The "Joy" of Suffering

We all like to be happy, and none of us likes to suffer. Yet, is this really how we behave all the time? Observe what is going on; you might be in for a surprise!

Sometimes we are happy living our life but feel guilty about it deep down inside. Do I really deserve to live in a big house while others are homeless? Can I enjoy steamy sex while our gurus remind us that we are not our body? Can I aggressively go after what is meaningful to me and should I cut people out of my life who bother me?

The flip-side of our argument is that suffering, while not fun, can actually be morally soothing. "I am nice to people", you say to yourself, "while the cruel world takes advantage of me because Jesus wants me to." Or you say, "I stay with my spouse because our children could not handle a divorce right now." Suffering gives us a sense of innocence and makes us morally superior vis-a-vis our abusers. Suffering feeds our ego and we may be secretly proud of this identity and want to keep it. Our advice to you, if you find yourself in this role today, do something about it! God gives us this world to be happy and if something is not right, make the necessary adjustment. God wants us to be happy, period!

When you suffer you are secretly in love with an image of yourself; a hero, a martyr or a saint. Religion loves this role but, honorable as it is, it is an image different from the real you. We cannot love others unless we love ourself. And when we cannot really do anything good for ourselves, we cannot do anything good for people around us either.  Please understand that your suffering, as noble as it appears, is a complete waste for everyone.

The truth is the more joyful we are, the more love we can share with others and the more good we can bring to this world! Live a little, enjoy what you do and cut out the stuff that holds you back. God needs happy light workers to share the light!

By Christian and Su Zhen

Pain and Life

Before we walked on the Tao, our life was full of pain and chaos. Like others before us - Buddha comes to mind - you could as well say that pain launched our path. We started our journey as we conjectured, "there must be another way!"

As we started walking the Way, we found the root cause of our pain and managed to unload psychological baggage and uninstalled harmful subconscious programs. As we progressed, our being was suddenly full of light, joy and love!  We enjoyed this state so much that we grew attached to it and minded whenever it was taken away. Secretly, our ego was flourishing in the background just as it had done before. We secretly thought we were "it" just because we experienced the bliss!  

As we continued our journey we discovered our natural wiring of going after pleasure, joy and happiness. Just as moths are attracted to the fire, the bees to honey and male dogs to the bitch in heat. The pull is there and perhaps always will be, but we suddenly realized how our attachment creates suffering and limits and how we end up using happiness as a trophy. After this insight we managed to step outside of this identification. 

We also realized that there is some pain which is out of our control even as we let go as best as we can. Just like we cannot control the changing season on this earth, pain will always be part of our life.  Misfortunes are nothing to be ashamed of.  We finally can hang out with all seasons; some we face with a coat and others in a swim suit. We face all seasons with ease and without judgment.

When our dear ones struggle, we can't help feeling the same pain; when some disaster happens, we cry with you. And when life brings us challenges, we experience the same restlessness and anxiety as you do. However, this time we take in this pain consciously. We just stand there, face what is and let it pass just as a thunder storm.

Open up to life together with us.  We are here to experience life with awareness just as is. May life - pleasure as well as pain - flow through us!

By Christian and Su Zhen

Let Melancholy be Your Life Coach

This human being is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!
(Rumi)

Our negative emotions always have a message for us. Yet, most of us can't stand them. Millions of people are on anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication and pain killers, let alone the unbelievable amounts of coffee and alcohol we drink to charge ourselves up, or calm ourselves down. Have you ever entertained the idea of just taking in the negative emotion as the are, full-impact, without any attempt to mitigate or run away from them?

Just observe the wisdom that lies in these tensions bubbling up from deep inside of us. Maybe danger lies ahead, maybe disappointment, maybe something needs to be done about the situation you are in. Facing these negative emotions is hard, yet, by covering them up or by repressing them, we actually lose the opportunities to really understand what our body is trying to tell us. We may become numb and indifferent to what's going on and may take larger and larger doses to hide what is killing us inside. A recurrent, lingering emotion is trying to tell us something is not right in our life. If we don't dare to face it, we will never change course either. Melancholy is here to help us, not hurt us.

It is easy to get hooked on mood boosters or stimulants just because everyone is picking this - supposedly - easy way out. A spiritual path is different though. If you want to live in the magical world our gurus are describing you will also have to do your homework. A simple awareness of all the signals you are receiving from your inner voice is as crucial as responding to your brothers and sisters' messages in the real world with fullest attention. Trust us, you can handle whatever negative emotion is inside of you without artificial sweeteners. Life sometimes put a lot on our plate but never more than we can handle.

