Quality living

Time has passed since my last posting, and today I added many I wrote during the past few weeks. I returned to my home in the Philippines from vacation, and then traveled to Europe again to visit Sweden for work. I came back to my home in the Philippines again, and my body is still confused in the morning (how to get up) and in the night (how to get to sleep). I managed to get up rather early this Sunday morning – having a delicious double espresso helped to help me get started. My attractive retro-styled coffeemaker churned out a delicious if somewhat sour brew from two Nespresso capsules, one black Ristretto and one yellow Finezzo.

I enjoyed the company of several friends in the Nordic capital of Stockholm last week. A visit of contrasts, from a tiny hotel room in a designer hotel, to the wide-spaced city of waters and old buildings and passages filled with domestic and international tourists of all origins. Most of all, the visit reminded me of the importance of quality living. A colleague became a friend as he unwittingly showed me how to live life with high standards, intensity of purpose, and unceasing humor. Others I rarely meet because of distance demonstrated that friendships last and can deepen every time. Flowing wine added to the color and flavor of our meetings, amidst exuberant Stockholmers celebrating life in the street in the short span of their summer.

On the way back aboard the Thai jumbo, I unexpectedly found myself talking for hours with a seat mate about life, music, relationships, burning out, living in the present moment, and training dogs. I was empty of expectations for this return trip, and found that space was created for another traveler and me to share quality time and develop friendship.


Purple

Purple covers warm
souls exchanging unexpectedly –
Opportunities that knock brightly


Photographs: Stockholm waterfront, Modern boutique hotel

Less can be more

18 August. I cannot possess everything. The things I have are for my use and sharing. Mike George’s 2nd Aha! advises that I need nothing to be truly happy. If I have less, I can be more. Having less, and practicing detachment help to gain freedom from fear and from living in scarcity.

Paradoxes get life going: do less of this, gain more of that. If I can let go of more, more opportunities can show up, ideas to come, people to enter. In contrast, it seems that attachments lead to death, ending, stiffness, suffering. How to I relate to the things I have, to the people in my life?

Mike George advises to see myself as a trustee. My travel headphones, my car, my ideas, I don’t own them. They have been given to me in trust. To hold everything in trust, and let go when the moment comes to do so, brings true freedom. I can feel deep inside me that this is true. I will shift attachments to trusteeship. I don’t own anything, I can harness the energy and power of having “enough” as a trustee.

I write this as the day starts high up flying over Latvia, with a smile.

Photograph: Trust, Osho Zen Tarot

Hari Raya

17 August. I found a nice capuccino at Hari Raya’s. Located on top of Ninoy Aquino airport’s aged terminal, Hari Raya is a simple place that has catered to multitudes of people passing through. In contrast to their movement, some of the waiters have been there for a decade and more, and their service is always friendly and attentive. Departing on my recent trip to Sweden, I was surprised they could make a nice cappuccino, and I ordered a second one while writing in my journal. I lost sense of time until my colleague texted me from the airline lounge below if I planned on making the flight or not. I did, and that was the start of a nice journey together that taught me more about living life with quality.

Photograph: Home-made capuccino in a good friend's cup.

My way

I feel lucky to experience growth, awakening, parting, love, renewal. I need more energy from the inside. I do not depend on anything or anyone for how I feel. It is entirely from me, my initiative, my response. I can be happy no matter what. My red color is smooth. My path is ahead. I don’t know what’s on it. I will see, find out. Each moment has a middle way. I will find it. It is an enjoyable measured response or a choice. It’s part of finding my way. Uniquely my way.

Water

I keep growing
With love –
Refreshing water

Photograph: Singapore street decoration

Listening

Listening comes from being quiet. It is about opening, receptivity, forgetting about self. A true connection of dots, because nothing stands in the way. The art of listening is passive, with full being. Mike George advises to be more quiet, to speak slower, to speak softer. Fusion happens in quietness, internally. The world abounds with great words and noise. I set out to find my own source.

