Yosemite National Park

The fact that it took so long for me to process these photos from my trip to Yosemite in early March is inexcusable and unacceptable.  But I mean, what can I do??  I am trying to fit as much STUFF in my life as I possibly can, including shutting down my computers and phones for 4 days (for soul cleansing) -- everything takes TIME, and TIME is the very thing that I don't have much of...

Yosemite National Park
California
March 6, 2017

Village Spring (山寨春色)

I don't believe I've ever seen a Spring that is more vivid than this one...

Anhui, China
March 26, 2017

 

My Friend Bill (3)

We went to visit my friend Bill again today, and this was the second time in the past 2 weeks.

Clearly, Bill's time for this life is limited now.  His cancer has spread and he has stopped treatments...  He was very happy to see us, as always, and he kept on saying "I don't know what I did to deserve this kind of friendship, and sometimes I wonder if I would do the same for my friends..."  I said: "Of course you would do the same!"  And I made sure to tell him this time how thankful I have been for all the help he'd given me in the early years of my life in America.

He told us "The days are pleasant and there is a lot of harmony within the family..."  He is very proud of his two sons and is grateful that he's had the opportunity to prepare them over the past 4 years (since his cancer diagnosis).  When you think about it, this probably is the most important thing in our lives when we reach the end.

His older son stays with him all day now to take care of him.  Over the weekend, the boys would both stay home with Mom and Dad, just as in the old days.  When you think about it, this probably is the most important thing in our lives when we reach the end.  

As always, I took pictures for them.  But this time, I paused for a second before pressing the shutter -- it was an incredibly beautiful family photo...   

Cherish each and every day of our lives.  Live the life you love, love the life you live!!            

Our Pristine Mind

Our Pristine Mind

By Orgyen Chowang

The True Nature of Our Mind:

Pristine mind is the mind we were all born with, our natural mind.  It is called Pristine Mind because it is untouched and unspoiled by experiences.  It is inherently and permanently pure.  It is like pristine land that has not been altered by civilization. 

In Pristine Mind our senses are vibrant and alive, our perceptions pure.  Things that cause us fear or insecurity in our ordinary mind do not affect us negatively when we are in Pristine Mind, because of its innate serenity.

Pristine Mind is not dependent on the ups and downs of life that we have no control over.  It just "is."  Changing life events that we take so seriously in our ordinary mind are far less significant in the changeless Pristine Mind.  Clouds in the sky may appear, change, or dissolve, but the sky never changes.  In the same way, the events in our ordinary mind may change, but our clear, spacious Pristine Mind never changes.  That's the most fundamental things we come to realize about our Pristine Mind.

At the heart of the teachings is our discovery that inside all of us there is a Pristine Mind unscathed by life experiences, awaiting our rediscovery.  Unlike our ever-changing ordinary mind with which we are familiar, Pristine Mind is not a changing or fluctuating state of mind.  It is stable and at the same time, boundless.  In Pristine Mind, we enter into a fundamental state of mind that is brilliant, clear and tranquil.

We get increasingly fascinated by our mental events, and eventually we get lost in them.  Soon, it is no longer just small waves of metal energy that we are following.  Now we are completely entangled in an increasingly complex web of thoughts, emotions, beliefs, feelings, and experiences, all those mental events that are now far beyond our control.  We become unaware, distracted, and separated from the experience of Pristine Mind.  This is how the distortion of our mind develops.  The accumulation of various mental events become so extensive that it completely hides our original Pristine Mind. 

Primordial Fear:  

The fear that results when we are disconnected from Pristine Mind is the cause of much of our mental and emotional suffering.  It is called "primordial" fear because it has been with us since we originally lost our connection with Pristine Mind.

When we are unknowingly disconnected from Pristine Mind, we are not even aware that we have lost our stability of mind.  The very nature of existence is marked by constant flux.  Nothing lasts, everything eventually dies or decays, and fluctuating mental events that continually rise and pass away make life unpredictable.  But in Pristine Mind, this fact of life does not upset or imbalance us.  In losing access to this stability of our Pristine Mind, we lose our capacity for true happiness and well-bing.

In our ordinary mind, mental events arise.  The more mental events we have, the stronger our underlying anxiety becomes; the greater the gap between our ordinary mind and our Pristine Mind, the more powerful the anxiety.  When we rediscover our Pristine Mind, we realize that this anxiety, our primordial fear, is not inherent to life but actually originates from our disconnection from Pristine Mind and manifests itself in our mental events.

