The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the “I” out of the experience. We pretend that we are amoebas, and try to protect ourselves from life by splitting in two. Sanity, wholeness, and integration lie in the realization that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate “I” or mind can be found.

To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, “I am listening to this music,” you are not listening.

—

Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

Welcome 2015.

Questions and Answers 2014 end.

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I’m closing off the questions section of my blog, as in I won’t be answering questions any more. I wish I have the time to answer all your often heartbreaking, sometimes confusing but undeniably beautiful questions but I am only human with limited time and energy. I think, write and teach for a living (with sometimes a bit of photography here and there) and I can assure you that it takes tremendous amount of time and energy to juggle between these three. Often leaving me dead beat at the end of the day. However I do try my best to update this silly blog of mine and answer questions that seems to have no end. Why? Because I know and remember how it was like to be lost in this majestically chaotic world we all live in and thirsty for some guidance. Because I know how it feels. And of course, because I have a “Messiah Complex”.&nb sp; But I do so with a disclaimer in mind.

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All the questions that I have and will answer are answers based on my limited knowledge and experiences so always take them with a grain of salt (don’t just swallow it wholly like a dimwit that can’t reason). Don’t immediately accept what I have written, go seek for yourself, go learn by yourself and go experience on your very own. Because as you all should know by now, I push people to experience their very own lives so that they may have direct understanding on what it means to love, what it means to hate, what it means to be sad, what it means to be happy, to feel injustices and ultimately what it means to live. To live just by waiting for answers from my own experiences and knowledge is to live vicariously through me, and that would take away the subtle personal experiences that everyone needs to acquire in order for them to learn more about themselves. Direct observation and analysis are key, much like what the Buddha would often prescribed. My experiences are in the end..my experiences.

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But for now let’s take a look at what many of you (a swath of anonymous) have asked and let’s see what I, through my learned experiences, have to say about your woes and bewilderments. These questions below represent only a small number of questions that I have received and I have chosen them as they are similar to many other questions in my inbox.

Also, i’m heading to Yogyakarta for a very long and much needed break, say hi if any of you see me and Rara and maybe we can grab a cup of coffee!

–

Anonymous said:

Hi Kak Ben :) I’ve been following your tumblr lately and I find that you and your persp ective really made me help through some phase in my (kinda) struggling moments, so thanks for that :) Kak, do you really believe that there is always a time for everything? That at certain point we might not get what we think we deserved? cause at some point I think I just have to push it through all of this craziness and somehow it’s just to hard to do! haha but then again makasih banyak kak

I believe that we all should make time for the things that are important in life. I also believe that time plays a minimal role in getting what we think we deserve. Furthermore I believe that it is deplorably ignorant of us to constantly think that we will always eventually get what we want. 

I believe in hard work, whether you get what you want or not after all the hard work I don’t know. What I know is that through hard work I can vastly increase my chances of getting what I want but always with the understanding that shit does happen and you can’t always get what you want. Understand that we all will be inflicted with the pain of not achieving, not once but constantly in life. Now can you learn to accept that? Rather than living in delusional that there is a time for everything.

Anonymous said:

Hi Ben. I wonder how a person like you, who stands for no religions, would raise your kids? I mean, especially in Indonesia, we are all labeled. As in KTP and everything. And you know how your kids’ friends will be like “jangan temenin dia, dia ga punya agama” or “dia agamanya aneh”. Akankah kamu membiarkannya memilih, atau membesarkan dengan caramu sendiri, atau menyerahkannya pada orangtuamu?

But won’t it be deeply saddening to embrace a religion just because of social pressure? Pushed by society to be something you are not or don’t want. If to have no friends will in the long run build a stronger character for my child then let that it be it. I do not want to pr oduce an offspring that will merely follow just because he or she has to follow, we already have enough  of this lunacy and idiocy within this world we live in. But that being said I will leave religion and beliefs to my child, as he or she has the autonomy to choose. Anyway all this assumes that I’ll have a kid. Let’s see how that goes.

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Anonymous said:

Hai Ben, menurutmu, apakah itu cinta?

I’ll just direct you to this

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and this

http://benlaksana.tumblr.com/post /75042725634/so-when-you-ask-what-love-is-you-may-be-too

Anonymous said:

Hi Ben, what do you think about “all you need is love” word? is that true that all we need in this world is love?

