Buddhist Teaching, The Essence

"Sabba papassa akaranam
Kusalassa upasampada
Sacitta pariyodapanam
Etham Buddhanasasanam"
To abstain from all evil
To cultivate the good
To purify one's mind
This is the teaching of the Buddhas

Jangan berbuat jahat
Perbanyak kebajikan
Sucikan hati dan pikiran
Itulah inti sari ajaran Buddha

DON'T JUDGE!

Within a glance, a person can make a very accurate judgment on a subject that he has been familiar with. The person himself sometimes can not explain on what basis he can make such an accurate judgment. He simply trusts his instinct interconnecting all related experiences from his conscious and unconscious mind.

People who have been exposed long enough to a subject can be very fast in giving accurate judgment to that subject. The longer the exposure to the subjet will be the more accurate the judgment he makes upon that subject. A long exposure is like a constant practice in improving your skill. Like people say, practice makes perfect.

An artist knows whether a piece of art is exclusive or cheap.
A pro saxophonist can directly tell whether someone is excellent or poor in playing the instrument.
A curator recognizes whether a collection is a fake or a real one.

In our daily life situation very often we make an instant judgment on something or someone, however eventually we realize that we misjudge them. The chance to make wrong judgment is higher when we are not familiar with the thing, person, task, or situation we are dealing with.

Often our judgment is also distorted by the benchmark, general idea, principal, common misbelief that have been implanted in our head. The combination of too easy judging thing and the distorted mind exacerbates the situation into an autistic state resulting in a very poor judgment eventually. This brings disadvantage not only to the one who is being judged, but also to the person who judges.

To be fair and aware off, do not judge things, persons, tasks, or situations if you don't need to. Make professional judgment if only people ask for it as they might think that you are the expert. It is important to keep your mind opened, not to rush and take a little pause to allow your mind refreshed, then you can make a much better and fair judgment.

Reference:
Blink (Malcolm Gladwell)

Yogyakarta: time to refresh myself

Yogyakarta is a nice comfortable place located under Mount Merapi in Central Java. The place is rich in art and culture. You can visit many ancient Hindu and Buddhist temples, the artistic and historical palace of Keraton Yogyakarta, and the very famous main street in Yogyakarta called Malioboro.

When you are in Malioboro, you will find a relaxing atmosphere among friendly local people and a lot of interesting things to see. Along this street, you’ll see souvenir stands side by side selling knick knacks and traditional foods.

As a food lover, of course I am willing to browse every corner of Yogya to experience new things for my culinary journal. This time I got information from my friend about a small alley near Station Tugu (the starting point of Malioboro St.) where on one side of the alley you can see several coffee stands (warung kopi). At the other side on the pavement, they lay carpet for customers to sit in and enjoy the drink. Heaps of youngsters from different communities come to this place just for chitchat and gathering with their friends.

All warung kopi here have more and less the same menu: nasi kucing (translated: cat rice, because of small portion of rice wrapped in banana leaf), egg satay, and many kind of fried snacks (gorengan). However, the main specialty of these warungs is “kopi (coffee) Joss”. This was the one that I aimed for. They put coffee powder and sugar in a glass, and poured hot water. Then they put burning charcoal in it. I asked they seller why they put burning charcoal in the coffee. He simply said that it makes the taste better. I tried it and I liked it though. The coffee didn’t taste too strong nor too sweet. It’s just nice to sip it and enjoy the night.

At this chance visiting Yogya, I also ate traditional gudeg Yogyakarta. Gudeg is characterized by the dominant sweet taste of the dish. It contains young jackfruit, eggs, sambal krecek (beef skin) and chicken. All are sweetened with sweet soy sauce. To eat it once would be ok for me, but not for everyday (as it is too sweet).

So, to end this writing, I would say that Yogyakarta is really worth to visit. Many tourist destinations have historical, artistic, and educational values to experience. And the foods can be challenging for food lovers to explore. I would certainly recommend anyone to come to Yogyakarta to spend their holiday!

