My 70th birthday

I had a belief that I might die before turning to 70. It had been following me like a shadow, and emerged  to annoy me more frequently as it was closer to my 70th birthday.

Each time this thought crept   upon me,  my thoughts would  switch to my father's words when he was still alive. He used to say that he would die of being choked by anything before 69 of age.

The reasons why he stuck to this claim was because his father died at age 59 and was suffering from  chronic pneumonia for the last few years of his life. So then, I remember that for a reasonably long period of time during which my father was 59, and by coincidence he coughed quite seriously for no reason in that year. My mother was very worried and nervous about whether my father would die as he predicted.

Luckily the worst thing did not happen. There's a common belief among Taiwanese people that if you fall ill in the year of which your age happens to be something 9, for instance of 49, 59, 69, 79 and so on. Now that the 59th birthday crisis of my father was over. Very soon his 69th birthday was upcoming.

This time my father often claimed that he was likely to die in the year when he was 69 for the reason that no precedent householders of Chen family  lived beyond 69. And again my mother lived nervously through that year. When at last my father turned to be 70 safly without any ailment he changed his slogan to a more grateful one "I am not included in the premature death list now, contrarily I am one of the long lived. "

Having known the anecdotes of my father, you guys who are reading this article should have got some ideas about how I felt and feel before and after my 70th birthday.

Learning sketch

One of my friends who is an innate artistic person whom you can find that almost every thing of hers is modified to be artistically eye-catching. For example, once she gave us a tea towel as gift which was made out of 3 different materials: retired bath towel, lace and satin ribbon.

The lace and the satin ribbon are stitched to the towel to become a more attractive handicraft good for giving away as souvenir.

From that episode onward I noticed that she was really a multiple talented artistic type of person as I got to know her more she was not only good at making handicrafts but also good at photography, oil painting, water color, pencil sketch and cooking. And I noticed that the reason she could be good at so many different artistic skills is from her diligence in learning by either self-taught or through fee paying tuition. To my view point she is indeed a great learner. What she got out of all the hard working? Decent quality of life that is full of beauty.

 

Following her path, I started my sketch learning by way of the free sketch teaching from YouTube late June 2020. Apple was the first object of my practice.

One month has passed yet I am still struggling with the creation of a sensible and balanced highlight, midtone and dark shadow across the area of the apple.

I always send a copy of my work to her. I know it's difficult to comment on a beginner's work. But my submission doesn't seem to bother her as each time the return comes back with encouraging words and brief advice.

There is a saying in Taiwan which goes "it's hard to find a good friend, it's even more difficult to find an excellent teacher. It's almost impossible to befriend with the teacher." How lucky I am that I did it.

a beginner's works.

A power outage night

After I had lied in the comfy of my bed and was about to drift  into sleep on the night of last Thursday, a loud noise was heard from somewhere in the house. Jean was using the bathroom brushing her teeth yelled with a bit of horror "power outage!". A chill flew through my body. I endeavored to get out of the warmth of the bed to sort it out. With Jean's assistance, we found that the outage only affected the rooms in the West side, the rest of others and all of the power points were OK. 

I concluded that the outage was a result of a short circuit caused by the condensation of the moisture from the shower. I explained the situation to Jean and assured to fix the problem tomorrow.

(To be continued)

I nearly died

I experienced a deadly choking last week, or 8 March 2020 to be precisely. That experience was really dreadful that I was nearly suffocated to death.  

What happened was when I was engaged in a phone conversation with my sister living in Sydney.  In order to stop the annoying dry coughing that had bothered me for the past 3 or more years. I held some water in my mouth for the purpose of suppressing the coughing.   

Suddenly I had an urge of swallowing some of the water being held in my mouth. I followed the urge to proceed accordingly.  Feeling some of the water running down the esophagus l also felt at the same time some water droplets splashed Into the trachea.  When this happened, A series of reactions arose.  

The nerve system detected the foreign particles intrusion and Immediately tried to fight back to get rid of them.  Could this happen? As I could not let this happen because there were still some amount of waters being held in the month.  I would not open my mouth to let go the pressure being pushed from my lungs. 

At this moment, I felt the trachea tried really hard to shut itself off the incoming water while at the same time my physical body was in dire need of breathing in some air. 

I began to feel that I might die this time. I had actually stopped breathing for about 5 seconds. Suddenly there was a little gap went loose  between these 2 opposite forces which was the rescue of me.  

When I got the chance of breathing the air in, I knew that my life had been secured.  And although the aftermath was seen a very long period of coughing, My consciousness had sensed a very pleasant relief.

尋醫記

當我2005年第一次去看腦神經科醫生的時候，醫生告訴我說我得到的是一個無法醫治的疾病。不但無法醫治，就算給病人服了藥，這種疾病本身仍然會持續惡化。

正當我與這個疾病生活了將近11個年頭的時候，我突然警覺到原本我能做的事情逐漸變得困難了，尤其在最近兩年我的做事能力消退得更快。比如我在2016年之前，每兩個星期我會幫太太和麵粉做饅頭，但是這個活我已經心有餘而力不足了。這個病帶給我的麻煩大體上說有顫抖，僵硬，失眠，走路步伐蹣跚，平衡感差，容易跌倒等等。當這些症狀發作時，各位可以想像得到我是多麼的挫折無奈，因此儘管醫生告訴我這個病是沒得醫的，我仍然抱著希望，在很多可能的管道裡尋尋覓覓。