The true problem may not lie in the fact that these negative emotions that are coming our way are hard to handle. Most of the time it is about our dislike to follow the warnings of our inner voice. We don't want to change. It seems much simpler to pretend that we are happy instead. Yet a spiritual path is about change, it is about being in tune with everything that comes our way. Change is there to make us happy. Embrace it and remove your blocks to experience happiness in the process.

Watch and welcome all your emotions and a Guide will tell you what you need. It is a process, and unfortunately sometimes a painful one because you suddenly have to face the stored and accumulated homework of the past. Yet soon you will get a feel for all the messages your spiritual path has in store for you. Cooperate with the Way and fun, wisdom and harmony will be your travel companions. Let melancholy be your life coach just as all the happy messengers the Tao sends your way. Every voice needs to be respected and honored.

By Christian and Su Zhen

On True Happiness

Clean up, clean up,
everybody, everywhere.
Clean up, clean up,
everybody do your share!
(Nursery Rhyme)

There is the belief in the spiritual community that we all have the right to live in peace, love and happiness, and sure enough, we have many of these moments. But there is also the realization that all the people who are struggling in our vicinity are very much part of us. Whatever struggle our soul sister is facing may just be the issue we are not quite facing ourself. Whatever our children go through may just be the homework we still have to do. Who knows which party caused the pain and who knows who exactly is helping whom in the recovery process. We are all in it together and we have to lift ourselves out of the hole we once dug.

Cleaning up can be a lot of fun. Standing by others and being part of their healing process brings happiness.The secret of the Tao is to be open to all experiences and accepting them whole-heartedly. Yesterday my six year-old son sat next to me and started reading what I had written up to this point. I figured that he would remember the nursery rhyme quite well, but that the section about the struggle of our friends would be over his head. Nevertheless, I asked him afterwards what title he would give this note and he responded "happiness". He is right. Happiness is the knowledge that you have a job you love, a mission that you live for; that you are surrounded by people you love, and knowing that everything that comes your way will make perfect sense to you one day. May peace, love and happiness accompany you no matter what!

Happiness Along the Way

Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.
(John Stuart Mill)

Christian and I had a discussion today, can we actually work on our happiness?  What do you think? We can work on happiness, but as John Stuart Mill already observed a few hundred years ago, happiness is more an outgrowth of something we really enjoy doing; and as we do what we enjoy doing we suddenly look up and realize how happy we are! Well, that's what traveling the Way is all about. We experience how the Tao steers us in a direction; we welcome the many voices and puzzles that come our way, and in all that we find meaning. So that's what we can do, follow the Tao every day and find happiness that way.

Sure, life throws a few challenges at us. Everyone experiences the ups and downs of life, even a spiritual  traveler will. However, happiness definitely becomes a frequent and reliable visitor independent of whether we are climbing to the top of the mountain or descend into a valley. Possessions come and go, friends visit or depart, challenges show up and disappear, but in all this we will always see the handwriting of the Tao. And along this path there are many smiles, and a lot of gratitude and love no matter what the situation may turn out to be.

Walking the Tao is very much like planting produce - you have to work on it all the time. You have to take care of the field before you plant the seeds. You have to add fertilizer and water, and you have to wait for the sun. Sometimes have to remove weeds as well. And then you have to wait. You experience the seeds sprouting up; you see the magnificent harvest growing seemingly out of nothing. The produce is the accumulated sum of your hard work, input and love. The produce gives you the meaning, and meaning gives you the happiness. Nothing else does.

 Join us on our journey and participate in the harvest. Yes there will be a few cold and dry spells and a few cloudy days. But in your journey there is so much creativity, so much love and so much fun! Don't think about happiness, find happiness along the Way.

By Christian and Su Zhen

On Being Special

Black Passenger Yellow Cabs is book about an english teacher from Jamaica, generously endowed with an OMG (oversized male genital) who lives in Japan and is out to conquer sexually frustrated Japan women. He succeeds with an amazing track record and a breathtaking intensity. Japanese women with a temptation for the "dark side" somehow just melt in his presence. Exciting as this theme is, the number of Japanese female names and countless orgasms along the way does get a little boring as the reader makes it through the thick book. Embarrassingly, I have to admit that I still haven't quite managed.

For the many average guys there seems to be always someone who apparently has it all, as all the Hollywood stars, Hall of Fame athletes and rock musicians, and other famous people can attest to. We are all on stage together and the majority projects their unfulfilled desires onto a few extraordinary individuals who show up and apparently take it all. Yet if you observe carefully, no one is really happy in that game. The black passenger in the yellow cab freely admits that he is fighting depression and that his turbulent sexual life has in the meantime become an addiction.

