How to start writing

When someone asked me how to start writing, I said : “Just write what you see, what you hear and what you feel.” You don’t need to be very creative to start writing. And you don’t need to have a talent to do it either. You only need an intention. Because writing is a skill, so everyone can develop this skill through practice. Just like speaking. Each one of us learned to speak when we were very small and we can speak now, we can express our thought and feeling through speaking. In the same way, writing is also a skill, it is also expressing thoughts and feelings. Everybody can express one’s thought and one’s feeling through writing.

You do not need to worry when you express your thought and feeling. Remember that you are writing for yourself. You are not writing for someone else to read. Liberate yourself from any worry or fear of being commented by anyone, being judged by anyone. In fact no one can criticize what you express, because your thoughts and feelings are always personal and nothing is wrong. To write them down is to be honest to the self. When you are honest to yourself, you will feel very comfortable with yourself. Start writing and start expressing what is inside you.

The mind keeps thinking all the time. It never stops. When you express it in writing, the mind slows down its speed. It becomes much lighter, not heavy.

Heart and Soul

A Japanese friend asked me: “what is heart? and what is soul?” If you got this question, what would be your answer? There are only two aspects of Human Being. The human and the being, the body and the soul, the physic and the spirit, physical and spiritual. Human refers to the body which is physical and Being refers to the soul which is spiritual. We can see the body, but we can not see the soul. We can not see our heart, our mind and our intellect.

Heart, mind, intellect…..all are in one, in the Being, in the soul. The 3 are in the soul, these are the faculties of the soul. Each one has different function. Mind creates thoughts. Mind works like a mirror, it reflects thoughts, it projects thoughts. The second faculty of the soul is intellect. It is called the eye of the soul, it has the ability to “see and understand”. It can see what is right and what is wrong. It has the ability to churn the thought deeply. It experiences the thought. It changes knowledge into wisdom. When the thought is transformed into an experience (a deeper understanding), then the heart does its work – it creates a feeling based on the experience. The stronger you hold one particular thought with your intellect, you think it deeply…..then your heart will create a feeling accordingly.

A heart-to-heart sharing

Someone asked me to moderate a panel discussion last year. I don’t remember the topic of the discussion specifically anymore. I think it was about having self respect and maintaining humility at the same time. There would be two speakers. I prepared a list of questions the night before for the discussion.

In the next morning I thought I would like to talk to each speaker and share the list of the questions. The first speaker said : ”You can ask me anything.” She didn’t want to see the list. I thought it was good for me, so I could ask any question. Then I talked to the second speaker. He wanted to read the list. He went through the questions one by one and he asked me to take out one question from the list. It was a very personal question. I asked them to share their personal stories on maintaining their humility while dealing with difficult people. Whether they succeeded or not, it wouldn’t matter. I realized that not everyone found it easy and comfortable to share an honest story about themselves.

We always could learn from other’s story. I believe that we can learn more from someone’s experience than just from information. Infomation is a theory and experience is a practice. Because experience is coming from the heart so it will inspire people more. Sharing an experience is always much better than sharing an information. It is a heart-to-heart sharing.

Frank and the squirrel

One morning I had a conversation with a friend. I happenedly met him on my way to the dining hall for my breakfast and he just finished his breakfast. I realized that I was so late.

Frank : Tini, what are you doing?
Me : Do you really want to know (the answer)?
Frank : Well, I am asking you for the sake of politeness
Me : I am making friend with squirrels
Frank : What? (He might not hear my answer quite clearly)
Me : I am making friend with squirrels and birds. (I tried to make it more clearly for him) Do you make friend with them too?
Frank : No! I don’t make friend with animals. (He showed disagreement on his face)

It was very clear that we were challenging to each other. Being unfriendly to each other. I thought we did it on purpose just to create an argument to challenge each other. When I shared to someone who was a real dog lover that Frank didn’t like animals, she immediately showed disagreement on her face. Very quickly I clarified “Well, we know Frank. In fact he has a very kind and gentle heart.”

When I met Frank the next morning he asked me if I saw David or not for the squirells. I showed him the video and I could see a very big smile on his face.

Sorry for not being able to upload the video here, but trust me it was really cute to capture the squirrel very closely.

The Spirit of Creativity

Someone shared her thoughts on how to become creative. She said that we should learn from children to be creative. I notice that most children are very creative. Their spirits are free….to explore everything. They have no worries and no fears in their spirits. They are not aware of what fear is. Each one of us was very creative when we were so young. When we grew up, we suppressed this spirit. We started creating fears and worries of what people might think about us. We started creating fear of being rejected by others. We might then stop doing something because of this fear. At some point in our life we might miss that spirit in us.

I remember when I was in a retreat, I escaped from one of the morning sessions, I went to the garden in the corner of the campus instead. The garden was small, beautiful and quiet. It was really enjoyable to sit there especially in the morning hour. I also could enjoy little birds and squirrels. They were running around on the ground, jumping from one twig to another. Sometimes they went so close to my feet. I really enjoyed it.

That morning I had an appointment with David who stayed above the garden. David is an artist and a musician. He promised to teach me how to feed squirrel at 7 o’clock. I was so excited about it. My heart said “If I can touch and hold the squirrel with my hand, it would be an achievement for me”. We might think that this kind of thought belongs to a child, not an adult. I knew it was the spirit of a little child in me who had that thought. David was ready with bread crumbles in his hand. He then made a little sound to call the squirrels with his mouth. We sat there and maintained silence. We should not make any movement that would create a feeling of threat in the squirells. We created a feeling of love to the squirrels. I said in my mind that we were friends and we loved to meet and play. I held that thought and created a feeling of friendship. We waited patiently and after a while one squirrel came closer to us. It jumped onto David’s lap and started eating the bread. It was so cute. I took the video of it. I hope I can share the video next time here. Then David gave the bread crumbles to me. I held it in my hand and the squirrel came to my lap and started eating the bread. The spirit of a little child in me was so happy.