During my last trip, I realized that one of the most difficult things for me to achieve is to be my own best friend. I have to find my own innermost core by myself, the original, no copies. I don’t like everything I see on the way there. So I keep observing, and drop what I can. To go deeper. There is no guide, except myself and the Universe. It is a dark night, this journey. An intense fire of inquiry leads to the morning, the sunrise.

Osho remarked that everyone in history who has had the intensity of inquiry, will find the sunrise. I learn about choices, that it is best to drop everything for emptiness, no-thingness. Going with my heart, my inner voice. I am not split, I am whole, but it takes my own unique journey to realize this, deep into the core of my being.


Photograph: Beyond Illusion, Osho Zen Tarot

Quiet

Quiet comes from inside. To be has no activity; it is at state of non-action. But it is full, it has its own fullness. Being quiet is a conscious state. It is a choice, and a good one. It is the first of seven positive changes recommended by Mike George in his The 7 Aha!s of Highly Enlightened Souls.

I find that quietness is the source of creativity. But I wonder if creativity also needs chaos? How is creative chaos connected to quiet being? Or to a special sense of being connected – the dots – with the dots around us? I am into quietness now. I find that it is enough. My back straighter, not slumped, helps to conserve and circulate energy. Quietness is full. It really has power. The power of silence allows me to paint on my own canvas. It feels like glass, but not etched, just very smooth, and endless in size. A canvas to express my creativity. Very colorful and beyond the conventions of others, but it could reflect some of those.

Language of love and the heart… silence.


Photograph: Mike George's book

Buyers

8 August. Last night I met my high-school friend and we shared some of the developments in our lives. We had some similar experiences in the past years, and found that we have both learned to adopt a positive attitude towards living happily, no matter what happens. We talked over red wine (me) and bitter lemon (friend) about relationships, the never-ending topic. It turned out that we both like to be “buyers” in the relationship with our significant other, and that we have grown to that experience from being “renters” earlier.


Photograph: Willard Harvey's book on Buyers, Renters, and Freeloaders

Blue

Today I was blue. It was the kind of low mood day where lifting my spirit seemed like the heaviest task. I severely scratched my rented car in a narrow parking garage. It took me a while to get over that emotionally! A cost of Euro 200 for liability was incurred in a second, and my pride was hurt for not being able to do better. Even before that, it was heavy. I had a frog to eat (task to finish) but did not get to it. So it keeps croaking in front of me.

Later in the afternoon the Universe kicked me to help me regain perspective. While shopping in the supermarket, I found myself surrounded by boisterous teenagers talking loudly about life in general and chicks in particular. I realized that life keeps moving, and it is up to me to throw myself into the flow. Then I ran into a shop selling the nice Linksys Skype phone which I have been eyeing, and I decided on the spot to buy it. A treat to myself on a blue day.

At night I took a walk to the railway station right in front of the apartment where I am staying. On entering the unusually clean building, I was surprised to see the hall taken over by dancers practicing the Tango. What a fantastic use of a railway station at 10:30 on a Friday night! And most of the dancers had left at home their unflattering casual attire which is so common in this country, and opted for fancy clothes and dancing shoes. After watching them for a while, I discovered that the station’s minimart was still open and found the eggs I needed for breakfast tomorrow.

Last Sunday I watched the show of the Blue Man Group in Boston. Several of their messages hit me, including the notion that a lot of time in life is spent on discharging things “away” from ourselves, which the Blue Men vividly depicted with a system of sewer pipes, which then became musical instruments. The Blue Men challenged the audience to be interactive, and to consume wisely. Connections are meant to be two-way. We need to get unplugged, in more ways than one.

They also showed how people sit in internet cafés talking to other people who are not there, and ignore the people sitting right next to them. I also liked their hilarious advice how to perform rock on stage. And the show ended dramatically with rolls of pseudo toilet paper being “waved” by the audience to the front of the stage, in a direct form of interaction and flow reversal. Audience participation in the show was great from beginning to end. To me it underlined the notion that we as dots can get better connected. It is up to us to see it and do it. It is the underlying concept of this blog too.