Do you remember the time when the world was convinced that Tiger Woods had it all? Or think of the way Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston faded into oblivion when they had conquered any music award known to mankind. I am not saying that you can't be happy when you are special, but I am saying you can't be happy when you run after the glitter on the horizon.  Even if you make it to the top of the world, from this perspective is only one way, down!The trick to happiness is to step outside of the projection game and to understand your divine mission. No one is special, yet everyone is. When you understand that you are "there" now, you are happy, otherwise you never will. Yet most would probably find this revelation boring.

The Shadow as a Source of Creativity

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
(The Serenity Prayer)

The spiritual community always works under the assumption that we all have the ability and right to be "healthy, wealthy and wise." Well, you can aspire to reach this state; perhaps you are even so good that you already have reached it. And if you haven't, please put your best foot forward towards this goal and may Grace be with you so that you get what you want.

But for those who feel that something is missing despite their best efforts, perhaps your mission is to just accept it and focus your psychic energies on other dimensions of your life instead. Has it occurred to you that this perceived lack can in fact be the driving force for your spiritual growth? Could it be that the darkness that you perceive in one area is in fact the jumping board to catapult you to unseen heights in other areas? As you feel inadequate in one dimension, you end up compensating in other dimensions. You put different emphasis because of the lack which makes you unique in the end. Your conflict turns out to be the source of your creativity; the frustration becomes the driving force.

 Being "healthy, wealthy and wise" is all very good, but the goal of our existence is happiness, and happiness is an outgrowth of a life well-spent. It turns out that finding spiritual meaning in our life is the cornerstone of happiness and true satisfaction. Ask a hero and she will tell you that even sacrifice can be worth living for if it is meaningful for her life's mission. So conquer your life as every hero does and may you find the spiritual meaning in whatever comes your way.

Only Your Self Can Make You Happy

There are two notions of happiness. One is the happiness we feel when we get what we desire, the other is the happiness and bliss we experience when we connect with our Self. When we get what we want we are certainly happy for a few days, but somehow this feeling of accomplishment is always transient. Deep down inside, our ego is only happy when we are perceived as special. In the ego's world everyone lives on a different island and king is the one who is located on higher grounds - someone everyone else looks up to. Only we know what exactly our hunger for specialness is; it might be academic, physical, economic, or professional. As a matter of fact, it might even be spiritual.

Sometimes we fool ourselves about our true underlying motives. A spiritual path is all about de-cluttering our preferences, about understanding where exactly we are coming from and about out-growing some of the desires that were dear to us at an earlier stage of our lives. For those who are agnostics and are more materialistic in their goals, at least the stuff they want from life is out in the open, so they are less likely to fool themselves over what they truly want. Yet, whether they will realize their dreams or not, running after ego goals can never lead to lasting happiness.  The ego always wants more, more and more. And even if you are successful as Napoleon was at the height of his era, you are still likely to feel lonely and abandoned amidst all the success.

We spiritual path travelers are probably somewhere in-between. We have disconnected with some of the drives that were meaningful at an earlier stage of our lives.  But then, we probably haven't disconnected from our ego completely. Despite our  spiritual aspirations, we probably still want our spouse to do well professionally, want our  children to enter a good college, we may also want to get acknowledged and perhaps even admired in the spiritual community. So we are not that different from everyone else. We certainly will experience our set-backs and experience transient happiness in some stages of our lives.

The only way to achieve lasting happiness is by connecting with our divine Self here and now. We don't need to go anywhere or achieve anything  to experience this happiness and bliss. Connecting with our Self can be done always. The Tao teaches us to recognize our Self in everything and everyone that comes our way. A spiritual path is about recognizing God everywhere, but you can do that only if you don't get fooled by the gold that glitters on the horizon. Let the Tao show you what is meaningful to you and why. The rule of thumb has to be, be happy here and now, or you never will.

By Christian and Su Zhen

The Tao of Love and Abundance

What do you experience when you go for a nature walk and see all the flowers blooming, the leaves sprouting and all the different kinds of plants spreading all over the place? Don’t you feel uplifted and full of energy? Don’t you feel the abundant energy emanating from God? How do you feel when you walk on the beach? You see the blue sky and the amazing dance of the waves. You can see a magnificent sunrise and a colorful sunset. Don’t you feel peaceful, wonderful and totally blessed when you experience this spectacle? You never feel poor when you experience nature. You always enjoy abundance and lively energy. Have you ever observed that we humans seem to be the only specie on earth who radiates the energy of poverty and neediness. When you walk in nature, you can always see that God gives us more than we ever need. God showers us with abundance.

