Home, A Place of Happiness

I can’t hide the fact that when I wrote the last entry Longing for a Place to Call Home, I was gripped by fear. Fear of change as I was embarking into the unknown. Today, I realise that I was too attached to an ideal state of happiness. As if there’s a particular location which guarantees one’s happiness. I was also afraid of change and a transition that appeared to threaten the very core of who I am.

Even if I still feel a strong need to be in silence and for contemplation, the fact is that it was a mistake to think that a particular place can guarantee my peace and happiness. I realise that I can be in that place of peace in the present, wherever I am. Happiness, I am reminded, isn’t something that can be bought or attained by external objects. While objects we desire might give us momentary happiness, the feeling quickly fades away. And we find ourselves longing, wanting and craving for another object which appears to hold the promise of happiness.

Now that eight days have passed since I moved in to my new house, I am hopeful that it’ll become my home as well. I have learned a lot from my own self and in relating to the others who are sharing in this experience. I know that I may still be scared of change. I learned that when it feels I’m isolated, instead of reaching out to people, I tend to distance myself more. And, most importantly, I have realised that the more we hide from what seems to be an oppressive reality, the more problems and challenges appear insurmountable - until the only reaction is for us to escape or deny ourselves the chance to explore other possibilities or solutions.

This post appears to be a happy ending to a tale that appeared to end on a tragic note. However, these last hours have opened my mind to the possibility that, maybe, if I wasn’t so resistant to change, I could make things work. I can always find a place of peace and refuge in my heart. I recognise that there can be no lasting happiness in a material world that remains impermanent, prone to a cycle of entropy. I can’t even be sure of a reality beyond this life. However, what I am sure of is that as long as I remain aware of the present moment and appreciate its preciousness and uniqueness, I can be truly happy.

Life may be hard or draw us in moments of sadness and melancholy. We may be robbed of all our possessions and denied our friends. And, still, we can be happy. Yes, this is a tall order and I’m still far off from achieving such kind of happiness. For one can be rich or have all the things one desires and still be unhappy. Indeed, happiness isn’t simply an emotion or a feeling. 

Happiness is a state of being...

Renewing Trust After Betrayal

Recent experiences where I was misled and deceived led me to question once again, my trust in other people. In the past, I had been taken for a ride so many times because I was young, inexperienced or even because I was disabled and different. I had also my fair share of disappointments were I built high hopes and expectations, only to discover these were just hollow illusions. In time, I would start to trust again and took care in choosing well whom to trust.

However, we remain human. And, despite my meditation practice, there are things that can blind, metaphorically, the best of us. Not that I’m the best. The point is that when the self hears things that it likes to hear, it tends to lower its usual defences. And, as the illusionary ego grows and grows, it has the tendency to take over common sense. From then on, there is a danger that the delusion becomes reality and, in effect, any doubts are countered by irrational thinking, you’ve reached a point of no return.

Thus, when you learn that all your time and energy you invested was entrusted to deceitful people who just want to exploit your pride for their own advantage, then there is your reality collapses. You wake up from a dream into a hard reality. And, as in my case, you only want to hide away and cry. You start blaming the people who betrayed your trust. You want to find a way out. You don’t want to face the fruits of your mistakes. You even try to pretend it never happened. And you return back to reality, you cry and cry until you want to escape from the fact that you’ve been betrayed.

Even if other people may have had a large part to play in breaking your trust, deep inside you blame yourself for being too trusty or even stupid for not spotting the red lights. Then, you discover that you are angry at yourself. At letting your guard down and following the chants of the tempting sirens. At that point, you start questioning yourself and, perhaps, doubting all the decisions you take from then on. Not that you didn’t do this before but, now, there’s greater suspicion and mild paranoia. Can you recover from betrayal? Can you trust again?
Some time has passed since these events took place in my life. I haven’t yet recovered from the feeling of being betrayed. I am not fully recovered from a feeling that I am still vulnerable. In this sense, this was a painful experience but also a wake up call. It reminded me that inasmuch as I have moved forward in these couple of years, I will never be completely immune from temptation, emotion and desire.

