Pema Chodron Article

I have been reading a book by Pema Chodron recently.  Felt like sharing one interesting excerpt from it titled - Abandon Any Hope of Fruition - which is especially true considering our weekend culture.

"Fruition" implies that at some future time you will feel good.  One of the most powerful Buddhist teachings is that as long as you are wishing for things to change, they never will.  As long as you're wanting yourself to get better, you won't.  As long as you are oriented toward the future, you can never just relax into what you already have or already are.

One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is the feeling that the present moment is not good enough.  We frequently think back to the past, which maybe was better than now, or perhaps worse.  We also think ahead quite a bit to the future, always holding out hope that it will be a little bit better than now.  Even if things are going really well now, we usually don't give ourselves full credit for who we are in the present.

For example, it's easy to hope that things will improve as a result of meditation: we won't have such a bad temper anymore or people will like us more than they do now.  Or perhaps we will fully connect with that awake, brilliant, sacred world that we hope to find.  We use our practice to reinforce the implication that if we just did the right things, we'd begin to connect with a bigger world, a vaster world, a world different from the one we're in now.

Instead of fruition, we could just try to stay with our open heart and open mind.  This is very much orientated to the present.  By entering this kind of unconditional relationship with ourselves, we can begin to connect with the wake quality that we already have.

Right now, can you make an unconditional relationship with yourself? Just at the height you are, the weight you are, with the intelligence that you have, and your current burden of pain? Can you enter into unconditional relationship with that?

It is definitely worth pondering. 

Social Media

Technology has become such an integral part of our lives especially since the smartphone arrived since the 2000s and gradually took more and more of our time in our daily lives.  This is more true as during lockdown in last two years everyone had free time.  For me like many of us it is just like an harmless habit turned into such a soft addiction now-a-days.  I tend to get hooked to social media especially before going to sleep which is one habit I am trying to replace with other things especially reading.  Still working on it.

I am glad that I was not exposed to smartphone culture when growing up.  But perhaps television was to our generation what smartphone is now.   The millennial generation was perhaps the last generation who learned the importance to socialise without the use of social media and also perhaps the first generation who know how to balance between the virtual and real world.

Facebook is good in a way to get to know what your friends and relatives are upto and when they want to share.  But really should be in moderation and not as a constant checking.  We all worry so much about how we portray ourselves and what others think about us.  We are all trying so hard to project an idealised image of our lives.

Now a days Youtube, Facebook and Instagram are absolutely everywhere.  These three mediums are used to connect people with companies, clubs and whatnot.  The different populations from various parts of the planet are being brought closer and closer through such media.  

Then there is blogger which i use as an online diary.