Take Some Time Out and Visit a Temple

If you love the culture and spiritual heritage of other countries, you will be sure to enjoy visiting some of the temples in Bali. Once you’ve found a villa from Easy Bali Villas, you can set off to visit some of the closest ones straight away – unless you have arrived at night, of course. You may also not realise that most of the temples are uninhabited unless there is some kind of spiritual festival about to happen.

There are many temples scattered throughout Bali, not just in the main cities so wherever else you go to do your sightseeing in Bali, it is highly likely that a temple will be there too. This will give you the chance to visit some of the less popular ones and perhaps see something that most other people missed out on. However, the popular temples are that way because they are easier to access than most others, so tourists tend to choose them first.

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Living the Dream Part III

I had always prided myself on my ability to make good choices and I thought this was one of them. A lifelong quest for the secrets of happiness; the years of studying and reading about attaining goals, human behavior, spirituality and psychology, had helped prepare me for this moment. And yet, I still did not have an answer.

I decided to sit at one of the beachside cafés and ponder the question. It occurred to me that a book I had recently purchased called Practicing the Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, was in my bag. I took it out and flipped through the pages, hoping it would give me a clue. I came upon this passage:

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Living the Dream Part II

The fantasy soon faded as the viciousness of this crime forced me to recognize the polarities of Dominican Republic. Everyone was talking about this senseless act and adding their own incidences they had either experienced or heard about; robberies at gunpoint, misconduct by the police, medical mistreatment and others.

My perspective on my new country was rapidly shifting from positive to negative. This new reality was hitting me like an oncoming train. The six-month honeymoon with my new home was now over. My dark feelings were self-perpetuating, and what’s worse, I didn’t know how to stop them. It was a downward spiral, as each negative thought attached to the next negative thought like links on a chain. The more links, the heavier the chain and before I knew it, I was a prisoner, captive of my own feelings.

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Living the Dream Part I

A memorial was held at my daughter’s school to honor the short life of one of her schoolmates, a fourteen-year-old boy named Marc El Wafi, who was shot in the head while defending his friends. The memorial described a child who sounded like a living angel. Friends and teachers shared their stories about his acts of kindness, his wonderful sense of humor, and his jovial spirit.

In just eight months at the school, he had touched their hearts deeply and made an imprint that would last a lifetime.

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The Path

Many people have asked me why I’m still a monk after almost 3 years, while initially the plan was to be a monk for just 3 months.

In fact, to me monkhood is nothing much, it’s just wearing a different uniform, from Dockers’ pants to saffron robes, or like working in a different firm.

What’s more, being a monk is what’s made an individual like me change.

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The Simplest Way to Take Back Control of Your Mind

Have you ever found yourself feeling fine one moment, and suddenly lousy the next? Has a rotten memory ever come up for no good reason, and made you feel bad the whole day? Have you ever wondered why you sometimes irrationally imagining how badly the future could turn out – and wish you could stop doing that?

Your Mind, Your Body & a Thing

A lot of us use a computer almost everyday. It helps us get things done, communicate with people and learn new things. It is a source of pleasure but also pain. But you know when a computer breaks down, you wouldn’t say that ‘you’ were broken. (more…)

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Thai Sojourn: Vipassana Part 3

So what did I get from 10 days of keeping absolutely quiet, without any books, TV, internet connection and writing materials, sitting in meditation from morning till night?

Without any external inputs and any way to output my thoughts, I was forced to observe. Forced to observe me, my own thoughts and feelings.

I saw the inordinate amount of rubbish that went through my mind every day, and I found a way to be aware of it and be pulled along unawares. I saw old mental patterns emerge and new perspectives on old misgivings. (more…)

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Thai Sojourn: Vipassana Part 2

My Mind Fights Back

While the days inside the Vipassana center blurred into each other, I remember that day 3, 5 and 7 were especially difficult for me.

While there were days of deep concentration and peacefulness, these were days when my mind’s old habits fought back to re-assert themselves. Doubts, agitation, aggression, my mind threw everything at me to rebel against this insistence on quietude and focus. (more…)

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Thai Sojourn: Vipassana Part 1

The next stage of my journey saw me heading to the Vipassana center in Prachinburi. After reaching Bangkok from Udon Thani, Paiboon and I parted ways as he was going to another Vipassana center.

While waiting for the bus, I wasn’t quite so sure what to expect. 10 straight days of meditation, starting at 4:30AM in the morning, without any books, music players, TVs or writing materials allowed – not to mention no talking at all?

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Self Reference vs. Ego Reference

Most of us go through our entire lives reacting to our own interpretation of the happenings and events in our lives. We live in fear, we fall asleep in quiet desperation and we do anything we can to protect what we think is ours. Under the guise of personal power, we falsely believe that we are able to control everything in our lives by holding the things we cherish most so tightly that we are never threatened by their loss.

Your False Ego Makes You Afraid

In the Vedic scriptures, this is referred to as ‘False Ego’. It is our desire to lord it over everything in our lives in order to maintain security, control and a false sense of power over our material existence. It is completely fear-based and referenced from our perception of events in our pasts. It is unreal, yet perceived as real and therefore given the power to manipulate our life experiences. (more…)

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