Most people are subject to some level of anxiety most of the time, whether they recognize it or not.  Many of our activities are in truth efforts to distract ourselves from this underlying primordial fear that drives our ordinary mind and only creates more fear.  We make phone calls, create incessant plans, and keep our schedule at a hectic pace.  We need the TV on or music playing in the background to feel a sense of connection-- even when we are not watching it or really listening.  Even on our way to our activities, we play music as we drive because silence in our car would leave us alone to experience anxiety or boredom.

It is this constant activity around which we organize our lives to avoid confronting our primordial fear.  We pursue connection, connection, connection.  We try to connect with sounds and flavors and sights.  We are constantly eating, talking, watching, or listening, trying to connect our five senses to anything we can in every waking moment. 

Distracting ourselves from our primordial fear does not reduce it.  Engaging constantly does not reduce primordial fear.  Amusement may be a temporary band-aid but not a permanent remedy.  Just because we may currently dislike being still, silent, and by ourselves does not mean that constant distraction is healthy; it takes its toll as well.

There is another problem that we must understand.  By running from our fear, not only are we failing to alleviate our separation from Pristine Mind, we are actually amplifying it without realizing it.  Distractions generate more and more mental events at an ever-increasing pace.  These mental events remove us still further from Pristine Mind.  It is another layer of barrier between our ordinary mind and Pristine Mind.  It only makes our road home much more difficult and arduous.

When we lose touch with Pristine Mind, we are ungrounded and unconnected to ourselves and our world.  Favorable circumstances will often bring us some kind of temporary happiness, occasional joyousness, and other forms of contentment.  But it is not a permanent solution.  Without Pristine Mind, we cannot know unconditional happiness.

Why do we often get bored when there is nothing to do?  Why are we so uncomfortable without distractions?  The root cause of our problem is our underlying discontent and insatiable ordinary mind.  We are uncomfortable because our ordinary mind is driven by a hunger, a constant yearning for something.  That hunger is lurking around within us, unsatisfied.  Without external stimuli, there is nothing to distract the mind from the restlessness of its insatiable thoughts.  Our mind is looking for something, but without objects for it to latch on to, it becomes agitated and unsettled.  When our thoughts and emotions have a focus, the mind is soothed for the time being.  We find a temporary small comfort zone.

This is why we are so in need of distractions.  If there is nothing to distract us from the ever-increasing internal agitation, our ordinary mind gets even more restless and generates more mental events that only make the matter worse.  We are caught in Samsara, in which we pursue the illusion that things external to our mind can give us the security that we have lost because of our disconnection from Pristine Mind.

The way to break through the restless habits of the mind is through meditation.  Meditation frees the mind from its compulsive tendency to engage, engage, engage.  This brings tremendous liberation.  Once we are free from that compulsion, whether we engage or we rest, we are comfortable.  We do not need to always engage.  Without engaging we can still find comfort.  We can choose to engage comfortably when the time is right.

Calming The Mind:

On a cloudy day, when all we can see are clouds, we cannot see the blue sky because the clouds obscure our view.  Yet the luminous, beautiful, and boundless sky is always there.  In the same way, if our mind is busy, chaotic, confused, or agitated, we cannot see our natural state of mind.  Under these circumstances, we don't realize that behind these thoughts and other mental events, our mind is calm, beautiful, boundless and fearless. 

Mental events are like the clouds in the sky.  If our mind is constantly churning with mental events -- thoughts and emotions, beliefs and habits -- it is impossible to experience the mind's natural pristine state.  For that, our mind must be calm and our view of the mind must be uncluttered by transitory, but insistent mental events.

Even if we appreciate the importance of calming the mind, however, we will not be able to do that unless we know how to meditate properly. 

Four simple steps of Pristine Mind meditation:

1.  Don't follow the past.  Do not get caught up in thoughts, memories or images of your past, regardless of whether they occurred minutes ago or years ago.  Bring your mind fully into the present moment.

2.  Don't anticipate the future.  Do not pursue, plan or follow any thoughts, feelings or imaginations of the future.  Do not begin wondering or speculating about what will happen.  Bring your mind fully into the present moment.

3.  Remain in the present moment.  When you are not in the past and not in the future, you're staying in the present moment.  Just be present.  There is nothing to do but vibrantly experience your mind. Let your mind be natural.

4.  Leave your mind alone.  Just let all the thoughts melt away, leave your mind alone, and the present moment will be there for you.

As mental events dissolve, our Pristine Mind naturally emerges.  This is our fundamental nature.  This is the ultimate reality.  This is the true nature of our mind.  In facilitating that increasingly clear view of our mind, this meditation leads us to "realization" -- a realization of what our mind truly is and who we really are.

Once thoughts and emotions subside, we are left with the experience of Pristine Mind, and this meditation is the way to accomplish that.