No. You need water, food, shelter, clothes on your body for starters because not every one can be a ascetic recluse living in a hut or a cave meditating 24/7. But I do believe that everything we do should be grounded in love as we all live within a relationship. A relationship with mother nature, with people, with animals, with every single thing there is in this vast universe we live in. Because more than often everything we do is rooted in ego, greed and fear and as the result, we have seen the destruction of this planet never before witnessed by our ancestors. Injustices are still rampant, wars are still raging, people are still unnecessarily dying. We need more love as the basis of our actions but it is not the only thing we need. 

It reminds me of a quote:

“The world doesn’t need more ‘successful people.’ The world desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.” - Dalai Lama

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Anonymous said:

Why are we delusional? How to tame jealousy?

We are delusional because we choose to be delusional as it can suppress our fears. Because to see the truth is petrifying at first only to be enlightening in the long run. And since we are now living in a world where instant gratification is a principal characteristic of many modern human beings, to strive for something that is far down the road to a point that you can’t even see or perhaps can only see a speck of the truth is something not worth striving for. 

And how do you tame jealousy? By first looking at love and the reasons of why you love. Is it really love that you want? or is it to own? like owning an object? If love is all about owning then why not just call it that? Can there be another way to love?

Anonymous said:

Hi Ben, what do you think of cheating in relationships? Do you agree with “If you don’t get caught, then it’s not cheating” ?

The general outlook on cheating is that cheating is cheating. My take on this is the same, just with a Buddhist twist to it. Cheating is cheating, cheating on others and cheating on yourself thus the suffering that may arise inflicts the cheater and the cheated. The cheater just can’t see and realize it for a moment.

Anonymous said:

bukan kah ketika kita terlalu memikirkan penderitaan kita justru membuat kita tambah menderita?

Bukan 'penderitaan’ yang kita pikirkan, namun sifat dari penderitaan tersebut. Mengapa kita menderita, apa yang menyeba bkan, bagian apa dari diri saya yang terus menyebabkan penderitaan dan apa yang harus dilakukan untuk keluar dari penderitaan tersebut. Kita menelajangi penderitaan kita agar kita mengerti penderitaan kita bukan hanya sekedar terlarut dalam penderitaan yang tak ada ujungnya.

Mungkin ini dapat sedikit menolong

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Anonymous said:

Hi Ben, I read your piece titled “Rejecting Reality”. Coming back home from being abroad for years feels exactly just like you mentioned in your writing. All this reverse culture shock is hard to swallow. I do have one question to ask, am I selfish if I choose to stay abroad be cause I feel more secure there? What if I contribute to my country and society by another way that is not involving me to be physically there in my home country? Please share your thoughts on this. Thank you!

This is actually something I too have been struggling with. I personally think that it is not an issue because contribution doesn’t necessarily entail having you constantly live within the society that you are helping. Of course it would be extremely helpful as you actually need first hand experience of the issues at hand to better understand the problem but seeing the limited resources we have as a still underdeveloped country in order to help, I can fully make sense of why contributing from abroad is much more understandable. Such as the case of me and wanting to be an academic in the field of sociology. With the damning pay, broken tertiary education system, limited resources for further study it will be extremely hard to have a life as a successful academic in an unpopular field of study. There are too many sacrifices that I may need to make towards my academic integrity in order to have a decent life as an academic. And academic integrity is something that should not be sacrificed.

Anonymous said:

Hi Ben! I’ve been following your blog since 2 years ago and I always amazed by your posts since they always give me another point of view about life. My questions are, what is “healthy in life” in your point of view and have you already got one?

Try watching Alain de Botton’s Philosophy: Guide to Happiness 

https://www.you tube.com/playlist?list=PLxRuhrcSjnv2weFRcqOeCpk4Wy7_hay2j

But with that I would also like to add from the teachings of Buddhism and Krishnamurti which is to constantly inquire and be reflective towards yourself so that you can define what is “healthy in life”. For me to be healthy is to be critical towards the society around me and definitely towards my self, in order for my actions to be seated in compassion rather than just blind egoism. As this I believe will bring happiness not only for myself but also for the people around me.

Anonymous said:

Hi Ben! Kebanyakan orang memeluk agama karena agama yang diturunkan dari orang tua. Sy tahu kalau orang tua adalah representasi tuhan di dunia ini. Apabila sy berkeyakinan berbeda dengan orang tua saya, mereka akan kecewa dengan keputusan sy. Sy percaya tuhan, tetapi sy kurang cocok dengan beberapa ajaran agama yang diturunkan keluarga sy. Bagaimana pendapatmu untuk mendapatkan ketenangan me njalankan hidup dengan kepercayaan sendiri tanpa mengecewakan orang tua saya? Terimakasih banyak, Ben :)

Kenapa kamu begitu yakin bahwa orang tua adalah representasi Tuhan di dunia ini?

