Thursday, 7 April 2016

Your mind vs your heart - by my son Kevin nov. 2005


Dear family, 

   I was chanting just now when I have that strong acknowledgement that our minds and hearts (well this is my perception) appear to be two seperate entities, both very strong and very empowering. 

     The core of karma and negativity, in my case, appears to be all the clogging of bad and irrelevant thoughts in my mind, and tends to accumulate as time passes by. These accumulated thoughts exerts energy and forces (whether it is positive or negative), as a result controlling your whole body including your heart , which is why there are so many 'self-help' books that sought to explore our minds, our conscience, how to overcome the negative forces in our mind etc. The essence of buddhism and practice, the sense of "sprituality", hence, comes to play a very significant part in relation to the notion.

   My mind has always been a very very empowering and overwhelming agent to me. It controls my thoughts, my actions, my behavior, in short, it controls everything of me, e.g, my addiction to cigarette smoking is the perfect example. 

Nichiren Daishonin once said, your mind is most unreliable thing on earth, to be honest I totally agree with him. The significance of chanting and practicing our buddhism, hence, is to learn how to realize those thoughts and to implement more positive ones where positive forces and energy can be brought forth as a result.

 Listen to your heart is another thing that I realize I dont normally do. When people say "listen to your heart" or "follow yor heart",  what is this it? to let go of your mind and to start listen what your heart has got to say? 

When we chant, I was told, we have to focus on the word 'myo' and listen to your daimokus. The focus takes away all your thoughts  and to gain serenity out of chanting, well, the idea here, to me, is a way to start getting in contact with your heart, and today I really had that strong feel of connection. I just cannot believe how much my heart has got to say to me!!! You know maybe this is why people who tend to think less are happier, its not because they are stupid, but maybe empowerment is less significant to them, and/or there is more of a collaboration between the heart and mind. 

      The idea of which follows which, from a positive perspective, appears to be a chicken and egg question but really to learn how to let go of those clogging thoughts is important, because those thoughts can haunt  you for lives. Moreover, If you have a good heart, you own the most pure thing on earth, which is why when we practice buddhism we learn how-to "uncover the hay and dust and get the real pearl out"... (its a chinese saying that everyone including Kit che says). We can all be buddhists if we have a pure mind and heart because wisdom  derives where pure mind and hearts enable to us to think, see and feel things more clearly. 

     This may all seem very abstract, but chanting sure saves me alot of good bucks from buying those "self-help" books. We dont need help, we need to be enriched and to be enhanced!

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