Our practice with the above 4-step technique is used to attain the three aspects of realization.  We commonly refer to this as Pristine Mind meditation.  Once our realization has taken firm root in our minds, then we abide in Pristine Mind; this abiding is the true Pristine Mind meditation.

Recognizing who we really are is realization.  Abiding in our awareness of who we really are, maintaining that experience, is meditation.  Together, realization and meditation are the journey into enlightenment.

The goal is ultimately to become free from all mental events, including all negative emotions, distractions, and pollutions of mind, and to awaken our innermost essence, our natural state of mind -- and in doing so, to uncover enlightenment.

When our awareness becomes completely pristine, then our mental events no longer have the power to divert us from that vivid, clear, flawless state.  When we reach that point, there is no anxiety, suffering, or fear in our minds.  

Hazy Mind:

When people have anxiety, fear, anger, sorrow, and unhappiness, their mind is overcast.  It is clouded over with thoughts.  In this kind of cloudy mind, it is easy to get upset, to develop anxiety, to become unhappy.  In a mind that has been habitually distorted and cloudy for a long time, reactions are triggered very easily.  The disturbed mind feels volatile and is therefore fundamentally unstable.

When one's mind is more open and clear, however, with fewer tendencies toward mental events, we say that it is more awakened or more pristine.  In that state, anxiety, anger, or other negative reactions are not triggered easily.  Those types of reactions simply do not happen so readily, because the mind has greater stability.

Mental Events Are Like Internal Demons:  

Most people's problems spring from their own thoughts.  Their thoughts and their mental events create unhappiness, disturbance and chaos in their lives.  That's why thoughts are real demons, because they are the cause of suffering, chaos, separation and conflict in so many areas of our lives. 

Generally, we identify with our mental events and carry them with us throughout our lives.  We just keep accumulating mental events without any respite.  We overvalue and even cherish our thoughts.  Some people even take pride in their thoughts.  But as long as we cherish and protect our ordinary thoughts, there is no liberation, there is no freedom from our suffering, because the thoughts we take so seriously dictate our experience.  In such a thought-created world, it does not matter if we are rich and famous; it does not matter if we can travel into outer space; it does not matter if we live in the White House; we are always the victim of our own thoughts and the experience they create for us. 

However, when you know how to access Pristine Mind and you remain in Pristine Mind, then your thoughts lose their power.  They slowly vanish, and your mind becomes comfortable and fearless because your demonic thoughts have disappeared.  You mind is so tranquil, so blissful. 

Clearing Our Mental Clutter:

In our ordinary mind, we live like someone with a hoarding disorder.  We have, figuratively speaking, a wonderful house in the hills overlooking a bay with panoramic views of expensive bridges.  But if we collect our trash in that house year after year, it becomes challenging to even walk from the kitchen to the living room because it is so full of junk that we've collected. 

This is exactly what we are doing with our mind when we identify with our thoughts and emotions and other mental events.  We are hoarders -- mental hoarders.  We have this beautiful Pristine Mind with five amazing senses that are like beautiful windows to the world.  When our mind is pristine, everything we see, hear, touch, taste and smell is viewed from the pristine perspective.  However, if we store clutter and garbage, we are distorting our view of the world.  It adds clutter and sluggishness to our mind when we save negative thoughts, bad habits, unhealthy belief systems, and other toxic information in our mind.

Life is hard when we identify with our mental clutter.  But when, through the realization of Pristine Mind, our mental events cease to define us, then we are no longer a mental hoarder.  Our mind is not holding useless material.  Our mind is clean and beautiful.  As we cultivate our Pristine Mind through meditation, we are doing just that.    


Enlightenment:

What is enlightenment?  Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava says:

If you cultivate positive attitudes and circumstances, 
It helps your mind to naturally go in the right direction.
If your mind goes in the right direction,
It helps to improve and increase your meditation experience.
If you develop the right meditation experience,
It helps you to quickly attain perfect enlightenment.

Our state of mind determines our reality, right now, in this moment.  Therefore, the most important thing is to have the right mind-set right now in this moment.  The only thing standing between us and enlightenment right now is our mental events.  That's it.  When our mental events are no longer present, enlightenment becomes naturally evident, whether we seek it or not.  Enlightenment is essentially the complete, permanent absence of distorted mind, thus letting us experience the deep and abiding inner state that lies beneath mental events.  Our mind becomes completely pristine without any negative thoughts or emotions that cause suffering.  Our mind becomes completely healthy and perfect.  This is the true meaning of enlightenment.

My Phone

Have you ever contemplated the possibility that your lovely phone can just drop dead one day -- without warnings, negotiations or even a good-bye???  If not, it's about time for you to play this scenario out in your head and think about whether or not you have a strategy to deal with the painful reality -- calmly and gracefully!

