as a matter of fact i am happiness

friends ask, what do you do in the retreat? i say, we sit and be quiet. that simple. and radical too. for the most part of the two days no sooner than the facilitator says, close your eyes, than i go straight to a place of no linear time, no words, no sense of dimension. just a mass of bright serenity, joyous contentment. more often than not i experience my awareness descending at super high speed into the depths of my inner being. it's all very subtle.

there was a time when i came out of meditation upset that i missed the meditation instruction, that i must have not meditated. seriously. of course i was also upset that i didn't have any dramatic experiences. where's the light? thunder? visions? i would feel so disappointed and then envious when others described  their super audio-visual experiences. not anymore. i have come to appreciate my own experiences. really. i notice there are so much less mindless wanderings. i am able to step back with ease from the tendency to worry, to project into the future. when we are chanting a long mantra praising the qualities our own true nature i actually vividly sense that yes, i am not the thoughts, feelings and emotions. my senses are open and functioning but i am not dependent on sensory pleasures for my happiness. as a matter of fact, i am happiness.

the first thing i notice at the end of the retreat is this. where is that lifelong nagging restlessness? and what about the doubting voice? i don't expect they vanish for good but i know now that they are not in the driving seat anymore.

qualities of my own true nature

subtle breakthrough. about half a day into the meditation retreat i notice something. i don't think i would have if the mind is not so quiet and the body so relaxed. and it's actually the absence of a dug-in tendency. the melancholy that the retreat will come to an end. i am amazed beyond word and measure as i watch how the body is calm and poised. throughout the two days i notice the restlessness and soreness that usually start gnawing at the joints and legs after a few meditation sessions are simply not there. the inner sky is by and large clear and sunny. every now and then i notice thoughts and emotions that are like cotton-candy clouds. as i type this i don't even recall what they are about. doesn't matter. i just return attention to the nice and natural flow of the breath and the divine song within it. before i know it i am not even aware of those mental clouds.

where am i? yes, the breakthrough. i realize i am more anchored in the understanding that this quiet mind and relaxed body are the qualities of my own true nature. all that i revel so much in the retreat are to guide me to connect deeper with what i already have, to cultivate the awareness that i am not this thought, not that memory. my happiness only depends on how connected i am to my great self. here's the kick. when i am consciously connected to my great self i can see how much joy there is in my life. what about this one? hwubby. last night he walks through the door in his bike helmet and waves of bliss overcome me. he really brings yummy joy to my heart. and if i am all caught up in anxiety and anguish that there's no retreat the next day i wouldn't be able to taste it so good.

i bring sunshine to seattle.

i'e been getting heads up about seattle weather left and right. rains. downcast. hwubby says on the phone, bring raincoat, umbrella. hey, i get it, people. it's wet. it's depressing. nonetheless i am bright and light as i walk out of the airport. what do i see? cloudless sky. california weather. my niece-in-law says, you bring good luck, suk wah, you bring the sun. i say, thank you, i do.

all kidding aside, i do have the sun within me. in fact, according to the scriptures, which are really meditation experiences of super duper advanced meditators, i have a thousand suns. as a matter of fact, i hold all the stars, planets, galaxies, those that we know of their existence and those we don't yet know that they are somewhere out there in some corner of this infinitely vast universe, which is probably just one speck in the innumerable collection of universes. as i type this my mind is a little bit dizzy, kind of hard to hold all this. what's the term? right, 'wrap around it.' and so i take a deep breath in, let a long one out, and let loose any rigid horizons in the field of awareness.

as i soak in the gorgeous sunshine, shimmering waters and the vibrant life all around me i also see them as a glimpse of what i have within.

