Mornings....

morning is a stink of sunny beams...
not much in favor of the sunshine here...
it hurts...
because of various UV reasons...
there's a hole just above us...
the skin scadded...
that tan is not cool...

it whimpers...
i longed the sweat and sunshine in my homeland...
though I sweat...
though it glares...
there are great warmth...
beyond words, beyond the extreme weather...
the humid and dense air filled every morning with every chatter of the birds...

that's how mornings remind me...
of rain and shine...

Something magical...

Some day...
maybe in the several decades to come...
I hope to step on the land of the midnight sun...
of course it is not the Twilight series..
which dazzled so many thousand kids...
This land truly exists....
I would like to wonder under the heavenly lights...
a world so different...
a world apart from the tropics, the four seasoned..
the whales piping their songs so hauntingly...
the glow so  mysterious and magical...
a place where silence speaks of beauty...
a place of ice and dancing waves in the sky...
I longed to reach for the glow..
in the cool mellow wind...
embraced in the energy that resides so mysteriously...
a long forgotten...
a fade scent of its existance...

Puffs in the short street...

A short narrow street...
Filled with puffs from the nature..
puffs from the vehicles...
puffs from the people...
It lies...
taking in all the comfort and discomfort the puffs which swept across its skin...
as frequently as night and day spin...
its cobbled skin caked with dirt and dust...
And its joyous times were of the purifying shower which sends the puffing people scrambling across it...
the puffs make it shiver during its shower...
but those puffs are cleansed too... it pitied the long winding street whose head merely touches its rib...
the body stretches down below... where dirt and dust are swept down from the short street's body.. and over its head.. down to the longest toe...
where once the dirt was its...
they cling tightly to the long winding street... the roughly made body...
and so though the short street is dirt for almost every single broad day light...
it sometimes had the privilege of a brisk cleaning...
and so it often wonder...
does the long winding road had this moment before...
or do the other bending street...
or do the others streets than connect them had ever had it all...
as as far as it could see.. it was stacked all above them....

Living light...

Steps trotted...
people with suitcases hurried by...
Working in a windowless room is no fun...
And the chill in there was so impossibly real...
The sun shone brightly showering part of the table in the opposite room with golden specks...
facing the radiation for long hours is no fun...
That is when i wished i could burst into the open air..
a clearing... overgrown with green and soft moss flooring...
the feet will go pad pad pad over it as they skipped joyously to the tune of carefree past times...
borderless... even when sky meets at the horizon...
it's a thousand times better than to face four walls of peeling grey wash...
I would exchange for a hearing of the horses neigh... than the typing keys of a keyboard and the dull clicking mouse...
The world outside awaits...As i rattled away in the glum stuffy space...

Endless...

There is a case of thug...
There in a minute your flesh unharmed,  in another it tore...
Yet in another it healed or rot... either ways...it is always the same...
The water purifies itself in a cycle... rivers into vapours into clouds into rain into seas and streams... everything is in circles....
That is where every tiny little thing starts and fades...
the momentum was as if a cursed chain...
binds the wits... things drag on...
you bathe...
You ar clean but not for long...
your body smells after a certain time...
you never stay purified for long...
yet although the processing of getting stinky is fast...
the purification is slow...
nothing stays purified for long...
are dirt really dirt when it starts out?
a means to cling makes dust a dirt...
when it clings, refusing to barge, it grows...
when it grows... it accumulates..
alongside claims other recollections of its own...
when they collide...
they attract..
the essence arose...
thus, the stench...

Soon...

Soon dawn will unveil...
to the flutter of perhaps a cloudy sky...
the wind is quiet today...
Everything is....
I have seen a few lanterns dangling...
but are they meaningful...
I would like to stretch my arms out wide...
towards my loved ones....
across the sea..between horizons...
there are no laughter,
nor tears...

there will be only contentment...
a cove hidden so,
fins are seen...
but yet to be discovered...
what lies below...
what lays there...
only the knowing at that time
spell the most exact notion...
of what lies below...
a current,
or undercurrent..
who knows,
is the trapped glow of dawn...
the glow that will soon be united...
when heavens meet the morning dawn...

