Bucky Group 21 - Rediscovery of Life, by Father Anthony De Mello

"Rediscovery of Life", a talk given to a group of students in the United States, by Father Anthony De Mello a Catholic Jesuit priest.
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This post will be updated every week as we watch a successive video clip of Father De Mello's talk.

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Week 1

Father De Mello said that for many years, he was not awakened by the truth of Life, although he had been reading many meaningful verses in the Bible. He said he was asleep. But once he rediscovered life, what he read in the Bible then came alive! He thinks many of us are still asleep. I think so too.

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It may take many months, a few weeks, a few days or just a few hours for one to realise the true meaning of life. It all depends. It depends on if you know how to listen. Many of us don't know how to listen. We have fixed ideas and prejudices and because of that we did not listen and miss the real message.

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In the slumps of Calcutta, Father De Mello met a rickshaw puller called Ram Chandra who had just sold his skeletons (in advance) to a buyer for $10. This buyer had asked what Ram Chandra did for a living and how long he had been a rickshaw puller, which Ram said "ten years". On hearing that, the buyer reckoned he could get Ram's skeletons soon as most rickshaw men dies after 12 years in the trade. So the buyer paid Ram $10. Ram used this money to feed the family.

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To most of us, this is really sad and dreadful, but when Father De Mello spoke to Ram, he was not at all sad. There was no fear in Ram and he said that everything is going well. "But how about your family and children...etc?" asked Father, and Ram replied that all was well and that he would just do what he could and leave the rest to God. That man was fearless! Father realised that he was in front of a mystic! Ram lived like a King and lived every moment to the fullest. He was alive! "I was dead", Father De Mello said, referring to the time when he was still not awakened.

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Can all of us live like Ram Chandra? Can every of our moment be a bliss? Every single moment? "No it is not possible. There will be ups and downs and there will be some difficult moments. Some of you may think that way. Then, your life is in a mess!" Father said.

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Father said that we set off in life agreeing that life is not a bliss and we end in a life that is a mess!
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"Some of you here may not agree with that. You don't want to change. You don't want to know. If you don't want to know and don't want to listen, I don't want to change you. I can't change you. "Bye", Father De Mello said.

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"There is a saying, 'Don't teach pigs how to sing. You are wasting your time, and you irritate the pig.' "

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Week 2

Father De Mello spoke about "attachments". It is because of "attachments" that we lose our happiness. If we are not attached to anything, we stay happy.

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Week 3

This week, the talk focused on "Upsets". What gets us upset? Why do we get upset? Can someone else get you upset? How could they? Nobody can get us upset but ourselves. If we are peaceful within, nobody can get us upset.

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Think of a problem that upset you or still upset you. Take yourself out of the problem, and ask yourself, "where is the problem?" There is no problem. The problem exists only in our minds.

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When it rains, it upset many people, because we are programmed to be upset with rainy weather. One person may feel upset about the rain, the other may feel nothing about the rain.

[My note: To picnickers, a rainy is frowned upon. However, to the many creatures and plants out there, it is a chance to live!]

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So it is our programming that makes us upset. Not someone or something else that upset us. It is often easier to blame someone else for our upsetting ourselves. "Someone else upset me", we often say, but we don't say, "Someone else's actions have caused me to upset myself". Nobody talks like that. No cultures speak like that. So, we are programmed.

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Programming is powerful. There are tribes who practise banishment and the person who is banished always die. That means, if someone in the tribe commit a capital offense, they are banished, and when they are banished, they die.

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There is also a tribe in Mexico that believes that they shouldn't touch a certain stone. That if they do, they will die. One day, a boy from that tribe accidentally touched the stone. He was shocked and knew he will die soon. That night, the mother went to a priest and asked him to conduct a sacrimont for the boy. The priest rubbished it off and urge them not to be superstitious. The next day, the boy died.

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There is also a story about 21 camels that have to be tied to pegs so that their riders can stay a night in the desert. However, there were only 20 pegs for 21 camels, so the chief asked the slave to go through the motion of tying the 21st camel. The slave did just that and the next day, the camel was still around. Then as it came to move on, the slave came to tell the chief that that particular camel refused to move. "Ah, you forgot to untie the camel. Go untie him", the chief instructed the slave. So the slave did, and that camel willingly moved on.