So after all, I recovered and started all over from scratch as I found that the Universe keeps vibrating around me.

PS: Blogger won't upload my pics, so they will come later!

Stepping out

I haven’t written for a few days, busy traveling to the other side of the world. I am now attending an ice-skating event in Boston where my daughter is competing. The event takes place in five rinks under one roof, in the New England Sports Center in Marlborough, a pleasant centuries-old town in a clean green landscape. The event brings together competitors, parents, friends, spectators, coaches, judges, organizers and sales people. The skaters are pushing their limits on the ice, making new friends, trading pins, and having fun.

It is a great experience for the competitors, to find out where they can do well, sometimes better than hoped, other times less than expected, or just different. Coming out onto the ice, where the entire rink is waiting just for you, is an exhilarating experience, and I see it over and over here, albeit through my own eyes of a spectator.

My own experience is of stepping out on a stage to perform with my sax. Every time it is a great moment, with both potential, expectation and vulnerability throbbing through my system. Until I let the music take over and lead its own life.

Competitive events and performances help me see myself in a different way. A close friend has discovered new dimensions in art expression by submitting art work for weekly collage and poetry challenges. I believe there is more for me to discover as well, and for everyone else too. The youngest competitor here is 3 and the oldest 81. Watching both, I saw a similar spark in their eyes. The opportunity to demonstrate their skills. The promise of reaching out to a new experience. The courage to step out and glide to stardom of the moment.

Embracing risk

My writing period is now. I need writing periods, wherever I am and whatever I do. Not writing would be my biggest mistake. Writing is a big mistake too, in a way, because it makes me do what I fear most. Is that a mistake? I call it so, because the safe road of correct action will not bring out my potential. I read that Ralph Waldo Emerson’s aunt Mary advised him to “always do what you are afraid to do”. I take that advice too. Change is natural, and change is needed to grow. But it is easy for me to be afraid of making changes. Gail Sher wrote that the risks of not making changes are even greater. I risk missing my life. I will not take that risk. So I write and keep writing. I change and I keep changing. I embrace these.

Whose team?

It is marvelous to become part of a sports team representing a country.

It is even more special if the team is not from your country. My daughter and I happily joined the Philippine SM MegaMall team at the ISI Recreational Worlds Recreational Team Championship for ice skating in Boston. She as skater, and I as driver.

Being in the company of Filipinos is very enjoyable. I find them warm, kind, polite, energetic, creative, humorous and more. I have enjoyed living there for 14 years now. It seems like only yesterday that I arrived… :-)

Happy now

This is the third of my triplet on happiness.

I found that there is only one time I can be happy, and that is the present moment, Now.

It is so much easier to be happy now. Now is open, and fairly simple.

I experience no pressure in the Now, no trouble. My future and past hold many things, memories, expectations, pleasure, guilt, and more.

The present is wide open to my choice. I can do what I want. I choose to be happy.


Photograph: Street poster, Singapore

Happy content

I experience happiness as something that affects how I feel and what I do. It warms me, and it focuses my activities. It also reduces my need for things, external things and people. It helps me share.

When I don’t feel like “doing” a lot, I can experience happiness at a deeper, quiet level as contentment. It’s purely at the level of Being, without action. It’s almost like feeling boneless, of pure relaxation, in the words of a friend. It’s like the first and the last Great Place.

For me, happiness is inward and outward. It rises from inside, connects to others and to what I do, and I find my need for “having” becomes less.

Contentment for me is purely at the level of Being. There is no action, there is the absence of action. There is great presence, and no need.

I found that happiness and contentment are always there, I can “go there” anytime I want.

Photograph: Singapore Art Museum Fiction@Love

Happy smile

Being happy is a decision. Everyone looks for happiness, and the harder I look, the more difficult it is to find. For me, being happy has everything to do with myself, with what I want and decide.

I also know how to get help, by smiling! People think that smiling is the result of being happy. I found that smiling is also my trigger to happiness. It unlocks the happiness that is already inside me. In Dao, smiling unblocks my inner pathways, connects my own dots better. And then I find that I don’t need those external dots so much. I have enough within myself.