Bicara mengenai agama untuk diri adalah suatu hal yang sulit karena melihat konteks budaya Indonesia yang sangat komunal. Dimana agama saya adalah agama keluarga saya dan saya seakan-akan tak dapat memilah agama saya sendiri. Konsekuensinya ada banyak, salah satunya adalah kemungkinan orang tua kamu merasa gagal mendidik anak karena tidak berhasil menurunkan apa yang mereka percayai sebagai suatu hal yang benar. Bagaimana menanggulangi permasalahan ini? Coba bicarakan terlebih dahulu, jika memang komunikasi bukan suatu hal yang menghasilkan kita masih dapat menjalankan ibadah sesuai dengan yang orang tua inginkan tapi karena ibadah hanyalah bentuk external dari sebuah kepercayaan kita masih dapat menginternalisasi kepercayaan lain. 

Semua hal ada konsekuensinya, semakin ekstr im tindakan kita semakin ekstrim juga konsekuensinya. Jika ingin mengambil jalan tengah harus ada kompromi dan pengorbanan dari diri kamu. Bisa kah kamu mempercayai sesuatu tanpa harus di aktualisasi secara eksternal? Lalu bukankah sebuah kepercayaan merupakan suatu hal yang personal dan seharusnya tak ada campur tangan orang lain?

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Anonymous said:

kak ben, tell me how can we forgive ourselves. I’ve been struggling with so much regret for my decision to give up my pregnancy couple of months ago. even tho some says that that’s the best decision, I still feel like I killed an innocent life.

First of all you may need professional non-judgemental psychological help, which you can easily find these days. Second, I have no experience in abortion so I cannot imagine how it feels to undergo an abortion. Thirdly, what I ca n share with you right now is that I, like many others, have something to regret. And my regret often concerns my long dead dad which you can read here

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I hope that helps anonymous.

Anonymous said:

Hi Ben, what do you think about interfaith romantic relationship in which the parents don’t approve? Thank you in advance!

I think you should think and choose on what is important in your life. Any choice you make will evoke some kind of regret in the long run, any choice you make will have consequences. Which one are you willing to take is very much dependant on you. A very general answer I know, but my experiences are of course vastly different with most Indonesians, as I have come of easy every time I’m in an interfait h relationship (which is all of the time except once).

Anonymous said:

Halo kak ben, salam kenal.. Kak aku berada di tahap tidak punya semangat, mimpi, passion. Apa yang harus aku lakukan? Apakah memang semua orang seperti ini? Apa karna banyak rasa kecewa? Apa kakak punya saran? Terimakasih kak

 

Anonymous said:

Halo Kak Ben! Have you ever experienced something like productivity lag? If so, how did you deal with it?

Untuk kedua pertanyaan diatas, apakah kalau kamu berada di tahap tidak punya semangat, mimpi atau passion berarti sebelumnya pernah di tahap memiliki semangat, mimpi atau passion? Kita harus mengarahkan diri ke long term goals bukan hanya sekedar keinginan-keinginan semu dan abstrak seperti ingin 'kaya’ atau 'terkenal’ dan 'sukses’. Definisikanlah kesuksesanmu, spesifikasi, cari tahu, terus bertanya dan tentu meraih sebuah mimpi bukanlah hal yang mudah, diperlukan k erja keras, ketekunan, menerima kegagalan dan belajar dari kegagalan tersebut dan semua kata-kata ajaib dan perbincangan yang sering diutarakan oleh Mario Teguh. Yang menurut saya terkadang omong kosong.

Orang gak punya mimpi karena tak ingin memiliki mimpi mereka hanya mengira dirinya ingin sebuah mimpi karena meilhat sekelilingnya seakan-akan memiliki mimpi dan merasa tertekan sampai ditahap merasa tak berguna sebagai seorang individu. Yang harus kamu tanyakan ke diri kamu adalah kenapa kamu ingin sebuah mimpi atau passion? Apa yang menjadi dorongan kamu? Karena haus akan harta, kuasa, kekayaan yang kita lihat di televisi kita dan baca di majalah kita dan mendengar di radio kita? Atau apa? Memiliki mimpi adalah suatu hal yang sakral karena berasal dari sebuah dorongan dari dalam diri yang tak perlu dijelaskan ke orang tapi di aktualisasi ke dalam suatu hal yang berguna buat diri dan orang lain.

