When we arrived at the Caliraya Lake Watershed to participate in Haribon's ROAD to 2020 campaign, my friends and I had one thing in our minds - plant native trees. Weeks before the said event, it appealed to us like a new adventure, since this would be our first time to actually plant trees, our second trip to Caliraya. A significant crowd abound in the place, dispersed in random spots where tree seedlings waited to be planted. The sun was high that late morning, and despite the sweat and sunburns, both young and old people enjoyed convening with nature.
It seemed to be a perfect chance for everyone, especially for those from the urban areas, to open themselves to the experience of appreciating nature. It was an important endeavor done when family and friends get together; where strangers befriend each other, all for the sake of a grand environmental cause - bringing back the forest. While the excitement waved along with heat and laughters, silence grew inside of me. Adrift in the movement of senses, I put myself in the deeper presence of this moment.
Treading through grasses and small yellow flowers on that hilly landscape, I began to look for a spot where I could start, then geared up my hands with a pair of thin plastic gloves. The moment I touched the earth, I felt a connection. There is something in this viscid lump of earth that filled my soul, along with putting the seedling into the dug hole. It was akin to touching again the womb of earth from where all life came. It was like returning from the source. Each time I planted a seedling and touched the earth, there was an essence of gratitude coming from me. I mumbled "Thank you" while being aware of the texture of earth and how the leaves of the seedlings looked like, even if the plant's name was unknown to me. I planted nine seedlings to be exact. Nonetheless, each of them is a prayer of my soul, and a moment for each is my contemplation on the purpose of my life.
I looked again at each tree seedling. They didn't smile like humans, yet their fragile leaves and delicate stems showed promising wonder of growth. They were once seeds buried beneath the soil, waiting for the first leaf to come. Now, they have grown, and sooner will become the bearer of life, together embracing the earth and reaching the heavens. One after the other, these seedlings planted in this watershed will become the trees of this future forest.
They are seedlings bringing not just the dream of the trees, but the dreams of the earthworms crawling this underground paradise to nourish their home. The seedlings bring the dreams of the cicadas, so they can sing again in chorus once more. Years from now the dreams of the birds to nest again will come true, when the small stems of these seedlings will become tough branches. In the cycle of time, leaves grow, then fall, then grow back again, as these seedlings turning into trees provide canopy. The sun dreams to shine its rays between the spaces of those leaves, radiating gentle light. The wind dreams to cruise its breeze through the same spaces, blowing serene rustles. The cloud dreams to pass its fluffy masses through the trees so it can bring benign fogs and cooling raindrops. The flowers dream to bloom in peace, while the ferns dream to unfurl in silence. The spider dreams to weave its web in quietness, and the butterfly dreams to fly in freedom. In this intricate green universe, they are all intertwined in the soulful dream of the forest. And I am happy to be part of making this dream come true.
And I can see that the seedlings are also dreams beyond. There are seedlings of hope for people who want to see the seedlings as grown trees someday. There are seedlings of friendships among people who met there for the first time, to partake in this significant event. There are seedlings of joy and laughter sprouting in every soul in every moment. These unseen seedlings are beginning to grow, and soon to become a forest of possibilities.
Before the day ended, my friends and I went to Makiling Botanic Gardens, almost an hour away from Caliraya. Half an hour before the garden closes, a female friend went to see some trees. I saw her hugged a tree, like that of a kid hugging a long lost mother. We weren't able to stay longer, yet savoring every life that breathes in that place - the sounds, the coolness, the foliage - is a dream eternally rejuvenating the life in my heart. I certainly know, deep within, that those small seedlings now planted at the Caliraya Watershed will soon become like this forest, the refuge where all of nature's dreams are nurtured.
In those moments throughout that day, I saw that green is the color of Love.
Thanks to Haribon Foundation and The Sunday Times Magazine: Green Revolution
I am equanimous of not being equanimous.
This seemingly popular mantra started as a joke from my two wonderful friends four months ago. They coined the phrase after surpassing a challenging ten-day silent meditation retreat all of us attended. The phrase was inspired by equanimity, one of the buzzwords in this yearly retreat among old and new participants. They have not just learned the word, but it has become a struggling experience. There is such a subtle impact that makes this word characteristically enigmatic, something that renders it quicksilver in every meditative process. Equanimity is such a dream of hearts who wanted to achieve peace through meditation. They want its adjective - equanimous - to define their experience. But Equanimity remains both mysterious and banal.