所有我想到的點子有：腳底按摩，營養補充劑，氣功，原始點療法，甚至還用上精神修煉的內觀靜坐。這幾個治療的點子，都各自發揮了某種程度的功效，但是和我的期望還相距太遠。

目前我正在做原始點療法。在這裡我想多談談我從2016年9月間開始進行的這個療法。這個療法是由我的好朋友David和Mary夫婦替我做的。他倆堅定的相信原始點療法對我的巴金森病一定有效，於是他們為我安排了一個每週兩次的原始點按推為期6個月。他們原本要兩次的來回行程都由他們來承擔，經過我們真心誠意的勸阻，最後終於同意我們分擔其中的一次旅程，從我們家北岸市搭兩趟公交車和火車去位於南區的Papakura。他倆不但如此發心的布施，還不辭辛勞的替我們熬煮濃姜湯，提供理療所需要的熱水袋溫敷的電毯。

原始點醫學源自台灣，是原始點醫學基金會發展出來的一個醫療系統。這個系統相信任何疾病都是起因於與其相對應的筋受到身體熱能降低的影響而引發的。如果體寒與筋傷這兩個問題化解了，疾病也就跟著消除。

這個理療行動是從去年（2016）九月中旬開始的。當時我正飽受失眠之苦，因此我期待這個理療法能把我自2015年以來一直苦惱著的睡覺問題先給解決。

剛開始並沒能看出什麼重大的改善，直到兩個月後的十一月間，我突然留意到我的睡眠保持穩定的良好品質，從此我開始對這一個療法生起信心。

除了這項每週二次的按推，我得每天喝下600c.c.的濃姜湯，並且每天做最少二小時的溫敷。我一直對他們所相信的所謂的提高內熱能的方法抱著懷疑的態度，因為他們相信內熱能可以經由給身體外表加熱而提升。因此我從來沒能確確實實的做好溫敷這項作業，直到最近一次親身的體驗，才使得我修正了我對這個理論的看法。

好幾天前我的左大腿顫抖得很劇烈，同時右大腿也僵硬得很嚴重。我當時想到，也許我應該好好聽信他們的建議，把溫敷確確實實的做一次看看。我真做了，而且那次溫敷所得到的結果非常理想，顫抖和僵硬很快就平靜了下來。

我想把我分別在2012， 2013， 2015以及2017年間的自拍照來驗證一下我的健康狀況，並且給它們做一個比較。

     

上左2012 上右2013 下左2015 下右2017一月

這四張照片可以很清楚的看得出我當時的身體狀況。從最左邊的兩張，可以看得出我消廋了很多。我從2005年原本61公斤逐漸掉到當時的47公斤。打從我被診斷出患了巴金森病開始，就按時服藥而言，我一向是個很合作的病人。雖然這個文明的西藥幫助了我把病的主要症狀控制住了，但是它的副作用卻摧毀了這一切功德。這也就是為什麼我的這兩張照片顯得如此虛弱的原因。

2014年間，一個胃酸倒流的副作用逐漸形成，我覺得很有必要去除掉原本每天四趟藥當中的一趟，以緩解日益嚴重的胃酸問題。沒想到這一個減藥的行動使我的身體獲得立即的紓解，我的體重回升到54公斤，最後穩站在52公斤。這張照片可以看得出我元氣多了。

對長期服藥所帶來的負面影響有了警覺，就在2016年中，我決定再刪減一趟藥。但是這次的減藥行動不但沒能給我帶來好的感受，反而使我飽受更大幅度的顫抖與僵硬，另外還多了睡覺困難的問題。

第四張照片攝於2017年的一月間。當時我已經接受了近四個月的原始點按摩。雖然我的主要症狀還沒有得到改善，但是像睡覺困難，便秘等副作用以及我的身體的一般性的問題都獲得了改善。每一個看到我的這張照片的朋友都說我的病好像痊癒了。

在我的尋醫的路途上，我很感恩有David 和Mary的出現。他們的慈悲改造了我的生命。

In search of a cure

Upon my first visit to the neurologist in 2005 I was told that the disease I caught was an  incurable one. Not only that it is incurable, it will be deteriorating progressively from its onset even though the patient is put on medication.

While I have lived with this disease for nearly 11 years, I noticed that my ability of doing various kind of things has been taken away one by one, and is in an even faster pace during the last two years. The nuisance it generated for me were tremor, stiffness, sleeping disturbance, walking gait, poor balance, frequent fall and et cetera. It makes me frustrated and annoyed when any of these symptoms hits, therefore even though I was told of its incurable nature I spend time in searching for a cure through various possible channels.

The ideas that I have found from my search for a cure are: reflexology, dietary supplement, Qi Gong, Original Point Medicine and the spiritual practice doing Vipassana meditation. To some extent, these techniques have done some of their works but they are still far away from the level of my expectation.

Currently I am doing original point therapy. I would like to talk more about this therapy which I have been undertaking since the late part of September 2016. This therapy is carried out by my good friends David and his wife Mary. They had a strong belief that the Original Point medicine will certainly do good to my Parkinson's disease and so they arranged a free two sessions a week of Original Point massage for me. Not only that they offered to travel all the way from Papakura, where they live, to come to North Shore to do the massage for me, they cooked thick ginger tea, they provided the electric blanket and hot water bottle all for free.

The Original Point medicine originates from Taiwan is a systematic treatment developed by the Original Point Medicine Foundation. This system believes that the symptoms of any disease emerge due to certain amount of damage found on the corresponding tendons or from a sharp drop of the biological energy of the physical body. If the two issues of energy drop and the tendon damage are eliminated then the disease will be eradicated.