Thanks to Radhika for the Kopi Joss info!

Happy Tiger Year

Chinese New Year 2010

Steam Egg - 蒸蛋 (zhēng dàn)

I remember when I was a kid, often mum or grandma cooked this for our meal. It's tasty and very simple.

Beat an egg. Add salt, pepper, fried onion, sesame oil, a bit of minced meat. Pour water up to double height of the egg surface and mix it well. Add nori seaweed on the top. Steam it.

I use microwave with second low heat for 7 minutes. The bowl needs to be wrapped. The result, texture is very soft and the taste is great.

Salad

Ingredients:
1 cucumber (sliced), 1 red capsicum (sliced), 1 lime (squeezed)
pour sesame oil, salt, pepper, honey, fried garlic
add Thai basil leaves and dried seaweed if you like

Thanks to inspiration that brought this idea to mix whatever ingredients I can get from my fridge and garden

Anchovy Steamed Rice

It seems that I haven't done cooking for ages since I stay here in the mess without kitchen. No more enjoyment of cutting, experimenting with mixing ingredient, and having gathering and eating together with friends :(

Now I only have a rice cooker and a microwave. Well, every night I cook plain rice and get confused what to eat with. Not until I get this idea to make Anchovy Steamed Rice.

Here are stuffs that I pour into my rice cooker:
1. rice
2. water
3. pepper
4. dried Anchovies
5. dried kelp
6. fried onion
7. fried garlic
8. fried peanut

And the result is just amazing. It tastes very good.

*Bon Appétit*

Great City Great Fireworks

Eye to Eye

This essay was written after I finished reading my two books, Power vs. Force and Zero Limits. The two books have interesting explanation about eye contact. Here I try to present what I understand from the books.

In the recent modern science, behavioral kinesiology is getting more and more popular and well investigated. One aspect in the study of behavioral kinesiology is to examine the strength and sensitive response of our muscle towards any object. Different qualities of similar object cause different responses to our muscle. This study reveals that muscle response and strength can be measured accurately*.

*) For example: An experiment was conducted where a group of examinees were given two sealed envelopes; one was enclosed with vitamin C and another with artificial sweetener. All examinees were not told what inside each envelope was. During the test, all examines gave exactly the same response. They showed positive response when holding the envelope with vitamin C, whereas the envelope with sweetener caused weaker muscle strength to them.

In Power vs. Force, Hawkins applied behavioral kinesiology technique to calibrate the state of human awareness to muscle strength. He found that level 200 (calibrated between 0-1000 in logarithmic scale) is the critical point for awareness shifting. At level 200 or above is obtained when people experience happiness, excitement, joy, peace, and universal love. Apparently, the highest state of human awareness which is calibrated at level 1000 is the universal love (Jesus, Lord Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna were the ones who had attained level 1000). Below 200 people emits weak energy aura. This is where humans experience all the negative state such as angry, sad, discontented, and desperate. Unfortunately, people nowadays are mostly under this critical limit!

In Zero Limits, there is a particular passage that really draws my attention: eye contact. What I found is that the ability to maintain eye contact is strongly related to the state of human awareness. It is showed in a behavioral experiment where a group of participants must stand up face to face toward their own partners who are completely strangers, and see right through their partner’s eyes for certain period. Apparently, not all participants were able to maintain eye contact within the defined period. The instructor said that the ones who are filled with love won’t get any problem with eye contact to a total stranger. People who are not in peace, not having pure heart, lack of love, having prejudice and all sort of negative thinking (below level 200), will not stand to maintain eye contact even for short time.

The ones who failed to maintain eye contact were asked to release their negative energy using ho’oponopono technique by saying I love you repetitively, emitting universal love towards all beings including their stranger counterpart. Some even dropped tears unconsciously during the progress as they felt embarrassed or guilty for having negativity that contaminated them selves as pure beings. The ho’oponopono was successful. Eventually they were able to hold eye contact with their counterpart. This indicates that our eyes can’t hide what inside our mind is. Eyes can't lie. That's why we have to release our negative energy and fill ourself with love. Wise men say, the purpose of life for every being is to love and to be loved.

