Plank in the eye

I was listening to a Buddhist podcast on how to respond to difficult people. The story goes that there was this very difficult, angry and fault finding guy who went to test out Buddha's tolerance threshold. He spewed insults on Buddha to see his reaction. Buddha asked the man what would happen if he offered someone a gift and the later did not accept it. The man replied he would have to bring it home for his own use. Likewise Buddha told the man he would have to bring home all his "gifts" as Buddha did not take them

I thought this story would be a good one to tell my teenage client who often finds people around him intolerable and difficult.  However since he came from a Christian family I thought a teaching from the Bible may be helpful. From the web I found these verses from Mathew relevant:

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ....first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

The Buddhist podcast had ended with a guide on metta meditation, a meditation on loving kindness towards the person whom we find difficult, quietly saying in our heart:
May you be happy
May you be safe
May you be healthy
May you live with ease

Since it may be difficult to go straight into wishing a difficult person well, we were guided to initially wish ourselves well with the same phrases. As I practiced quietly saying these well wishes for myself my body and mind settled into a quiet peace and when I turned the metta practice on the so called difficult person the intensity of adversity towards the person had already dwindled substantially. It dawns on me it was my own mood and the constitution in my mind and body that affect the degree of 'difficulty' I perceived of the person.

The verses in Mathew may be coming from a different context of not judging others so that you will not be judged. However I find the metaphor of a plank in your own eye so very relevant. The very plank so huge but of which we are oblivious is the way we perceived others often aggravated by our mood, misunderstanding and habitual tendencies.

Be it from the Bible or Buddhist teachings, there certainly is something to share with my client. Only I 'll be glad for some divine help whichever source it comes from.

Co-incidences ?

I don't normally bet on 4D but do so once in a blue moon when I have strange encounters involving numbers which seem strangely compelling. Just before Chinese New Year I left my bag in the toilet of a shopping mall. Though I realised it less than 5 minutes later, it was gone when I went to retrieve it. So I lost my handphone and wallet containing amongst other things cash, my IC, credit cards, ATM cards, home keys and a Big Sweep lottery ticket.  I lodged a police report and was in a flurry blocking the cards and getting replacements as well as changing the locks of my home. It gave me the creeps when I imagined the thief going through the contents of my bag and getting a glimpse of my private life including where I stay.  I also wondered whether the lottery ticket won any prize as I had yet to check the result and fantasized the thief becoming an instant millionaire.

Chinese New Year came along and I was too busy to think about the incident. Meanwhile it was in the news that many 铁树 plants in Singapore flowered, a rare occurrence given that these plants only blossom once in 15 to20 years. My garden has one such plant and 4 fragrant stalks of flowers bloomed.

Whilst tossing the "yusheng" during CNY at my mother-in-law's place, my sister in law asked my MIL to randomly utter a 4 digit number for them to place bets on. My MIL uttered "1234" just to humour them. Although I didn't participate in the betting the absence of good news meant the bet money had gone down the drain.

On the first working day after CNY the police informed me that someone had found my bag. Except for the cash and phone all the remaining items were intact including the lottery ticket. The ticket had a 7 digit number that ends with 1234. Just as I was musing at home about the coincidence of the number match  with that of my MIL's random  'lucky number', the thick novel lying on my dining table entitled 4321 by Paul Aster stared me in the face. The almost unthinkable recovery of my bag, the number coincidences together with the rare blooming of the 铁树 in the garden convinced me that there is something mysterious about the number and that signs are heralding something magical to come. As ridiculous as it sounds, I was surprised that 1234 did not win any prize on the draw date when I bet on it.  

One guy called Beitman did some research and found that some people are more prone to having coincidental experiences or maybe perceive so. They are people who describe themselves as spiritual, seeking for meaning or generally people who link external information to themselves.  People are also found to perceive coincidences when they are extremely sad, angry or anxious. A statistician, David Hand said that "extreme improbable events are commonplace....But humans generally aren't great at reasoning objectivity about probability as they go about their everyday lives."

Yet Carl Jung opined that coincidences are the workings of our unconscious mind. Perhaps when I bought the Big Sweep lottery ticket I had subconsciously taken note of the 7 digits. This plus the recent reading of the novel 4321 could have made my unconscious mind sent a telepathy message to my MIL's unconscious mind. Who knows?

Now I wonder who owns Singapore Pool. I won't feel so bad if it is state owned. Though I missed  winning the bet which would have thrilled me into thinking about the secret laws of nature, I am content that the money goes back to the state.

Those Forked Roads

My observation during a bus journey yesterday led me to rethink about whether people need to dream or find their authentic self, thoughts which preoccupied my previous blog. I had earlier on concluded that people who are authentic seem more alive.