And a lack of passion, may produce productivity lag. You need to find a reaso n to live, that burns you, that thrusts you, and engulfs you and that is something I can’t help you with.

 

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Anonymous said:

So Ben, could share with me how do you love women? How do you develop your heterosexuality (I guess) ? what do you love from women? And why women could turn you on?. I need your answer.

I know you’re confused with your sexuality but if you expect me to answer why I like women is to also have me ask why you like men (or perhaps both?). You will have a significantly hard time in answering it as it is I assume something that you are born with. And if you are born with it, is it wrong? Or does it become wrong as the society around you deems it to be wrong? You need to answer what you want.

Anonymous said:

what are friends, Ben? and what is society?< /p>

Society is a collection of people living together with different wishes, hopes, dreams, values, outlooks on life, gods or goddesses, political views and understandings. I’m sure sociologists such as Durkheim or Bourdieu has defined it more eloquently than I just have, but I’m eating a goddamn beautiful cake that’s just oozing with mouthwatering chocolate so my ass is too lazy to stand up and look it up.

Friends on the other hand are the people I look up to, people that I share deep mutual affection with, people that understand one another and people that push each other to grow. 

Anonymous said:

Ben, have you ever thought of settling down & getting married?

Someday anonymous, someday. There is nothing more that I want to do other than just to garden, write and read all day long with someone I care and love.

dhanisafar  said:

Hi Ben, kalo boleh tau, apa sih sukses terbesar dalam hidup lo sampe hari ini?

Menjawab pertanyaan-pertanyaan ini.

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Good bye 2014.

If we are serious about combating selfishness and promoting compassion in the world, then is it not vital that we develop the tools of intellectual self-defense to deal with these assaults on our minds and hearts? The solution must lie in reversing the priorities, in subordinating dead things—money, capital, profits—to life: people, animals, the planet.

— David Edwards, “Life or Death”

silent purposes


Anonymous said:

Menurut kak Ben what is the purpose of life? :)

Ahh, the ever elusive yet perpetually gripping purpose of life. This is one of those questions that’ll come up every now and then and it doesn’t matter whether you’re young, unexperienced and innocent or old, seasoned and pessimistic. Because at some point in life people will stop or forced to stop and think about life by the very forces of nature that you often have no control over, such as death.

The short answer to your existentialist question is I have no clue whatsoever! And probably will never know if there actually is a predetermined meaning or purpose to our very own lives.

But I do have a story to tell, a personal story to tell that led to an understanding. And like many beautiful mind-opening revelations it begins with not just another story, isolated from the experience of oneself but it begins with a personal story.

Revelations are an end to a process of understanding an experience and like all forms of processes it takes time to build, it takes time to reach and tear down its limits before it bursts into a display of mesmerizing glorious cerebral fireworks. That eureka moment, a life changing epiphany. 

Back in 2011 when I received news about my very fortunate acceptance to the NZAid scholarship my father had died a mere two months before the exciting news. I was utterly devastated not just simply due to a sudden lost of a father but because it was more due to a lost of a reason to live, to do the things that I was currently doing at that moment. I failed to anticipate the flimsy transient nature of externally oriented purposes or givers of meanings in life.

See here’s the problem, one of the reasons if not the ma in reason of why I applied for a scholarship was not only because I wanted to further my studies, experience life living in New Zealand while enjoying a bit of life but mainly it was for my dad. I wanted to show him that despite the years of being an asshole like of a son, getting into trouble every now and then, seemingly indifferent towards his sense of well being, I still had this gut urge to show that I mean well and that he didn’t raise a son that was utterly useless. A hint of guilt and perhaps empathy if I may say so.

Even if I managed to be quite aloof towards all his good deeds, he was the one who supported me, pushed me, encouraged me that I was smart enough for some scholarship that I’ve been dreaming of ever since my mom came home from New Zealand taking home with her a plethora of photos and stories of green valleys and white capped mountains. And with my dad’s death, the main reason or the main purpose of my life at that moment in time was go ne, obliterated by life’s ephemeral nature. I saw no purpose in continuing all this scholarship shenanigans and had no prime reason to do anything. I just wanted to understand death and grief. 