How does one experience equanimity? In a series of one-hour meditations, one is encouraged to be aware of the bodily pains, from a simple itch to recurring leg spasms and back pain. Along with these pains are the streams of negative thoughts distracting one's attention towards concentrated awareness. Our minds are oftentimes untamed, and during meditation, patiently narrowing one's focus without reacting against distractions is a challenging feat. Reaching this point of patience amid the unpredictable flow of mental and physical changes is the goal of equanimity.
Equanimity originally means "balanced spirit." Meditation is actually a tool wherein this experience can be achieved. In the meditative context, a meditator trains one's consciousness by being mindful of whatever changes that occur, especially those pains that one rejects, and cravings that one often fantasizes. One learns to balanced the spirit, to radically accept whatever is occurring without vehement repulsion or delusion.
Beyond sitting, we live our lives every day full of unexpected tribulations. We deal with our jobs and workplaces, with our families and friends, with global events that affect our lives. These occurrences are always inevitable, proving the existence of suffering. And we often live by reacting to them automatically through the easiest of reactions: irritation, disgust, contempt and anger. We often fight back, believing that through forceful actions we can change any circumstances that threaten us one way or another. Or we often retract with indifference and fear, fleeing from these dangers to our survival, and distrusting even the minute shifts of our everyday encounters. This psychological conditioning has downgraded us into nothing but a knee-jerk living, one that reduces our consciousness into automatic fear-based reactions. We have created our realities into limited space for soulful growth and adventure. Those external circumstances that rule our lives are similar to the difficult pains we face during sitting meditations. As we refine equanimous awareness, there is a kind of transference that happens from sitting to everyday life, wherein we can apply and test our attitude in response to the fickle vicissitudes of life.
The Equanimity Paradox has no rhetorical wordplay. Even though it started as a joke, I have seen an in-depth truth on experiencing the same paradoxical reality. The end of sitting meditation is the beginning of realizing equanimity. Oftentimes, a transpired truth inflicts a stabbing pain. For we know that there is benefit in equanimity, but knowing that we still frantically react towards changes is likened to holding an ember even though we know it might burn us. Even so, we become more agitated, because we thought that knowing equanimity means achieving it. We are so deluded that our mind has tricked us; we react more and more, blaming ourselves and external factors for the failure of not being equanimous.
From here, we begin the true experience of equanimity: transcending our awareness from knowing to experiencing. We can now experience our unwanted agitations, and we can see, through equanimous eyes, our spirits running amok . We witness ourselves that we are still impatient and reactive, blowing up like we have never done before. We see ourselves not equanimous, and we begin to accept that we haven't achieved equanimity. Despite the illusion of knowing more than experiencing, our acknowledgment of this weakness unfolds the power of this paradox: this is the achievement of equanimity.
Being equanimous of not being equanimous can be easily dismissed as an illogical concept; nevertheless, its experiential truth is always at hand. Suppose you react angrily towards a difficult person in your life. Anger roars from your core like an erupting volcano. You feel this apparently powerful thought of revenge, and within one stroke of your fiery hand you can bring harm to that person. After this tension, you will come to your senses and excuse yourself that you do not mean any harm. But every move you have done is now irreversible. This incidence is a demonstration of the absence of equanimity.
Let's say the same incident happens, yet this time it would be different. You want to do harm against the other, and yet you think that any action against your enemy might cause you trouble. Your energies are welling up and you hate yourself for feeling it, though you still keep your composure not to retaliate. You love the thought of being patient but this very moment patience eludes you. You find yourself a failure for being impatient, still reacting inwardly with anger, even if not outwardly. This very moment you have born equanimity in mind. Albeit raw on this circumstance, choosing not to harm and letting go of the situation is a seed of equanimity you begin to sow in your awareness. This is a perfect example of the Equanimity Paradox.
The Equanimity Paradox is a beginning, wherein all of us can see ourselves evolving with equanimous awareness. This is not failure of being equanimous. Rather, this is the impetus, from which we can expand our equanimity. Embodying the wisdom of a famous Japanese proverb Fall seven times, stand up eight, we might fall on not being equanimous at times when we badly need equanimity, but they are in fact the perfect opportunity to give birth to our equanimity. Finding ourselves not being equanimous is literally a preparation - or rather, a proof - that we have been living equanimity. We are equanimity, a truth we discover that we always are.
