天下有兩難

天下有兩難：登天難，求人更難；
天下有兩苦：黃連苦，貧窮更苦；
世間有兩險：山高險，人心更險；
世間有兩薄：春冰薄，人情更薄。
知其難、守其苦、測其險、忍其薄，則可以處世矣。

newton's third law

as frequently quoted by my ex-boss, simply put, for every action, there is a reaction. cause and effect. now, whether this extends to past lives and future reincarnations, that part is probably more faith than anything else, but over the course of our lives, it becomes fairly obvious that it has to be true. the effect is sometimes unforeseen, unexpected, but, it always has a cause. sometimes it's a fortuitous coincidence, other times it's murphy's law.

the only way to deal with this is to try to steer the odds in our favor, at least the miniscule part that we appear to have some control over, namely anything that relates to 1) how we interact with our environment and the people we come across; and 2) our willpower to do things that in spite of the environment that we are in, or, in spite of ourselves. all else really we don't even have any semblance of control.

and this also applies to whether people will realize it. if they wonder, of course we share. if they simply do not believe it exists, we listen and we watch, silently, and compassionately if we can.

the top x%

so, every day, i worry about this, i worry about that. i worry whether i'm making the right decisions, i wonder whether things will turn out ok. i wonder if i'm maximizing, i wonder why so many people are so ahead of me, in every part of my life. 

yes, of course things will turn out perfectly as they were supposed to, we already established that earlier. 

and seriously, i already am at the top x% of the world's population. and i mean, what right do i have to worry so much about my trivial problems? when there are truly massive issues out there? 

limits

there really is not enough time to do everything. there isn't. the skills i wish i had time to be great at: spoken chinese, written chinese, ultramarathons, yoga. the relationships with family, friends, acquaintances. new books, new science. ancient books, ancient wisdom. oh, and also figure out my finances and invest wisely so i actually will have time to do all this stuff at a later stage. 

so, yes, time. 

there will never be enough time to do everything i set out to do. no matter what age i will be, be it 10 years from now, or 10 years ago, i never had enough time. 

just, try, to do more of the things that i would say, i wish i had the willpower to start 10 years ago. 

always

anything worth doing is always painful. 

always.

and it's about how much pain and boredom i can endure. and it's about getting started - to stick myself right into the pain and boredom. even though i know it will suck real bad. or in fact, particularly because i know it will suck real bad. 

it's only worth doing because not everyone is willing to throw themselves into situations that will suck real bad. not probably, but definitely.

the trick is to think not about the pain, but something simple, like how nice it would feel after the pain. 

that's all really - just when it's just simply too unbearable, forget everything else for a moment. just focus on the result to get kickstarted. 

then, just let the pain run its usual course. 

between a rock and a hard place

sometimes life is simply just like that. option A is terrible. option B is horrible. and sorry, there are no other options. i can analyze the hell out of it, trying to figure out which is more terrible or horrible, which one is more long term or short term, which one will most likely cause me too much pain, cause others too much pain, but in the end, i know for certain it won't turn out OK. whatever decision that i take, it will grind me down, chew me up, and spit me back out such that i probably cannot function normally for a while.

yes, even if that decision is supposed to be the "right" one, and of course whether it's right or not depends completely on perspective.

it is simply not fun.

interestingly, sometimes option A did not seem too terrible until option B came about. we are remarkably good about getting used to things. so, ironically, choices do have the ability to make things worse, or at least, shed light on why the original option A was not so great. and subsequently cause the usual indecision painful process etc.

this really does happen. in all areas of life. in all walks of life. in all stages of life.

i guess, i'd just better really get used to that life truly, truly is suffering. anything else really is a bonus already.

opportunities are a strange thing

which risks and opportunities am i supposed to just take on, and say, screw it, i'm doing this, to hell with whatever others say?

and which ones should i just walk away, knowing that i will probably still wonder "what if" for possibly the longest time?

yes, i know i'm supposed to focus on the present - and just forget about the alternatives. a decision is a decision.

i don't know.