The treatment was started in the later part of September 2016. I was suffering from an annoying sleeping disturbance since late 2015 and I wished this problem could be solved first of all.

No significant improvement was found until the mid-November when my sleeping quality suddenly began to maintain its stabilised pattern. I gradually trust in this therapy.

Besides the twice a week massage sessions, I am supposed to drink 600 mL of thick ginger tea and at least two hours of heat therapy on a daily basis. I have been skeptical about the heat therapy which they believe is the way of topping up the biological energy from outside, and so for this reason I have never really done this properly as requested until recently.

A few days ago I had a severe tremor on my left leg and stiffness on the right and I thought perhaps I should take their advice of doing the proper heat therapy for this time, so I did and I found it really helped eradicating the tremor and rigidity.

I would like to share four of my selfies shot in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017 respectively.

These four pictures of me clearly tell you the results of the major treatment I had in that year. As you can see from the first two pictures, my body weight plummeted to 47 kg from 61 kg in 2005. During the seven years since I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, I had been a cooperative patient in the sense of taking the prescription medicine as I was told to. Although the modern medicine help me to put the major symptoms of tremor and the stiffness under control, the side effects that come out of the medicine is destroy all of the merit it is meant to provide. That is why I look so weak and skinny in these two pictures.

Gradually a side effect in the form of gastric acid reflux was emerging in 2014, I felt I must cut one of the four sessions of my medication to deal with this problem that had been troubling me in 2015. I felt an instant relief physically after the cut of medication and my body weight was brought up to 54 kg then gradually slide down to 52 kg and settled at this figure. The picture shot in this stage sure is a more energetic me.

Having realised the negative side of the medication, I decided to cut off for yet another session in mid 2016 without having consulted my doctor. This action was too radical because not only that I could not experience of further relief physically I was suffering from excessive tremor and the stiffness together with the sleeping disturbances.

The fourth picture was shot in January 2017. I had had nearly 4 months of the Original Point massage. Although the major symptoms have not been improved, some of the side effects such as sleeping difficulty, constipation together with the general issues of my physical body have been improved. Everyone whom I shared this picture with commented that I seemed to have completely got rid of my disease.

Along the journey of my search for a cure of my Parkinson's disease I am grateful to David and Mary. Their compassion has made a difference of my life.

Making bread in the predawn

Not because I’m diligent that I am making bread in the predawn time when most of the people are still enjoying the warmth of the bed but because I need to find something to do physically to keep myself warm in the early part of the day, of the winter day. So I was thinking about what to do after my predawn meditation. Ah! Making a loaf wholemeal bread will be a good idea, by doing this I will have to knead the dough and at the same time I can listen to the discourse made by Goenka through my MP3 device.

So then a series of actions followed after the idea I had generated a few minutes ago. I opened the cabinet and took out the bag of wholemeal flour; got all the ingredients in need; set up a working area on the bench and began the process of making the dough.

It was about 6:30 AM in the morning when I started and it was still very dark, the entire area where I live was completely quiet and filled with peaceful atmosphere. I thought of some areas in the world like Syria and Iraq were suffering from endless wars; some rich European countries like France and Germany and the south-east coastal line of Australia were being flooded by the unprecedented massive rainfall, yet people living in Auckland are in their full scale of well-being, how lucky and well blessed we are.

Goenka’s ninth day discourse was being played. I listened to it using a pair of earphones so that it would not disturb other family member in sleep. I enjoyed listening to the discourse of Goenka on the theory and technique of Vipassana meditation. Every morning after I have finished my predawn meditation practice I will come to my desk to pick up the small MP3 device that contained the complete set of the 10 day discourses presented by him. This habit has been going on since March of this year, by a rough estimate I have repeatedly listened to this set of his speech at least 10 times now. Although I have listened for so many times each time I will find that, to my surprise, there are always a couple of places I didn’t notice. This indicates that my attention hasn’t been concentrated on the tasks at hand, and my mind is set free most of the time.

I measured 8 cups of wholemeal flour which according to my experience would make two loaves of bread but I wondered if I could handle it because it would be a big piece of dough, perhaps too big for me to knead. It is out of question if I am totally healthy or if I am on treatment from the medication. But it was too late as the flour had been measured and the water mixed, now I can only go ahead with it keeping my fingers crossed.

When the dough mixture was forming up, I began to feel the clumsiness of my hands. They were moving slowly and both hands were coordinating poorly, but I could not just stop and leave at this stage, I could only keep going till the dough was properly kneaded up to its standard.

Somehow, I had the dough done. It did not look beautiful but I was sure it would rise and would be baked just fine. By the time I put the dough in the bread tin to rise by the hot water cylinder the sky was bright. The main part of the bread making process is done. I have passed over the coldest period of the day.

Holidaying in Whakapapa Village

Walking in the twilight

We quietly planned a three night stay in The National Park located in Whakapapa Village, famous of its most popular ski field in the Ruapehu volcanic area. We did not mention about our intention of making this holiday because we wanted this tour a self assist type, having no assistance at all from friend or our children with any of the map research, on line ticketing, shuttle bus, transportation, meal and accommodation arrangement required for a successful holiday plan.

The journey started from 6:04am of 7/4/2016. Fortunately the daylight saving was wound back last weekend, so we got the one hour back otherwise we would have to walk in total darkness to catch bus at the nearest bus stop 500 metres away.

In the twilight, watching toward the spot near Rangitoto where the sun will rise, it only had revealed a slight brightness over there. The traffic on the main road was just beginning to increase. The temperature was 4 degree at the time we started our initial journey by walking from where we live toward the bus stop, feeling excited like school children going on an outdoor school activity.