For centuries we believe that we are created in the image and likeness of God. So we have always believed that the unseen God is someone with a face, with two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth. We designed God according to what we see among ourselves. So it has been the other way around: we created God in our image and likeness. And we have believed that God is someone who has a watchful eye, like J.R.R. Tolkien's Sauron, a Big Brother (or Father) that monitors our every step. We have always feared God, like our own fathers, who might burst with anger any time he sees us deviant of his rules. Most of our Biblical accounts tell us that God is a wrathful God. But how can a Loving God, who created us out of Love, be full of anger? Some people say God is not just Love, but a number of colorful characters: God is jealous, God is avenging, God is.... I feel how you feel: there is something that just doesn't fit the big picture. Feeling jealousy, and anger, and revenge happen in a God that otherwise might be full of Love. How come an unseen God can frown his face in contempt and disgust? Well, it could simply be imaginable if someone you think who Loves you can do that, like your parents. But God? WE both share the same dilemma: I really don't feel so.
After God of the Old testament destroyed the whole world and its creatures, it has become very difficult for many of us to believe that God won't destroy the earth again one day. Our days are filled with terrified anticipations, of many possibilities of doomsday. We have seen movies of alien invasions, volcanic eruptions, meteor collisions, freezing storms, and engulfing tsunamis, all of them portray the horror that my end the world we are living. We have scared ourselves to our impending deaths. We have accepted these seemingly prophetic end without attempting to voice our questions. "Does God really want to destroy us?" Have it ever occurred to you that the God you also call the "Creator" will one day again become the "Destroyer?"
How to understand an angry God? Rodger Kamanetz, a Jewish poet, quotes a rabbi's liberating insight: "When God was younger, he made mistakes..." God must be younger. As God grows, so he changes. A God capable of creating himself in his growth. God evolves and eventually becomes more Loving, as he learns. God has left his younger, wilder, angrier years. God is now becoming wise, gentle and forgiving. God brings the promise of creating a better change.
Is God not the same as we are? Were we once younger, wilder and angrier, but now wise, gentle and forgiving? What we have found what God becomes is just like we ourselves become. We can always change. This nature of change is part of our evolving selves.
If Love is a being, then it must be God. Don't worry, we are not here to discuss theology. That is not the point. If God remains indefinable, so does Love. The Wrathful God we used to believe and contend has evolved. We are leaving behind the word wrathful, together with all words that no longer label God. God is now a Loving God. John once wrote this in his first letter: "Whoever does not Love does not know God, for God is Love."
In a probably epiphanic way, "God is Love" could be redundant. Because what we call God is apparently the energy of Love seeking our awareness. This God who has never shown himself would not appear as a hologram of our imagination. God will remain invisible until we become aware of Love. The God to whom we say our prayers will remain deaf and mute until we ourselves hear and answer the call of Love. However mysterious and ineffable Love is, we can only see it through our own eyes. Until we become aware that we ourselves are Love, as incarnates of the unseen God, then the true nature of both God and Love will remain hidden to us.
What is Clarity?
Is it not your reflection on the surface of water after its ripples have disappeared, as you begin to see the beauty of your face? Are they not light and water meeting each other through your eyes? When the water is calm, light passes through, and so is your beauty. Yet when there is no light, both water and you still exist but cannot be seen. And when there is no water, you can see everything with light but your beauty. And what can light and water be of use if you never exist?
Light is but an evidence of what you see. It illuminates what is true in every existent that is seen. Nothing can be said true if all of them are blanketed in darkness. Light is a blessing. Had God not created it foremost, creation would not be possible. Inasmuch as light is the force through which everything is created. That makes the water and you born from its intangible essence.
From the earth's bosom is water, the womb where all life forms are nurtured. It is the formless that sculpts the form. May it be in plants or animals or humans, every pulp and flesh has countless drops of water in it. In its purity, when water meets light, it becomes invisible until it transforms into giant clouds that drift to adorn the sky. And the perfect time comes as water returns, clouds shatter into droplets to nourish the vast earth where it came from. It flows into many streams and seeps into the ground and soon to fill the wellspring from which you drink and quench your thirst.
In you where both light and water flows, life becomes real. They create you solely to become their witness. Your eyes, when at times filled with tears not only of sorrow, but of joy, are wrought in splendor to contain both light and water. And so when your eyes are filled, your whole body rejoices in silence.
This immanent joy brings you to look into the truth that you are. It is when your own sight looks upon the water that nourishes you, so light reveals your nature. It sends all of you to this reflection, where beauty is born for the first time. Every one of you coalesces into unspeakable union, when no more can one be distinct from the other. Your eyes perceive what is light and water; their radiance and calmness reflect you as you are. They both become you and you become them. In this merging of existence, there can be no separation among you, lest all of you will be worthless.