My experience of happiness is deeper when my smile is connected to my heart. Smiling from face to heart, it becomes an inner smile. Here is what I do when I have a few minutes:

I think of a person or situation I love, really like
I focus on that experience, and hold the image in front of my closed eyes
I smile, it’s easy, I just let the corners of my mouth rise
Then I let the image move down to my heart
I let my heart glow with the pleasure of the experience
I feel my heart grow bigger, and bright red in color, smiling
My smiling heart is now connected to my smiling face
I feel warm, contented, happy
I wish to share the happiness, from inside out
…


Photograph: Singapore Art Museum Fiction@Love

Inside out

Most of my writing on this blog has been focused on spiritual growing. I wondered last night if I should continue to write that way. You see, I don’t plan what to write. I create space and time to write, a session to look forward to. Once in front of the keyboard, I write what comes to me… I like it that way. No intention, I want to be like a bamboo, catching the breeze. Who knows from what side it blows today. Surely, I will find out.

My writing is inside out. I think it is a phase I am in, it is what confronts me, what grows in me at the moment. I can’t help it. I read other people’s blogs and many are colorful and fascinating tales of the world around them. There is more focus on the outside. For me, the best things in life now come to me from the inside. Or it is inner awareness that helps me be more open, to connect better.

I see beauty and significance in new things. The past few days my faithful partner, my new Fujifilm FinePix F30 camera helped me to capture images of art. Hotel lobbies are nice places to find interesting artwork. Even elevator walls, go look at those in the Intercontinental Hotel in Bangkok!

I often noticed that technology has quirks, but the advance in digital photography is amazing. This week I forgot to take all my cables to charge and transfer pictures from my camera. But the battery is so powerful, it can shoot more than 500 shots on a single charge. So my only constraint is that I cannot upload the pictures yet, have to wait until I get home later today. Anyway, I write my posts in my notebook, and transfer them later to Blogger.


Sunday afternoon 9 July, Bangkok airport

Angels show

I’m sitting in the stylish and modern Thai airways lounge in Bangkok, waiting for my flight. I thought I would be on the morning flight to Manila, but it turned out that I was booked on the afternoon flight. I didn’t look carefully, and the flight was full.

I had the chance to observe the goings on at the standby counter today, and see polite and agitated people gather to try and make their connections work. A particularly agitated man from China who was bumped off a flight because of overbooking said that money was not the problem, but his wife and kids would be waiting at the airport. We are so connected these days. Actually he could get them on the phone and explain the situation. Problem solved. Other people patiently waited for their arrangements to fly out of the City of Angels. Some were resting on the floor. Golfers wheeled their trolleys laden with golf bags. Saffron-clad monks stood quietly observing the whirling froth of humanity.

Points of departure and arrival are always interesting to observe, and today I have the time. Arrivals are of course different, and generally joyful, as the film Love Actually showed us. The departure area has a rushed atmosphere of urgency. People in front of me were arguing with airport staff to use the Thai Airways’ convenient fast-track channel, for which they didn’t have the right ticket to do so. I also get in a rush sometimes, and today I was looking in a mirror of humanity. Calm and smiling is best. Isn’t that what Angels show us?

Sunday morning 9 July, Bangkok airport

Refresh

It’s still June, but only just. Where did the time go since my last blog. I wrote long hand in my journal, but not enough. Now I am back, with renewed interest and zest to write.

I’m taking a break in Asia’s lion city, and Singapore welcomes me in a way it hasn’t done before. I used to come here on stopovers, but in this visit I have time to experience it better. I like the skies, the green, the cleanliness, the spaces, the old and new. People seem full of urge to do their activity quickly and purposefully. Loitering or slowing down seems inappropriate, unless it is done in a designated place of leisure. Business displays a keen spirit and good quality, with great variety, and lots of expression and creativity in the advertising and decoration. That appeals to me.