Unexpected bonus

To get on board of the train, we must change to another two different buses and walked the remaining 800 meters to get to the place, The Strand Station. My time keeping was proved to be excellent that as expected we arrived at the boarding area at 7:15am, 10 minutes ahead of the required time of reporting your arrival.

Having got our boarding passes, we found our way to our allocated seats. It was a face to face seating with a table in between for four, and I believed it was meant to be only for two of us. What an unexpected bonus.

Beautiful country

The Britain Telegraph News released its survey of the most beautiful place in the world this year recently. The result says that for two consecutive years in a row, New Zealand won the first place. I believe it is so. Alone the way after the train has left the city, all we saw outside was green grass land of plain, rolling mountains, farm house, sheep and cows, scattered across the entire landscape evenly, peacefully and beautifully. What a lovely country I have been so luckily living in.

Day 1

The train was scheduled to arrive The National Park station at 13:15. So it will take five and half hours to send us to our destination. For a distance of about 270km journey, this length of time sounds incredibly too long. Indeed we felt the train was running too slow, but when the picturesque scenery began to show up, we realized the speed was regulated to suit a scenic tour purpose. Soon the nearly 6 hours long journey was coming to an end, the train was halted by the platform.

When I was worrying about whether if my request for a shuttle bus to pick up us had been taken care of by the hotel the other day, I heard someone querying "is there anyone going to Skotel?" when I was claiming my luggage by the storage carriage. I relieved and said in my mind, "ah! wonderful", "the transportation arrangement I have requested over the phone has been processed properly."

We hopped on the van, travelling over the 16km of distance toward the Whakapapa Village where is the residential area nearest to the vocanos. Well before we started working on our travelling plan, our family friend had been reminding us of staying right in Whakapapa Village and not somewhere in The National Park which is actually located on the outskirt of Whakapapa Village.

The van dropped us off the entrance of Skotel Alpine Resort. It is a long log wood building stretching across the best position for views in that area. The log wood interior radiated a relaxing, welcoming atmosphere. We loved it immediately. Feeling we were lucky to end up in choosing Skotel to stay, because not only we loved its natural touch but also it was less expensive than the other one.

Day 2 activity

Weather forecast for the park during our stay was not optimistic. All the three days were said to be cloudy with occasional showers, some heavy with lightening. Our mind sunk before we arrived, but we soon tuned our mind, thinking that I could not walk far anyway and perhaps just sitting in the room enjoying the great view would be good enough.

The next day we did see an unwelcoming weather. It was drizzling all over the area. The visibility distance was may be less than 100 meters. All the volcanos we saw yesterday evening were all hidden away. But we were not defeated, we set out to explore the interior facilities of Skotel instead.

We came to the restaurant. The meal time was over and the entire restaurant was empty and so was its neighboring Cafe. We found these two spaces had the most breathtaking views of the entire hotel. If you are still not satisfied watching from inside of the building, there are two doors lead to a spacious deck where there are outdoor tables, chairs and BBQ equipment.

Above the restaurant, we came to a chamber room equipped with two sets of lounge couch, a bookshelf, and a piano. A group of elderlies were chatting in a language not known to me at one set of the couch. One of them, a male, walked toward the piano and began to play some tune out of it. He looked toward me and I raised my thumb up to show my friendliness, and he returned me a thumb up and a wink.

My PD medication was putting me at peak effect at that time. When this happens, my personality goes a bit out of tune. I behave a little more wild than when the medication effect wears off. I call this Mr. Bean effect because I will behave as hilariously as Mr. Bean, the comedian.

So I winked back to that gentleman, asking could I have a turn to playing the piano. He gave me an inviting gesture.

I walked to the piano, and said to him, "I am the one-finger pianist, and I am going to play one most popular piece to entertain you." He smiled at me, but I could tell he seemed to be not understanding what I was saying."

I could only play some notes with one finger. I played Happy Birthday To You. When everyone of them recognized the tune, they all giggled and began to sing along with me. They applauded eagerly as well when the play ended, and I made an exaggerated 90 degree deep bow to my audience. The man who had been standing next me asked " are you from Japan?". And I found my drug pushed me to another height that I heard myself giving him the answer in Japanese "Iiiee, watakushi wa Japanese man nakute, watakushi wa Taiwan kala les.". Interestingly, he nodded and turned to tell his group of people that I was from Taiwan. Then I saw all of them looked at me and smiled friendly.

Beyond my expectation, the sun shone unbelievably brilliantly outside by the time I had finished my 'concert'. This added more joy to my international interactivity a few minutes ago. I and my wife walked out of the hotel and started exploring the village.

We came to the four star Hotel called Chateau Tongariro which was about 3 minutes away by walk from our hotel. This is the one we were recommended to stay because of its more advanced development in its dining diversity. We were also strongly recommended to try the so called High Tea available in this hotel.

Prior to coming back to our hotel, we walked into one or two of the nature walks to experience the attraction from this popular activity. Unfortunately, I could not walk long enough before the taste of the nature walk was sensed. For sake of my medication schedule, we came back to our room.

In the night, we decided to indulge ourselves a formal 3 course dinner at the hotel restaurant instead of eating instant noodle in our room like what we did the previous night. The meal was unexpectedly very big. This is very unusual as I have seen the meals served in the higher class of restaurant are usually very small amount. My wife rationalize this phenomenon by the fact that most of the people are here more hungry because the major activity here consumes a lot of energy during the day time and so local restaurant responds to customer's demand in this wise.