I remain human with all the good and bad that comes with being human. Whether or not I renew my trust depends on many factors. What I can say is that there’s no magic formula. People are people. The nicest of human beings are capable of deceiving or betraying you if they believe they’re somewhat justified in their actions. Yet, it’s impossible not to trust anyone in the world. The very foundations of human society is based on a degree of trust. We trust that the water we drink is safe. We trust that the food we eat is free from poisons or contaminants. We trust that the builders who build our houses used the right material. The list is endless.

The only thing we can do is to be aware of who we are. To be mindful of what we are thinking. To take the time to know yourself. My mistake was that I noticed the warning signs but I chose to ignore them in pursuit of a flight of fancy. If I had been perhaps more receptive to the thoughts that were going through my mind before I took the wrong decisions, I might have prevented all this from happening in the first place.

While I will try to be more careful in whom I place my trust, there’s no guarantee that I’ll be forever safe. For, unfortunate as it may be, human beings will continue to find more subtle ways to betray and deceive others. On the other hand, you cannot give up on trust completely. Knowing yourself is a great way to protect yourself but it isn’t foolproof.

And when you’re betrayed, you should have the courage to accept what is and take remedial action if you can..

But denying it will only render you a slave to the betrayer.

A slave to your own self.

The Shackles of Attachment

We may go on through life chasing a dream, drowning our pain and failure in pleasure. We may even obsess about achieving a position, making more money and buying possessions which, we become convinced, will make us happy. We may lose ourselves in the pursuit of a love interest or, on the other extreme, strive to escape from the reality which we feel is the cause of our unhappiness.

While our circumstances and positions of life may indeed be the source of our suffering, we cannot address our unhappiness if we aren’t aware of who we are. For, in searching for external factors to find our happiness won’t solve the problem on its own. If when I was a teenager, I had remained attached to the past when I could walk more, I might have probably achieved nothing in my life - except perhaps hoping in a miracle.

However, I took a more pragmatic approach and invested in a wheelchair. Even if I was reluctant to be seen using my wheelchair, I had to accept that my life changed and I couldn’t cling to a past that was no more. Over the years, I did have moments when I recall, with nostalgia, the many things I used to do as a child. Yet, I also recognise that in letting go of my attachment to an idealised past, I was choosing to live. Of course, many have described my life in many ways for continuing to live on.

Yet, the way I see it, I followed a very human quality we all have. I adapted to new circumstances. Part of that adaptability requires of us to let go of our attachments or to afflictive desires. We must adapt to change, for if we didn’t change, we would die to life. We would suffer the pains of dissatisfaction or dukkha. The only way to move on is to recognise that as long as aren’t prepared to recognise the illusion of our wanting, we will never be truly happy.

For, whether we accept it or not, life changes all the time. Even our identities, self-definition, religion, philosophies, politics, or aspirations are not permanent. Yes, they may form important parts of who we are today, but they are not us. Who we are goes beyond all the shackles that hinder our full being, clouds that hide from us our authentic beings and barriers that create divisions between each other.

Today, as a practicing meditator following Buddhist principles, I acknowledge how many identities I have adopted in an attempt to fit in a world, I felt didn’t understand who I was. I still feel isolated at times and misunderstood as well. However, I realise that before I expected the world to accept who I was, I was the first who has to make an effort to understand the world. Even if people still binds me to a social position and a fixed identity, I acknowledge the fact that I remain a human being.

For all I am doing or what I am doing is only borne out of a need to assert my human status. Even if I may identify more closely with certain groups of people, I am learning the importance of cultivating a compassion that genuinely seeks to understand others. A compassion where I listen and not jump to conclusions. A compassion that recognises our basic vulnerability and dependence as human beings.