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Discussions **

One of the Bucky Group members said that this discussion is timely for her as she was very upset that her mother who is 92, had to go on oxygen mask yesterday, despite having gone through chemeotherapy and should be doing better. However, on thinking further, she thought she should be happy, as the mother is still living at this age. But other than this, there are rarely anything that upset her. At this point, I quickly asked, "How about 'massage parlours'?" The Group then bursts into loud laughter, as she has been really upset with the growth of naughty massage parlours in her neighbourhood.

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She has started a committee to get rid of these massage parlours. The police had raided the parlours, on the grounds that they did not have licences to operate the parlours, but they reopened the day after the raid. So now they are call themselves, "Health Spa" and now they are legal. As the police raided, there were no girls in the shop. They were all hanging around elsewhere, perhaps by the coffeeshop having a drink. Totally legitimate. Whilst the polce raided, they were still opened for business. It was very hard to pin down what the shop has done wrong! This upset her.

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While she was upset, an old uncle came up and asked her to leave those parlours alone. They too had to earn a living. After some discussions and debates however, this old uncle confessed that it was also very convenient for him in that he now doesn't have to take two buses to visit the redlight district in Geylang.

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Personally, I won't open a massage parlour like this, nor would I rush to visit one, but would it upset me? Understandably, it would be uneasy to have it in my neighbourhood, but would I chide thie old uncle for staying that virile in his advanced age? Will I get myself upset? It doesn't and it won't. I am not living the old uncle's life. It is his life and his perogative.

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**

Sometimes, when I am telling something in earnest, the listener will say that I am upset (or angry). When I replied that I am not, they would insist that I am. This upset me. I get upset for being insisted that I am upset. Why do I get upset when someone else insist that I am upset, when I know I am not? Does it matter? Is it because I feel that it is unfair that because I have a stern face, loud voice and animated expressions that I am often misunderstood? Probably so. That has been going on for awhile now. How do I explain to others that I am not upset, when they have already decided that I am? Do I have to explain?

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On the upside, because of these misjudgments, it has taught me how to read other people's expressions more accurately. Isn't that a gift? So now, it doesn't upset me. Besides, having a blog like this has already aloud me to express all I want and for others to read what I say without the prejudice of my booming voice or what is conceived as a stern personality.

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**

I have a Korean friend who gets very upset when I joke about "Kim chi". For instance, after her lunch one day, I asked if she had a kim chi for lunch, and she went ballastic! Why did she over-reacted to such a joke? Did she that it as disrespect for her and a national mockery. Koreans in case you are unaware, are by and large, very nationalistic! (Actually this will get her even angrier, as she also doesn't like it when I generalise.)

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Anyway, some weeks later, she revealed to me that when she was living in Singapore, a silly girl in her office called her "kimchi" and she felt very insulted by that. But how would I know about that? And even so, it all happened four years ago and probably was done and over in a few minutes or seconds. Why has she been angry till now? How much energy has she wasted? Moreover, I don't understand, if she is already aware that these are buttons that can get her angry when pressed, why does she get angry? I mean, she is already aware and therefore should be already conscious about it and able to control herself or shrug it off with a good laugh.

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Here Joo Hwa said, "Michael, you know what? You pressed the wrong buttons. You should press the right buttons!" Sending the whole house into roaring laughter.
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"Thank you Joo Hwa. I did say I am aware of it," I replied.

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Bucky Group 20c - Oxymoron

We continue our discussions on Vacuum State's post on "Hunting Down Life's Oxymoron" by Mike George (For more about the blog post, click here). This is the last of our three-part discussion about the topic.

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We covered the term 'academic learning' and how true learning cannot be 'academic' because the it involves mostly memorising other people's discoveries, instead of self realisation; and the concluding paragraph that once we hunt down our inner contradictions (oxymorons) part of us awakens to liberate us.

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In the 'Question' section,...

"Have you ever realised you were contradicting your self or doing something that contradicted something you said? What was that action and do you still do it?"

One of us said that she did not react very well to a big-talker man in a committee she set up recently. She knows that he is talking big because he feels small, but she also knows that as a result of his talking big, she feels small and therefore angry! Though, she managed to contain her anger and not tell him off! [Personally, I think she should! Perhaps not 'tell him off', but 'tell him'.]

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Oh, by the way, the committee she set up was meant to counter the potential of new massage parlours taking over her estate's shopping block. According to her, these massage parlours are teeming with sexy Chinese girls that offer 'happy endings', and that they would have enough money to bid up the rents to take over the other shop lots. So, this committee aims to get the parlours out of the estate. Sounds like a committee with an end to end all 'happy endings'!

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I brought up the discussion about 'academic learning' and that the alternative is 'experiential learning'. But I wonder can every subject be learned by experience?