For you cannot experience Clarity if any one of you is missing.
for Claire
This is not a film review. It's too late for that. But I would like to use this word in a greater sense of insight. We might have our own reactions to the film one way or another, yet we are going deeper from that perspective. We will begin to look more inward, on what is constantly transforming. We will observe so we can see how transformation takes place within us.
As kids, we fantasized with a lot of things and animate them into living beings. Well, that includes machines. As grown-ups, we don't have direct explanations, although it seems reasonable to say that robots are imagined because of our childlike imaginative power to transform machines into such form our bodies have. We now see machines like human beings. They can talk and walk, eat and sleep. They can sing and dance, read and write, listen and think. We made them in our own image and likeness. They are the proof of our endless capacity to create. Creating robots reminisces the moment of God's power when He created us. This creation reflects not just the Biblical account, but also most traditions and ethnic mythologies. While God might be long done with His job, it's now ours to breathe life to these creatures of our genius assembled from myriad of materials.
How do robots affect our consciousness? Our fascination with moving things made of metal and run by electricity is essentially a part of our whole fascination with life itself. When we see movement with power, we see life. Beyond animals and plants, robots are such enchanting creatures that touch our sensibilities beyond what we cannot create, because robots are created by the human hands.
I had once seen robots in a very different way. Asimov's robot in his novella (and later in the film), Bicentennial Man wanted to become a human being. Andrew has a positronic brain, which allows him to become sentient. In the story he displayed a wide range of human qualities, especially emotions. Andrew succeeded to become a human being after 200 years. This concept of robots is amazingly told in this story. Yet a question inspired me: what if a man could become a robot? What if I could become a robot? I had irrationally wished this so I could escape from the stronghold of my emotions, which I really hated before. I couldn't see and accept any wisdom in my pains. I had been agonizing deeply after many blows in my life. If I would be a robot, everything would be simple and mechanistic. Yet the grave consequence could make my life literally a boredom.
If I would become a robot, then I could be a slave in this life for eternity. Slaves work hard without question. It's no accident when the word robot first came into being. Karl Capek, a Czech playwright introduced the word in his play R.U.R. (Rossums Universal Robot). The story tells about the production of artificial human beings, which, as the word implies, were created for hard labor. Does it sound blunt to us? What if all our lives are artificial? What if we live robotic lives, responding only to the call of of survival rather than the call of life?
Though emotions succumbed me, I had that artificial feeling. I couldn't find that genuine feeling of being alive. So my wish of becoming a robot was actually redundant. I was a robot those times when I chose not to acknowledge the beauty and freedom of my own life. I was under the slavery of working hard to make my life sweeter and painless, which are both impossible. I believe the whole humanity share this cumbersome effort. I have heard stories of people who have felt their lives more miserable than before, triggered by a variety of reasons. We let our emotions we want to reject electrocute and control us. We become automatons of the lies we believe as truth, of addictions that imprison us, of our fears and insecurities that often paralyze us in our programmed limitations.
Some years ago, Honda launched ASIMO (Advance Step for Innovative MObility), after 2 decades of developing robots. It was an amazing feat unveiled, as if Astroboy came into being. ASIMO is a humanoid robot that can recognize visually through its cameras, can greet and talk with someone, and can walk with humans side by side. I think ASIMO has become a symbol of transformation, from our imaginative capacities into astonishing innovations. What makes most kids enjoy a nice animation may sooner become a household stuff, much like cell phones and iPods.
If we can transform robots from thoughts to reality, then it can inspire us more to transform our lives. We challenge ourselves to see if are still living like robots, pursuing our lives to flee from our fears and dangers of uncertainty. We confront our own mechanical choices that box us in a clockwork universe of our society that dictates more than allows. Like Andrew, we begin to choose to acknowledge our sentience, and again free our spirits from the shackles of robotic coldness and repetitions. We bring forth the wildness of our souls to the wilderness of our collective being. If before we automatically recoiled to the pains of our negative emotions, we now welcome them with open arms. Those negative energies begin to energize the positive energies that make us more alive. Thus, we relive again our fascinations and zeal to bring inner life into our outer machines.
We are transformers, transforming from a robot, a hard laborer of our material world, to a sentient being, an empowered soul of our spiritual truth. We are transforming ourselves in this continuity of time, as we go beyond our old forms and become the new forms from which Love expresses itself. Like Andrew, we are consciousness becoming real from the limits of our automatic existence. Like ASIMO, we are the advance step, or rather, the quantum leap, to the limitless human and divine potential. This transformation does not just take place within; every soulful transformation is a process by which we can transform the whole world.