For nothing in this world will last forever. A life that seeks happiness in material things on their own is doomed to be a life of dissatisfaction. It’s only when we accept life as it is and do our best to reduce unnecessary suffering can we be truly happy. It’s only when we open our heart to who we are and to the hearts of others can we be truly satisfied.

Nothing else matters...

Trivial Pursuit

We all seek to be happy and to find peace. Yet, many of us struggle to sustain a state of peace and happiness for much long. We are often taken up by factors present in the world around us. We often trust that our peace and happiness will come from the money we make, our social standing, the things we possess and our reputation (((to name just a few). We attempt to search for peace and happiness in external things which like a toy that, following our initial excitement and joy, joins the rest of the pile of old toys because we have outgrown it or have set our minds on something else.

The fact is that we cannot find any long lasting peace and happiness in external things. You must have heard this before but the way we live appears to suggest we don’t believe it. Instead, we believe that having more, achieving fame and fortune, acquiring goods and possessions, etc will bring about a life of peace and happiness. Sadly, I am not immune from this delusion myself. Many were the things I thought would improve my life and make me happy. Many were the things I believed would be solutions. But, when I think about it, these external objects were not the solutions to my problems. They only served to quench my desire for a short time, leaving behind them broken hopes and aspirations.

I believe that the main reason we fill our lives with what is external to us is because we feel empty inside. As a result, we fuel our desire for peace and happiness by wrongly attaching ourselves to objects we think we have power over or which we think we can control. But ironically, it is these objects through our attachment to them that end up conditioning our lives. They don’t control our lives but it is we who choose to let them rule over our lives. In this way, we give them an existence that they do not have in their own right. In believing that they can give us happiness or peace, we provide them with qualities they do not possess. Once we truly appreciate the implication of this realisation of the emptiness of things, the more we can understand how searching for happiness outside of ourselves is but a pointless and trivial pursuit.

The Fruits of Cooperation

When I was still a teenager, I participated in a simple enough team building exercise. A balloon was tied to our legs and the only instruction we received was to make sure that we preserved our balloon for five minutes. The person who still had a balloon tied to his or her leg after five minutes,won the game. At the time, I could still walk but it I couldn't compete with others. As the exercise started, every one proceeded to burst the other's balloon. I don't recall how long my balloon remained intact but it didn't take long I am sure. By the end of the exercise, all balloons were burst and no one had saved the balloon. While this exercise might seem childish, as I reflect more on the concept of interdependence, the more I realise how this simple exercise speaks volumes about human nature that is under the illusion that it's independent of others and which believes that it exists in its own right.

Like the participants in the balloon exercise, we assume that the only way to make it through life is to be better than others. That by resorting to any means to get what we want, we will gain happiness. True, we may feel happy and proud of having prevailed after winning over our competition but are we really winners? What if we made sure that our happiness doesn't have to come at the expense of others' happiness? Indeed, what if we helped in enriching the lives of others by making sure they find their own happiness? That we help them gain freedom from suffering created by a belief that the only happiness can be attained if they had it for themselves? or for a select few? These are not easy questions and in today's world, with its stress on individuality and competition, it might be unfashionable to speak of community and cooperation.

In this sense, our lives are not that different from the situation faced in the balloon exercise. In an attempt to preserve our happiness and protect our identity, we assume that the only way to be happy is by having something more than our neighbour. When, if you think about it, if we just waited those five minutes without bursting our peer's balloons, we could have all been winners! But it only took one to start the havoc. Perhaps it can take one person to start the change for the better. And this person may be you or me.

It's really our choice...

A Personal Meditation on the Body and Attachment

The practice of meditation is making me more aware of whom I am. I can say that now I feel more in control of my thoughts and feelings. Indeed, that’s what mindfulness is all about. Taking responsibility for how you react to the world around you. While you can’t help feeling how you feel at times or the way you think – especially in particular situations where you react because you have strong opinions and emotions about a specific topic, if you are aware of what is going on through your mind at that moment, there’s a greater chance you can control your reaction.