inner pharaoh

pharaohs are like all things in the physical universe. they come. they go. one down. another one up. the only pharoah that i can really have a rein on is my inner pharaoh. really. all that which keep me in poverty consciousness are stuff of a pharaoh's doing. last night after hwubby and i have a discussion about what is our inner pharaoh i go to bed feeling this sense of a hard layer gradually shielding the heart region. i watch it. i don't pin it onto any specific thing. mostly it is a pervading sense of sadness, sorrow, melancholy. what causes it? really. it can be anything. one thing is as good as the other. there's always some reason to make worrying and fear seem real and justifiable. early on a wise yogi says to me, the problem is not the problem, it's your problem with the problem that is the problem. this morning i wake up and find my awareness in this vast, quiet, still space that is throbbing subtly with vibrancy. the natural breath is flowing in and out with ease. i lie there. i see this hardness around the heart is still around but now i look at it with a fresh eye. insights appear like silk being drawn from cocoon. on one hand they make sense of this hardness. on another hand they, along with the hardness, come and go as well. none of it, good or bad, sad or pleasurable, is who i really am. the body comes and goes. thoughts, feelings come and go. it is my innermost self that is the single constant through all this. it is independent of anything in the physical universe. it is watching all this and all this and all this come and go. i am enslaved to nothing and no one. anything that makes me feel less than that is the voice of the pharaoh.

dream in me? me in dream?

the visuals in this dream has been so very much in my consciousness that, to me, it's as real as, if not more than, all that in the physical world. here's that particular fragment that is absolutely my top fave. i'm ready to go to work, on my way and look to my left down a street. all that i see is figures and an old tree. they are made of black smoke. through them and against them, as the backdrop to this dream canvas i can see gentle, tender fish-belly-grey pre-dawn lights. the vista is exquisite and lovely beyond anything i have seen or imagined. i move in closer. one of the figures turns in my direction, gives me this look that startles me and stops me in my track for a fraction of an instant before i realize i am moving backwards at the speed of...a canon ball. i find myself moving at an ever accelerating speed, so fast that i cannot see anything around me but blurs. the sense of speed is so real that it carries over into the waking state for quite a while. i see anxious feeling appear, and a thought. where's hwubby? as i look at this and i can't help it because the beautiful composition of the scene and the look from that ethereal, smoky figure are, as i type this, vivid as ever. their brightness don't dim a bit. so as i reflect on this i realize the mind cannot wrap around the paradox that this vast dream space is holding my awareness while the dream happens all within me. the other thrilling insight is this. it is the benchmark of progress when dreams are bright and vivid. and by the way, here's a huge mystery. i go to sleep in the dark. i awake in dark. so by what light is dream illumined? where is the light source? there has to be a powerful source because the colors in the rest of the dream are just vibrant and strong. really. at one point i gaze into this sparkling white top that i am wearing and marvel at the marigold yellow of the poop in the toilet. aaah. what else but the light of my own sublime self.

from papaya to litigation

i am so happy with what i got. bags of bargain produce. check this out. three hawaiian papaya for eighty nine cents. now, they do look very...ugly. one of them actually is caving in. but guess what, that's sweet sunshine in disguise. a spoonful of its saffron juicy flesh, the aroma and flavor send me straight to the beach where the president of united states hung out as a boy. another couple of mouthfuls later i realize something. i see that hwubby and i are presented with a fantastic opportunity to really deepen our connection to our innermost, highest self. we are going through litigation and yesterday our lawyer presented us a situation where we have to make a choice. a tough choice. how to go about choosing which way to go? what is the right thing to do? food for contemplation. i scoop out another mound of heavenly papaya and i go deeper and higher into my own true nature. there i will receive the guidance i need. it may not come while i am eating up the papaya. so i have to stay vigilant, be aware. messages may come in any direction, any manner, any shape or size.

ear of my heart

meditation is such a mystical process. how do i explain on the days when nothing much happens if i do not embrace this enveloping stillness that throb soundlessly. it is not a dead quiet. it is so alive. indeed it is this that i am irresistibly drawn to meditating day after day. it is this state that i strive to return to as i go about the worldly activity. and this is on days when nothing happens. what about today? wow. soon after i find myself immersed in the rich and full pulsation that ripple through my entire awareness i see these dancing lights. right away i relate to them. they remind me of the northern lights going wild over the pitch black sky above the swathe of penguins which are huddling together tightly. i watch molten streams of emeralds and jades shifting through patterns and formations in my own inner sky. after a while i hear this from the ear of my heart. take your time to come out. with that i embark on the journey of emerging from the depths of the field of my own true nature. it is kind of like coming up from the ocean deep. all in all i meditate one and a half hour today according to the clock and it doesn't feel long at all. i could have easily roamed some more in the pulsation of the moving breath if i were not also aware of the tasks ahead.

