My Spiritual Journey
Fight or flight?
Everyone experiences fear, yet we don't realise how it occurs. Whenever there is a conflict between what we want with what we do, fear naturally arises. We think we are responsible only for what we do and not for what we think.
What happened to me?
I acknowledge that I am a fearful person. I fear losing the things that I like. I don’t have much self-confidence. I fear that I am not good enough. I fear how people judge me. I hide under my own shadow. I feel ashamed when this personal identity doesn’t fit into society. When fear is triggered, I blame the outside. To become a better person and have a better life, I do many things to get what I want. A lot of grasping and clinging. And once I get what I want, I am not willing to let it go. The cycle repeats because I am never satisfied.
Everything concerns me. I am self-centered. I think I can derive pleasure and power from the external world. What happens is I am trying to find security from insecurity. My house is built on sand. When I fall and lose what I had, I am in grief, confused, and feel empty. Despite years of meditation, it does not solve the root problem. Something is missing.
No fight. No flight.
It is a blessing that I met my Teachers at WISE. They taught me that with wisdom everything is solved. There is a way to develop the quality of mind. There is a doorway to escape from suffering and be free. It is the mind that makes up the world. My jaw dropped. Wow, I saw a light in the tunnel.
All these stories of I, me and mine, are just thoughts. Nothing truly happens. It appears and disappears. It is not problematic. It only becomes a problem when I identify with it. I believe that it is my doing therefore I am guilty; contributing to the illusion that I am the one that makes it happen and gets attached to it. Gradually, I realised the un-realness of this thought.
Most of us like to watch movies. Movies consist of pictures and sounds. Certain scenes may trigger our feelings. We comment and judge based on what we think we know. The point is, a picture is just a picture, a sound is just a sound, a feeling is just a feeling. All these are composed into a movie for entertainment purposes. Isn’t it insane that we take it seriously and argue about it?
“Do you know what the mind is?” Teachers asked. When I see the phrase ‘what’s on your mind?’ on top of a Facebook page, I never questioned what is the mind. “The mind has no form, no shape, no color” Teachers said. “Hmm…ok, it is something not tangible. Then how to know it, how to see it?”
After many pointing meditations and repeated Right Information, I finally come to realise what is the mind. The door opens and in front of me appears a beautiful landscape, waiting for me to explore!
Our experiences are just mind-bodily processes. Mind is nature - a grouping of four aggregates of feeling, consciousness, perception, and mental factors. By investigating each of them, it is unique in function and characteristic. They don’t know each other but are inseparable. Peculiar. And there is no “I” on any of these aggregates, just a label attached to it. Every happening is due to causes and conditions, not to me, not for me, and not against me. There is no way that any of these is happening independently. This mind was blown away! The first time I tasted liberation, suffering dissolved instantly.
Thought on this journey
This mind is still triggered occasionally. Life is an experience of ups and downs. So long this mind is aware and remembers the Right Information, sees it correctly with Right Attitude, and doesn’t resist and attach, these are what matter. Find out the blocks that prevent us from seeing what nature is, and have faith and confidence. There is always a way to explore and the door is never closed.
This journey is not to become anything but to un-become everything. It is about undoing and forgiving. Understanding the teaching is important. It makes me grounded. When the next storm rages, just take a deep breath, stay calm and stand firm like a lighthouse in the storm. Be the light and shine onto others.
In grace,
Jeannie Siow
12 October 2021