DAY 84: The Unbearable Delusion of Being

DATE: SATURDAY, 12TH JUNE 2010


DAY: Eighty-Four (84/100)

PROSTRATIONS: 80

DAILY SADHANAS: 1 hour and 45 minutes

Yes, my laptop is back and I am slowly recovering my life’s work. Although I have to say, a lot will be lost forever. (So kind of karma to unload crap on my behalf. Considering most of the crap is basically my own bad writing.)

Lately, I have been having this feeling of heaviness - like an unshakeable sense of weariness.

Everything I see around me is just a constant repetition of the same ol’ thing, over and over again.

Connecting back into the cyberworld, such as Facebook allows me to see Samsara in FULL H.D. That is, High Definition. And I am not just talking about other people’s thoughts and activities, mine as well.

Not too long ago – I’d be FB-ing about the places I have been, yet to visit, all my exploits, feastings, adventures, escapades, tantrums, parties – it’s all about desire, desire, desire – all mine, of course.

And I look at some friends around me – they are still doing just that. Yup, their lives revolve around just that.

There is nothing wrong with having fun – but if that is all there is to one’s life, then it is rather sad, no?
One big party after another, shopping, holidays, spas, slimming centers, the new diet, the new boyfriend, the new girlfriend, the new car, the new watch, the new house, the new jewellry, the Birkin Crocodile bag, etc ?

This is the sum of one’s life and we are actually proud of it?!


This is why we work so hard all our lives, even at the cost of shortening our lives, the risk of being in debt – it is all for these?

I am sorry but I could not help but wonder who is the ‘genius’ that started all this ‘delusional slave-driven lifestyle’.

Oh yes, I do say it is slavery at its best – because it is making us all work our asses off, and we still have no clue as to why, because we are too pre-occuppied with buying into the ‘delusions’ that they are marketing – from the ‘lifestyle’ to the very products that carry huge important logos on them because they validate our success in life.

This modern-day slavery – the best kind ever – whereby we keep working for a system that feeds the richest in the lands, while we keep struggling to make ends meet so that we can buy more of whatever they are manufacturing. And because they market them so well that we are so convinced that we actually need all these crap.

So, buying never ends.

The ‘feeding frenzy’ never ends – from credit cards, to housing loans/mortgages, to car loans, etc.

This sums up what it means when we say, we’re ‘surviving’ in this world.

Surviving for who, actually? How?

What real beneifts have we truly received?


Even after so–called buying everything we thought we really wanted, we then begin another new process – MAINTENANCE of all these crap.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not trying to sound holier than thou here.

I was the best regular customer of this “delusional slave-driven system”. (I may have even been a shareholder!)

From the Silver, I got upgraded to a Gold, then onto the Platinum, and now, finally, they have a BLACK card?!

What’s next? Invisible card? Because you are so well known and such a high net worth individual, everyone ought to know you by name and face recognition already?

As I have said earlier, it’ll never end. It's an addictive merciless cycle.

And yet they can give IT all such sweet sounding names like - healthy competition, enterprising, entreprenuerial, in search of excellence, raising the standards and quality of life, giving consumers more or better products...yes, it is all very convincing.

If every single thing that has been created is meant to make our lives better, then why are more people getting stressed out, various mental illnesses, angersome, more impatient, and feeling less connected with the rest of their community.

It seems that we have done a great job in creating and developing outer technology but we have not developed much of our inner technology. We seek the external to compensate our internal lacking.

Results speak for themselves. Take a good look around you.

And whatever we seem to create spawns worse side effects – from pollution to illness, to violence, greed, hatred, war, and etc.

Oh yea, there are all these fine prints and clauses in the whole deal. No freebies! It's pleasure with a terminal long term payment.

If those things that we so proudly create and claim to own are truly good for us, then the results should be good for us all. There should be more peace, more harmony, zero-stress, no pollution, a more balanced distribution of wealth, food and resources shared amongst one another. But the results are not as such, are they?

To put it simply and directly – we are all addicted to Samsara and its products of Grand Delusion.

So much so that to live without any of them would seem impossible and down right, painful.

We simply can’t and won’t.

The delusion has become our most beloved attachment.

I admit I have developed a strong distaste against all things material.

I admit that I do not buy into the ‘feeding frenzy’ as I used to.

And it is not because I am better or have turned so goody-goody. Fat chance!

I just hate being trapped in a maddening cycle that repeats itself day in and day out.

And what's worse, I am forced to maintain that ruthlessness. Then is it any wonder that I become a ruthless predator myself in due course!

These days, even if I do BUY ANYTHING now, it would be for a whole different purpose.

It’s definitely not to make me feel better because I certainly do not need them to justify anything in my life, or my very being. Yes, it would all be related to the Dharma work and lessons that I am practising.

In any case, whatever we have and want to accumulate or buy will only last for a short while. We can’t take anything with us when we die.

And we will all die at some point.

H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche wrote a truly mind-blowing blog entitled, “The Beginning” about life on earth, and how we truly own nothing. And the only thing we can take with us is our minds. Do have a read at http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/06/the-beginning.html.

I do warn you first, ya. It might be hard for some of you to ‘stomach’. Especially, the pictures Rinpoche had posted. But then again, the truth is always difficult for us to swallow.

I don’t know why that is so.

May be it’s because we have been put into a comatose state of delusion for way too long.


Reflection for the last nine days from "IF NOT NOW, WHEN?" – Here we go. I close my eyes and I picked out page 099.

Quote from Page 099 for Day Eighty-Four :

“Why run away, avoid and deny? Why not give in to concern, acting for others, great love, generosity, offering of time, effort or care for others, acceptance, patience and calm abiding? That is who we really are...If Enlightenment is not within, then where might it be?


Don’t look for love. Create it with whoever you meet.


Don’t have ill motive for money, gain and possessions from others and you will gain others’ trust, confidence and help.


Don’t find and magnify your own endless problems but solve, listen to and find solutions for others’ turmoil.


Then you will grow within and without.”




Personal Thoughts and Feelings:

Great beautiful words, as always.

Sadly, many may not even relate to them or identify with them.

The caring and selfless make up the minority in today’s world.

I guess, in a world of self-serving delusional beings, the selfless truth seekers/upholders might seem like a bunch of stupid, mad, useless idealists.

Similarly, in a world intoxicated with madness, the sane few would look completely deranged.

Sobriety is a dirty word today.

As for me, I am still in rehab – recovering from my utter state of ‘drunkenness’.

Becoming awake is both painful, darn right exasperating and dreadfully challenging...I fall back and forth, up and down, some days I don't know if I winning or losing, but then I realised that waking up is the only thing worth doing.

Because this is the only thing I can take with me, life after life.

I rather invest in that.