Day 3

It was another sunny day from quite early hour of the day, and we left for outdoor activity rapidly.

Having no idea about what to do, we followed our feeling by heading toward the volcano. After a short distance of walk, we found upon a mild turn on the main road of the village there were lot cars parking one after another all along both sides of the road, and what had caught our sight first was a big sign of visitors information center. We realized later it was leading to the ski field.

The information center provides all sorts of historical pictures, videos, maps relating to the volcanic activities of the national park in the past.

We then moved to a cafe for lunch and went back to our room for a rest.

Upon entering the room, we were astounded by the magnificence of the two volcanoes standing mightily in a compelling distance from our room. It was because of the afternoon crystal sun shining from the backside of our room that caused the mountain to reflect sharply. The look of the mountains were so special that anyone who looked at it could feel its spirit, feel it is not stationary.

So, without saying a word, we opened the sliding door fully and moved our afternoon tea to the table out on the patio till the sunset and when the mountain breeze was getting cold.

On the way home

Having had an early breakfast in the hotel, we began to pack up for returning home. I said to my wife, "Happy time is always passing by fast."

The shuttle bus driver met us in the lobby on time. She must have been asked by her customers about what to do when train arrives? where to get boarding pass? this sort of questions, so before I asked when we arrived the train station, she initiated. "look, there is a cafe right by the platform. you don't have to buy anything there, yet you can wait for the train there. When the train comes, you don't just hop on. You wait till the train staff comes to give you your boarding pass, then you hop on after you have settled your big luggage. Have a nice trip home."

Our home bound seating was not the four for two like we had 4 days ago, but it was comfortable.

It was totally dark by the time when we arrived The Strand Station. The train staff asked me if I have arranged transportation for home after arrival? I thought he was trying to get business for transporting their passengers home, I explained that we only need to walk 17 minutes to get to Britomart, then we will be alright. He then said, "do you want to be enrolled on a coach bus which will drop you off Britomart for free." So this is another bonus we received unexpectedly in this trip.

Ah! what a wonderful holiday I have ever had.

Constantly changing

Nothing within the reach of our 6 sensual consciousnesses will remain unchanged. some change so rapidly that even our naked eyes can detect their continual differentiation. Some are slow and only our imagining function of the mind can create a mind picture of its changing process. For an example, a mountain is seemingly not changing, but it certainly changes little here and little there at any time when there is wind blowing across it or a torrential downpour demonstrates its power, surely everyone agree the mountain is changing its shape because of that condition.

Living with Parkinson's Disease

An incurable disease
I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in June 2005. Having never been sick except some ailments that were not as big as the one I was told by the neurologist at the end of the consultation visit that afternoon in his Glenfield clinic. I was explained what this disease was about and was told by the doctor that it was so far an incurable disease but medication is available to help get its symptoms under control. I thought my life was nearly coming to the end. So in October, I took one week of my annual leave for holiday and flew to Sydney where my 4th sister lived. The main purpose of this trip was to say goodbye to her. But the doctor later corrected my perception of it that PD is incurable at the moment, definitely is not a life threatening disease.

Medication
Having told me all the basic information of my PD, doctor asked me if I would like to take medicine to compress the symptoms I had experienced at that stage being: depression, tremor on right hand, nervousness when doing serious jobs. I said, "No, I am not prepared mentally to take medication today. Let me contemplate it for a few days" "that's alright, a lot of patients chose no medicine at the first visit. Feel free to call me to get your prescription when you are prepared."

The annual review at work
The boss whom I worked for had scheduled to interview me for the annual review by which the top boss determined how much of the pay rise was fair to me, and this was due to happen in August. My tremor was getting more serious week by week. Driving was becoming more challenging to me as it stressed me more and more, and so I relied on my colleagues' support in driving me around to the various venues wherever we were supposed to attend any activity. I said to myself that my tremor mustn't be seen by the boss on my annual review day otherwise my employment will be broken.

That day came finally
I was just 54 years of age at the time of seeing my employment under threat from my ill-fated disease. My daughter was not yet fully independent financially after her graduation in 2005, and my son was still in his form 5 year of the high school. No, I was not allowed to lose the job. So about 2 months before the interview day was up, I called the neurologist to ask for my prescription.

I anticipated a full effect from the medicine called Medorpa to seamlessly cover up my symptoms. However, I could not feel anything good or bad after one week of medication. The next visit was after the interview. Even though I could request to reschedule the visit, I had no confidence that the adjusted medication would make much difference, so I left the result of the interview to the hands of my fate.
That day came finally. I travelled to the office with a heavy heart. I was seated opposite to a swivel chair across a table awaiting the boss to inquire me with some queries relating to my performance on the job.

I took several deep breath trying to make myself look more relaxing, however, I was still able to sense the slight trembling on my fingers. By the time I had been seated and got my notepad and pen set out on the table, the boss walked toward the meeting room lightly and elegantly as he used to be. I was told some months later in a company social function that he like dancing and had learned ballet during his high school days in South Africa.

Before long, he appeared at a spot one step before me and reached his right hand to greet me. "Nice to see you Morris, how are you?", "Nice to see you boss, I am well, thank you". I reached my hand to shake with his, and at the moment my palm was moving toward his, I could see the fingers were in apparent tremor. I quickly grabbed his and shook wholeheartedly with the best smile I could make trying to hide the trembling hand. But he spotted it.