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Chor Kok answered that wonderfully to say that it is possible that if we focus the experiential learning to discover Bucky's the generalised principles. From there, the learner will be able to realise other secondary knowledg and so it becomes unnecessary to learn everything experientially.

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I think in between 'academic learning' and 'experiential learning', there is something like what Dr Aaron Lim does, which is learning through anecdotal experiences of others. By listening those little life stories that Dr Aaron tells, I can relate to them and learn very quickly compared to mere memorising from an authority. But then, that too depends on our own experience. For instance, I cannot understand about 'joy' if I haven't experienced it before, even though a story filled with joy was told to me. In that instance, 'joy' would be mere 'words' or 'academic knowledge' to me. This happens for people who have not consciously experienced 'love'. They therefore cannot understand love.

In Sickness or In Health 2

I try to live the same way as I do everyday putting my mind above the flu and fever, but since my reaction is so slow and I can't make sense of familiar things until 'later', I thought I give the bicycle a miss and took a bus. So there I was at the bus stop, which turned out to be waiting, and waiting... Why do I have such bad luck? Sick and yet having to wait unusually long for the bus?!!

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When the bus came, I just shrugged it off and thought "May be one of the buses broke down, be patient". However, the same long wait for the bus applies on the return trip. Then did I realise, it wasn't a longer wait than ordinary, but just my perception of time, which has instantly transformed the moment the flu hit me last Monday. The bus did not take so long. It just felt so long.

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From here, I learn that that it seems that we have two types of feelings - one that is highly reliant on the well-being of our physical bodies, such as how long it takes for the bus to come or how long the person is using the only loo in the building when you have a tummy ache; the other type of feeling is independent of anything, such as the need to stay up late to wait for your daughter to come back from late night partying.

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I am still recovering from flu. I think I am doing quite well in staying above all the giddyness and physical ailments. But then, I am only fighting flu and fever. Two days ago, my young 19 year old Vacuum State reader told me that she has a junior (even younger! :) ) who has contracted cancer but is still amazingly cheerful and positive. I take my hats off to this young girl - she is only 18!

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This morning, I got an email from a friend who put me to this talk by a neuroanatomist who was down with stroke and experienced her brain deterioriating rapidly in the initial moments of the haemorrhage. It is an amazing 18 minute video. I won't say I have been anywhere close to a stroke, but surprisingly I can relate very closely to some of the mental-perception issues that she described. :)

Click here

In Sickness or In Health

I am not feeling too well of late. It's strange how just a few days ago, I was well and running around and the next moment I'm down with fever and flu. Now, my whole body aches and I struggle just to walk a short distance. It is like a dizzy and surreal walk on a floating pontoon. I can't make sense of what seemed common-sense in better days. I can't even look for something that is right in front of me! I take a long time to make sense of what others say to me. Data retention in my mind seems so hard. It is unbearable even to lie in bed with this acheing body and a persistent painful thundering cough that makes my body curl.

"In this situation, is it possible to be 'above it all'?", I wonder. This is what Father Anthony De Mello said. Is it possible to accept it and not fight it? Father De Mello said that our happiness must not be dependent on anything (including good health), for if we are attached to it, we lose our happiness. That means, to be happy even when we are sick! It is indeed sobering now to 'walk the talk' to see if I can really be happy.

Then, as I logged into my email, I got this message in my daily contemplation subscription:


Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. -- Saint Francis de Sales

post scriptum: It is a big struggle to put up this post, but I thought it is best to write it now while I am totally in the midst of it. :)

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Here's someone whom I think is above it all. She is six years old. That's probably why. :)
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Remembering My Good O Days!

I am blessed with a good memory, somehow better than many others. I drew this picture when I was in the Singapore Polytechnic Welfare Services Club. It is a nostalgic piece. I can remember vividly, the hive of activities then. Some will be typing letters on noisy typewriters seeking sponsors for our projects in the old folks home, children's outings, Christmas celebrations, Moon Cake festivals, etc; others hang around with their guitars singing 'welfare songs', ie. songs with motivational lyrics for welfare work; some rehearsing sketches for the celebrations; and yet others doing their homework and fallen asleep... etc. Our volunteers spent much of their student life there - in the club room. To me it WAS my life! Fond memories like these can easily mesmerise me for hours.

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Many years have now passed, we have all graduated, got jobs, raised families and take on different hobbies and lifestyles. Some are driven by events of chasing after more money, bigger houses, bigger cars, ...etc. I guess many are overtaken by events in post-graduation. Memories of those intense activities have faded for many. For me, it is as real as it had happened yesterday, but surprisingly, for many much is forgotten. To them, they cannot remember all the fun of spending the many hours there - cooking dinner, practising bamboo dance, studying together, and finally rushing for the last bus. As they have forgotten, so these activities did not happen to them.

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The conscious mind is an elusive instument. The past that is real to me, is totally non-existent to some of my friends.

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I have similar experiences with dreams. As I lay on my bed, I remember the dream to monumental detail and could even tell my conscious mind how to remember them. Yet, when I get out of bed, into the shower and then by breakfast, all is forgotten. By the end of the day, it "didn't happen"!

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Similar mismatches can happen with 'observations'. Sometimes, in a scenario, I can see something in it, but no matter how I describe and try to convince my friends, they cannot see that 'something'. To me I can see that 'something' and it is real, but to my friends, that 'something' does not exist. So I got on to argue that it exists, but my friends insist it does not. They just don't get it!

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Conversely, there are times when my friends will argue very strongly about something. They are certain that they are right. But then, they would wouldn't they? Otherwise they wouldn't be arguing so passionately about it. So don't get upset with them. Are they blinded? Are they seeing 'shadows'? Maybe, I don't know, but for sure whatever they see is true to them, and not true to me, unless they can lead me to see the same as they do.

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To be headstrong about something without considering what the other party sees, would lead to disharmony and fallacies. From these fundamental assumptions, a belief system is then constructed, and held as the unassailable truth. It is only upon one of the fundamental assumptions being disproved, that the entire collossal belief system collapses.

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Therefore, it is prudent to constantly listen to our inner-self to check if we are leading ourselves into a fallacy. In stillness, this will be revealed. It would be helpful to be patient and see what the other persons see. By looking at different angles can the blindspots be cleared.

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Religions often look at life solely from their own dogma. This create blindspots in their followers, since no matter how, we cannot cover all dimensions with a single dogma. By looking at life openly through the eyes of many religions, philosophies and cultures, likewise, many blindspots will be cleared.

Synchronicity 3

I visit Joo Hock at his salon sometimes, usually to discuss how we can make the Bucky Group session more effective. In this instance, I was there to collect my projector, as the Group has now bought its own. The introduction of the projector was a great leap forward as we now have documentary videos and music for our sessions.

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During the chat, he mentioned the book,"The Tipping Point", by Malcolm Gladwell to create an experiential workshop. Actually it was the wrong book, as I'm reading "Blink!", also by Gladwell. Then further in our chat he mentioned about Ms Jean Tan (a famous businesswoman in Singapore, not her real name) and how they may be working together. As I am helping a friend to look for a boutique franchisee in Singapore, I asked if she would be interested to invest. "Possible, ask her", Joo Hock said.

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Our chat lasted an hour and soon it was time to meet up with my friend Francis at a nearby pub. When I reached there, Francis has a friend with him and she was reading the book (surprise surprise!) "The Tipping Point". A few minutes into the conversation, I was interrupted by an sms from another of my friend Irene. In it, she said that she could introduce Jean Tan to me regarding the franchising opportunity.

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On the way home in the taxi, I thought I should be eating out less and cooking more at home. I do sometimes use the steamer, to steam sweet potatoes, corn and carrots. Good healthy stuff. I thought it would also be nice to have a slow cooker crockpot that can cook soup. So that I can just put the ingredients in the pot in the morning and get soup in the evening, without much tedium.

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Incidentally, in the next evening, I found a discarded crockpot downstairs. It was in good condition complete with the paper wrapping. People here are wasteful. There are many times when I picked up useful household items thrown away by the residents.

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Yesterday, I asked someone to read Vacuum State. She agreed and told me she too have a blog called "Vacuum". Ha ha!

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The moral of the story here is, "Be careful with what you think, for it may even come true!"

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So have beautiful thoughts and get set for a beautiful day! It's all in the mind! :)

bucky group 20b - Oxymoron

We continue our discussions on Vacuum State's post on "Hunting Down Life's Oxymoron" by Mike George (For more about the blog post, click here).
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Someone suggested that the term 'holy war' could be a paradox rather than an oxymoron. I think it is not possible as inevitably anything 'holy' would put peace, happiness and love first; and war kills, plunders and destroys. [However, I remember I wrote another post about Arjuna, the mytical warrior in the Bhagavad Gita and how he got despondent in the midst of the war having to kill his own relatives. It has some food for thought. Read here.]

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Johnson asked, "How about 'holy shit'? Can 'shit' be 'holy'?"

If 'shit' is not 'holy' we will all be in trouble. Least of all, we would have been seriously constipated! :)

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I have trouble with the suggestion that "constructive criticism" is an oxymoron. Perhaps a lot depends on what we mean by 'criticism'. If criticism is meant for improvement, then the precursor 'constructive' goes very well with it. I think the problem it is often not immediately obvious that some criticisms are constructive. Often it comes much later.

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Elaine brought out that all systems are in the state of flux looking for their new balance. Constructive criticisms therefore serve to find the perpetuating need for balance. What she is describing is Tao.

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Joo Hock elaborated by explaining the meaning of the Tao symbol. Where there is 'order' and 'chaos'; and within 'order', there is a bit of 'chaos' (depicted by the dot of opposite colour), and withing 'chaos' there is a bit of 'order' (similarly depicted by the dot of opposite colour).

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So everything is in a state of change. If we fight the change, we become stressed. So we find that systems or people who are stressed tend to be inflexible. So systems have to be designed to accommodate changes to continue to become relevant.

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I feel that Singaporeans get much stressed. This is strange to me because I find Singapore one of the easiest cities to live in. I think that Singaporeans get stressed because we have suddenly moved from a kampung lifestyle, where we have our feet on the ground to ease the stress to the earth, to a highrise apartment lifestyle. That shift happened in the 70s and that had resulted in an increase in the number of suicides, which called for the set up of the volunteer group SOS (Save our Souls telephone helpline). Another way to ease stress is to spend at least one day a week in nature. For that matter, the Bucky Group spends every Sunday at MacRitchie with nature. This is also an advice from the Dalai Lama.

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There is no point fighting changes. The shop lot that "Hair Affair" is in, itself is going through an enbloc sale (collective sale by voting). If that happens, Joo Hock will have to find a new site for his salon. But it is no pointing fighting changes. If change comes, accept the change and for new things to come into our lives.

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In the days of mergers and acquisitions, many find themselves affected by the internal restructuring. One gets restructured from "Vice President" to "Senior Manager"; then when the next restructuring comes, from the post of "Senior Manager" to the post of "Manager". This is stressful to many who feels unappreciated and manipulated by the prime movers of the merger. But if one accepts it and moved on, the stress disappears.

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There are some who are made 'redundant' in an organisational restructuring. It is thus better to move on and do the 'next' thing instead of brooding over the past. When you move on, you will realise that there is so much goodness waiting. It appears worse when one is made "redundant" in a marriage. One moves on and likewise there is so much new experiences ahead.

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There is another example of a rich family in Singapore where the siblings were fighting over the inheritance left by their parents. Then one of them called it quits, moved on and migrated to New Zealand and made even more money there. It is said that he would not have gotten so rich if he had chosen to stay back to fight for the lesser family inheritance.

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So the moral of the stories is that one needs to be flexible to accommodate changes and moved on to the treasures ahead.

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Postmortem at the cafe:

At the cafe after the session, we spoke about how the Bucky Group has recently changed due to my involvement. That the Bucky Group was in a 'comfort zone', until I came and topple the 'stability' by bringing in different views. These views made everyone see things from different angles.

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I am quite surprise that my alternative views have contributed to the Group. In Singapore, it is quite difficult to find people who are willing to accept views that are not inline with theirs. This is a common problem among 'conformist' societies. Actually, I suffered 'slings and arrows' many times in other groups because many people do not accept alternative views and could not separate what I say, from what I am.

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The other thing which they say I contributed is in improving the memory of the Group. I guess by that they mean the documenting of the Bucky Sessions on Vacuum State.
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My hope is that we can move beyond this by using relevant and effective content in cyberspace, from blogs, online videos and music, as there are a lot of useful content out there. They are also perpetually updated by volunteers.
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Last, we have played this tune in the beginning of the session. It is about the resignation of the former Malaysian Health Minister because he was caught with his pants down in camera. This is e-Citizen civil group at work. Thanks to Cyberspace. Have you wondered why politicians resign only when they are caught in a sexual scandal and ironically get away with it when everyone knows that they have been stealing millions of dollars from the country? Anyway, listen to this and tell me...




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Join the Bucky Group. All you have to do is turn up. There is no membership, no fees to pay, no rules other than the usual common sense and you don't even have to agree with what we say. Besides, breakfast is free on Saturday and very good too!