The counselling center which I am attached to is at Eunos, near the Eunos Cresent Wet Market and Hawker Centre. I was in a bus on my way home from Eunos yesterday when I noticed that every single passenger in the fully occupied lower deck is an elderly person probably 55 and above. I started to observe the faces of people sitting just across me on the side bench, the passengers standing at the front half as well as any face within my view. Other than 2 elderly ladies engaged in a chat, the rest stared into empty space with eyes that don't seem to catch any passing object. It gave me the impression that each mind is adrift and watching a film rolling out scene after scene from the past, from a day ago perhaps or maybe a week ago or a month or a year or years, who knows. I thought to myself there must be thousands of scenes over a 50 year span, each unique to every single person. I wonder about each individual life story just as I know my own and I thought to myself, just in this bus there are so many stories untold.

My frivolous reflections could have been influenced by 4321, a book which I have been reading that tells 4 stories of a single person from the same set of parents but growing up under 4 different sets of circumstances. Apart from the inherent DNA which more or less determines his character and inclinations, the life stories of the  main character in the book are shaped by incidents that happened in his close circles as well as events in his country and the world. Within each set of  circumstances dished out by destiny, choices had to be made along the way, quite like a fish having to find its way in a whirlpool. The sense of lost opportunities and Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" come to mind often. Each of the 4 lives has its own share of drama. What also strikes me is the rippling effect a person's actions has on those around him and they in turn stir another level of ripples. Hence people have to steer their lives around these currents. In the book the 4 identical characters moved towards the same authentic self which their destined DNA bestowed, that of a writer.

Those drifting minds in the bus, those unseeing eyes. I wonder whether they are revisiting the forked roads in their lives.

Finding their own level

There is something which Tash Aw said in an interview with ST which struck me. He is a Malaysian author whose work was long listed for the coveted Man Booker prize and he was asked by ST why can't Singapore produce an internationally acclaimed author like him.

Basically he ascribed it to the pressure and anxiety to be the best that Singaporeans face. He thinks that state of mind and the " constant striving to reach a level imposed on them by society...  crushing" and impeding them to rise to their own level. The structural quest for straight As would have left little room for the development of creative instincts.

He says in Malaysia there is less expectation of success. "If you don't make it, you are basically measured to the mediocrity around you, so there is no pressure......" and then what really strikes me are these words that follow : "And when there's no pressure, exceptional people tend to find their own level".

I think most Malaysians in general enjoy the freedom to find their own level , their own space. In Singapore however too much well respected chartered paths have propelled parents and society to cheer youngsters to take such well trodden paths without the space to dream and discover where their real interest and calling lie. Most are fine and do not end in despair because people are propelled to reach various milestones in terms of starting a family, achieving certain status at work and possessing certain trappings of material success which signal their achievement in life. For many work is just a means to hit all these milestones. These milestones became the end and meaning in their lives irrespective  whether they hate their job or not. In a survey conducted in 2016 Singaporeans ranked the lowest in job happiness, giving reasons like lack of training and career development and poor leadership as causes for unhappiness. I am just wondering whether there is also an underlying unhappiness because they are not in the field of their true and unexplored desire.

Maybe things will be alright in Singapore because when people were not given the space to dream they lost the interest or don't know how to dream. Being in the Matrix is fine with them. I do not for once mean that living outside the Matrix is more noble or better off, only that people who discover themselves in a deeper way seem more alive to me.

Things that never cross your mind when well

The prescription of 2 antibiotics for 2 weeks renders me weak and tired. Having Diverticulitis with pain on one side of the abdomen meant I have to forgo the usual bone building exercise class and refrain from strenuous activities. The mind also becomes a little fuzzy.

Waking up from afternoon nap and wanting to linger in bed, staring up at the ceiling, the mind drifts and wanders. Thoughts about my brother who died of cancer kept coming back. Even at the radiology unit, as the CT scan machine slid my flatly laid body under the arch of steel and panels and then jerked me forward and backward before the robotic voice told me to hold my breath, I had wondered how my brother would have felt during the numerous times he underwent this procedure. Lying listless in bed at home, feeling drained of energy, I knew I was experiencing a slight fraction of how he lingered during his last days. Sadness crept in and my mind wondered how the final days would be like for me, would l I be able to manage a major illness?  Dark thoughts but having googled and discovered that mood changes is one of the side effects of the antibiotic I snapped out of it and got up to review the stock market. As mercenary as it sounds, reviewing my investments does pump me up. A friend who was a lecturer developed an interest in stock investment during his final days battling a cancer.  Perhaps it was something tangible he could relate to in a world that seemed dissolving before him.

