Living in Perception & Expectation

Finally I've got a breather to catch up some time for myself. Haven't been able to sort out the information jammed up in my head. 

Zoning out at the corner of a bench in Starbucks, I was recollecting the morning conversation with friends over breakfast.

We were talking on various topics... Of which one is pretty interesting. How Living  in perception & expectation makes us struggle an unhappy with ourselves. We like to operate our life in our mind. The fairy tales, the story that we drafted out the way we want it to be. 

But when out heart brings us to the reality, we find it challenging to comprehend. We create a delusion to live in, long enough to trick us that it is the reality, and it can be the reality. 

But constantly, we try to match the story creates in the  mind with the situations we are actually facing everyday; we battle with ourselves. 

And now, we are confuse which is real and which is not. 

Nothing is real. Nothing in this world that you can see with your eyes, smell with your nose, hear with your ears, taste with your tongue & touch with your skin is real. 

The externals information is a collection centre for the mind, to create & generate perception from past memories and experience. 

The only thing that is real happens when you can see without the eyes, listen without the ears, taste without the tongue, smell without the nose & feel without the skin is real. 

That's being at the present. Where the mind is asleep, our consciousness is awake. When we are neither analyzing nor thinking, our awareness increases. 

An Elegant Twist of Choice

新年快乐！

It is interesting to see the revolution of Lunar New Year over a couple of decades that i'd been involving in. I've never miss a year of the celebration, never! Somehow i always feel that i want to be with my family during this festival. No matter how much i enjoy traveling about, i'll schedule my presence for this spring time!

When i was  child, the candies and goodies were the focus. Red packets, not so much... when you don't have control over the financial part, money wasn't that important. $4, $6 $8, $10 or more.... they were the same to me. But the candies made a difference! Jellies, chocolate, gummies, cookies, fizzy drinks... party time!

When we grew older, we handle cash, we knew how to walk to the shop and make purchases; the the red packets was the big thing among us. We compared our collections with our school friends, we used the extra pocket money to fulfill our wish list.

As we grow older, maybe when I grow older, like now, i start to appreciate more of the relationships between relatives and families. Surprisingly, the food doesn't excite me as much ( except the lo hei ), the red packets doesn't lure me to peek how much they contain, i was excited to meet some of the relatives; having a big family dinner together, taking turns to be the hosting family. A little chatting up, playing games like how we used to be as little kids, how my grandmas's house was packed with relatives, noise and laughters. 

My personal favorite is the Lo Hei ( in cantonese) or commonly as Yu Sheng a symbol of abundance, vigor, prosperity. I've yet been to a Lo Hei as 'violent' as my family does. " Ready? 1, 2, 3.... Huat Ah!" And the crazy twirl of prosperity wishes bellowing from our mouths, as our hands are busy with tossing the Yu Sheng upwards! Chopsticks flying around, veggies raining down my arms. Who cares? We just keep going..! Whether the wishes is for others or for ourselves, the positive energy was all hype up. 

Its my favorite dish among all others! Its like Chinese Salad, love the crunchiness and juiciness of the mixture. For the 3 days, i'd done 5 times of Lo hei... more to come..;)!

At different stages of our growing up, we starts to appreciate things we used to grumble about. We learn to let go stuff that used to matter to us so much. Like many families, competitions happens among ourselves ( education & job level between cousins, house decoration & baking skills between the older generation...). Somehow every lunar new year gathering seems like a time we layout our report cards for the year, and starts pass judgement towards others. Who is doing better, who is not....

It is still happening, but i choose to turn that volume low on my side. Coming to understand that, no matter how related we are, each of us are still individual, fighting our own battle plan, sailing our own sail... Nothing much to compare, just enjoy the relationship together and appreciate one another' company:)!

Hereby, wishing you...

恭喜发财, 心想事成, 万事如意！
Prosperity and wealth, may all wishes comes true & smooth sailing in what you do for the whole year round!

Why the decision to practice yoga?

Every time when i meet people who keep going to their yoga class, i always have this urge to ask them... Why? Many of WHYs...

Why the decision to start yoga? Why the regularity of the practice? 
Why do it? Why not go do something else? Why not the other places? Why here?

I even ask these questions to myself, sometimes. And my reason keep changing at different stage of life,  or at different level of my personal practice and experiences. And at every of that moment, that reason was my truth. But as time passes, as we grow out of the past, the present reasons is my new truth. 

This evening, i attended a home group yoga practice, on & off since the very last bit of last year. I was pretty impressed seeing the same faces. They were still there, eagerly for the practice; love the positivity!

While walking back home with one of the guy, kevin; and my curiosity came knocking again.
Why of all activities, yoga? Why still appearing every week? And, we exchanged our experiences of how yoga practice helps to connect us with the people and with ourselves.

After we parted with that conversation, i recalled Sharath once sharing his view of foreigners flocking to Mysore, from all parts of the world, to the common foyer, just for the practice. Instead of how most of us are impressed by the work of the great indian teachers/ yogis, keeping the lineage and the torch of knowledge burning;

Sharath feels the effort of the foreigners' ( where we are not born in a culture of the tradition, not to a yogi family, not greatly influence by the practice/ knowledge of yoga) for coming into the practice, is already a great deal. With weak flame of curiosity for the spiritual knowledge to start off, there must be something ( that's what i always thought, but i couldn't figure it out) that leads them here. That can also means a simple act of stepping into a yoga class for that particular day.

Which further allows me to recall, an event, even much earlier--- during the first class of my yoga training. My teacher, Master Paalu did also mention that, there must be a reason why we are on the mat, in this particular class, with these particular people. Because we were all related in some way. Sometimes, our conscious mind and our sense organs are too limited to be able to comprehend what is going on to the external arrangement.
But as the time mature, the reasons behind all these arrangement will reveals.

If we happen to meet in a class, and if i start to ask too many whys.... please share with me your stories:)!