Your thinking creates poverty. Observe for yourself, whenever you think that you don’t have something, you will start looking for it externally. You start looking at your neighbor's yard and convince yourself that his grass is a lot greener. Your thinking and looking creates a negative feeling and your vision "verifies" this belief. And once you see you "know" that what you believed was right.

Say you don't feel loved. Whenever you think this way, you create a needy energy for yourself. This needy energy makes you feel poor and clingy. You become like a beggar, you beg for people’s love. Yet, you don't seem to know, don't trust, that people love you. Your soul partner already exists, you may not have met him yet, but he has already been chosen for you. Trust in the abundance, know that you have and see that as your attitude changes, the abundance is suddenly available.

When you experience abundance instead you connect with people because you feel that you have so much joy, love and energy to share. Other people become the vessel that soaks up all the energy that is generated within you. When you give you feel like a king and you are in return showered with as much love as you can handle.

Be aware of your thinking. There are many self improvement disciplines that try to teach you how you can attract abundance by having the right thoughts. Fact of the matter is you don't have to do anything. Just embrace the Tao, be the Tao, and discover for yourself that wherever you step there is love, joy and abundance.

By Christian and Su Zhen

The Power of Intentions

There is no miracle you cannot do if you desire healing.
A Course in Miracles

Did it ever occur to you that your attitude towards people and a situation determines how they will interact with you? Say you are visiting a new country and already at the immigration office you discover hostility. Perhaps the immigration officer had a bad day, but it affects you, unconsciously bad vibrations start building inside of you and hardly have you reached the hotel that you are bound to pick a fight with the hotel staff and your partner.

Every place has an energy field and every encounter with others creates one. It turns out that your attitude towards that encounter matters a lot. You can be a polluter of this space, your bad vibrations can literally pull others down with it, or you can be a healer. A Japanese scientist ran an experiment when he took pictures of water as he played different music and consciously displayed different emotions. Believe it not, but these water pictures reflected the scientist's attitudes right back and it turns out that the water picture taken when the scientist experienced love was by far the most beautiful.

You may then ask what to do with this observation. Well, from now on visualize your intent of a place or a meeting beforehand and just see what happens. Yes, you can be a healer of a situation but you also have to learn how to detox yourself when you have been exposed to a polluted environment. You can be a healer, you can be a bearer of light. The magic is to discover that your environment interacts with you. The Universe just mirrors your own intentions back to you. When you wholly desire healing, love will be wherever you are.

By Christian and Su Zhen

Express Your Self

Everyone is born with a gift to share with this world. It doesn't matter what kind of gift it is. What does matter is that you need to find out what kind of present you have to share with others. If there it is one guarantee in this world it is that you will find a way to share your talent. More than that, your happiness and peace of mind will depend on it.

This present could be your love for food. You may love food so much that even the trip to the market is full of joy for you. As you touch the ingredients, and literally caress them, you anticipate how the people you love and care for will enjoy them. Cooking is a form of meditation for you and your heart is literally singing all the way to the dinner table. When Christian's father-in-law turned 80, his sister-in-law was cooking for the family and some friends, and as she made a toast she said with tears in her eyes that for her this banquet was an expression of her love for him and all the people who were present. This is the devotion you can have for anything you do in life. Just imagine your bliss if you can make a career out of what you love doing.

Your present could be writing, as we do for you right now. Imagine your pen or your IPad as your lover. Every day you feel inspired and without this creative expression of your Self you feel that something is missing in your life. We feel like being a messenger of God when we write for you. To be the best at what we do, we have to deliver Her true message. As a matter of fact, we even have to rearrange our lives for our mission. Sometimes you can't hang out with your friends for too long, otherwise you may miss the divine phone call. You may even discover that you have to have a pure lifestyle to keep this divine communication going. But you will drop all the interferences happily to be ready for this moment of joy, creativity and love. For us it is certainly not about the success - we leave all that up to Her - it is about receiving the present of expressing our True Self.

Your divine calling could be landscaping; you could be a farmer, a singer, a musician, a researcher, an engineer, an educator or artist. You could enjoy healing people, caring for others, protecting the environment or endangered animals. You could be involved in community services, or the government. The list goes on and on. We are moving into a Creative Society where with the help of technology and Social Media everyone has a shot at sharing their divine present with others. Find that activity that fulfills you and makes you truly happy. A profession should be a calling that allows you to express your creativity, your love for what you do and should allow you to celebrate the connections with people that you care about.