An instant wit flush helped me out
My boss asked me, in a way that was far from an ordinary inquiry, to raise my hand again after we had finished the mutual greeting. "no, no, wait, wait a minute, show me your hand again. Why did I see it was shaky. Anything wrong with it?" asked quite aggressively.

My thoughts were spinning swiftly for a reasonable reply or tactical reaction to flood over the challenge I faced. Suddenly came up from nowhere, I saw in my mind screen a group of Maori dancers waving both of their hands back and forth across the front face with a slight vibration seen on the hands. Someone in one of our Maori culture workshops did pop up this question to ask the program presenter as to what the frequently seen hand vibrating in the Maori dancing stand for? and the answer was simply the symbolization of the ocean current the migrating Maoris experienced during their adventure in coming to the Aotearoa.

Immediately I raised up my arms and demonstrated an elegant Maori greeting gesture by shaking my hands vigorously, "oh! nothing wrong, I have been applying the Maori greeting culture in places whenever possible to enforce the learning to my colleagues and students, and so my hands seem to have been tuned to behave like that." And this nervous episode was over, and we got back to business. At the end of the meeting, the boss complimented me a bit and gave me a figure saying that because of my effort in the job I deserved that percentage of wage raise. Then he sent me off by the door and reminded me the pay rise will reflect in the upcoming pay slip.

I could not drive -
Once you have lost your health, you are destined to see a more rapid physical deterioration than healthy people. The first problem that came up to me was the bad tremor on right leg.

On one sunny morning, we were supposed to attend the PA meeting in the city. I volunteered to take 4 other PA's in my car to help reduce the worsening Auckland traffic. My driving behaviour was reputable among our team members, soon all the vacant seats were filled.

We went on the journey to the venue smoothly, and when we were beginning to go on the slope leading to the harbour bridge, I found my right foot sole was not able to press the accelerator down and steadily fix it to maintain a desired speed. It rhythmically press down and then release the pedal repeatedly. I immediately realized this was the tremor of my PD causing the problem. This uncontrollable involuntary foot movement is dangerous to driving. Since then I gradually avoided driving, and eventually I gave up driving from 2008 when my insurer knew my situation and advised me to stop driving because in case any accident happened, my PD could be blamed no matter what.

Studying Yogacara Buddhism

I had this opportunity of getting to know one of the 8 major Buddhism schools, Yogacara, or is known in Chinese community as Fa Xiang sect. Xuan Zang was believed the first Chinese Buddhist advocated its theory. His legendary adventure of travelling to India in 7th century was motivated by his intensive longing for the study of the major sastras of this school under the guidance of master Jiexian based in Nalanto monastery.

When my friend living in Australia  passed me some of his notes jotted down from his careful learning through a heap of audio recordings of Prof. Luo, I immediately realized why almost everyone I asked about their comment of the features of Yogacara Buddhism said unanimously that it is a difficult study for the multitude of ordinary or lower level of learners to try to understand what its doctrines are talking about. With this preoccupied thoughts in mind, I did not really read my friend's notes closely, however, my impression about his notes was that there you will come to see a new Buddhism terminology every three or four words as you read along. The terminologies kept on coming up as I read on, not before the first page was finished, I closed the file, and started writing my friend an e-mail as my feedback.

Now I am more convinced the truth of smartness inequality. The smartness makes one understand a statement quite easily like you. No wonder I had been working like a Kooli all in my career, while you have been successful since young. I mean the quote from your last message, "It will also let you know what is true or false, (though). " true and false is one and cannot be separated

 I came across this statement for the first time when I started learning with master Jing Kong in 2006, and I still not understand it today. But you do. You realise it from head to toe about why smart and stupid is one and is not two and can not be separated. But to my view point, you realised what this means as you read it, and I have read it for the past 9 years and still think they are two real damn things, although I will say this two are one when I am asked this question, but honestly to say I still think you are far smarter than me by 9 plus the number of years till I really attain enlightenment and become one with the universe, then he will agree we are one and are not one.

I have tried another two rounds attempting to attain a breakthrough by finding myself become glued to the seat in front of the computer reading his notes, the book with some interest at least, but both attempts were failed because even though I have become familiar with the scriptures and their meanings now, I was perplexed with most of the statements.





-to be continued-

Reflexology, highly recommended

The attempt to write a post on this topic had been in my mind for a long time. I always had  this urge of posting my review on the benefits this skill can bring to us whenever we apply it on our beloved ones.

When they have any kind of physical discomfort that is not agonizing pain and you are sure it is not an urgent one, then you apply the technique you have learned from experienced Reflexologist on them, and an instant effect is experienced not long after. It sounds unbelievable but to some kinds of ailments every household can see, hear or even experience themselves, such as headache, stomachache, constipation, and etc, Reflexology is really a helpful technique, at least I have witnessed and experienced it by myself.

I have proudly relieved physical discomforts innumerable times for my family members since 1986 when I had gained enough experience of this technique from an activist of this technique. I would like to share a few cases that I found most significant to help to motivate you to give it a go.

Consciousness

By chance, I was introduced to the Yogacara Buddhism in late 2014. To my understanding after having learned through a series of discussion done via a lot of e-mail exchanges, that branch of Buddhism explains that everything in the universe is consciousness only. I have been reviewing and contemplating this theory everyday since then.

