Life Experiences and the Thinking Mind

Your experiences in life are the byproducts of what happens to you throughout your life journey, which is determined by two pivotal players: circumstances and choices.

·       Circumstances are events that happen to you and around you, and they fall under two categories: self-inflicting internal circumstances, such as your procrastination affecting the subsequent turns of events in your life; uncontrollable external circumstances, such as accidents due to no fault of your own.

·       Choices result in actions or inactions, which often bring about consequences as well as circumstances that may affect your life in general and in specific. Choices may also create self-inflicting internal circumstances that ultimately affect the other choices subsequently made.

For example, you had to complete a project and submit a report on that. You had sufficient time to do what you were supposed to do, but you chose to procrastinate until the last minute. An unforeseeable event happened and made it impossible for you to finish your work on time, thus creating a self-inflicting circumstance of frustration and undue stress that might affect other choices you subsequently made.

Personal choices may not be able to alter uncontrollable external circumstances, but they may still play a primary role in one’s reactions and adaptations to those external circumstances that are beyond one’s control.

To illustrate, in the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011, the Japanese people demonstrated their remarkable resilience in their reactions and adaptations to the uncontrollable external circumstances inflicted on them by nature.

Remember, life is about choices and consequences, and living has much to do with causes and results—they become the components of life experiences.

Experiences and the Five Senses

The five senses form the basics of human sensations: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. These five senses can best be epitomized in sex (the “s” stands for “senses” and the “ex” for “experiences”)—all the five sensual pleasures experienced in the very act of sex.

Questions for Reflection

·       Are your sensual pleasures synonymous with your happiness in life?

·       Does your happiness come solely from your sensual pleasures?

But our five senses do not tell us everything; as a matter of fact, they often give us only the half-truths.

The person who uses only the vision of his or her eyes is conditioned by what he or she sees. It is the intuition of the spirit that really perceives the reality. The wise have known for a long time that what we know through our eyes is not the same as the intuition of our spirit. If that is the case, sadly, most people rely on what they see, thinking that “seeing is believing” and thus lose themselves in the realities of external things.

A Case in Point

              

In 1997, Richard Alexander from Indiana was convicted as a serial rapist because one of the victims and her fiancé insisted that he was the perpetrator based on what the victim and her fiancé claimed that “they saw with their own eyes.”

But the convicted man was later exonerated and subsequently released in 2001, based on new DNA science and other forensic evidence. Experts explained that a traumatic emotional experience, such as a rape, could “distort” the perception of an individual. That explains why the woman and her fiancé “swore” that Richard Alexander was the rapist, but evidently he was not.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Gift of Grace in Human Relationships

Human relationships are complex and difficult. Jesus’ parable of the king settling debts with his servants (Matthew 18: 23-34) attests to the complexity and difficulty of interpersonal relationships.

The major source of conflicts in human relationships is the inability to fully comprehend God’s mercy - which is His gift of grace - something freely given, something totally unearned and undeserved, and something never to be repaid. Due to the lack of understanding of the mystery and significance of the gift of grace, or the refusal to believe something that is too good to be true, many of us, ironically enough, cannot and will not receive that gift of grace, although it is freely given to each and everyone of us.

Indeed, many Christians, read about grace, hear about grace in Sunday sermons, sing about grace in their hymns, and even believe grace in their heads, but they never fully live in the gift grace. They simply do not have the faith to live it out.

We need living in faith to believe in the power of grace; we need living in faith to believe that we are truly and totally forgiven through the gift of grace. The unforgiven become unforgiving, and the unforgiving will not be forgiven, and hence the vicious cycle of emotional conflicts and broken human relationships.

To illustrate, when you take your marriage vow, you solemnly promise to love and care for your spouse “for better or for worse.” But this is the tallest order in a marriage. Your marriage partner owes you a debt (or so you think!) because he or she falls short of your expectations. As a result, you become angry and resentful. Without God’s saving grace, you see yourself as unforgiven and unacceptable to God. In turn, you become unforgiving and unaccepting towards your spouse. The outcome may be a divorce or at best an unhappy marriage.

What you need is living in faith - faith that God has forgiven you for your shortcomings and wrong doings. Likewise, you become more forgiving and accepting towards your spouse for all his or her shortcomings and wrong doings. Jesus said: “. . . freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8). Remember, a recipient of the gift of grace must also be gracious to others - a prerequisite, not a choice.