This is what happened to me today.  About 15 minutes after I got home from work, around 6:57pm, my lovely sleek-looking pure black iPhone 6s decided to die on me -- just like that!!  I tried to call my IT guy, and of course, his cell phone number was in my dead phone -- doesn't it sound familiar? 

So, I emailed my assistant and had her contact the IT guy.  Then I decided to forget about the whole thing and go to the health club.  In the health club, I thought about it over and over again -- can we really live a life without our phone or computers?  If so, how?  When the entire digital world shuts down, can we just let go easily like nothing even happened?  Can we really???  Under what condition(s) can we live our lives without vulnerability?  Avoiding attachments may be an option... but how can we not be attached to something that is so near and dear to our hearts?  The truth is: it looks COOL and beautiful even when it's dead -- how can we NOT be attached to it????

This goes back to my weekend Zen practice -- we really need to train ourselves to live without all the gadgets, devices and distractions...    

Going to my Zen sanctuary...

The 3-day "mind fasting" process extended all the way through most of the day today, and I loved it. 

Looking back on the email below from 3 years ago, and comparing it to my experience this time, I see similarities and differences... All in all, it was a profound and purifying experience.

1.  Completely shutting down all your systems is much easier to do when you are in an unfamiliar environment, which is largely why people go to retreat centers or Zen centers for this type of soul cleansing.  It requires tremendous amount of discipline and strong will to do it at home -- at a place you are very familiar with, and nothing you can rely on to distract your attention.  I did it from Thursday night through this morning.  During the entire time, my iPhone, laptop, TV, music and car were completely off.  We had a social event planned a few weeks ago for last night, but still, no TV, no phone, no laptops!  We talked, laughed, sang and danced, as we would normally do long before the digital age!

2.  Three years ago when I did this for the first time, it was from 5pm Friday night to 8am Monday morning.  I remember being so eager to turn on my iPhone Monday morning, without any hesitation.  This time, the process lasted longer, from Thursday night through most of the day Monday.  Surprisingly, I was sooooo reluctant to get back to my phone or turn on my laptop today.  I had the urge to preserve the purity I attained over the past few days.... It was almost like I had a level of fear -- fearful of getting back to the chaotic world and not knowing how to get out of it...

3.  Over the long weekend, I spent the quiet time reading a book titled "Our Pristine Mind" by Orgyen Chowang (published in 2016).  I must say that I've read many good books over the years, but this one resonated with me deeply.  It analyzes the mental events we experience day in and day out, and how these events affect our ability to know who we truly are and what the world truly is.  It systematically illustrates how Pristine Mind meditations can help us develop inner serenity, clarity and awareness as we live through our lives.  If I am only allowed to keep 3 books in my life, this would be one of them.

Yeah, the 3-day soul cleansing project has been completed, successfully.  And I know clearly that this time, it wouldn't take another 3 years for me to do it again.  It is so hard to maintain mental purity when we're bombarded with news and messages from all over the place...  I think one of the next biggest challenges for human race is whether or not we have the ability to navigate through this chaotic world to find our calm minds, our true self, our intuition, wisdom and enlightenment.

---

From: Pei Tang <tang_pei@yahoo.com>
To: Pei Tang <tang_pei@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, May 5, 2014 6:32 PM
Subject: Re: Going to my Zen sanctuary...

The Zen weekend came and went, and I feel insanely great!!

Friday night, Rudi and I had a big dinner at home.  Yeah, I cooked, and I told him that for the rest of the weekend, I would only eat what I NEED, not what I WANT!!  During dinner, we had a philosophical discussion about whether or not processing pictures would be considered as a "prohibited" activity for the weekend...  Conclusion? Yes!  All I planned to do was to turn off my iPhone, iPad, Laptops, TV and my car for this "mind fasting" process.

As promised, the weekend started at 5PM on Friday and ended at 6AM this morning.

Saturday morning was the most difficult.  I got up at 6AM.  Looking at my laptops, iPhone and iPad, they were all laying there so quietly.  My white-silver iPhone-5s stared at me with its endless charm and innocent beauty.  I stared back at him with deep affection, but didn't touch him.  For about 30 minutes, I felt very strange for not being able to watch the weather channel or to check messages on my iPhone...  I felt totally strange for being disconnected, period!  Nonetheless, I proceeded my morning with a strong will.

Part of my morning exercise routine was to take a long walk.  On my way, someone was having a garage sale.  You would not believe how much space she occupied for this "garage sale" -- in her garage, on her driveway and spread out all the way over her lawn.  I had a hard time to comprehend why and how people can allow so much STUFF to clutter in their lives!!!! 