Dear friends, have you found your sweetheart yet? Surely you have a hobby that gets your heartbeat going, that puts a smile on your face and allows you to share your radiating energy with others. We are all here to share our presents with this world, whether it is a big or a small contribution, but we all have one. It is ok to start out as an amateur and to keep your regular job to pay all the bills, but get started on sharing your present. The Tao will find you a way to make a living out of it eventually. But the Tao can only help if you take the first step. When you ignore that present and if you do not do your best to share it, you will feel that something is missing in your life and that heaviness will grow over time. Kindle that fire inside of you and let the Tao help you sharing your light with others. The Creative Society is waiting for you. When it comes to your present, the whole Universe is rooting for you, so please express your Self!

By Christian and Su Zhen




Sent from my iPad

Awakened by the Moment

I was shopping in the grocery store yesterday and suddenly found myself on camera in one of the security cameras. It only caught my face for a micro second, but it was long enough for me to notice that I didn't look happy. I must have been caught in some train of thought, but used the precious opportunity to wake up from it, least for a moment or two.

We are all robots most of the time, riding train of thoughts that we think express our being, when in fact we are just participants in a movie that is beyond our conscious control. Have you ever seen how unhappy old people look most of the time? Dark thoughts indeed they must have based on their grim facial expressions.

But then, you don't have to end up that way at all. You can be as happy and flexible as children, and today you have a perfect opportunity to turn your ship around. Think of everything that happens in your life - failures as much as successes, pleasant surprises as well as unpleasant ones, applause as much as criticism - as a way to be rescued from your auto-pilot. Welcome everything that comes your way, no matter what. Never aspire to be elsewhere other than the situation you are in and the company you have right now. Life is your guarantee to be awakened at that holy moment.

Your mind attempts to shield you from life. You certainly can't stop these thoughts from popping up, but you can do your best to allow life to redirect your energy. My philosophy is to say yes to everything that comes my way, no matter how painful or joyful it appears on the outset. The alternative is dreadful - me having fun with my thoughts. I think that it is fun for sure, but my facial expression suggest otherwise. In contrast, when I have to engage with people in the situations life throws at me, I may dread them in advance, but when the camera catches me engaging with the now, there is suddenly liveliness in my facial expression. The Tao keeps you in the now.

There is no difference between the spiritual folks and many other folks at all. Everyone has the same shot at happiness, everyone has the same right to be blessed by the moment. Show up for life and engage completely with consideration and love for others and you are as spiritual as they come. They say 'be here now or be nowhere'; yup, that is the Tao in action - life is as simple as that.

The Other World

There is a world that is different from what you have brought up to experience and see; yet this world is very real. In fact, it is real whereas the world you thought was real is not once you give everything a different meaning. In the other world, the 'weak' are the strong and as you protect the 'weak', you strengthen yourself.

There is only one guide post you need to look out for and this is choose love. Don't choose against love or you will choose against yourself. But if you do, see how you and the environment respond and learn from it. Also, don't be naive and think that only because
 you always protect the innocent and weak, you will always succeed in the way you think. You are here to learn that you are not your thoughts or desires. Let the so-called successes or failures help you on your self-discovery journey. Let the pain you experience rip a little of the ego out of you and discover through the unexpected successes who you really are without building new ego in the process.

There is only one guide post to reach the other world: choose always love independent of what you want to get out of life. For your children you would always do it because you instinctively realize that your children are your extension - the potential to create a slightly better and more powerful you. Yet, in the web of life we are all one, all soul siblings; all parents and offspring; all divine. Choose always love and spiritual giants will walk next to you and peace, love and happiness are sure to follow wherever you go.

You Have No Choice Really

A spiritual path is a journey that gives you peace of mind and happiness. You will start it when your system is ready to start it, and once you are on it you will know it, because at that stage you will have no choice really. Yes, you can delay it, but not really, because once you know that you are headed towards a certain destination, it just doesn't make sense any longer to drive into the opposite direction. A spiritual path is exactly like parenthood, there are more than one occasions when you scream "Why would anyone sign up for something like that?" But then, as you stand at his graduation or when she gets married, tears are streaming down and everything you remember as you reflect is bliss, devine bliss. Yesterday someone asked the question in my spiritual Personal Development for Smart People Forum why anyone would sign up for a spiritual journey like ours and the response that came back from everyone was, yes, there is peace and happiness along the way, but most of all, we didn't have a choice really!