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Starting your day while taking your first steps in consciousness…

Walking on the earth
is a miracle!
Each mindful step
reveals the wondrous Dharmakaya.

This poem can be recited right as we get out of bed and our feet touch the floor.
It can also be used during walking meditation or any time we stand up and walk.
 
Dharmakaya literally means the “body” (kaya) of the Buddha’s teachings (Dharma), the way of understanding and love. It also is the ground of being manifested as mountains, rivers, stars, moon, and all species. Before passing away, the Buddha told his disciples, “only my physical body will pass away. My Dharma body will remain with you forever.” That statement turns out to be “the essence of all that exists”. All phenomena – the song of a bird, the warm rays of the sun, a cup of hot tea – are manifestations of the Dharmakaya. We, too, are of the same nature as these wonders of the universe.
So remember: walking on earth is a miracle! We do not have to walk in space or on water to experience a miracle.
The real miracle is to be awake in the present moment – reach out for those clear moments, cherish them and let them grow in your heart!
Walking on the green earth, we realize the wonder of being alive. When we make steps like this, the sun of the Dharmakaya will shine.

//excerpts taken from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book “Present Moment Wonderful Life” – since ever I bougt that book it is with me, as it helps me to open up my eyes and cherish the things we tend to take for granted. I’m trying to be more tentative and if I have the sun smiling into my face, I enjoy happiness at least for a short while – until it is time to move on…  Thanks for taking those first steps with me.

An Important Story My Father Once Told Me

So believe me this story is real, but it happened centuries and centuries ago. There was a highly spiritual teacher who once performed a weird thing to prove his point to an ignorant person who didn’t believe in spirituality, of course in this case it was Buddhism.

This teacher was washing the outer part of a basin that has feces inside, so this ignorant guys goes onto make fun and laugh at him for just washing the outside and not the inside, which was more important. The teacher was doing this to prove a point that physical rituals such as cleaning your body or being nice verbally or nworshipping Gods isn’t really as important as keeping our inner self clean and following Buddha’s teachings such as compassion and concept of interdependence.

This could be one of the reason why I don’t greet as often as other people do, but this should be actually totally irrelevant to the above story since it doesn’t ask you to stop being nice or remain positive outside; I think the purpose of the story is to acknowledge that our inner mindset and emotions are of more importance. We are drawing a comparison, in a sense.

Does motivation always involve goal setting?

So tonight I have been wondering how could I make sure I achieve one of my most important dream – yeah let’s call it a secret dream. I think I am capable of reaching that goal after seeing the potentials I have that haven’t been used, actually they have been misplaced literally.

Anyways, the question remains loud and clear: do we need to set up a goal in order to self motivate? I personally think it would completely depend on how we really define the words goal setting and self motivation. I m sure there atleast small group of people who will put self-motivation and goal-setting in the same category, while some others will not.

Then there are people like me, who atleast at this moment, thinks self motivation doesn’t necessarily have to include goal setting. Self motivation in my opinion should be understood as Do the Best You Can. This motto is far more helpful than setting up a too specific goal, because goals can be too easy or too hard to achive; either way, which will eventually result in the death of self motivation. On the other hand, the “self motivation of do the best you can” will never die out but instead it will motivate you further and prompt you to keep going and work hard. That might be the best motivation after all.

In a way, just the way smart rich people use their money to make more money (investing in stocks, money market, real estate,etc), intelligent motivated people can use their motivation to strengthen their self motivation.

Miss Tibet 2008 is Sonam Choedon

It is pretty amazing sometimes you miss important stories that you would think are inescapable when you are a savvy news reader. Now I ain’t claiming to be one – but my circumstances and other factors – enable me notice important news stories like crown winner of Miss Tibet every year. But this wasn’t the case this year.

Miss Tibet pageant crowned Ms Sonam Choedon, 25 years old, originally from eastern Tibet Lithuang county, on October 12, 2008. She now lives in India since December 2007. The prize was a scholarship money for her education, worth Rs. 100,000. The pageant is organized, directed and produced by Mr Lobsang Wangyal.

It is worth noting that this year there were only two contestants, unlike previous competitions; maybe Tibetan girls are shying away from this beauty pageant. I personally didn’t expected it to be that way; I was thinking there will be more contestants than before. BTW, if you are interested in learning about the only other contestant who participated in Miss Tibet 2008, her name is Jamyang Chentso, who is 22-year old from Bir Shejak, Himachal Pradesh in India.

Here are some interesting things Miss Tibet 2008 has to say, “As became a Miss Tibet, I would be speaking on behalf of the Tibetan people, particularly Tibetan women, telling their story and making people more aware of the Tibetan situation. I believe that awareness is the key issue, and hope that by sharing my story it will empower others to do the same.”

She also added, “I believe that our goal will be achieve soon, without any doubt if we, all Tibetans follow the middle-way that approached by our leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama.”

When is life fair?

All is fair, including the life, when everything is working the way you want. And it is considered not fair when things and circumstances are working against us.

This is how I m feeling these days; my life is kind of leaning toward my desired destination. So life is fair to me.

Reading a book finally

After a long time, I have grabbed a book that I read at least 5 pages of. Not sure though if I should really call it a book – for it’s a review book. Often time somehow we don’t seem to talk about it as a book. Maybe it is because they only take a tiny share of the book market. anyways I am glad to have it to and hopefully it I will see the good results.

Paycheck day

On a side, just when I got to work I realized it’s a paycheck day at one of my jobs. Nothing to be really happy about, except I will be able to pay off some of the debts I owe.

Kinda weird that we forget

I just kinda realized that most of us forget our nose run all the way up between our eyes – atleast I did. We know where our nose ends at, the tip and the two holes are so obvious. But the upper part is like hidden, maybe because our eyes overshadows it.

A while ago, I was looking at an image displaying anatomy of a skull, and noticed the lacrimal and nasal bone lie in between the eye sockets.

How to do more things in a day?

There have been many occassions where I felt like I did not really do much that day – or infact nothing really got done. This kind of problem often arise for two reasons: being lazy and keep procrastination or just too many things to do in a mere 24hours day. But my problem is caused by neither of them.

One of the most important trick to getting a lot of things in a day is to start doing things early. And if you are like me who complains about getting very less things in a day, you should consider starting early – wake up early. Going to bed late is one of bad habit that is taking over me. If I work until late night I can’t do anything to resolve it, but what I could do is don’t stay up long after I get home. That’s the promise I am making to myself – assuming only the rules and bones are meant to be broken, not the promises.

Tibetans as one of the most successful refugees in the world

My gf sent me an article few weeks ago and today I had a chance to read it again. It was a review of the book named Exile as Challenge: the Tibetan Diaspora. Being a Tibetan, it was intersting to note the key three factors where Tibetan leads as an example of refugees who have obtained success in their lives:
- thriving as a community: regardless of where Tibetans have settled, they have been able to stay within or start their own Tibetan communities around the world.
- economic standards: Tibetan as a group typically standout financially in most areas they live. Examples include South India and Nepal.
- higher education: more and more Tibetans are educated and new generations are opting for careers that was once considered as an out of reach education program, such as medical and law degrees.