Giving Back- yet another angle

Giving back as described by Bernake is giving back to society what we have benefited including the good fortune to be born with intelligence, strong physiques, good look and in a privileged environment.


Recently I gathered a new concept about "Giving back" from a podcast talk. Giving back takes on a new meaning when viewed as giving back all that we are. "All that we are?" What are we in the first place? Here is my own interpretation or how I feel about it. I guess basically we are given a form, sensations, thoughts and consciousness, something we inherit from the universe. Giving back is intrinsically returning this being to the universe, this borrowed self. When you think along these lines, it gives you a sense that "it's not all about me" and helps loosen the grasp on your identity. Everything about 'me' begins to shed some significance. It can be quite liberating. It also makes you feel the urge to do something nurturing.

Giving back for me is more like reconnecting as if I want to suffuse myself with the largeness. Working and engaging with children helps me achieve this in some small ways. Being with nature is another. Small ways but they do bring joy.

Changing scene in Hokkaido

Visited Hokkaido during the second week of November. First thing the local tour guide commented was about the time we chose to visit as the last autumn leaves have fallen and the snow has yet to come. Despite the barren trees, the grayish landscape can actually be quite beautiful in its own way. I would have enjoyed the scenery more had I not googled (marveling at the stunningly colourful fields in summer and the brilliant lights during the snow festival in winter) and blamed myself continuously for not doing more research on the best time to visit. This is a typical example of not enjoying the moment fully, clouded by the thought of missing on something better, in simple word 'greed'.

Then out of the blue, just 2 days before the tour ended, the weather took pity on us and delighted us with some light drifting snow flakes. That night it turned into a heavy snowfall and I watched in bewilderment from the hotel window the grounds and the cars gathering layers after layers of snow. The next day as we retraced the route we had travelled before, the sceneries had changed overnight into miles and miles of white landscape, a far cry from the yellowish brown fields the day before. A thick blanket of white covered the horizon. Snow was everywhere leading right up to the doorway of houses. I wondered about people living in temperate countries, how they need to adapt to waking up in the morning to find they could not get out of their house, and how they need to react accordingly.

As miles and miles of whiteness rolled before my eyes I felt the meaning of change at another level, its unpredictability, its suddenness and how it can be beyond control. It is similar with life I guess. One needs to be prepared and have the shovel ready to clear the snow when it blocks the doorway.

Working with Fears

Heard this podcast on working with fears. A saying mentioned therein which I thought worthy of deeper understanding is "as long as you imagine yourself to be something tangible and solid, a thing amongst things, you seem short lived and vulnerable and you will be anxious to survive. But when you know yourself to be beyond space and time you will be afraid no longer".

Though I may not fully comprehend, what holds true for me is the feeling that the tighter one holds onto a solid self, the more fears one has to overcome. This is becauses there will be much to protect and uphold and much fears of losing.

Having said that it is precisely this primal survival instinct that kept humans alive for generations. Without the fight or flight instincts the human species would long have been wiped out. In today's world however the majority of people are rarely in physical danger; yet people all over are plagued by fear and anxieties. This arises largely from how one views oneself amongst others, basically there is a lot of judging.

The talk then suggested ways to work with fears which include:

1. Trying to feel into something larger or sensing the truth of our belonging or that oceaness. 
There are several ways to do this, direct ways to calm our nerves. One is through sensing the connection with the earth like feeling the weight of our feet on the ground or the sense of gravity. Another way is through our breadth; where with each slow in breadth we feel our body and with each out breadth we feel our way into something larger. We can also touch our nervous heart or belly spreading warmth over the nervous body.

2. Remembering Love
Recall and remember the loving energy of someone or visualise any source of loving connection. This can be your mother or grandma, a deity or spiritual figure or even nature. It is important to show gestures of kindness to oneself through say a simple warm touch of the hand or heart or words of kindness for oneself.

3. Having sensed that oceaness or largeness, contact the waves
After feeling the space and the connectedness into something larger we then meet the fear. With a more stable and collected self, feel the fear in our body. Take notice of the part in our body that hurts or is constricted. Take deep breadths as we watch the fear. In the largeness of things and the loving sense of belonging even though the fear is still present it does not seem so intimidating and is more manageable. A simile given is like putting dye in a lake instead of dye in a basin of water.

I think these are good suggestions to be put into practice and acquire as habits.
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