Free Your Mind

Eugene Loh, A Slice of Life, 938LIVE, a station of MediaCorp Radio

ADAPTED FROM AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR

Many years ago there was a young man living in Korea, who felt that his life was quite empty. So he shaved his head and went up into the mountains to live the life of a monk. He studied diligently for a number of years, but still felt that he did not really understand how to be free.

The young man had heard of certain Zen masters living in China so he gathered his meager belongings and started a long and arduous journey across arid plains.
Every day he would walk for many hours, and would stop only after finding a patch of land that had a source of water. Finding water was not a simple task in such dry lands. There were many times he had to walk until late in the evening before finding a suitable location in which to rest and be refreshed.

One day was particularly hot, and the monk walked on endlessly, unable to find an oasis. When he did finally find a shaded area he collapsed on the ground and slept for several hours. He woke up some time after midnight and he was tremendously thirsty. He crawled around on his hands and knees in the darkness, and ran across a roughly made cup that must have been left by a previous traveler. The custom of leaving a cup with some water in it, for the next traveler to drink from was quite common. He drank the meager amount of water in the cup and he felt very blessed and very at peace with the world. He lay down again and slept quite comfortably.
The next day, upon waking up, he saw what the night before, he had taken to be the roughly made cup. It was the shattered skull of a baby wolf. The skull was caked with dried blood, and numerous insects were floating on the surface of the small quantity of filthy rain water still left at the bottom.

The monk saw all of this and immediately started to vomit. He had a great wave of nausea, and as the fluid poured forth from his mouth, it was as if his mind was being cleansed. He immediately felt a deep sense of understanding. Last night, since he couldn't see he assumed that he had found a cup which had been left by a fellow traveler. The water tasted delicious. This morning, upon seeing the skull, the thought of what he had done the night before made him sick to his stomach. He understood that it was his thinking, and not the water, that made him feel ill. It was his thinking that created good and bad, right and wrong, delicious and foul tasting. With no thinking there was no suffering.

How about you? Is there some situation in your life where it's your thinking that makes for the suffering and not the actual circumstances you are embroiled in? If this is so, it's a great opportunity for you to cleanse your mind and be free.

Bflygal’s comments:
I had wanted to write a blog on 想太多. And once again this article came timely. I thought it would be a tiring week. After the 24 hour coding, supposedly I never really rested. Monday’s cut off was somewhat a blessing. It gave me time to read the report. Although after that, I was given 2 more versions to integrate which as of now, I still have not touched. Then I had training on Tuesday and Wednesday which means more time to stone haha.

But today seems hectic because not much work was accomplished in the last 3 days. Monday’s cut off might have affected the mail server for a system while something had triggered some major inconsistency in another system. Then there are other miscellaneous issues to resolve. Everything was screaming for my attention that in the end my escapist mentality crept up and I decided to “treasure” my last chance of early release. Not that I left everything a mess. The mail was up just that too much re-sending had occurred. It is an amusing thought though. When no emails were sent, they call to ask why no emails. When too many duplicates were sent, they call to ask why so many mails. Haha, I guess everything has a limit, not too much, not too little. As for the other system, there is nothing much I can help them as it has to be manual triggering at their side. I can only check the code which most probably will take me quite a while (and I need a quiet environment, definitely not when my phone keeps ringing.)

I guess if there is anything that controls my life, it is my thoughts. That is the only driving force. If I thought it would be a tiring week, I guess I can conclude this is a tiring week. But I know deep down GA did his best to unload my burden even though I come home late everyday. And if I badly need a rest, I will just concussed and rest sufficiently haha. Most importantly, I believe today would be a good day. It is my last evening lesson for this module (I have not made up my mind on the rest of the modules). And the results should be out too.

Anyway this reminds me of the story of The Weather Man. He is a pretty known figure because he tells the weather. Some people love him, some people hate him. Supposedly this should not matter to him though. But it did, because he has low self-esteem. And his low self-esteem is pretty much on display to the public. Thus those who hate him actually threw food at him. Food that are fast food, that is left over, that they do not want. I am not surprised with the cruelty of this world, especially the metropolitan world. People tend to bully the weak even if the weak are capable.

In the end, his dying father managed to convert him. He took archery and though it might help improve his self-esteem, he suspects the bow in hand makes people think twice about throwing food at him. Generally though, he got happier.

Yeah, so I must make sure I have more positive thoughts. Hee hee!