Additional comment:
In Western culture, when you are talking, you have to maintain eye contact. You can tell that a person is lying or telling the truth from his/her eyes. Yet, it is a different situation in Asian culture where looking at someone straight in their eyes can be considered rude or impolite.

As someone who was raised in Asian culture, I have to adapt and get myself used to with maintaining eye contact when speaking to someone. This is an important cross cultural learning especially for Asian students who study in Western countries. The Westerners often misunderstand them because they don’t maintain eye contact when they speak. Luckily, now I am used to with it. It does help me to see whether some one tells a lie or truth. Eyes speak, and never lie.

References:
Power vs. Force (David R. Hawkins)
Zero Limits (Joe Vitale & Ihaleakala Hew Len)
Pictures from http://kingtay.blogsome.com/

Faith: accept and let go off

keywords: acceptance, power, force, grateful

Things which are meant to be for us will surely come to us. It’s a matter of time. Just be patient to wait for the right time!
Every time I had difficulty I always pray to get inspiration to find way out. Lately, it seemed that all answers to my pray have been provided through books. The books came out to me in various ways: through recommendation from my friends; through recommendation which came out from a stranger out of nowhere; through sudden intention to take a specific book when I browse in a bookstore.

When giving suggestion to my friend with similar problematic situation I had, sometimes I recommend them to read one particular book which, I think, seem to be appropriate to solve the respective problem. Yet, very often the book doesn’t suit them in term of its philosophy or overall content. And very often I heard most comment from them is that they can’t understand the main messages from the book even though they have read it over and over.

That is why I truly believe that things which are meant to be for us will surely come to us; on the contrary, things which are not meant to be, we won’t get it, we won’t understand it. For other persons with similar problem like we had, maybe the universe has prepared another way to overcome their problem to make them able to draw the life lesson over such situation. We can help by sharing our experience in dealing with the same situation, but again, sometimes it may help to one person, sometimes it doesn’t work at all. One thing for sure, they will find the best way to overcome such situation. And the way out to the same problematic situation can be unique to every person.

Holding to that philosophy, now I can face everything with more acceptances. I realize when the thing I want can not be achieved, or the thing doesn’t work as I plan or aim for, I simply think that maybe it’s not meant to be for me at this time. Thus I have to work harder, I have to introspect and improve myself, and most importantly I have to let go off any negative thoughts for not meeting the expected target at this time. Maybe later, I deserve something better than before, something that’s meant to be best for me in the right time.

Previously, I realize that I used to apply force instead of power to get something. When we apply force, it has “tension of the opposites” (I borrow this term from Mitch Albom’s Tuesday with Morrie, as this is explained well about why we should use power instead of force). Imagine when you push a spring from its balance; you will get contraction and expansion. That is what happens when we use force. When I targeted on something with constant force, yes I can achieve the goal. But it takes most of my energy. Furthermore, it is also very exhausting to maintain what we get for using force.

Power on the other hand, encompasses everything. It doesn’t consume our energy, it recharges our energy instead. We can use power only when we are in line with our heart and in fully acceptance to the situation at any moment we live our lives. Initially, I felt a bit difficult to accept some situation in my daily basis. But when I can align with it, everything suddenly seems to unfold for me so easily. I am grateful to know this universal secret that we should work with power. Now even small things works perfectly for me as long as I’m in line with any situation in my present moment.

I still need to practice acceptance to any situation in my present moment. Sometimes, I still complain for unwanted situation I must face. Sometimes, I use force to deal with it. But then I realize, when something hectic happens, it alerts me to go in line again with present moment, and not to use force to agitate the balance, the yin yang of the universe.

I thank all respective authors of my precious books.

References:
Power vs. Force (David R. Hawkins)
Tuesday with Morrie (Mitch Albom)