Things have been going crazy in the country. I can't say it is totally bad, yet, it is bad, but again as in Yin and Yang, there is always a little good in bad things and a little bad in good things. This applies for human too. We will not see one perfect human who is all good and we will not see one broken human who is all bad. At times it is the way we react to it that determines something.
Not only in Indonesia, things have been going crazy too for me. I have many broken electronic! I planned to fix my camera, It is a Canon, it still functions just fine, however the rotating screen doesn't displaying the picture clearly as it should be. With that, I cannot see whether a shot is good enough, whether anyone's eyes are closed, and so on. Before I have the time to get it done, my iPhone was broken, it got into a pool of water and was there overnight, and that affects the life of the battery and it got "hot" so easily. Surprisingly, it can still function as it should be, to call, to chat, etc. Then, the car which is perfectly fine, was sent to the repair shop to get some "maintenance" service done. I don't know what they have done, it somehow creates problems. One day, it wouldn't start, then after they fixed that, apparently the next day I notice that the headlight went out, then I have to get them to repair that too, then they did some "operation" to the car, and didn't fix the problem, I drove out with nothing fixed but extra problems, the radiator got so HOT and blew up and smoke came out, scared me to death. Then I had to leave the car there, and a few days after we picked it up, I notice many things in the dashboard (esp, the speedometer) were not right. I definitely not going back there. Oh yeah, other than what happens to me, Henki's phone was also died on him when he had a company photoshoot by the beach, as the ocean decided to give his phone a "bath". How many more devices that can get broken in our house? Have I mentioned that my 3 year old laptop like to shut down by itself? Anticipating anything bad from happening, I have backed up everything important.
That's enough about the trouble that we face and the country is facing.
It is about doing what matters now.
Reading and listening to Ajahn Brahm (again? YUP), I realize there is no use getting so nervous when I got into the car, afraid that it might fail me in the middle of the road, or about when will my laptop decide to "shut down" and never to be able be restarted again? I decide to just go with it until I know what to do best.
Same for the country, Politics as usual is dirty. Now, how about us thinking about what can be done to fix that? Many people want to be somebody and start spreading the words of hate, in the name of their God. A sentence can be interpret differently depending on the understanding of the person who read it, the mood of the person who read it, and lastly the intention of the person who read it.
Teaching the Mandarin class, I told my student you can ask your guests to wait for a while with the following sentence "please wait for a while", however, make sure that you say it gently and politely. You can make that words sound rude, by adding negative emotion when you are uttering those 5 words. That's only a 5 words sentence, imagine a thick holy book with zillions of words in it!
There is a Buddhist teaching that is very profound, it said "Learn from Everyone, Follow no One". Even in spreading his teaching the Gautama never asked the followers to just follow, he wanted them to think for themselves about things that he preached and decide themselves whether it is true or not. They/We all have that right and we are expected to exercise that. Don't follow blindly. We can definitely learn from everyone, I can even learn from the people whom I will try very hard NOT to become. In this case, if people are just better educated, things might turn out as it is.
Thousands of candles have been lighted to show people's support to something/someone, people rallies to show they disagreement about decision that had been made, even my students (at their age, I was still enjoying college and didn't bother about politics that much. Maybe because I wasn't in Indonesia at that time?) were so busy following the news and neglected classes that are going on. For this I wonder, will we make any changes with this?
Personally, I would like to look forward. I was thinking instead of busy following the news, why don't my students put more effort in the class (I know it is not the only place to learn), and better themselves as individual, so that one day they can do things that actually matter. News on the internet is always there, you can do it later, right? Also, parents paid a lot for them to have the opportunity to go to this "college", why don't they fully utilize this privilege? Isn't that one of the way to cultivate the good morale in oneself, what known as "appreciation"? Smaller scale to appreciate the effort of their parents, larger scale, to appreciate the work done by leaders in the society whom have tried very best to serve their people.
Also, I notice, those who don't have the habit to "appreciate", are easily intimidated by those in power. Take my students as example, they despise the management of the college, as there are many policies made are never in the benefit of their students. The school thinks that they have power over the students, they think they can dictate the students to do what they want them to do. So students take their "fate" as it is. In this case, they will "bow down" to the "unfair" management and then... express their frustration in "bullying" those who can be bullied, like the good staff and instructors. This is a very sad fact that happens everywhere where the "bullied" are bullying someone else weaker. Is that right? NO! The right thing is to stand up to what is right, to go up the chain and confront the bullies who had bullied them.
I am a very stiff individual, most of the time, I like things by the book. For I think I will try my very best so that others won't easily find fault in me. I know that it is always so easy to find fault in anything/ any situation if you look hard enough, however, do realize that we can also find beauty in any situation if we try harder.
Going forward, I will still be doing things that I know best. I want to share my passion, my experience and my little bit of knowledge about things that I know, hoping that it will have positive impact to at least ONE other individual and also to learn from ALL about the things that I don't know. I trust that what is right will always be right. Someone I respect said "Don't worry, Karma will get the Bastard." Oops...
Peace,
Lin ^ ^
P.S. About religion, your religion is not better than mine, however you can be better than me and that makes your religion good.
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