And I did so while a sense of emptiness imploded within me and prevailed as I search what grief actually means and why must I undergo such an overwhelming and overpowering emotion.

It took me a year as I toiled through grief and disbelief as everything was but a hazy blur, everything was on automatic. Not much emotion went into the things I did. I almost became a dispassionate learner if it weren’t for my cavernous curiosity for death and grief. I wanted to focus the little energy I had left spent on my academic life but often ended up using the my last reserves to dwell even deeper into this thing called grief. Getting almost nothing done.

Since I had very little energy for anything else I had very little patience for anyone or anything. Including my fam ily back home and for Rara, which devastated my relationship with her even more adding to the fact that doing a long distance relationship, separated by vast oceans, the god damn Australian continent and sometimes irreconcilable time differences, was already a struggle to begin with.

Sidetracking for a bit, I sometimes would wish life were as simple as those beautiful photos superimposed with uplifting quotes of famous people or spiritual gurus that you find littered all over our social media, including of course Tumblr. Life sadly is not at all simple, never has, never is, never will be. The complexity of life is that even if we believe in some kind predetermined meaning in life it’s hard to constantly remind yourself of this grand meaning of life. Even more so when you’re in disconcert with this imposed meaning you were conditioned with. We easily lose sight of our meanings when we are catapulted into the dreary, banal absolutely repetitive activities of our daily lives. 

We mean absolutely nothing for the universe, we may mean something for the people who loves us and we may give meaning to our inherently meaningless lives by loving back through a series of actualizations of our love for them and embrace that as the meaning of our lives. But on a grand scale of things, us human beings mean nothing for this universe.

The world will continue to indifferently but expectedly spin when we die, the sun will shine for another few billion years until it burns out its finite fuel and the universe will continue to expand passionless into the dark abyss of space. And earth with its burgeoning billions of people will continue to push forward into an unknown, possibly bleak, possibly idyllic future.

And I will matter little for Mother Nature other than worm fodder. Harsh, ouch. But if all living beings including us undergo the same process of life, birth and death then what makes us so incredibly special? We just want to believe that we’re special because we have a smarter brain.

Being somewhat of a nihilist for reasons that I could probably write a essay with, seeing that my life is in itself innately meaningless other than to just survive like any other animal out there, it is I guess harder to understand this thing called purpose. That’s the scary thing about having this nihilistic approach to life but also the uplifting part of it as well. With nothing to predefine or predetermine our lives, we can define and construct it solely by us based on informed and educated guesses. But maybe that’s the beauty of life, the endless choices that we have that helps us find, construct, forge our own meanings in life.

Following my dad’s death I had to reshape on what it means to live and through this ever-evolving process I found quietness and stillness to be the best methods in finding a sense of purpose.

It is with quietness that I see as an essential activity in our everyday lives, that becomes the critical moment to reflect on our everyday experiences so that we may direct and redirect ourselves to that invisible point of reference in the past, present or future of which may become our guide in the now.

We live in a loud world, where everyone shouts through their social media, all shouting hey! Hey ! Hey! I am here! Hey world! Hey world! Hey everyone I am here! I am alive, I exist and I mean something! I matter! Look at me! Listen to me! All scared of becoming nothing, being lost in a sea of 7 billion people.

Everything around is subconsciously forcing us a way to live life, through the cars, clothes, cellphones we need to buy, to the foreign lands we need to see and experience, to the beauty we need to become, to the ideas we need to embrace. Everyone is trying to give us a purpose, a sense meaning for our lives and we often would just do nothing more than to wholly accept without even giving a single, meager thought.&n bsp; 

Thus perhaps to answer your question anonymous (yet again), maybe you can find purpose and meaning in the stillness of your mind. Something I personally know is without doubt laborious at first but nonetheless illuminating. Too much hippie nonsense for you? Yes perhaps, but there’s no harm done being simply quiet when the world is constantly blaring loud to the point of confusion. Because to be quiet is to actually listen to the things that matter the most, to the things that are lost in this wild and noisy world. And perhaps it is to listen to this purpose in life that you may already know but is shrouded by a mountain of noise. Quoting Seth S. Horowitz a neuroscientist that researches human hearing:

“You never listen’ is not just the complaint of a problematic relationship, it has also become an epidemic in a world that is exchanging convenience for content, speed for meaning. The richness of life doesn’t lie in the loudne ss and the beat, but in the timbres and the variations that you can discern if you simply pay attention.”