"ASIMOCarryTray" -photo by Honda
How can anyone of us truly Love? How can Loving be easy if things are not quite right? If at times we feel bad of those unwanted things happening, how can we say that there is really Love? When mental and emotional pains linger, how can Love be felt amid them? What if Love is just a thought, an imagination, a sentiment all exist in a realm impenetrable to our senses? What if Love is just that, an intangible reality, only real in the dreams we make?
What is the nature of Love? It is proven that Love last forever, and can be felt as emotions, yet why do emotions never last? Why is Love beautiful and yet we still see the ugliest of things? It is said to be sacred but what makes us see it less? Why can we not accept that everything we see is Love, even if some are horribly unacceptable? What makes these paradoxes true, and see them to lie to us every time?
While some people tell that we are all Love, why do we need to Love others? Why do we need to give Love if Love is present in each of us? Why is it when we try to give Love, it does not comes back to us the way we wanted to? Why in the world Love brings so much pain and bliss at the same time? We have heard people who teach Love that Love itself is not painful, yet why people are beset with pain? While they teach that we have to know Love, why is Love difficult to know? Why do they call it a mystery, if it is something that is right before our eyes? What is the use of mystery, if answers are really always there?
How can all of us learn Love? Each of us want affection and attention from others, yet why do we need to give these things that we ourselves are really in need of? Isn't it difficult to give something that we ourselves are seeking for? How is it possible, when the more we can give Love, the more we can receive? But what is the purpose of Loving others, if the Love within them is complete? Do they still need Love if they are truly filled with it?
And if we are Love in the real sense, why are we not aware that we are? What makes Love powerless to let us know that we are powerful? Why does Love allow us to question its nature, if its very nature is unquestionable? Why does Love appear absurd to our reasoning mind? Why does it keep us perplexed of its truth? Why does it perplex us, and becomes the clearest thought we can understand? How can we understand something that renders itself unintelligible? What makes it so strong to shatter our logic, which has taught us the world we knew? What makes us so weak not to understand Love, when the irony is that the Love that weakens us is the same Love that can make us strong?
Why does Love destroy our small minds, then it makes us realize that they are bigger than we think? Why does Love make things contrary to what they seem, and make them appear unreal? If Love could be simple, why is it too complex? Others speak about Love, yet why is it unspeakable? Why is Love both possible and impossible? What makes us humanly imperfect, but as Love we are perfect? Why do we need to learn Love if Love is supposed to be unlearned? Why do we need to remember it, if the truth is nothing is forgotten by Love? Why can Love not remember everything, if Love itself is remembering? Or is it us that we forget Love? Why, as Love, can we forget things that all this time we remember?
When is the right time to understand Love? Why do we need to spend centuries for us humans to learn our lessons of Love? If Love is compassionate, why does it need to sacrifice lives in order for us to honor life? We are told that Love is now, and we should Love from now on, yet what were those days in the past? Weren't they the "nows" that those people should have acknowledged? Was a particular time in our human history a perfect timing to understand Love? Or is it the time today that comes to our awareness? If Love is really timeless, why do we need to spend time to express our Love? And why is it that this world needs time to live when Love does not have it at all?
Love is within in, they say, yet why is it hard to find? Why is that our narrow dimensions of reality cannot contain what is Love within? What makes Love vast inside of our limited bodies? What makes us limited to contain the Love that is unlimited? Or to be someone that is limitless? And why do we need to experience this boundless Love through our thoughts and emotions when Love is neither of them? Why could we not exist immaterially, if this formless Love exists that way? Why do we need this physicality to let Love be real? Why is Love both real or unreal in the material and immaterial? Why do all physical things we see come from Love even if Love cannot create anything other than what we wanted to create? And if we are creators ourselves through Love, why can our hands destroy, if these hands are Love themselves?
Why do we need to ask these questions if there is no need to find answers, since Love has them since time has begun?
When we arrived at the Caliraya Lake Watershed to participate in Haribon's ROAD to 2020 campaign, my friends and I had one thing in our minds - plant native trees. Weeks before the said event, it appealed to us like a new adventure, since this would be our first time to actually plant trees, our second trip to Caliraya. A significant crowd abound in the place, dispersed in random spots where tree seedlings waited to be planted. The sun was high that late morning, and despite the sweat and sunburns, both young and old people enjoyed convening with nature.
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