Away Till Mid-Dec

Dear Friends,

I’ll be away till mid-Dec. Take care and remember to be mindful.

If something upset you today, ask yourself, “Why?”. Is it because someone did something wrong, and you are thinking “I am right and he is in the wrong.” ? If you are indeed right, then why be angry? Why allow yourself to be upset? Since you are right, you should be happy!

Give yourself a challenge, to be calm and happy regardless of whether others are right or wrong.

Take care of your bodily, emotional and mental health my friend. Only you can do that. Don’t give your emotional remote to others and let others make you happy or sad.

In the meantime, have a nice day …. Unless you have other plans!

With Metta,

Buddhist Interact Club @ Manjusri Secondary School

In May 2009, Venerable DingRong and me conducted a Students’ Heart Corner Programme (quite wordy in retrospect!) at Manjusri Secondary School.

The Students’ Heart Corner Programme (SHC) is a pilot programme aimed at giving the students at Manjusri Secondary School an additional avenue to interact with members of the Buddhist Sangha (monastic) community so that they may learn to cope with their emotions and be able to better handle stress and pressure in school. Structure and Duration

The pilot programme ran successfully every Friday for a group of 10 to 15 students, for the month of May, 2009. The programme included activities such as: Simple Awareness Meditation • Group Dialogue • Sharings • Hymns • Each session was conducted by us venerables and was assisted by Mrs Cheng and Mr Ng. The sessions was conducted at the Dharma / Multi-purpose Hall and lasted over 1.5 hours each.

Photo collage from the second session

Photo collage from the second session

The Shrink Is In … Letting It Out … … Your Anger I Mean

You know what they say, in some therapy, in some movies, or some TV shows, where the patient is advised to just let out their anger? Or in some cases, yourself or a friend who actually sees a “shrink” and you are told to acknowledge your anger (or whatever emotions you are dealing with! … rarely is it happiness!). Some of these scenes (not sure in real life) would further include the patient shouting out “I’m angry! I’m flabbergasted! I’m so f**king pissed!” … and in some cases even throwing things, and the good doctor would then say “Good good! Acknowledge your emotions. … ” etc etc …

I’m just wondering if anyone who tried this realise that the mere acknowledging or more rightly, the identifying with emotions in such manner, serves also to strengthen them. The mere “I am angry”, reinforces that well, I am angry. But where’s the I, as they would say? There’s probably a letting go part that some of these movies or real life accounts are missing, or maybe I didn’t watch the right ones or the persons I hear it from didn’t go to the right shrink. But is it just me or isn’t it harder to let it go later on after we have identified with it saying “I am angry” like a gazillion times?? Read More …