I gained an extra eye to see this all. I bought a Finepix F30, the newly released low-light capturing marvel released by Fujifilm this month. It encourages me to see the world around me in new shapes and colors and composition. It offers me a new form of artful expression, and I want to explore my creativity with it. It’s my new companion, and I am very happy with it. Its low-light pictures are simply amazing.

Yesterday I was drenched in heat. Singapore is humid, and I had all opportunity to celebrate it. Avoiding airconditioned places as much as possible, I went through a cycle of alternating wetting and drying in the hot air which enveloped me like a mother, a universe, a cocoon. I resisted my urge for cool, and surrendered myself to the heat and perspiration, and found a new side of myself, enjoying patient exploring with an open mind. Through the heat, I refreshed, and experienced renewal.

A full day of art and creativity, interspersed with nice food and warm feelings. I realize that there is nothing that I can create that is not already there. I found that I can share in it, and share it with another.

Writing is lonely

Writing is lonely, because I have to do it. I have to show up every time, support or no support. But I experience so much help, especially from Gail Sher’s book (see my first post Deciding to Write). In the last few days, I learned more valuable lessons, like dedicating your writing before and after, to let go of it. She says that “Waves of the Sea belong to the Sea.” How true, in terms of creative work. I also experienced the truth in her advice to write with a straight back, since it improves energy flow. I really feel privileged that I got hold of her book.

Today I attended a school rehearsal for a Broadway musicals show. And I was promptly asked to contribute with a sax solo. The Universe caught me, and I was happy about it. I need a kick to get me back to playing music again, and today I realized how much creative energy has been locked up inside. So I spent time checking Broadway songs that could be articulated by sax, and I finally decided on With One Look, from the musical Sunset Boulevard. If the organizers accept it, I will start practicing right away, since the performance is on 24 June.

Writing is now rejuvenating and empowering me, and I want some extra bubbles in that mixture. Music may just be what I need to open up some more.

Photograph: Writing at the foot of the Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan, Mexico.

Figuring out what matters most

While waiting in the garage supervisor’s office this morning for my car to be repaired, I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I decided to focus on priorities in my life and work, and in the process rediscovered some things that help me on the way.

Photograph: Hue of the City - painting from Ubud, Bali. I love this painting very much.

Things I want most in my life

1. Doing creative things from a spiritual base
2. Advising others ahead with big-picture steps in my area of work
3. Being a life coach (for friends and through writing)
4. Providing good support to my kids (love, advice, and money)
5. Having a network of friends and a loving partner/soulmate (buyers)

And a few more

1. Living as Zorba the Buddha
2. Living actively and passionately
3. Keeping healthy
4. Seeing new places, shaking me up
5. Living in Asia, for sure
6. Music, play, listen, share, do together
7. Be affluent enough to support these
8. Make money work for good purposes and multiply
9. Invest in myself first, with love and care, and with much giving
10. Be whole, balanced, growing daily, in the Tao.

Now how can I start applying the Pareto principle of 80/20 to find the ones that matter most, that I should concentrate on to enrich my life? I cleared my mind, reflected, and let my inner voice speak out of stillness. I am happy with what came out:

Priorities for my Life

1. Cultivate strength and creativity. Spend holy time every day. Connect and listen to my inner voice. Exercise. Meditate. Light a candle.

2. Show up and write. Have a writing period every day, for journal and/or blog. Write more on every occasion, for life and work. Focus on improving my writing. Use opportunities to publish as often as possible.

3. Make money grow. Value money more. Reduce spending. Save consistently. Invest carefully. Enjoy investing in valuable things. Go for quality over quantity.

4. Connect with people. Reach out more. Don’t be by myself too much (leads to negativity). Build good connections, friendships. Focus on giving and receiving. Build partnerships. Enjoy meeting people, even when tired.

5. Show and enjoy love. Connect with the Universe and other people so that love can circulate, and grow in me. Cultivate and show positive spirit. Enjoy receiving love appropriately. Build a buyer’s love relationship with someone special.

Priorities for my Work

1. Prioritize and complete. Writing down objectives and tasks clearly and review daily, focus on good planning, position and strength.