Yesterday I landed at a web page where my attention was drawn to a video titled Primacy of Consciousness. That was the first time I realized consciousness is not just a word meaning the state of the mind being aware of certain thing happening at present and responding to it. It has an even wider area which I have never thought of until I watched this documentary video presented by Peter Russell of Cambridge University. One of the question raised in his speech was "Who am I?" I know this is not just a surface question; is not intended to ask "who you are?" or "What's your name?", but to challenge you to pin down the nature of the thoughts that are going on, and being processed when you are asked "Who am I?" The interesting part is at the ending of the speech when the conclusion is set by saying "I Am" is God, and God is everyone. To me as a Buddhist, this is equivalent to "I Am" is the Self and the Self is in everyone. This becomes more understandable to me.

Having finished listening to the video twice, I revisited my inside and paid closest attention to any part of it with the best imaginary power I could get, and I honestly told myself: here has nothing I can use to define "who am I". Then how about the exterior appearance of my physical body? Isn't it looking unique from anyone else in the world and should be good enough to define me just right? But having realized from my previous learning of Buddhism that I am not the same as I was one moment before, so I agree the exterior look of me can not define me as "Who am I". And the same argument can apply to everything in the universe, and so I have now sensed the deeper meaning of the four sentence verse the Buddha put at the end of the Diamond Sutra as a summary of that sutra:

all of the worldly matters

are like dream, delusion, bubble and shadow

they transform like the dew and thunder

they should be viewed so

The statements in the verse taught about 2500 years ago by the Buddha are proved to be true by scientists today. The Yogacara I am learning now, which was developed 300 years after the Buddha's residence supported the same theory which I have just heard from Mr. Russell's speech-- the universe is empty but only consciousness.

But as time goes by, and I have digested the material I watched from video or read from internet forums further, the process of testing the various theories I learned from here and there moves on to see which one is closer to or completely matching what the Buddha concluded about the truth of the universe as quoted above. I tend to believe Mr. Russell's consciousness theory matches the verse a lot, however, his theory is based on the nature of the eight types of consciousness. The Monas must have the other 5 plus the last one, Alayes, to work together as a system to manifest any phenomena. If my interpretation of this theory is correct, it will not help a practitioner in achieving enlightenment.

--to be continued

Learning Yogacara Buddhism

My recent experience from my stagnant dawn meditation taught me a lesson that to see any progress in whatever you do, you can not just satisfy with your achievement of current level of the things. If you do so, you'll experience a slip back and frustration before long. Instead, you must evolve constantly.

My dawn meditation practice is still going without skipping a single day, however, by just sitting and counting the breath-in and breath-out for one or some more hours of time, I have noticed a more frequent wandering around and clinging to the thought that arose randomly during my practice recently. I believe it is time to bring up an evolution movement for my daily sitting at the dawn hour.

A few days after I started writing this article, I received a friend's e-mail from Melbourn updating me his progress on the path of quest for enlightenment. He urged me to study a bit of the Yogacara Buddhism. 

He reckons one of its sutras is like a mini Buddhism encyclopedia and by studying its sutras I will know how our consciousnesses process the external stimulus; understand what is essential in my own spiritual development and which aspect of meditation or recital of Amituofo I have to pay attention to. It will help to make sense of what I am going to do. It will also let me know what is true or false. 

His own great effort spent in the learning of the Yogacara Buddhism himself, and his earnest urging me to learn the effective and helpful subject moved me, and I immediately delved into the learning process right away in the early part of December 2014.

As my friend said it was hard to make sense at the beginning with the terminologies. I tried three times attempting to get a breakthrough for a start to move forward, however, the commentary text essays are difficult for me to understand. Though they are written in Chinese, the scripture of the sutra are translated from Sanskrit into ancient scholar Chinese style. The translation of the Buddhism sutras was taken really seriously by the emperor of that era as a sacred event of his reign, and so I believe its quality was the superb and unsurpassable one. However, readers without a good level on reading the ancient Chinese literature will be knocked out easily. I put out my white flag, and get away from it about a month later.

My friend followed up my progress one day. I told him what had got me stuck. He encouraged me to try other means to get around it such as listening speech of the subject from YouTube. The IT technology is amazing, luckily I landed on an introductory speech of an one hour and half long video presented by Dr. Thomas Tam. I tried to listen to his video on the introduction to the Yogacara Buddhism for a few minutes, and I was sucked in right away. I think what has helped me in the breakthrough of my attempt to learn this branch of Buddhism is because Dr. Tam used adequate similes in places of the difficult terms. Or perhaps it is due to the reason that speeches presented in English are naturally requiring the speaker to have fully understood the Chinese original text first, digested the meaning of the original and then interpreted the processed thoughts into the speech with closest everyday living examples. This is the video that helped me out. Thank you Dr. Tam.

Having got a breakthrough, I came back to read the original literature of Yogacara Buddhism, The Mere Consciousness in 30 verses', which was translated by Xuan Zhuang of Tang Dynasty. And I found I could read through the verses with fairly good level of understanding, I am amazed.

What have I learned from the adventure? The book I have put hands on is "The Mere Consciousness 30 verses". It seems to be describing the  three consciousness- the mind, the Monas and the Alayavijnana; stating the features of each one of them and how they work together.

The mind consciousness is in charge of the 5 sensory organs (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body) or the five receptors of external stimulus (incoming data); The Monas being the 7th consciousness can not stop its natural urge for processing the data within its reach, and involuntarily catches the data collected from the 5 sensory organs to differentiate, compare, analyse, judge, label, organize, rearrange, retrieve, all kind of data processing functions and store them back into Alayanijnana when need to. Lastly the 8th consciousness called Alayanijnana stores anything and everything, freshly new or partially processed, it never bias to any kind of data, all are securely and permanently kept without a trace of loss. This configuration of the eight consciousnesses with their respective function or nature results in becoming a system which is able to track everything the identity did in the past, present, and the consequence of that deed in the future.