fortunate to have each other

the wonders and marvels of doing the practices with a group of dedicated, fun yogis are endless and always astonishing. we laugh hard and dive deep. as we pour ourselves into singing om i am immersed in this richly textured symphonic sound that ebb and flow in waves. they wash me over and over. sometimes i can discern a strand of resonance resembling my own voice. mostly it's a giant ball of resonance rocking my whole being. i feel my own vastness. it is enveloped in an ocean. the ocean is within my awareness. my awareness is aloft on the unwavering longing of my fellow yogis. as we enjoy the yummy mung sprout salad and a spread of yummy food that shivaa prepares i chew on the truth that how fortunate we are to have each other.

hanuman. christmas carol

i begin to add a new thing to my schedule. not exactly a new thing. there's really no new thing under the sun. okay, this stirs me to recall a favorite story, something from the hindu epic ramayana. hanuman, the monkey king, plunges into the depths of the ocean to look for sita's ring. what does he see when gets to the ocean floor? one ring? no. two rings? no. he sees tens of thousands of rings, all identical to sita's. aaaah. what is happening right now happened before and will happen again.

anyway, i digress. i decide to meditate before going to sleep. in one of those moments when i am alternating between sleep and awake something comes to me. identify a few, probably three, scenes at different points in suk wah's life, i mean suk wah the heroine in the novel, where she experiences an awakening within even though in the moment she doesn't have the understanding and vocabulary to recognize it as such. but as the narrative unfolds her awareness expands, elevates and clarifies as a result of her interactions with the exotic characters from the chinese immortal world she recognizes all these wonderful things that are within.

hey, isn't this somewhat the structure of 'christmas carol?' the three immortal stooges, phoenix, monkey and pig, show suk wah scenes from her life...

can i hold both in awareness?

my editor says, suk wah, you write so beautifully, i've never seen anyone writing about food as beautiful as you do, the metaphors, the way you write about it, are just...i can't write better than you do. sometimes a writer says to me, i write this way because it's my 'voice.' i would say, you don't have a 'voice.' anyway, my editor goes on to say, you write best when you just write, paragraph after paragraph, but you can't write forty pages of 'eating lox and bagels.' i really can't bring myself to say, one of the reasons i end up having forty pages of 'eating lox and bagels' is this. marquez writes eighty pages about a couple moving around each other in the night. well, all i can say is it is not working out for me. not yet. marquez is marquez. suk wah is suk wah. i have to deal with suk wah's reality as it is. don't compare, suk wah.

so, what's the point i am trying to get at? let me see. o yes. this morning, in meditation, it comes to me that i get lost, in a good way, when i just write and write. but then i lose the narrative, pacing, rhythm. i am very good at writing scenes, dialogues. i love it. i get so much joy doing it. but i want to get the book done in a proper way. so i have to be able to hold the scene and the story together in my awareness while dialogues and details are flowing out from the inner self. my editor says, can your mind work that way? right now, i don't know. not yet.

i'll just have to keep returning awareness to the breath

i know, i know, i want to be a liberated yogi and the hallmark sign of a liberated yogi is not to get worked up about anything and definitely not to react to thoughts and emotions. but for now i just couldn't help it. here's why. this morning there is a hotel charge $165.93 showing up on the credit card. turns out this charge is in the process of being refunded and is takes several days to happen. then there are two charges, $7.95 each. some sort of services to get you onto the web in airports. but hwubby doesn't remember giving credit card info for such services on that date. my point is this. the investor insists on our credit balance showing zero before they would fund the mortgage loan. on one hand i have no problem with that. on another hand this is a corporation that received tens of billions of federal bailout money. so somehow my mind just can't reconcile the two and keeps churning out reaction after reaction, emotion after emotion. really, the corporation gets a huge bailout. it turns around and squeeze responsible borrowers like us. i have outstanding credit score. i have demonstrated that i have been paying all the bills on time. yet the investor wouldn't accept anything other than zero balance, not even after i paid off the almost six thousand dollars of statement balance and another two thousand dollars of current balance. that's a matter of principle? fine. but what the heck is all that bailout money about? wasn't that against the free market principle?