2. Develop knowledge. Focusing on knowledge contributions: large (thesis) and small, and delegated ones, and link with my knowledge management colleague more.

3. Mobilize funds. Expand the fund for my area of work to allow more to happen, keep enough control for my own activities to be financed, and delegate the rest.

4. Engage and delegate. Delegate by engaging more and better people, a pool of specialists, good networks, and let them do the work.

5. Lead positively. Start and do everything with positive spirit, kindness, and focus on growth and solutions.

Healthy things that help me

1. Standing up for myself. Advertise strengths, be assertive confidently and positively.

2. Traveling regularly. Enjoy travel and create nice spaces and moments everywhere.

3. Starting something new. Reach out, be stimulated, and leave the old behind.

4. Expanding and delegating. Always let things multiply but not weigh me down.

5. Making things happen. Doing lots of things without owning, maintaining privacy.

6. Live the present moment. Make the best of every moment, enjoy the power of Now.

7. Laugh and smile a lot. Let happiness make the world a better place for me and others.

8. Drink water often. Use the wonder medicine to keep life’s fountain flowing.

Reading back, I realize how human I am. Many of these might apply to other people as well. That is good news to me. I can learn from others, read more books and blogs. But setting personal priorities is key to getting results, in life and in work. I got a good deal closer to that this morning.

From Low to Zero and other Lessons

These past days I learned several lessons.

What particularly touched me were the sunrays when I wrote my journal in the early morning, before going to work. Once you become aware of that, how could any morning go wrong? Even so, good and bad live side by side. This is the nature of our world. I feel so lucky when I realize the positive sides. Beautiful morning sunrays can work wonders for me.

My work and life always get cluttered. Papers, unfinished activities, unaccomplished goals, they bring pressure and stress. For me, to be creative I need a clean space. I can do great things and write them down as well, in a small but uncluttered space. My lesson is to create such space, uncluttered, undivided, clean. I started with cleaning my office, and it’s so refreshing. Energy flows much better. But, of course, paper quickly mounts, and I need better systems and habits to get through them and get rid of them.

I believe in energy. Everything in and around us is a form of energy. Some more solid than others. I always have too much to do, and Toby’s book (see earlier post on eating the frog) showed me how important it is to select the task that matters most, and then get on with doing and completing it. Toby says that “a goal or decision without deadline has no urgency in it.” And a goal without writing it down has no energy behind it. I found the truth in this from practicing it. Too many things to do weighs me down (bad energy). But doing a priority task consciously has its own energy, it’s interesting to observe. Once started with good effort, it develops an energy of its own.

Today, and since last night, I was in a low mood. My mind seemed focused on problems, on things that are not right. Normally I can get out of a low mood easily once I realize that what’s bothering me is just a low mood. Awareness is key, it allows me to take distance from it. I realize that the low mood is not me, it just affects me, and perhaps I’m creating thoughts that feed that mood so it stays with me longer. However, today I couldn’t get rid of the mood as easily as in other days. Even the sunrays on my table in the morning did not help me much. Then I realized that I could at least go from negative to zero. To drop negativity and be satisfied with no-thingness. So I did – I dropped negativity and “moved” to zero, to the absence of positivity and negativity. A good friend calls this “being flat”.

Negativity and positivity are both around me, it’s part of our natural conditions. When I tap into negativity, a low mood easily develops. Mostly I am positive, and I love tapping into that. Today it was difficult. But with awareness I could drop my attachment, my link to negativity. So I ploughed through the day in a “flat” mode, feeling “zero”, and being satisfied with that, by and large. For Zen practitioners, zero is an important place, Zero, the result of wiping our slate clean. Something we can do often and deliberately. Clear the space. Wipe the sticky residue of life of our soul. Just start again, every day, every morning, and many moments in the day, as many as I want.

Today was a day when I appreciated any help I could get to get my own dots better connected. No red wine available, until now late at night when I write this, looking back on the day. I like to be connected to others. But sometimes, I have to be satisfied just finding the connections within me. That was today for me. And I could still smile, partly because of that clown in the morning sun.