The above hypothesis is based on my personal contemplation over the commentary talks presented by preceding masters or Buddhism scholars. There must be a lot of mistakes, but it has developed into something like a seed in terms of its nature and is stored in Alayanijnana be it profound or dump. The seed will at a certain point of the time line meets all the conditions optimal to its sprouting and grow and eventually serves as the condition affecting other seeds to sprout. This seed to fruit process once started will bring up a chain reaction and thus the wonder of the world emerges.

If the seed contains any of the ingredient of negativity, it will manifest in the fruition and bring about suffering to others and vise versa.


--to be continued--

The wandering mind

According to a quote from a verse by an ancient master, "the mind is in constant wandering, once its wandering is ceased the Buddhahood will be revealed". I have never experienced what the Buddhahood is like, however, I have trust in ancient masters, so if this is what they concluded at their time and passed down through all these great number of generations, the verse must be true and that supreme spiritual state mentioned above got to be fantastic, and so I have been seeking for an effective path in a hope that I can attain a great enlightenment and really in full control of myself one day.

I listened to a live telephone interview broadcasted by a radio media in a Sunday morning show. A psychotherapist said in the show that our mind is wired to be wandering constantly, there is no way we can manipulate our brain to stop it from thinking. This saying from an expert makes me feeling defeated as I have been trying to find out the spiritual mechanism that I can set my mind to a certain mode, pause it or even totally cease it from functioning. I would hope this psychotherapist's knowledge of the activity of the brain is not true.

There must be a method with which we can succeed in achieving the goal of awakening, at least there is this Paramita Heart Sutra revealed this case that the Bodhisattva when in deep meditation realized the emptiness nature of everything in the universe. From this recorded text, we are convinced firstly by the script that meditation involved in the quest of the total awakening. Secondly we noticed the other ingredient is the required depth of the meditation. A loose and non-effective one is not helpful in the adventure. So we can conclude that a fruitful enlightenment consists of meditation, of a deep one and of a completely disciplined one.

Is the length of time of the meditation practice important? I take a faith in the "Yes". It must be one long enough for the energetic and wild mind to calm down. Most of the time we are fed up by the boring sit even for just a minute. Most meditation enthusiasts believe 20 minutes is the minimum time required to make us feel the mind is calming down, or less active. But this is still far away from the final objective to be achieved. So more time is added on top of the last, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, one hour or even one and half an hour. The longest one that I sat through was 2 hours, yet, my mind can still be easily distracted.

How do we know if we have achieved a good meditation? The supreme achievement is the enlightened state which we will perceive the emptiness nature of our consciousness function and attain a full control over the mind. It is listening to your command, focusing on the one point of thing only for as long as you want. In saying so, we must understand this is just a way of the depiction of that supreme achievement of the meditation practice in order to get the question answered, as a matter of fact emptiness has been applied over anything and everything that even a brief retrospection of what has happened before the enlightenment is achieved is unnecessary.

I have a progressive urge of mastering the Paramita as I have passed each day because the number of days I will have to achieve this state is in its countdown phase now. I anticipate 2022 is the year I will be disappeared from this planet physically. So I must put more effort into my quest for this life goal before it is too late. Yes, I did a 2 hour meditation for the first time yesterday. I should be more determined on this important life issue.

--the end--

The Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra

This past few days, I experienced a more active wandering state than usual during my dawn meditation resulting an intensive internal self reprimand. Having detected this brain activity, I brought the thought to reciting the script of Heart Sutra. But the wandering mind soon became fed up with it and tried to move to somewhere else. I repeatedly summoned it back. The one hour duration was felt much longer than it was but I always persistently complete the sitting after the one hour session is finished. Today, the mind was behaving mostly the same except that I gave it more liberty to involve in the thinking process of contemplating the content meaning.

Unexpectedly I felt the one hour sitting was shorter than it should be. It is understandable that when we are totally engaged in something, a certain part of our brain responsible for monitoring the timeline must have become less active, and so when we have got out of the focused point, the timeline manager resumes its working standard, and our feeling of the elapse of time returns to normal. This is my personal hypothesis of how our brain works. My goal is to achieve higher level of voluntary concentration.

Let's suppose there are 8 levels (8 is my lucky number) in the meditation skill assessment. The level that Bodhisattva demonstrated as per the description mentioned in Heart Sutra is 8, while my level is 2 according to my definition, "whoever is able to remain in silence and sitting posture for a duration of one hour minimum is classified level 2." Level 1 is not difficult to attain. As long as you can remain in silence and sitting for a few seconds and more but less than one hour, you are counted in there.

It is not important about what level you have achieved but the actual ability you have acquired. In the Heart Sutra, Bodhisattva claimed "form is emptiness, emptiness is form." and also revealed the consequence of attaining the state where he experienced the ceasing of the four functions of thought processor - receiving, processing, acting and archiving of the external stimulus, is bypassing the whole bunch of suffering because of the stubborn attachment to the four functions which our brain is so designed.

The objective Buddha is trying to make us understand is to achieve the level 8 which will enable us to realize the emptiness nature of form. I agree with the saying that only the drinker himself knows how warm or cold is the water he has just drank. Heart Sutra has stated it very clearly what benefits we will get when we have attained the technique as to still the functioning of our brain at will, but it is never easy and there are a great number of practitioners including myself believe perseverance in regular practice will have its fruition one day.

Hopefully one day I can tame the wandering mind to a degree that enables me to experience the state depicted in Heart Sutra.


-the end-