After the morning walk, I immediately went to my basement and started my own "clean-up."   Those of you who have seen my basement, you know it represents a clean, neat space with an overwhelming sense of nothingness!  I went into the storage section and looked very hard for "stuff" to throw away...  I went through each neatly packed box one more time and finally concluded -- there is nothing for me to throw away!  But guess what I found in the process??  I found a copy of the diary I wrote for my little Michelle -- every day for 9 months + 21 days!  I found 3 big binders of my little Michelle's drawings at age 4, 5 and 7 -- the pictures she drew and the notes she wrote to Mommy -- reflected nothing but uncontrollable true love!  I also found several precious homework books I made for Michelle before she entered pre-school.  They all have her crooked little handwriting in it... 

Wow, let me tell you, it's absolutely frightening when I have too much free time. All of a suddenly, my basement became a treasure island!  How on earth could I not keep all these pieces of history in our fire-proof safety box???    

.....

Sunday was much better and more peaceful.  My mind got used to not being cluttered by "messages".  Stop the inflow of information can really allow you to feel and reflect deeper on the present.  I read the book 《佛泽》again -- it's an amazing book.  I read it a few weeks ago when I was in China.  It talks about a famous, award-winning Chinese photographer spending 9+ years in well-known Chinese Buddha's temples to photograph life and virtue inside the temple -- it brings tremendous calmness, clarity and purity to my mind! 

I have been thinking about the best places for this type of Zen retreat.  Yeah, it might be much easier to do it in Death Valley or northern California National Seashore or Wisconsin Ice Caves, etc. because when you're surrounded by an unfamiliar environment, your attention would naturally be absorbed by new things.  However, when you are at home and surrounded by everything you know, it's far more difficult to change your daily routine.  So, for me, being able to turn off everything and tasted a simple life in the way people lived 40 years ago, that was a rather interesting experience!

For those of you who can read Chinese, attached are 2 pages of my diary for Michelle.

Attachment 1 = Cover Page

Attachment 2 = The First Week of May 1991 (what happened this week 23 years ago)

   

---

From: Pei Tang <tang_pei@yahoo.com>
To: Pei Tang <tang_pei@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 1, 2014 8:20 PM
Subject: Going to my Zen sanctuary...

Life has been pretty horrendous over the past 2 months.  As I look back at my calendar, I have literally been traveling every week since 3/10/14 -- it's overwhelming and exhausting!!  Thank goodness I am finally back home now and will be in Chicago next week.

To help calm myself down and cleanse my mind, I have decided to go "off-line" for the weekend.  I need to create a peaceful Zen sanctuary for my mind and body to "turn-off" and rest.  I can't afford the time to fly to some peaceful remote place to do this because, sadly, I still need to work tomorrow and Monday.  But I desperately NEED a break from this world of chaos!

To that end, I have just delivered my weekly photos and I am sending my reflections now.  I hope to be able to totally "shutdown" as of 5 PM tomorrow (Friday) and will reconnect on Monday. 

Enjoy your weekend in whatever way that fits you the best.  Life is short, and we really need to take care of ourselves -- physically and mentally!    

Yellow Mountains

The rainy days, wet mountain roads, dense fog, soft winds and the fresh smell of the pine trees... all reminded me of the first time when I visited Yellow Mountains in 1982.  I couldn't remember how I climbed to the top of the mountains back then, but today, it seemed unimaginable!

Nonetheless, Yellow Mountains is as breathtaking and mysterious as I can ever remember.  I wish I could some day have a chance to live up on the mountains for a year or tow -- just to experience all phases of this amazing places! 

The Yellow Mountains is one of the most famous and beautiful mountainous areas in China. It was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1990. Its spectacular natural scenery includes oddly-shaped pines and rocks and mystical seas of cloud.

The Yellow Mountains are not so called because the mountains are yellow, but because the area was renamed after the legendary Yellow Emperor (Huang Di) in 747 AD. After that Huangshan began its ascent to fame. Many Buddhist temples have been built there and, more recently, it has become a major tourist attraction, because of its scenic qualities.

It is said that the Yellow Mountains is the place where the Yellow Emperor, the mythical ancestor of the Chinese, lived, refined precious medicines and became a supernatural being. Xu Xiake, a noted Chinese geologist in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), who visited the Yellow Mountains twice, left his praise in this quote: “You don't need to see any more mountains after seeing 'the Five Mountains', and you don't need to see ‘the Five Mountains’ after seeing Huangshan (Yellow Mountains).”

Yellow Mountains, China

March 23-25, 2017