what it means to be a boy and a man from Robert Brannon and Deborah David:

1. "No Sissy Stuff!" One may never do anything that even remotely suggests femininity. Masculinity is the relentless repudiation of the feminine. 

2. "Be a Big Wheel." Masculinity is measured by power, success, wealth, and status. As the current saying goes, "He who has the most toys when he dies wins." 

3. "Be a Sturdy Oak." Masculinity depends on remaining calm and reliable able in a crisis, holding emotions in check. In fact, proving you're a man depends on never showing your emotions at all. Boys don't cry. 

4. "Give `Em Hell." Exude an aura of manly daring and aggression. Go for it. Take risks.

We all have to cope with the problem that we are running around with artificial personas. But the going gets easier with every decade and century that passes. We are opening up to our differences, we accept homo-sexuality, we recognize the validities of having different cultures; we allow competing schooling philosophies and we have limitless career paths at our disposal to express whatever energy we wish. We have spiritual communities that allow everyone to express their respective idiosyncratic style.

The idea that along a spiritual path male and female energies have to converge for everyone into a wholesome balance may be as unrealistic as the expectation that every guy has to be another Clint Eastwood. We all can be our unique type that becomes totally free of all superimposed expectations. Clear your mind of everything and just be as God created you. When you are true to yourself everyone will be amazed and no one will be disappointed. That is the Way!

Life is a lot of Fun When You Believe It Is

You will be what you are.
(Friedrich Nietzsche)

Your mind-set decides pretty much what you will experience in your life. When you doubt people, when you lack trust, when you see scarcity wherever you turn, you will find plenty of evidence to prove to yourself that you are right.

On the other hand, when you believe in love, when you trust the people you interact with, when you know that you are fine regardless of what happens, be ready to experience a magic world opening up to you. A whole new dimension is waiting for you to experience - life is a lot of fun when you believe that it is.

How you feel inside also pretty much decides how you are going to experience life, work, and your interpersonal relationships. When you think that you are not popular, you won't. When you don't believe in yourself, no one else will. But then, when you discover that you are true love, you will be surrounded by it.

Stand ready to experience your life radiating with the warmth and intensity of a sun. Actually, you don't have to convince yourself of anything. All you have to do is to let go of all the interferences that held you back in the past. The nay-sayer within; the suspicious mind that sees a downside in anything that comes your way. Drop all expectations and open up to life so that you can receive the abundance it has to offer.

You are part of the Way once you let go of the little fenced up reality that you used to perceive. Don't be afraid of life just because you carry a few old scars around. Life is a lot of fun when you open up to it. Enjoy!

By Christian and Su Zhen

You are the Creator of your Destiny

New experience gives us the chance to observe how open we are to life. We may claim that we are very open, only to find that we are holding on tightly to our old habits and opinions of how things should be done. Alas, when we move to a new place or start a new job, life tells us otherwise. We may think that we are friendly, loving and positive, but then we turn out to be unfriendly, hateful, and negative when things don’t meet our expectation. All these new experiences give us the opportunity to realize how closed-minded we still can be. Life is there to show us how to discover the mind-patterns that still run us. There is a reason that we are thrown in these new situations because we haven’t learned our lessons yet.

I have observed in myself that I tend to be quite negative whenever I move to a new place.  There is always something that doesn't quite meets my expectation: the house is too old, the school doesn't communicate as well as the previous did, the air quality is not as good as in the previous neighborhood, the food is not quite as good. Instead of telling others nicely about my needs and expectations, I find myself acting rude and doubting nearly everyone I encounter. I am a Tao traveler, yet I radiate the energy of pain.

 Whenever I am caught in a negative energy field, I actually create a vicious cycle around me, which in turn attracts more negative feed-back loops. Luckily, mindfulness always liberates me from these negatives cycles and allows me to work on creating a positive experience for myself and the people who are in my life.

We live in a responsive world.  Our thoughts and actions interact with the environment we operate in. Whenever we have a loving, creative, and positive attitude towards the people and environment we are interacting with, they receive this energy and respond to us in kind; on the opposite side, whenever, we lose our trust, being destructive rather than creative, we experience hell.

What do you want to experience in your life?  Be creative!  You decide what environment you want to operate in and you will attract the people in your life who are happy to play with you. You are the creator of your destiny so please use your creative powers well.

By Su Zhen

Mind the Mind

Have you ever had the experience that you are planning a trip which you have been expecting for a long time already? You are so excited about it only to find that by the time you actually experience it, it doesn't turn out to be exciting at all. Relative to your elevated expectations, the event leaves you flat.

How will you react when this happens to you?  Will you just ignore your feelings and pretend otherwise.Will you get mad at the people you are with? Given that this well-planned event turned out to be sub-par, it must be their mistake, right? So what's exactly going on here?

 In a word, it is your mind! You have expectations about what you want to experience. You live in the mind-driven world which is not in tune with your reality.  You expect things and events to unfold in a certain way, but these expectations may go against the Way, theTao.If you are resistant to what in fact is happening you  will only create more suffering for yourself.

The solution?  Try instead to be in tune with whatever is happening, whatever it may be,  a good as well as a bad situation, a merry as well as a foul mood. Try  to understand what is happening inside of you. The moment you accept it, you can feel how you get in tune with everything. Your environment literally quiets down with you and magic happens.  Almost instantly, you can sense the joy spring from the depth of your being. It is still the same environment, the same situation, but you feel totally different about it. Now you can feel the lively energy, the joy, the blessings your Self and the environment supplies you with.The present of the Tao can only be appreciated if the mind doesn't stand in the way.

Please try it. Next time you feel something disturbing inside, when some negative emotion is bubbling up, instead of just wishing these feelings to go away, try to accept them and be there with them. Experience the magic transformation of being in tune with everything and  your mind will be blown away.

By Christian and Su Zhen

You and the Tao are One

Are there people or activities you feel passionate about? Be sure the Tao works with your passions for your fuel tank has to be burnt off before you can merge with Her. Some of your passions She will refine for you until you feel peace and serenity whenever you engage. Others you are encouraged to channel in a different direction altogether. At times you will feel resistant to follow Her path, but you will learn over and over again that She always knows best. Like taming a wild horse, the Tao is encouraging you to take good care of yourself and to prosper in all dimensions of your life. Soon you will know that She and you are One.

Thoughts cannot capture Her, but your mind may reflect Her Voice. Stop expecting, anticipating, or looking forward to anything for She will only meet you in the divine Now. Accept whatever comes to you without labeling. Experience everything as it is and you will have access to Her wisdom. By letting go of any value judgements you become part of the divine Flow  yourself. The river flows to the right and you realize that is the direction you are taking too. You and Her are One.

Apply the same technique to your life.  Stop thinking about what you want to achieve, stop holding on to the magnificent experience you just had, or tying to polish any image you may have of yourself.  Experiencing everything life has brought to our attention without any labeling and judging.  Just as Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita had to find out, life may imply having to fight your family and friends at times. Nothing is either good or bad, only thinking makes it so, as Shakespeare once rightly pointed out.

 With your acceptance, without your expectations, the flow of life merges peacefully with the divine Whole. You are not worried about what life may bring you, and you stop trying to intervene. Your image of yourself disintegrates and all that is left is you functioning as a mirror of Her divine presence. You are not yourself anymore, you and the Tao are One.


By Christian and Su Zhen