The Function of Plans

Like a dog chasing its own tail, we might look back at our lives wondering whether the tasks or endeavours that we have been so busily engaged in bear any significant meaning.  One goal after another, there is always a never-ending search.  From material attainment to abstract, from physical fulfilment to emotional, from tactile yearning to imaginary.  They might give us a temporary satisfaction every time we achieve our goals but it is always short-lived and unsustainable.  And when our plans do not work, our attempts appear futile and fruitless thus cementing our sense of failure. By perpetually identifying a target to shoot, we also derive a plan to achieve that.  We then hold onto a false sense of security and convince ourselves that the plan will bring us to where we are.

Yet if we do not swim against the tide and go with the flow, we always end up at the right place at the right time with the right people.  It is not to imply that we should pay no effort and forgo all planning, for that will also create chaos and confusion in our world.  But we have to bear in mind that all our plans only allow us to strategise and create structure in this reality.  And it always deviates us from the here and now and brings us to a future moment.  It does not have a function of providing any real security for us and never has.  The real security lies in us trusting our own selves and the universe that everything will turn out to be fine whatever the result is.    

Spiritual Immunity

Our contemporary world is susceptible to epidemics and diseases, rendering us helpless and vulnerable.  Intriguingly, the way we react to such a phenomenon is very reflective of our own psyche and attitude towards sickness and death.  While this maybe a knee-jerk reaction, we need to pause and give ourselves the opportunity to contemplate.  We are ill when our bodies are of low frequency caused by our emotions, mindset, lifestyle, diet or environment.  Or more likely, it might be an accumulation of all the above.  Being the first external "object" being projected from our mind, our body is the first line of defence.  Addressing the issue with fear will further lower our frequency and weaken our bodies' natural ability to heal.  The right attitude is to boost our immunity and more importantly, keep our emotional and mental health in check.  Perhaps it is worth you pondering on the disturbances deep within.  How is it that you feel insecure?  What are you afraid of losing?  What is it that is being triggered?  Can you challenge all those beliefs driven by fear that might no longer serve you?

Empathy, Compassion and Altruism

Empathy is not only essential for our spiritual practice, but also from the standpoint of human evolution.  We belong to a tribal setting and are born to be connected to each other and interdependent.  The need to belong is hardwired in our brains and solidly imprinted on our DNA.  Our everyday life has already demonstrated how every facet of it is a function of the whole, but it is through emotional connection that humans can grow and transcend as a species.  How to connect and with what?  Empathy.

Simply put, empathy is the ability to be in someone else's shoes.  When we are able to take the perspective of another individual and see where that person comes from, we will be able to recognise, understand and feel his or her emotions.  Compassion goes one step beyond.  It comes with a moral intent.  It involves the wish for someone to be happy and the desire to alleviate the suffering of the other.  While a person may be empathetic and compassionate, he or she may not be altruistic; though the former two qualities are bedrock for the latter.  With altruism, there is a sense of selflessness associated and a genuine belief that the well-being of others is equally or more important than that of the self.  It involves selfless acts or behaviour that will benefit another individual at a cost to oneself.  Often, the incentive comes from the emotional reward from kind undertakings that render the beholder gratification and fulfilment.

The idea of expecting everyone to be altruistic may be a very utopian concept.  But we can at least practise empathy and compassion on ourselves, expand to our loves ones and eventually on other precious beings in our lives.