Getting Angry

I am angry when I feel my boss is arrogantly ignorant and stupidly arrogant, I am angry when I enter my kitchen and there is nothing to eat, I am angry when the kids messes up everything I have spotlessly cleaned, and I am angry when people conveniently park their cars on the entrance to my parking lot and I am irritatingly angry when people honk their cars in the parking lot at any time of the day or night.

Buddhism describes Anger as an emotion. It also describes Anger can be both positive and negative depending on the intention which ofcourse is then connected to the level of spiritual attainment of an individual. 

My personal take on this is; since my perceptions are based on very very myopic view of the whole cosmology and the understanding of mind; my anger can never be justified as intentionally good. I would rather relate my anger to my own desire, attachment, aggression and ignorant nature of my mind, particularly when it doesn’t conform to my way of perceiving things. 

Rather, my anger erupts when my ego is hurt either by ill treatment, or when things don’t go the way I would like to; when what I hoped doesn’t work and when my fear becomes true; when I don’t get praised for what I do and instead get blamed for not doing enough; when those that pleases me are short lived and those that pains me lasts longer; and when I lose everything I have gained within the blink of my eye.  

On a secular level, anger is described as an emotion related to one’s psychological interpretation of having been offended, wronged or denied and the tendency to revolt against such feelings.

An account of a my day with regards to service sectors

March 12, 20100: Today is a weekend, and a Saturday for that matter. A perfect day to make up for all the week’s unfinished businesses.  It’s a perfect day because service sectors such as Banks, RICB, and Hospitals among others are open while you have holiday.

Among the list of to-do-lists, there are few social services including a regular donation of blood.

8AM, drop off my kids to school, wait till 9AM circumbulating, and at 9AM proceed to the blood bank for blood donation. Then go to RICBL, sort out the procedural lapses there in person, else they will only promise to call you back and never do. All planned, everything should be over by 11AM, then pick the kids up from school, go home eat an early lunch and go for a half day trek to a nearby monastery.

Wow, sounds perfect till you actually start proceeding.

Till the circumbulation it was ok. At the blood bank, you wait what seems like an eternity grappling with the temptation to just leave without waiting. One part of the neuron protesting to leave while the other part protesting that the blood is donated not for the staffs but for a needy being whoever he/she maybe later.  Patiently waiting as if seeking a favour, of course you are seeking a favour from the qualified personnel to help someone in need later.   

Then coming out of the hospital, as I drive away from the parking lot, the guy comes for the parking fee and says Nu.15 madam. I smile and joke at him, next time please tell your doctor/staff to keep me longer so that they get more parking fees for the development of the hospital. He smiles back at me.

Now, as I drive away slowly I am wondering if I can make it to the other office. I am sure there I will have to wait another 90minutes or more, which will automatically make me waste the rest of the day.

And there goes all my other plans down the drain………….ruined just for a unit of blood!!!

MAYBE I JUST DON”T KNOW HOW TO MANAGE MY TIME

A Beautiful Stranger

Once in a while you chance upon incidents/places/faces that wake you up from the slumber of ignorance and selfishness. I have had two of such rare incidents; first was my fatal accident which allowed my heart to open to the entire space. It was then that I began loosening my grips of my own perceived reality. It was a kind of a logical transcendence that flashed an inkling of feelings that what you perceive as the reality around is not so much the absolute truth.

Just as when the effects of my first incident began to fade which eventually was threatening me into old grips of mundane woes of life, I chanced upon this rare soul, who flickers a fresh light of dawn on me again. How in the world, would I have even imagined there could be a living personality of what was only being read of? In the complex world of hypocrisy and fabrication, this soul that stood before me beaming with all the virtues only heard of knocked me back to my consciousness that there is hope for everything. “Hope is what keeps evolution moving”, he claimed with full authority. Yes, I agreed with an instant nod of my head. “He is larger than life”, was the description my other friend gave who was just mesmerized by the genuine treatment “the Stranger” bestowed.

Coming across a person who is truly living the concepts of what Buddhism propounds, inspired and encouraged me to live with courage and perseverance in enlightened values and principles you hold dearly. I remember reading somewhere that life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans. I didn’t plan for a blessed weekend, but it surely was one of the best moments of my life. Mesmerizing virgin landscape compounded by the simplicity and genuineness of my companions rekindled my hope of finding endangered authentic species of mankind. For now my life is too precious and every second matters, I can’t afford to get lost in the maze of daily mundane happenings, and I realized that more of my precious life is dictated by hope and fear.  

