Open Heart, Open Mind!

Most people deal with negativity experiences in 2 ways, First type of people show it on their face (Which is not wrong and I kind of admire), The later, embraces with a brave front. I admire the first group of people cause it's so direct and easy to understand their emotions from their faces. The later covered and sheltered their emotions and conceal their feelings till it explored! 

A lot of people always see me smiling when I'm having my treatment, and when I was having my chemo, no one thinks I'm the patient, the nurses think I'm the family member of one of the patient. Most are not likely to see the kind of pain I might endure but I choose to smile, my humor is always intact. No no, I'm not putting a brave front. This is just me, My body is sick but my mind is not sick. I can't afford to bring someone else mood down because I'm having one bad day. Some patient ask If I'm going to be here everyday so I can elevate their mood. Haha!

(Read to understand why I keep smiling: http://kylestravelogue.blogspot.sg/2011/09/escape.html)

I have however learn another way of dealing with "shit" :)

When Rahula, The son of Buddha was asking his father for inheritance. This is what Buddha taught him:

"Rahula, practice so that you’ll be like the earth." People might throw on the earth things like perfume, excrement, urine, all the dirty things, but the earth always receives all of that without anger. No matter whether it is the perfume or jewels or gold or silver or flowers or garbage or dirt or excrement or urine, the earth receives all of that without any resentment, any anger, because the earth is great, is large. The earth has the power to transform all these. You have a dead mouse in your kitchen. You want to get rid of it—where do you put it? You throw it to the earth. In no time at all, the earth transforms the dead mouse into something that you can accept. The earth has a great power of transformation, because the earth is great. So practice so that your heart becomes as great as the earth. You suffer only if you are small, if your heart is small. But when your heart is expanded you don’t have to suffer. You don’t need to make an effort to bear the suffering.

If you make your heart as large as the earth then you can accept anything life throws at you, even what all the nasty & negative things people do and say to you, without suffering. But if your heart is small, you suffer a lot. So Rahula practiced to be like the earth. That is the practice of love called the Four Immeasurable Minds. Because with the practice, your heart is growing and growing and growing, larger and larger all the time. And your heart will embrace everything, everyone—no enemy at all, there’s no enemy. Every time we praise the Buddha, we say, "Dear Buddha, your heart is so big and you embrace every living being with your heart, your compassion encircles the whole of the cosmos." Whether you call them friend or enemy, it’s the same when your heart is big, you embrace them all, you love them all—whether they are cruel or less cruel, they are equally the object of your compassion.

So if you are a student of the Buddha (Note: I didn't mention Buddhist, you don have to be one to learn the Dharma) try to practice so that your heart grows larger every day, and you won’t have to suffer. Even if life throws you cancer tumors, if they do cruel things to you, even if they try to suppress you and to kill you. How can you kill a river? How can you kill the earth? How can you kill an infinite heart?  It is so huge. 

Some dirt cannot destroy the river because the river is so big. "Rahula, practice so that you will be like the water. When people throws flowers, fragrance, food, milk, or urine or excrement or dead bodies of animals to the river, the river will receive all without rancor, without resentment, without hatred; because the water has the capacity of washing everything. You can wash the bowl of the Buddha with the water, but you can wash also the dirty cloth, someone full of blood, the water receives everything and the water can wash everything, transform everything. So Rahula, please practice so that your heart will become something like water, you can receive everything without resentment and rancor.

"Rahula, practice like fire. Whether you throw into fire cloth or paper or flowers or dirty things, the fire accepts all and burns all. Whether it is fragrant or whether it stinks the fire accepts all and the fire reduces everything to ash and smoke. Because fire has the power to transform. Rahula, practice being like air. Whether you throw into the air something fragrant or something smelling bad, whether you burn incense or whether you burn rubber, the air accepts all because the air has the power to transform, because air is infinite."

Lately, I've been facing some unpleasant moments, but surely life can't get any harder since I am now dealing with cancer? I'm sure other people out there are facing same same but different kind of shit (I'm Thai Chinese Mixed) Not to mention, how can I not keep smiling when my friends keep cheering me with encouraging messages, tone deaf vocals and lovely photos of their vacations? 

Design by Kyle Neo (Me)