So what about my purpose in life? I don’t know but I am searching and listening for it and that’s good enough for me now.

Want to listen together?

jtotheizzoe:

NEW VIDEO!

Welcome to the Sixth Extinction

There’s two sides to the coin of life. Things come into being, and things die off. Lately, though, that coin has been coming up a lot more on the latter side.

Earth’s species are dying off at an alarming pace, with species going extinct at thousands of times their natural rate. There have been five major extinction events in the history of life on Earth, but scientists are beginning to realize that we’r e at the start of a new great era of dying: Welcome to the Sixth Extinction.

Many people outside of science aren’t even aware that this is going on, because most of the time when we talk about extinction we’re talking about cute or charismatic species like pandas, tigers, or tortoises. Those animals are certainly in trouble, but this problem goes much deeper.

It’s time we take a long hard look at the current “great dying,” because, well… you know how an asteroid killed the dinosaurs? Turns out this time WE are the asteroid.

It may not be the most cheery episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart ever, but I think it’s one of the most important. 

“When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe.“ - John Muir

If you enjoy the videos we’re making, please share them with your friends, and consider subscribing on YouTube!

The Great Dying.

Source itsokaytobesmart

Rejecting reality

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Today marks 8 months since I came back from Wellington and I have to be honest that I am having trouble readjusting to life back here in Indonesia. I feel that there’s an amount, an unhealthy amount, of absurdity and ignorance that I have to endure in order to live and not merely survive at this place that I sometimes reluctantly call home.

It’s not merely about living in a society with a stark difference in values compared to life in Wellington, but at the heart of the problem is the problem of ‘me’ and moving back with my family. To live in a house with so many memories of silenced anger, confusion, self-centerdness, regrets and grief. To once again live with people when I have become too accustomed to living alone for most parts of my life. 

There’s an indefinable stress that I can feel tru dging on my mind, slowly yet surely making me easily, unconsciously irritated with everything around me. I know I am teetering dangerously on an edge of which I cannot fully understand of why I am here in the first place and how I can get out of this.

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Or perhaps I do know why and how. 

It’s the willingness to understand all there is to life that is depleted, as I am just too tired to even try to understand why. 

Or maybe i’m too scared.

Too scared of myself or the reality of myself that I know that I have to confront when I understand all this.

And when I look around me, my friends, my loved ones, everyone seems to be just as tired, as dazed and confused, as unfathomably anxious as I am, of course due to a myriad of complex, personal reasons but nonetheless the results, so it seems, are similar. 

It is easy to talk about life, to critique and to try to understand life when things are at ease. When everything around you is just simply supportive and nothing is really much of a burden for you. When the people around you understand and share the same values or outlooks on life as you do. Life becomes easy when life is easy. What becomes the issue isn’t really when life itself is hard though, but what to do when life becomes hard. What are the choices we make when things aren’t going as we want.

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I know right now that I am filled with a hint of unwarranted hate, with a bucketful of senseless anger and unresolved sadness because I am living in denial, I am rejecting my current reality that I have to face. It seems ironic, I know, that I have instinctively chosen to reject my reality which in the long run is much more devastating for me ra ther than to accept this reality I live in and must live in.

Acceptance is initially harder, rejection is deceptively easier but only with acceptance, which I have understood from past experiences, is undeniably more helpful for the health of my mind. However, talk is cheap and easy. Even duplicating a tested act based on experience is soul-wearingly hard.

Rejection is automatic and so ingrained with how I react towards my perception of reality that I can’t seem to act beyond this automaticity or at least am having a very hard time doing so.

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I’m tired. I’m tired with every single thing right now. With the traffic jams, with the amount of time wasted on the road just to get a decent coffee, tired of people being so immersed in themselves, tired of the unwavering mass ignorance that I witness and experience daily. I’ m tired of life but I don’t want to run away from it, I want to find a solution to this inward misery.

And when I’m tired, when i’m rejecting the reality of my world I can feel fear creeping up on me. I’m tired, i’m refusing to accept, and I am afraid of the world. Much like everyone else it seems. 

The past haunts me, the future petrifies me and everything seems so abstract for me now.

Yet despite all this, and oddly enough, this pessimism is tinged with some much needed optimistic realism: that the way out is with me here and now. All I need I guess is to shut up a bit and welcome that unnerving silence that brings so much memories of pain, crippling anxiety but teaches me to accept, however horrid it is.

