It has been a full day.
My daughter and I woke up, feeling very grateful to be alive and off we went to her first Art Class in Kechara Saraswati Arts (KSA).
I was quite surprised to find that there were many children there and their parents chilled out at the beautiful lounge overlooking a very nice fish tank. Yes, I finally agree that fishes do add a very relaxing ambience to the whole room.
Here are some pictures of KSA.
KSA is another brainchild of H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche. He infuses spirituality through arts and craft. It is truly amazing how one with artistic talents can enhance spirituality through KSA or vice versa. KSA’s Divine Patron is the Goddess or Buddha Saraswati, she is the consort of the Wisdom Buddha, Manjushri.
Saraswati is the Goddess of Knowledge and the Arts. So, Saraswati governs all things artistic, music, writing and composition. She represents human learning, speech and wisdom. She is super cool and she has own instrument as well, it is like an ancient guitar, called veena.
They do all kinds of brilliant things at KSA - from thangka brocading, to statue painting, embellishing one's statues with jewelry or semi-precious stones, to sewing the clothing for the Buddha statue, to restoration, mala, beading and now, they have come up with interesting classes for both adults and children. Be it floral arrangement, card making and many more.
When my daughter has finished her artistic creations, she presented me with a bouquet of flowers and a Mother’s Day card. Today’s Art class focused on making cards and flower arrangement for their mommies. Very lovely indeed.
Then we rushed off for our lunch, before I had to dash off for my meetings.
Yes, I work on Sundays, holidays, etc. Basically, any day that requires my presence.
Things are heating up in my media work. Lots of exciting things are coming up. I should be able to share them with you in due course.
As of now, it is indeed a wonderful time to be alive and well. There is so much to do, but I am truly happy doing them all.
Now, for my very much alive DAY FORTY-THREE :-
Weight: 53kg
No. Of Prostrations: 5 (Ran out of time today)
Daily Sadhanas: Check and Done with Death Meditation and Dzambala Mantra.
Physical Exercise: 45 mins
Daily Reflection from "IF NOT NOW, WHEN?" – Here we go. I close my eyes and I picked out page 037.
Oh, this is a good one. It totally described the old me.
Quote from Page 037 for Day Forty-Three:
“Because I am depressed, I don’t have to do anything, improve, change, be responsible and just remain stagnant year after year... I wonder if it’s the very deep self- centred mind under the cloak of depression that fools myself and which I hide behind?”
Personal Thoughts and Feelings:
The quote above basically summed up who I was.
Just because I was depressed or angry or lost or confused – I used them all as my ‘passport’ to continue my bad-ass, ugly behaviour and what was worse – I expected people to just accept them, tolerate me and even sympathize with me. No, let me re-phrase that.
I expected everyone to feel sorry for me, pity me and do everything for you because I could not or would not. I expected everyone to just bend backwards for me because I was the ‘poor little thing’.
I expected everyone else – is the key operative word.
Yet in all that time, it was totally understandable and even justifiable that I was not doing anything to improve, change, be held responsible and yes, I remained stagnant for most of my adult life. All in all, it took up all 35 years of my life.
Amazing, isn’t it?
It is amazing how we can fool ourselves into thinking that it is our right to behave so appallingly. It is amazing how we can fool ourselves to blaming everyone else, but the true culprit. That is, our self.
Here, I would like to add another famous quote from Rinpoche, because it truly resonates with me and it deepens what we are talking about here.
"As long as u look for the enemy on the outside, it remains safe on the inside doing it's damage."
-tweet by H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche
Yes, everyone else was my enemy. That was how I thought. I wanted to believe that was the truth. Because that allowed me to continue in my self-centred ways and thinking. I did not want to believe or think that the real enemy was within me. It was me. Period.
These days, I push myself to do more because in doing more I achieve more. Then I realised that truly loving ourselves or even others, is really in doing more and pushing myself to doing more.
How can doing nothing and hiding behind pathetic excuses constitute to loving oneself truly, or even caring about others?
That is just plain lame! Yes, I can say that now because I have been exactly that and more.
These days, you will NOT FIND me sitting around indulging in self-pity and worshipping laziness.
These days, I am the one going out there and saving myself.
WHY?
BECAUSE I DAMN WELL CAN AND BLOODY WELL SHOULD!
"...you will NOT FIND me sitting around indulging in self-pity and worshipping laziness."
ReplyDeleteI will use this sentence as soon as I see myself falling into those 2 moods. Very useful again. Much gratitude towards you and your writing Shirley!