Back to Land in Japan

Heading back to the lands...a move to address unemployment by the japanese is a refreshing news. Back home our own lands are increasingly deserted while the land owners cramp in the urban cities settling with odd jobs. It's a hope someday we would see our own folks heading back to our villages and live in harmony as they did in our grandparent's time.

We can't blame the leavers either..for they are facing all the hardships in the urban cities only for the sake of "better life", particularly better education and health care for their kids.

Falling Prey to e-mail spams

Nigerian stung...........one thing I cannot fathom is how people tend to get fooled by such emails. We get hundreds of such mails which looks genuine from Bill Gates wanting to share his fortune with "us", to UK lotteries, to Relative with same surname's sudden death. This just indicates how much we can be tempted with "money" and get fooled and bruised.

In Korea, there were few cases of fraud involving email blackmails or even phone threats, and as a measure to protect the people, everytime you go to transfer money to other accounts, a warning is displayed on the ATM asking whether you are doing the transfer after receiving a threatening call or an email. I guess this is a very small step but helpful one.

Maybe our TV operators/BBSC can do some small braodcasts on things like this, just to drill some kind of suspicion in our otherwise naive populace.

An Apology

She was confined to her room, stuck with a contagious virus. She lay in bed, listening to her favourite tracks, and her wondering thoughts about everything that happened to her for the past four years. She stopped at the thought of one “phase”, and began to explore further. Ever since she could remember, her priority in life was to be educated well and nothing came in-between her goal, and her life. She completed her studies well and got a decent job. As her new phase of life started, she began to meet various people, online and offline, her view of the world expanded, and then came the fashion of chats. It was easier to express behind a screen than face to face.

One of her occasional chats, there was a nick that sounded so bogged down and beaten with life. Fooled by her own principle of ignorant compassion, she felt the guy was totally wronged, little did she know then that everybody loves to share the sad stories of their life more than they would like to appreciate their good times.

It all started with “aii”, and the stubbornness in her inflated with the belief that she is being a friend to someone who needed a friend,( how naïve!). There were stories all over, her low profile presence became highly publicized, which only made her more stubborn to fight for her beliefs. So began, a battle of her so called “values” against the world’s fashioned view, and it only turned ugly.

She wanted to run away from the maddening crowd, to some place where she could rebuild herself back to what she was just two years ago. As luck would have it, she was to leave soon.

That day, lying down in her bed, she scanned her reactions back then, and it embarrassed her. She made a fool out of herself in the madness of “being divine”. She wondered if she could ever cross paths with the people she wronged out of ignorance.

With utmost remorse and regret she closed her eyes, and whispered, “I AM SORRY.”

Samsaric Drama

She was just over an year old when I first saw her. Her mother was just anyother iliterate woman from the village whose husband has joined the army and has been away. The father never saw the two children being born, didn't even care. With her mother so attached to her little son, I could see the pain and jealousy in her heart over the brother who snatched her place before the time. She would steal moments to sit on her mother's lap, and sometimes try to suck some milk, only to be pushed away.

I gradually won her confidence and she began to get attached to me, every time I reach home she would wait expecting "frooti" and something-didn't matter what.

As days passed, she would call me "Ama", and her own mother aunty. She began to feel wanted, and she began to get settled to things around her. she would associate herself more with me than her own parents. She couldn't live without me. Unfortunately, her father took another wife and left them (X wife with two beautiful children). Months later her mother had a new husband, and the whole history repeated. Gradually both she and her brother were left out in the cold, just lucky enough to be cared by their old grand parents. I couldn't believe someone could have such a heart to not love such two innocent, wonderful souls.

If parenting is all about just giving birth, I don't want t be a parent; but if it means loving and feeling the joy seeing these children grow feeling secured, I am all ready to be one.

Now she is going to school, and when people ask about her parents , all she says is her "Ama" went to Paro Pokto.........

She and her brother will be loved, and they will have the best of everything in life to grow up to be a better person, sans a father for now. There can be no better purpose for my life than bringing these two kids up and watch them grow into fine man and woman.