in the end, as i type, i paid off the $181.83. but the mental turbulence is still going strong. i have to keep my eye on the goal. getting the loan through. i guess i'll just have to keep returning awareness to the movement of the easy breath until the mental torrent runs out of momentum. om namah shivaya.

where the higher self dwells

until i hear myself howling in pain on chiropractor's table when her thumbs are pressing into the left shoulder i have no idea how much tension i have accumulated in the body. no wonder i've been receiving messages from within in meditations saying, go back to sleep. as i contemplate on it i realize what's going on is this. i've been on crisis mode, heightened adrenaline state, pretty much 24/7 for a month and a half. it is said that the sleeping state is where one can really let go of it and allow grace to come through. coming to see this helps bring my awareness to the way the breath is naturally moving in and out of me. coming in deep. going out long. staying in the present moment where the higher self dwells.

possibilities are like sparks within lapis lazuli

this morning's meditation is magnificent. i go deeper and higher than i recall i ever have. the inner being is so vast, so pristine, so strongly quiet, so clear and light. it is not sheltered by the body. on the contrary, the body is within this subtle yet tangible conscious realm. as awareness rests and roams in this i realize i am having an experience of what 'being refreshed' means. there's a sense of opening everywhere in the entire being. from this place i look at how i was shocked into panic by an unexpected development. now i can see its root cause is a deeply-rooted conditioning, that the reality that i find myself in is the only reality. this illusion is a killer. it blocks grace. it blinds out peripheral vision. it renders me incapable to see possibilities and openings sparkling the way delicate golden sparks are embedded within lapis lazuli.
the moment i recognize this i lift my awareness out of that lower vantage point. my inner vision opens up. i am once again in the clear sky of pure consciousness. hey, this twist actually points the way to do something that previously i thought i couldn't pursue. the limitation is dissolved.

happy anniversary, hwubby and suk wah.

be strong. be strong. be strengthened.

hwubby says, how are you doing? i say, one breath at a time, one step at a time. at the conclusion of every book in the five book of moses we sing this: be strong. be strong. be strengthened. this is my mantra of the moment. it's not that the inner self needs any strengthening or the reminder. it's the connection to the inner self that has to be vigilantly and constantly cultivated. it's the awareness, that has been so habituated to be populated with 'weedy' thoughts, has to be reminded over and over. now i am experiencing what mahatma ghandi was talking about: this is the war that i must engage in. and victory is guaranteed as long as i stand on the side of divine grace and keep putting in my effort. hwubby says, yeah, and i thought i could do it once and it would be done.

sometimes it involves saying no.

i am watching the twists and turns in outer circumstances while i am aware of the mental activity. who is watching? i am. who is aware? i am. am i the contents of the mental activity? no. do i need to take of them? yes, and sometimes taking care of them involves saying no. how will the other receive it? i don't know. but i do know for sure that whatever the other's reaction is it doesn't add to nor diminish the fullness of my inner self.

kneading chapati is revelatory

i don't eat wheat but i have to say, warm chapati coated with and dripping ghee, and by the way, i knead the dough and make my own ghee, is out of this world and beyond. satisfying yet light. the ghee is a bundle of yummy sunshine. hey, it takes one and a half hours to process three pounds of butter to get it crystal clear. the result? intoxicating sweetness that is subtle. worth all that one and a half hours watching over the boiling butter.