Things that matter...

All this time... Work has been good... I must say the working hours aren't too long neither are they short... I had moved to a windowless room... The stuffy room makes it hard to get a change of inspiration...
New Year is just arouund the corner... Yet there isn't any festive mood here... The walk to uni was as usual filled with people of all sorts, mostly students... New faces who are present for summer school.. Exhaustion was inevitable for me as all I need to do is stare at the desktop all day long...

Browsing through videos after work was fortunately not that stressful.. My mind wonders around imagining the festive mood in my hometown... though it would be quite a sleepy hole, things would never be like what I experience in a foreign country.. No programmes, no special events... except maybe on this coming 21st...I would have to see how they celebrate it here... A little progress which captured my eye along the short stretch of road, few lanterns hanging silently on the lamp post.... No festive songs... Not a word breathe about it... Yet, those lanterns fill a little part of me with a fade warmth... I wonder whether they lit up at night...

The greatest dissappointment was the muddled mind of someone who does not care about this celebration... They got the wrong zodiac for this year...Wake up, it's the year of the water dragon silly... Simply dreadful.. They care not of reunions, they care not for merry-making,  of being with friends and family.. All they care is to get drunk during the festive season... that's their partying.. that's their so called happiness... Such indulgence...

It is regretful that they knew not of the joys of get togethers and the bond in collectivist culture... Well, after all they do not share the greatest of minds either... After all those things are trivial matters for them... Leading a half drunken life...

A Blessing...

Although I haven't heard any dhamma talks for quite a long time, the online streaming was a wonderful one...I feel blessed for opening my page at the right moment to actually see it...

I pray hard that the life that is the cause and end of suffering can be a productive one to know the extends of the Buddha's teaching ...The four fears as I heard in Chatuma Sutta... This I will share with those who visited my blog...
Fear of waves - Anger caused by pride...
Fear of Crocodiles - glutinity... temptation of food...
Fear of whirlpools - unguarded senses... the five sensory pleasures
Fear of Sharks - attraction towards the opposite gender... lust....
all these are obstacles to those who wanted to deepen their cultivation...

The first fear that I am determined to overcome is the fear of whirlpools...
it is hard not to fear them... as it is easy to get carried away...
carried away by senses... are indulgence of worldly conditions...those that are temporary...

During the course of listening to the Sutta Study session, someone happened to ask to separate children who come to the monestry with their parents... I feel that it should not be done... Children who are brought to the monastry at a very young age gets more exposure to dharmma teachings and monks and other venerable lay people who could guide them... Yes, they may be noisy, but through the course of the constant exposure, they are able to gain self discipline as time goes by... Those children who follow the dharmma will not be lost easily in their paths.. I feel that it is the greatest blessing that the parents could offer to their children... I have been brought up by such parents... It is the blessing that they have given me, that drives me towards the path...



 

Difference of 'What Ifs' and 'Should Haves'...

When  you live longer, the what if list grew too...
ten years from now,
five years from now...
I'll be sitting somewhere in a corner thinking about what ifs...
life could have been different with the what ifs...
the what if turns into regrets, but not always, sometimes it is a relief...
A chance given to ponder about what ifs is ideal...
as we sit there thinking about what ifs,
we definitely made a decent if not good chance,
we might not be sitting here thinking about what ifs comfortably if it hadn't turn out to be a finer one...
When we are just thinking about what ifs, it is not a sign of remorse...
it is just the curiousity of an alternative that we missed...
when 'what ifs' are replaced by 'should haves', it takes a different note,
'should haves' show remorse...

Thinking a lot makes you think more...
that's what I did today over lunch break...
overlooking a spectacular view of the tennis court surrounded by lush greenery...

Satisfaction...

