Various Thoughts

I am tackling the Surangama Sutra, using the version translated by Charles Luk. It is indeed a difficult text for my not-so-enlightened mind. I am still struggling through it. The only part which I think I "truly understand" based on my current level of understanding, is the part on individual karma and collective karma, which is just 2 pages out of the 100 pages I've read so far, and the whole text plus commentaries is 330 pages in total... I have just 1.5 weeks of leave remaining for me to do things at my own pace (including trying to complete studying this text at least for one time by then), how time flies!! :(

My parents were out for the entire morning, yesterday and today. I realized that I truly enjoyed the silence, I don't mean that I dislike my parents' presence in the house, but then, I really like being alone, having the opportunity to do morning puja on my own for one hour, play the piano without the TV background for one hour, watch a drama about Zhong Kui god for one hour, etc. I simply like the feeling of doing all these alone.

When I was playing the piano today, I realized that the morning puja/meditation might have helped me in keeping a better tempo, and a slow one too. I also find that it was easy to drive slowly on the road. In fact, driving and 60km/h might have been a bit too slow for most people, including for myself in the past, but somehow, it seems a nice pace to drive when I drive recently, which is just a few times, averaging once every 1 or 2 weeks for the past couple of months. Perhaps this is what SH meant when he said he enjoyed driving slowly. I think I've either heard this directly from him or from someone else who spoke about him.

I recognized a lot of bad feelings arising in myself, including impatience, anger, jealousy, betrayed, resentment, disbelief, doubt, etc, which I hope I had made some progress spiritually, at least I recognized them now. I would think there are still a lot of states of mind that I do not recognize, but good enough that I recognize what I do now, and manage to control my thoughts around them.

I know why I could not settle things directly with the person who causes the negative emotions or reactions from myself. My personality has always been that I would avoid talking about it directly with that person, but talk about it with other people instead. I know where it came from and due to some reasons, I could not disclose it here.. but I just want to say, I am happy to know it, and hope that by knowing where the cause lies, I will be able to improve myself when I face similar situations in the future.. at least I can ask myself a question, why am I not speaking to the person whom I'm hurt with? Why am I looking for person B (whoever this person may be) to speak to?

I am indeed attached to Plum Village chants and songs and practices, I hope for a good reason. I'm reading the 5 Mindfulness Trainings text from time to time, which still looks very cluttered and full of so many little trainings within each training, in a haphazard way. But I can pick out more little trainings that I can relate to when I read them, hopefully this is also a sign that I am progressing on the path.

I read a passage from "The Awakening of Loving Kindness" booklet, which is a compilation of talks by Master Chin Kung, and I'm grateful that it talks a bit about the Paramita of Deep Concentration, using a reference to the Diamond Sutra.
...The most important criteria in helping others are deep concentration and wisdom; that is to not be attached to phenomena but to maintain the mind of tranquility...not to be attached to external forms and to maintain the mind of stillness within. Not to be attached to external forms is not to be attached to phenomena, while maintaining the mind of stillness means that we do not have greed, angerl or ignorance as we encounter external conditions. When we encounter external conditions but are unaffected and can thus help others, it is due to our deep concentration and wisdom.
Without deep contentration, we will be unable to educate others, but would instead be swayed by them and end up being confused about the whole situation How does this happen? When we are in contact with others and things do our way, thoughts of greed arise. When things do not go our way, anger and hatred arise because we lack deep concentration and wisdom. With deep concentration and wisdom, we will not have thoughts of greed, hatred, or anger in any circumstance, whether they re favourable or unfavourable.

From here, I understand more about my Dharma name, Realized Tranquility of the Heart. I aspire to be able to instill peace in my surroundings by starting with myself. I have also always have doubts about how much can I help others when my own life seems to be not according to the way I want, and I feel that I have not found my calling. Ven Buddharakhitta advised to my anonymous question to let the dust settle and I will be able to see. I can see the dust settling now, still a lot more dust flying but some of it has started to still. Anyway, back to how the passage by Master Chin Kung enlightened me, I need to have concentration and wisdom within myself, to be able to help others or to be able to instill peace in my surroundings. The reason why I failed, was because I have the intention to instill peace but I'm too soft-hearted and easily swayed by people and circumstances.

Hmm.. this suddenly reminds me of an encounter with an aunty in Shanghai who offered to give me a free fortune telling which of course requires a small fee at the end, but she said I am too soft hearted and I need to be more "hard" to get what I want. At that time, it could be due to my thinking or her point of view, that she has used another example to explain this which I can relate to, which due to certain reasons I cannot disclose that example too. But enough to say, by now, what I thought I wanted, I no longer crave for it so strongly now, and I hope I am truly letting go of it.

I will continue to plant more seeds of what I want, e.g. to be close to the Triple Gem, to realized my calling, to be able to be of service to others open-heartedly without any resentment, and without expectations. I understand that not all seeds will grow, so I have to plant a lot of seeds, in hope that some of them will grow.

~ttg @ Realized Tranquility of the Heart~