kneading chapati dough after coming out of meditation is such a nice way to transition from the inner world into the outer. feeling the flour and water coming together under the rhythmic motion of the fingers and palm makes me realize that the two worlds are not separate. one is in the other and vice versa. i watch a core miracle being created and i am a participant. two seemingly so different things merge into one thing, something that is like caterpillar turning into butterfly. alchemy happens beyond the physical eyes and the touch of hand. often i wonder what happens in meditation when the body and mind say, nothing's happening. as i press the ball of my palm into the dough that is now like earlobe i recognize that i don't see the subtle shifts in my awareness and understanding as they take place quietly but i do see the end result. i've been handling the tests presented to us beautifully. i'm schlepping a whole ayurveda kitchen across the country and work hard to make it work in other people's homes. i'm just days into this way of cooking. hwubby says, and you're doing it with such calm and ease, so flexible and resilient.

they run out of momentum unless i feed them

hwubby says, i have this realization. i say, what, what? tell me. he says, i am aware of the moments when i have these anxious, negative thoughts and stuff. but what about the rest of the time when i don't have them? that is what i have to be aware of. that is like an ocean and the anxious moments are little islands. when i am stuck on an island i am not aware of the ocean.

that's so great. and i would attempt to go another step further to suggest that those moments of anxious, negative thoughts and stuff are foam. they look real up till the moment they run out of momentum and dissipate. unless i feed them.

i'm not the worry

hwubby says, do you ever have the sense that you are one with everything? i say, i don't know, that's kind of vague for me, do you? he says, i have these moments when i don't feel i am not attached to anything, everything is changing, keeps changing, i'm watching.

love it. i would adjust slightly to 'aware' rather than 'watching.' why? because 'watching' implies some sort of engagement. sort of like, i'm inside the house going about my business and it is raining outside. i don't drop what i am doing and watch the rain although that's a lovely thing to do too. i'm referring to the thoughts and feelings, whatever, that ripple in the mind. like, right now, as i am typing i am aware of traces of worry, whatever, pass through the mind. i'm not even interested in saying, don't worry, or, what is it that i'm worrying about? i'm not the worry. period. i'm the inner self.

connecting heaven and earth

just when i think i am done with the residual tendency of pride and inadequacy...boom, here they come again. my editor says, you must connect heaven and earth...as it is it feels like 2 separate books. i see a sinking feeling in the belly. i thought i had worked hard to blend them. now what? what am i going to do? how am i going to do it? i don't think i....and so on and so forth. blah blah blah.

after a little while, not days or weeks, it is clear to me that there is an inner turnaround happening within. my attention is being drawn to the sound and motion of the breath like iron dust to magnet. it's like my awareness is a giant yo-yo. but instead of getting stuck in wild swings that go nowhere the downward momentum comes to a pause at the end of a swing cycle. and then a lift appears. it takes my awareness onward and upward in a steady manner. the yo-yo string of habitual tendency is broken.

do i know what to do? nope. not yet. do i know how to get there from here? nope. not yet. but i know i will. this is what happens, and shall happen, when i stay connected to my own inner self. keep meditating, suk wah.

even good insights can take me away from being with the self

it never ceases to amaze me what i can see that i didn't see before when the mind is immersed in the quiet and clarity of the inner self. case in point. a while back i received the response regarding a proposal i made. it was a 'no.' since then i moved on.

so there i am meditating away in robust, dynamic contentment, my awareness aloft in the divine humming flowing through the easy breath and, voom, i see it. i see where that 'no' was coming from. it was a justifiable 'no' given the circumstances at that point in time. but between then and now things have changed. and so, if needs be, i can go back to the person and ask for reconsideration.

then the real challenge rears its head. i can feel excitement roar and thunder. along with it agitation and restlessness in the body and mind, like, i can't wait to write this all down, tell hwubby all about it, and so on and so forth. all pushing the mind to keep going with more thoughts and feelings. very tempting indeed. it is in such a moment that i really appreciate the cumulative efforts i've been putting in to anchor my awareness in the true purpose of meditation. to be with the inner self. no more. no less. having insights that guide me in worldly affairs is fine but i have to keep my eye on the ball. or else even good and helpful insights can, in the end, take me away from the real goal. to realize i am the inner self. no more. no less.