We’re afraid all the time of what the future will bring—afraid we’ll lose our jobs, our possessions, the people around us whom we love. So we wait and hope for that magical moment—always sometime in the future—when everything will be as we want it to be. We forget that life is available only in the present moment. —Thich Nhat Hanh

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Anonymous said:

how do you see relationships (with friends, lovers, family members, anyone)?

We easily fall prey to superficiality. In a world where the quality of relationships is defined by the quantity of relationships. Where everyone is trying so hard to add, to accept, to like or dislike, to follow or unfollow, to build bonds with the numerous, what is lost then is essence. The intrinsic nature, that indispensable quality within a relationship that can only be found when an extended period of time is spent with the few. We spare no time for relationships but lust for them and taking in only a mere shadow of what we truly want.

People always seem surprised when I tell them the publishing business is doing just fine. They expect me to share tales of woe and misery—and incompetence. I remain optimistic. For every forgettable snarky Facebook rant, for every counterintuitive, impermanent let-me-explain-the-world-to-you thought piece, for every formulaic superhero movie or sitcom, there grows a place in the hearts of thoughtful readers out there for works by [dedicated] writers.

Our culture will continue to churn out ephemera online (including, ironically, this piece), and we old schoolers in publishing will continue to chug along at our own slow pace. That’s because we know that no matter what else is out there, readers still want deep, meaningful work that can take years to produce.

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For Whom Do We Practice?

A friendly reminder for all my friends struggling in their meditation practice.

We must ask: for whom do we practice? We see the paradox of the self in the world, focusing inwardly in order to manifest outwardly. The inward look is the outward view. Ultimately we practice for others as our inward polishing manifests itself as good action in our activities.

- Eido Frances Carney, “The Way of Ryokan”

Pain and joy, love of life, and fear of death know no boundaries of us and them. We can all wake up to realize that our happiness depends on the happiness of our neighbors and vice versa, and our real safety is in togetherness, not intractable conflict.

— Stephen Fulder, “Do We Really ‘Have No Choice’?”

We must realize that modern civilization is thoroughly oriented towards dehumanizing humanity in every possible way; that is to say, we are fast turning into robots or statues with no human souls. Our task is to get humanized once more.

— D. T. Suzuki, “Humanized Once More”

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Anonymous asked:
Ben, membaca pendapat masalahmu dgn agama, saya melihat bbrp orang beragama krn mereka sadar betapa hidup sangat sulit & dgn ritual yg mereka lakukan dr agama mereka, membuat mereka merasa lebih baik, lebih tenang. Apa dari diri km sendiri, pernah merasakan hal tsb sebelumnya?

Pernah, saya dulu selalu berdoa untuk keselamatan keluarga saya dan saya pribadi. Terutama jika sedang mengalami sebuah kesulitan dalam hidup.

Dan iya itu sangat betul ritual dapat membuat seseorang lebih baik dan tenang. Kita dapat mengambil contoh umum dimana ketika seseorang yang sudah beranjak umurnya akan lebih beragama ketimbang masih muda. Mereka semakin menyadari akan sulitnya hidup dan fananya hidup ini. Mereka butuh sebuah kepastian ketika hidup dipenuhi ketidakpastian, terutama jika kita membicarakan kematian. Kita semua tahu bahwa kita akan mati suatu hari nanti, namun ketika kita sadar bahwa kita akan mati dan sadar bahwa kita tidak dapat mengetahui secara pasti apa yang akan terjadi setelah hidup kita berakhir maka muncullah sebuah kegelisahan eksistensial. Apa yang akan terjadi dengan ‘saya’ ketika ‘saya’ mati nanti?

Maka dikarenakan ketakutan dan kegelisahan t ersebut, ketimbang kita melihat, mengerti dan menerima kematian dan ketidakpastian yang dibawanya maka lebih baik kita meredam ketakutan dan kegelisahan tersebut dengan ritual agama. Agama membawa ketenangan itu sudah suatu hal yang pasti dan banyak penelitian psikologis yang menunjukkan dampak ritualitas agama dalam menolong kegelisahan dan ketakutan seseorang. Yang menjadi permasalahan buat saya adalah dengan mengharapkan sebuah kekuatan ilahi untuk mengambil, menghilangkan semua permasalahan kita bukankah itu sebenarnya pelarian dari masalah dan bukan upaya penyelesaian sebuah masalah ?