Nurture this spirit inside you and you will experience so much freedom and joy.

Desire vs. Aim

We had a little discussion on desire. Desire is always the cause of problem in human life. It seems desire is endless. One desire is fulfilled will be followed by another desire, then another desire. It is never ending. The heart will never experience contentment when it has any desire unfulfilled.

Supposed you just bought the latest model of gadget or camera that you really wanted to have. You were very excited. But how long does the excitement last? This feeling of being fulfilled won’t last very long, because soon after that you might already have another desire to be fulfilled. The heart won’t really become full by having this temporary fulfillment. The heart is not contented. A discontented heart won’t experience fullness (peace and happiness).

It says “conquer your desire if you want to have a peaceful and contented life”. Then someone asked ‘what does life look like by not having any desire?’ Someone might say that life without having any desire would be plain and not exciting. It is not called a life.

Not having desire is not similar to not having aim. An aim of life is usually much bigger than a desire. It is more a long term goal. Having aim in life makes you enthusiastic, it makes you feel excited, it makes your life even more alive. You have something to pursue. To have aim in life is to have a goal to achieve. You need to work on it. When you can achieve it it is called an achievement not a fulfillment. The feeling is different. The energy is different.

A simple lunch

A young successful businessman dropped to my friend’s house one day. He knew my friend from someone he met while he was flying with Singapore Airlines during his business trip. I didn’t know what he was told about her. It might be something very positive and interesting that he wanted to meet and know her. She was a good friend of mine, I had known her for more than 20 years.

When he dropped by, my friend was preparing her lunch; a very simple dish. My friend was a very simple person leading a simple life, but a very happy person. She was a warm-hearted person, very honest and open. Everybody enjoyed talking to her. She liked connecting people. Her friends were various from a taxi driver to a minister and a president. She was very sweet and humble. She treated everyone with kind heart. She respected everyone. I remember she called her house maid as her manager to whom she listened to. She was just a darling for everyone. She had a really beautiful personality.

So they ended up having lunch together, not in an expensive restaurant but in her house, having a very simple lunch. They were chatting and sharing. He enjoyed talking to my friend, and enjoyed the simple lunch. At the end of the conversation he said to my friend “I wished I have 10% of your happiness”.

In memory of my dearest and nearest friend, Helen Margareth Quirin.

My holiday project

I remember when I was on a holiday, I was staying in a Greek-style hostel. It was small but very cozy. The living room was just great, It was an open space and very clean…… and the most important thing was it had no television. I really liked it. The staff was very nice and super friendly.

I found myself sitting on a cushion outdoor, enjoying the blue sky, the air and nature, relaxing and enjoying myself. Well, what is in your mind when you hear the word of holiday? no work, relaxed and having a happy time. Suddenly I realised that I had been doing nothing there except relaxing. I asked myself “Would I spend the whole holiday doing nothing and just relaxing?” I said no. I had to do something. I had to create something, not just passing the time.

I then got an idea to write journals during the rest of my holiday instead of just having a relaxing time. I thought writing journal is entertaining the mind, and also the heart. So it is a way of an internal relaxation as well. Probably we need internal relaxation more than just a relaxation for the body. I would call it as my holiday project. To give me a sense of a project, I put a number, 50 journals!

The next morning I woke up at 3 am and got shower then started writing. Morning time is the best time for writing for me. I switched off my mobile phone and kept the door and the window closed until about 9 am. I heard from my room other guests were talking out there, they might be having their breakfast. When I just switched on my mobile phone, I got a message from the reception. He wondered how I was. He reminded me to have my breakfast. I smiled. He might be thinking of me being unconscious in the room. He is really a kind-hearted person.

In the evening I was sitting on a cushion in front of my room, writing journals. Antonia from Germany who stayed next to my room came from rafting asked me “What are you doing?” then I shared to her how I had the project. She smiled and said “Good luck!”

A clutter-free mind

Very recently I got my tiny house renovated. It took about a few weeks to finish. Before the renovation started, I had to empty the house. In that point I realised after about 15 years I had accumulated stuff so much in the house. To empty the house was a big and hard job especially because I have to let go most of my stuff – including furnitures, books, clothes and many other stuff. To be honest I didn’t do it myself. I got a family member to do it. I trusted her on this. You might know the reason. If I did it myself, I would have to deal with my emotional attachment to those stuff and it would not be easy and also time consuming.

When I entered the house after the renovation, there was a feeling of a huge relief in me. There were only 3 furniture left, a medium size wooden bed, a shelf for storage and a hanging kitchen set. That’s it! It is so funny that I have lost so much but the feeling of relief is so obvious. It was like I was about to start a new life.

You create burden by owning a lot of stuff. What clutters your home, clutters your mind. If you want to have clutter-free mind, start owning less stuff. When I shared this to a friend, she quickly agreed with me.

Mirror

You might have experienced being treated badly by someone, or someone might show a rude manner or just a little bit impoliteness to you. Don’t get hurt, stay calm. They are revealing who they are not who you are. Don’t let their behavior bring you down. Rudeness is a false show of strength by a weak person. The weak ones have rudeness inside, and they will show what is inside. The strong ones have gentleness inside, so they show gentleness.

To stay calm means to remain strong in front of the weak one. To stay calm also means to become like a mirror for others to reflect themselves on you. They can see the pictures of themselves clearly only when the mirror is still.

Become a mirror like this. Don’t react. A cool mind reflect dignity and strength.