唯有咬實牙根. and wait and observe things and life that will inevitably change, for better or worse.

even longer than an ultra

it always seems like i have so much to do, so much to learn, so much i'm supposed to be accomplishing. the "success" stories never really stopped to smell the flowers. meanwhile i'm just kinda hopping around here and there.

am i just flip-flopping too much, or am i really gaining an incredible breadth of experience?

all these people are ahead of me. all these people are doing things i wish i had been doing.

all these people haven't run a 100km, they haven't been to kailash either.

i do forget life really is longer than the longest ultra. and i really was never meant to win any ultras. keep healthy, keep learning, keep meditating. try to enjoy the run.

may 1

so i've had now about three weeks here - enough to calm down a little bit, and start to realize this is not just a particularly long business trip. 

it really kinda sucks and i really miss home. 

to be sure, things really have been exceptionally nice here, and i couldn't have asked for a smoother transition. 

the truth is i really am a creature of habit, and having my comfort zone torn away (almost a cruel joke i'm playing on myself), just bothers something me deeply. sure, externally, i will look ok, i will sound ok... but i really have had a piece of myself ripped off. of course we are simply talking just a relocation here, and i also realize it really is not a drastic change. plenty of people go through plenty worse. and i am sure i will have plenty worse to go through in my life. 

but at this point in time, generally, to put it simply, it just feels like crap. the one thing i pride myself on, communicating well, has been ripped away from me. it renders me ineffective, unconfident, and slow. i don't know what to say, i don't know how to react, and i can't understand half the stuff that's going on. and i don't have any familiar comfort zone to retreat into. it simply seems like i'm exposed everywhere and i can't escape. 

in a way, i guess it is a crutch, and i'd rely on my language skills to get through. now it's gone - well, there's only one way, that is to build it. 

the truth is, i find it a lot harder now to build. maybe, i have lost a bit of willpower with age. maybe, i hate letting people see me work hard, and the fact that i can't truly be alone to work at it affects me. these are still kind of stupid excuses at the end of the day. 

so on one hand, work on your language. as always, i never was the smartest one but i could work the hardest. 

and on the other hand, just deal with the fact your life will kinda suck for a while. 

and lastly, just remember to keep up the hardest practice of it all - kindness. 

starting over

sometimes, i wonder what it would be like to start my life over.

then, i wonder if i could at least start my last 10 years over. ok, how about just my last 5 years?

ok, maybe i really should be thinking what the heck i should be doing now, so i won't be thinking the exact same thing five years, ten years hence.

for one, keeping this daily practice is probably not a bad thing to restart.

when all else fails, and my mind is blank, angry, confused, just try not to do bad things, and do something that's kind.

sometimes, it is just damn hard to do the right thing

sometimes, or many times, what the "right" thing is really subject to a ton of debate. and it doesn't help when the possibly not "right" thing or thing in that grey area can lead to a bit of personal gain, and not at anyone's expense. i just have to come to terms with the fact that i still should try to do what appears to be right. despite sometimes it's obvious stupidity to everyone, including myself.

the perfect life

the strangest thing about us is what we strive and work and work, for what we think would be our perfect life. if we don't get there, we always have that unsatisfied yearning, about what if i actually got there. and if and when we do get there, more often than not, it turns out not to be so perfect.

the idea of perfection of course in some ways is ludicrous. our minds are so jumpy, so easily bored, dissatisfaction is a much more normal state than satisfaction.

the one and only true trick is to train the mind to be still. to find the existing perfection in our daily lives, rather than in the abstract future.

inner peace is fragile

and poof! all that practice is gone.

the real trick is to blend real life and practice. then, we slowly remember the truth more often than not.

120,000

the hard part to remember, of course, is truth doesn't come from authorities, nor ancient texts, nor does it come from 120,000 people. all references certainly, truth only comes from deep reflection.

to quote Krishamurti:

'Truth is a pathless land'. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security - religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man's pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.

When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind.

Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence."

remember to inspire

inspiration is the only way out of mundane existence. 

trust the training

i didn't think i could let alone walk to the track. i was so damn tired i had trouble putting on my running shorts without falling down. i was feeling this awful mix of bloated and hungry. have no idea how it's possible to have those two sensations at the same time.

anyway, i hammered it out the 10km. i don't know why it was easier than i imagined too. and right, i have been getting myself back in shape, albeit really slowly.

most of training sucks. but if i somehow keep at it, somehow, it starts to suck a little less.

what the hell happened to my willpower?

all these years, willpower has been the one thing that i've relied on. i am not the smartest, the brightest, the strongest, the whatever-est, but somehow through brute force i have managed to just get through. the gym was always something i looked back with some (probably misguided) pride. i was the scrawniest kid ever when i first stepped in. three years later, by senior year, i was putting up over 200lbs on the bench press. i could do pull-ups with a fifty pound weight added on. i seemed to have proved to myself that if i just worked damn hard, i could become reasonably good at something.

anyway, forward twenty odd years. i make promises to myself, important promises, that i could again do through sheer brute force. like practice hanuman, meditate every day. finish my damn book. teach yoga. somehow, i have been just talking all these years, and things remain where they are. i somehow end up reading the thousands of articles on my rss, sitting on the couch, or just doing nothing.

even the most "useful" of these activities, devouring info, am i now more informed? sure. am i more knowledgeable? maybe. am i wiser? if i were to believe myself, only knowledge applied, personalized, internalized, and finally realized, becomes wisdom. essentially, knowledge can be forgotten. wisdom, has been learned the very hard way, and simply cannot be forgotten.

so anyway, back to willpower, which has somehow deserted me. because i'm older? (and not wiser?) because i got married? because i'm stuck in a job that is neither good nor bad, just, well, a job? all of the above?

so these books tell me, to make it a habit, so i don't have to exert willpower. or, it's just a muscle, that we need to train, and keep training, then we can use it whenever we want in whichever situations. i haven't figured it out.

maybe it's simple - the rewards, at this stage of my life, are just no longer evident. not that i should have cared so much about them. in fact, it may just be a good illustration of that. the rewards (get big muscles, get girls, though that never worked out; do well on exams, get good gpa, good job, well, my thoughts can't think that far ahead), once someone pulls it away, or those rewards lose their meaning/relevance somehow, suddenly, i'm left with... nothing.

so, do i create some arbitrary rewards for myself? or even better, realize i really should not give a damn about rewards, and enjoy whatever it is i have at the moment? i think one of the difficulties of our generation is we have been totally conditioned under the work and reward system, from our earliest memories and experiences. do A, get B. why do A if not very useful and does not get you anywhere?

so i have to work around this. kickstart myself with imaginary rewards. put a big "X" on my calendar every time i fail myself. haul myself back up from the slippery slope of laziness and excuses. and think about how my own 14-year old-self used to motivate the hell out of my friends. let him loose again.

excuses

i am finding out i am incredibly good at excusing myself.

rather than staying focused despite changes, i somehow use changes as an excuse to not practice, as i need time to "get back on track".

i need to remember staying with my practice is the fastest way to get back on track.

and then, i can remember what the real things are.

the gradual death of personal time

i now realize, when i don't have enough personal time, i mean time really to myself, doing nothing, without fear of anyone bothering me, i get really cranky.

the issue is that could never have lasted that long, and things do pile on. and soon enough, we're not talking "enough" time. any time is a luxury.

the challenge is to maintain calmness, focus, despite all these things that distract, bother, annoy, and they all happen naturally in fact.

or, to change my concept of personal time. it was never mine in fact, and perhaps, every minute is already personal if i'm still alive.

man it is tough.

差少少,就可能真係差少少

today, i randomly saved someone. perhaps not from death, but from a body shutdown due to heat stroke at least. the interesting thing was i had a very mild experience of it myself later - and sometimes if you don't have that sip of water to save you, hard as one tries the strength just isn't there. and it just goes downhill very quickly from there.

i don't know if there's anything to be learned here, but perhaps if there's a little extra that can be done, do it, since you don't know if it will matter a lot later.

and the other lesson is make sure someone stays with the weakest link.