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Anonymous asked:
Ben, kalau berdasarkan pengalaman dan pemahamanmu setelah mengikuti keduanya, apa perbedaan antara meditasi vipassana yang diajarkan S.N. Goenka dengan Krishnamurti?

Kedua meditasi tersebut pada dasarnya memiliki esensi yang sama yaitu menyadari akan fananya diri kita, termasuk segala emosi, pikiran, keresahan yang kita alami. Namun satu hal yang membedakan adalah cara untuk sampai akan kesadaran tersebut.

Meditasi S.N. Goenka meminta kita untuk pertama mengobservasi pernafasan melalui Anapanasati yang digunakan untuk meredam pikiran kita yang loncat kesana kemari. Kemudian ketika sudah sedikit lebih tenang kita diminta untuk memasuki Vipassana untuk menyadari kefanaan diri kita. Hal itu dilakukan dengan cara observasi perasaan di badan kita yang datang dan pergi. Rasa pegal di kaki dikarenakan duduk lama, rasa gatal di tangan dikarenakan gigitan nyamuk, dll. Dengan mengobservasi perasaan badan tersebut kita melihat bahwa rasa pegal pun datang dan pergi, dan rasa gatal pun datang dan pergi asalkan kita tetap tenang dan hanya mengovservasi tanpa bereaksi terhadap rasa pe gal atau gatal tersebut. Diharapkan dengan penemuan tersebut ketika melakukan observasi kita akan secara perlahan menyadari bahwa selama kita tidak bereaksi jika terjadi sesuatu ke kita dan hanya mengobservasi kita akan menyadari kefanaan segala sesuatu termasuk fananya hal-hal buruk maupun baik yang terjadi ke diri kita.

Meditasi Krishnamurti seperti yang telah disebutkan diatas memiliki tujuan yang sama yaitu menyadari akan fananya diri kita dan dunia ini. Namun yang membedakan adalah ketimbang kita fokus ke perasaan pada tubuh kita langsung melihat pikiran kita tanpa bereaksi. Kita langsung diminta untuk melihat pikiran kita bagaikan orang yang sedang memperhatikan sungai dari pinggir sungai. Pikiran kita tidak diupayakan untuk tenang secara paksa sepertinya halnya meditasi S. N. Goenka dengan Anapanasati. Justru dibiarkan untuk terus berkicau agar kita dapat melihat sedang apa sebenarnya pikiran kita ini. Segala bentuk aliran pikiran yang baik dan buruk, segala kenginan , amarah, benci, kesedihan, kebahagiaan dll hanya dilihat dan dibiarkan mengalir. Kita tidak perlu bereaksi terhadap pikiran yang lewat hanya sekedar dilihat seperti sedang mengobservasi sungai yang berlalu. Diharapkan dengan berlatih terus kita akan dapat melihat diri kita yang sesungguhnya, diri kita yang penuh amarah, dendam, kesedihan, kegelisahan dll sekaligus menyadari bahwa semua itu dan alasan-alasan dibalik perasaan-perasaan tersebut adalah fana dan semu.

Pada dasarnya kedua meditasi tersebut memiliki tujuan yang sama, manakah yang lebih baik atau lebih memiliki hasil? Saya secara pribadi belum berlatih terlalu mendalam untuk dapat mengambil sebuah kesimpulan, maka mungkin bagi yang ingin mencoba kedua-duanya bisa dicoba keduanya akan tetapi dengan terus merefleksi akan kelebihan maupun kekurangan kedua meditasi tersebut.

Pada akhir November tanggal 28-30 akan diadakan meditasi Krishnamurti dekat Bogor selama 3 hari dua malam (dimulai Jumat sore selesai Minggu pa gi) mungkin jika tertarik dapat ikut serta untuk sekedar mencobanya. Informasi mengenai meditasi tersebut dan cara mendaftar dapat dilihat di http://meditasi-mengenal-diri.org/MMD_jadwal2014.html

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Anonymous asked:
hai Ben. My name's Mia and I want to ask you question about your master in NZ. I am interested to continue my study there. what I want to ask is which one should I prepare TOEFL or IELTS? Thankyou.

Hi Mia, universities in NZ much like any other universities these days accepts both TOEFL and IELTS. For my university, Victoria University of Wellington, in order to do a postgraduate study (master’s or Ph.D) the minimum was TOEFL 575 or IELTS 6.5 but some specific programs do ask a TOEFL score of 600 or IELTS of 7. But please do refer to the university’s website for more and updated information.