Paul Kalalithi in his book When Breath Becomes Air lamented that his illness not only 'limits' his time on earth but also 'limits' his energy. Kalalithi's wife in the epilogue of his book described how mental acuity was his top concern during his final days, "the prospect of losing meaning and agency agonizing".

This is something to think about for people helping others in end of life care. This too is something for us to think about and prepare, things which will not cross our mind when we are well and busy with our routine..

Doctors

The urologist whom my "friendly" family doctor referred me to looks like a grizzly bear to me. I describe my family doctor as "friendly" because she worries about my health like a "friend" subjecting me to all kinds of medical investigations and then referring me to specialists for final opinion. She knows me as a hypochondria who will not take any health risk at the expense of cost (that's why her invoices always take me by surprise).

So a few days ago I began to have stomach crams which gradually shifted to the right upper abdomen accompanied by fever. Clinical examination and blood test point to kidney inflammation. Even though the fever has gone after a day's dosage of antibiotics she still recommended that I see a urologist to rule out stones which I readily agreed. If the urologist rings my door bell I would have thought he is my renovation contractor. Unlike most neat and clean shaven specialists, his shirt is not tucked in properly and hair ruffled like he had just gotten out of bed. After hearing my complaints he sent me for a CT scan. While waiting for the report to be back at his clinic I had ample time watching patients entering and leaving. Most of the patients are not locals. I can hear clearly the nurse explaining the content of the bill or the expected cost of medical procedures to be performed. I began to wonder about doctors. Could they be thinking if lawyers and investment bankers have it so easy earning big bucks why shouldn't they too for the good hard work they put in. My family doctor for example used to charge really reasonable fees and she draws a  crowd because she is detailed and patient. However over the years she started to include more types of medicine and supplement with each consultation. Of late she included an admin fee for referral. I began to wonder whether she gets a cut for every test, x'ray or scan she recommends. Her concerns begin to be costly.

Well the grizzly doctor turns out to be quite likable. The report ruled out kidney stones or inflammation. Instead it is diverticulitis, inflammation of pouches in the big intestines. He explained to me the problem as would a biology teacher drawing the anatomy on paper and talking like a contractor would about a structural building problem. He also wanted me to ask questions and clear whatever doubts I had. He looks like one who speaks his mind and waste no time on suave talk. Maybe because I was very shabbily dressed the bill turned out to be much less than I expected. Could it be this doctor does his own intuitive mean testing?

Maybe it's time for me to look for a grizzly family doctor as well.

Some we want to lock in time

The limestone cliffs echoed the evening prayer from a nearby mosque. After a morning visit to the heritage museum learning the history of Ipoh from colonial days,  the hills seemed to me to reverberate the soulful claim of  the natives of the land.

I paid a 3 night visit to Ipoh staying at a resort tugged away among limestone hills. At an impulse I had bought the hotel package at a Malaysia tourism fair held in Singapore not knowing what Ipoh had to offer. Other than a water theme park near the resort and the promise of good hawker food in town, I was cracking my head how to while away 3 solid days in this sleepy city. It turned out to be a trip filled with deja vu moments and flashbacks of my childhood in KL.

Ipoh looks so much like the KL of my childhood days. It takes around 15 minutes by car from the resort to town passing through quiet stretches of road lined with bungalows before approaching streets lined with old shop houses interspersed by vacant land with thick undergrowth. We then hit the town area with busy well lit crisscrossing streets lined with old shop houses. For two evenings sitting in a Grab car to town for dinner gave me flashbacks of my younger brother and me accompanying my father in a taxi to watch a movie in town. The passing scenes from the cab window looked so familiar.

The old shop houses in Ipoh and the interior of the coffee shops are like those I remember in KL in the 70s. Yet another flashback was when I passed by a shop house selling buttons, zips and other sewing accessories. As my father ran a men's tailoring, I often accompanied my mother to similar shops in KL to stock up such accessories. It was deja vu passing that shop in Ipoh.

The crowning nostalgic recall occurred when I visited the Han Chin Pet Soo (heritage house). I was waiting for a guided tour to begin when I overheard the chat among a group of ladies around my age who were also joining the tour. From their conversation I knew they were from KL. I suddenly felt the need to connect with people from KL and started to engage in small talk with them. It turned out that they were from my alma mater in KL. The room was filled with excitement and exchanges about the dreaded cookery classes and the annual choral speaking competition just to name a few hard to forgets of our school, BBGS. So thrilled were they in meeting a senior from Singapore they insisted on a photo so to post in the alumni website.

My last post in 2017 says " The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind". Yes the past does not remain unchanged as they change with our "present". Yet certain memories we willed them to be locked in time.