Being mindful, I soon realised was not that easy as I thought. It requires a certain degree of self-discipline but it’s worth every effort. I admit that it’s difficult to keep from reacting in the manner you’ve grown used to for years. Yes, there were occasions when I let anger or resentment, for example, get the better of me. That is why I feel it's important for me to find a time to contemplate on my life in the wider context of my human existence. For as I delve deeper into self-awareness, I am realising how much my self is influenced by society and my background. But I was still caught rather off guard when my reflections took me back to my childhood. To the darker times of my early life.

Don't get me wrong - I had a happy childhood. But one thing bothered me. My body – the fact I had a mobility impairment. In truth, my impairment didn’t worry me that much until the age of 5 or 6. By that age, I had adapted to my impairment and found no real problems with the fact I walked differently. However, as I started attending school, I noticed that mostly the adults around me treated me differently –. In time, I understood that people had an issue with the fact I walked perhaps in an odd way.

Slowly but surely, my greatest desire was to walk like the other boys in my class. Since we present ourselves to the world through our bodies, if our bodies are rejected or considered 'inferior', it's inevitable that we also feel rejected as persons. Indeed, my greatest suffering wasn't caused by my impairment but with the fact that society appeared to exclude me as a person. Indeed, as a young boy, I started to believe that I was the problem. I had to change.

The fact that these ideas were reinforced by science, on the one hand, and religion, on the other, left me with a deep sense of guilt. I wanted to improve. I wanted to walk properly. Was I doing enough? Was I praying well? Was I being punished for a sin I did? Was I letting my family and loved ones down? Was I really deep down, a bad boy? All these thoughts fuelled further my desire to walk properly without tiring so much. With all the good intentions, even my family thought that my life would be much better if I could walk like other children. I was made to undergo physiotherapy, attend a faith healing service and, yes, was taken to Lourdes when very young to be 'cured'. I was holy, sinful, broken, deformed, inspirational etc etc All at the same time!!

Now that I thought I had grown out of all this I discover that there's still part of me that thinks I am not good enough because I have an impairment. Make those 2 impairments. And while it's painful to know that I am still affected by the exclusion I felt as a child and my attempts to be like other children, it's also a liberating experience. For that I have become aware of my attachment to an idea of a 'perfectly' working body and while I cannot undo the past, I can let go of this clinging that I realise is still there in my mind.

For, at the end of the day, by hoping against hope that I can walk again, would be hoping for the impossible. It would be like throwing a ball and wishing that it would rise up instead of falling down. It would be like believing that by simply having faith, you can go against the laws of nature. It would be like believing that we will get healthier or stronger as we age. It would be like putting all your energy on an unrealistic goal. While I can't completely discard the possibility of miracles, I believe that we cannot live our lives expecting one to happen.

After all, as I am learning from my meditation, our life often passes us by but we often miss noticing it. We are too absorbed in our own inner minds. We tend to be trapped in a cycle of action and reaction with little time to think about those around us. Until it's too late.

Living a life without contemplating our existence can only guarantee that we don't even get to know who we really are. And, surely, that is the greatest tragedy of all as we remain stuck in a false reality chained to our ignorance, desire and attachment.

A Prayer for Happiness

I want to drift away to a place of peace,

Where love dwells and wisdom grows.

I want to get rid of the chains of the self -,

To be free from its hollow  illusions.

Always crying for attention,

Never full but always wanting.

I want to learn not to take life for granted.

For none is permanent and absolute.

All is subject to the laws of life.

And no matter what, we all must die

I want to be more humble.

For all I am and all I have

Is not my own but is a gift of life

In all its shapes and forms.

I only want to bro 

In love and compassion,

The refuge of my soul.

Free from ignorance.

Free from craving.

Free from hate.

One and many.

In authentic happiness.