Sometimes living the time without any care is a suffering..
too much of a good thing is bad too...
When there is some drive to keep your life going...
First time experiencing it and you feel exhausted - yet not being able to rest well...
Second time almost the same feeling, but there is a sense of achievement there...
Third time, the satisfaction overrides exhaustion...
By the end of the day, when you had try stretching your limit in the job that is assigned...
It is another form of pure bliss...
A sense of satisfaction for not letting time tick away carefreely...
As I caught up with time...

Places...

Places and people...
they create each other...
What is there to awe...
the difference of the different...
as new as an experience is...
new turns wary...
wary becomes norm...
norm becomes banal...
so to turn it over, switching is constant...
thus the new stays constant...

Where travelers go...
They see the front and back of a difference...
thus, not dazzled...
their change becomes a banality...
and banalities are just seeing the awed as norm...
So their travelling is not a big deal...

When the last piece of land is covered...
Well, the world is certainly small in time...

What I See...

The long break had certainly provide many insights for me... where I have been and what I had done has certainly get me ponder a lot more... there are worlds within worlds, yet there are none at all... cycles after cycles, the same mundane spring of life... makes everything seems exciting?  I only mind the thinking that grow deep now... Many things that we should be pondering, we neglected... this web which we put against ourselves... So I conclude, working too much doesn't make you think in a more progressive ways, it just helps us to think in a more creative ways of how to manipulate our work and increase productivity... and where is the us in us... at the end of the day, the lesson would be, I have typed a page of words more quickly or I have thought of a cunning way which no one had ever thought of... That makes people arrogant workaholics...

A few days ago I went out to set some household stuff right (which was fruitless that day) and was just about to return to the nest when a woman in late twenties sat beside me waiting for the bus... It was a sunny day, I was hot and bothered... sweating a lot for the first time under a minor circumstance of just a brisk long walk... She sat obviously in my direction and enquired whether I was waiting for the same red shuttle... It was a delightful moment of chatting with her... She quited her job and gather everything from California to tour around the world... That would never have happened for people who loathe insecurity... It would definitely be an unsettling and daring move to do... Well, not that surprising actually that most people do backpacking to release their long suppressed  stress... It was a delightful thought, but how many of us actually have the guts to do it? Being so uncertain in life... so carefree yet so frustrating... when weariness gets better of the carefree... in exchange, frustration grows... feelings after feelings interchange... Isn't this tiring? What could be left without a second ponder and what you simply could not let go? it is agonizing... words upon words that people write, wrote or had written.. it is also repetitive... It was as if you had climbed the cliffs and when you are tired, you refuse to let it go despite there is a safe landing spot (guaranteed) hovering just few metres below, and a firm harness which will gently lower you to it once you ease your grip? Life - it is just a meter of movements...

Back to life...

I stopped my sharing for a while as line wasn't accessible... Now that I am back... It is great to be able to stare at the lappy, posting whatever that comes to mind....
the previous post was written in a public area... hateful scanning eyes all around kills the mood of feeling what I feel...
holidays is awesome so far... the countdown in this country was a neck - breaking one... cause I strained my neck to witness the so called spectacular fireworks... hmmm, not really as impressive as the one during RWC... days without the net was a good thing too although the mood in the house was a bit dull... but still, books were and are around....
job starting soon too... I hope I'll managed it well...

Once again...

As time challenges, I felt challenged...
A new tide, a new dawn...
where I am at a peak - a point of ending....
I realised a silver path upwards...
another mountain of glacier to conquer...
the clouds cleared...
revealing just enough for me to make out several steppable footings that seem not like trails,
but yet they are trails...
ones that I knew so well yet I do not...
those that I could step on, cling on, claw on, heave myself upon... manageable but uncertain...
And yet I knew, these I would endured...
for when time comes I would realised not a peak which stands in my way, but loads of other peaks to conquer once I came to the narrowed end of a beginning...which opens a begining...
Things spin...
whirling loads of stuff...
 what I absorbed, what I do not...
all lie...
I absorbed what I could, and what I could not I leave..
the ending, the beginning...
all such are 'once agains' all the time which are 'once-upon-a-time's...