You have to allow God to do for you what only God can do, which is, in essence, giving the gift of grace. You have to understand, receive, and live out God's gift of grace, and this is living in faith.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Human Natural Gift

We were all born with a natural gift -- freedom from anxiety and fear, expectation and regret, ambition and disappointment. However, as we grow older, we knowingly or unknowingly abuse or misuse that natural gift.

This is how.

We begin to develop our sensations and become affected by them. We all have our five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting; they then become our perceptions and sensations that are stored as memories in our subconscious minds. Over the long haul, these accumulative experiences form our beliefs and personalities, and make us who we are. In other words, these memories become our bondage and we no longer have that innate freedom.

It is difficult to regain that natural gift once we have relinquished it. To illustrate, if we experienced something unpleasant in the past, we might have anxiety and fear that it would happen again. On the other hand, if we experience something pleasant, we would expect it to happen again; our expectations begin to precondition our minds to do certain things that we think will enable us to fulfill that expectations; by doing so, we pick and choose; any wrong choice or decision may lead to regret. By the same token, disappointment may be the consequence of ambition. 

How do we regain that natural gift?

Understand the natural cycle of things. Everything follows a natural cycle: what goes up must come down; the cycle is like the four seasons, or day and night. We, as humans, naively believe that we can change the natural order of things, deluding ourselves into thinking that we can make things happen the way we want them. Not following the natural order stems from the human ego. Accepting things as they are is the pathway to true human wisdom  It is by no means a passive outlook of life: we do what we can, and no more, and with no expectation and no judgment, 

“Good fortune and misfortune are all in one.

Seeking one and rejecting the other,
we become completely confused.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 58)

“There is no gain without loss.

There is no abundance without lack.
We do not know how and when
one gives way to the other.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 42)

Stephen Lau

Copyright© Stephen Lau

Begin Your Life Journey of Living Longer

One of Lao Tzu’s famous sayings is “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” The journey of the TAO of living longer is a great undertaking: every step is as important as the first; and each step is as firm as the previous one, given that the Chinese often like to say “feet stepping on solid and steady ground.”

It must be remembered that the TAO is about neither longevity nor immortality. Instead, it is about the wisdom of living life to the fullest in the physical world, making its final departure with grace and meaning at the appropriate time, whether it is 30 years, 60 years, or even 100 years and beyond. Having said that, the TAO may still enable you to embark on your living-longer journey through the all-inclusive and self-awakening lens of the TAO.

Your journey is the sum of all your steps. Before you take your first step, ponder on this reality: in life, all humans have two desires or pursuits—happiness and healthiness, which not only often come with many delusions and illusions but also always are unattainable and unsustainable. But the TAO may give you self-awakening and self-intuition to help you along your journey.         

The Step of Intent and Desire

It is your journey, and only you can take your first step. So, you must have the intent and desire to go on that journey of living longer.

The lifespan of humans is relative. In other words, your lifespan is related only to you alone—just as in nature some insects are born in the morning and die by nightfall, while other insects are born in the spring and live until the late summer.

Irrespective of your own lifespan, you may still want to live longer. To embark on your journey of living longer, you must, first and foremost, show your intent to live longer, especially if it is your steely resolve to reach the destination of your journey. 

So, what exactly is your intent?

Intent is your innate and yet inexplicable power that comes into play when you desire to move forward on your journey of living longer. With your focused intent, it may appear that everyone and everything around you are also playing a part in facilitating all your endeavors in your favor. Intent is your inner drive.

In addition to your intent to live longer, you must also demonstrate your desire for good health, driving your intentions and aspirations to take your first step on your journey of living longer.

But the desire for good health may be difficult to sustain for someone who is currently very ill or has many health issues; it may seem not only difficult but almost impossible for that individual to restore natural health and get well again. Worse, ill health may even make that individual forget to take care of the body, and thus allowing the body's functions to deteriorate further.

The bottom line: take your first step of intent with your desire for good health to change and overcome any attitude of despair and confusion related to any ill health you may currently be having. On this journey of living longer, always keep yourself moving forward with your intent and desire backed up with actual actions, and you will then go the distance on your journey.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau