Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Handful of Leaves podcasts, where we bring you practical Buddhist wisdom for a happier life. I am Kai Xin
[00:00:10] Cheryl:
and I’m a ghost. No kidding! I’m Cheryl… with flu.
[00:00:14] Kai Xin:
And today we are gonna talk about ghosts. It’s gonna be interesting because we’ve collected some stories from some of you, our subscribers. We’re gonna share three stories and also insert the Buddhist perspective of ghosts as well as the ghost month.
So for myself, I used to be very fearful of ghosts. You know, when you’re a kid in primary school, I don’t know if you remember the chain messages that say like, “Oh, if you don’t send this to 10 people, then at night somebody will knock on your door or somebody will hide under your bed.”
Yeah. That scared of the hell of me. I thankfully don’t feel scared anymore. So actually, I like watching ghost movies. In fact, I feel that they’re a little bit sad. And yeah, people jio (invite) me to do crazy things like go to abandoned Istana buried deep in the woods, it’s like those abandoned house.
(I was also) quite daring as a teenager also, you know, cycle midnight, go to Old Changi Hospital and then got caught by the police as we were coming out, ’cause we didn’t know there’s like CCTV installed.
[00:01:18] Cheryl:
It’s like you don’t just enjoy ghost movies. You wanna put yourself in a ghost movie like that!
[00:01:22] Kai Xin:
No, I don’t do that to find trouble, but it’s just more to explore and adventure ’cause I just find them interesting.
[00:01:28] Cheryl:
I’m the total opposite of you. I would not wanna go to any of those places and I don’t wanna watch ghost movies. Last time on my way to school, I used to sit those public buses and then to entertain us a whole bunch of high school girls, right, the driver he’ll play a ghost movie and it’s usually the very, very scary one. He’s those like, Thailand Ghost movie or Japanese ghost movie? Like The Shutter.
[00:01:51] Kai Xin:
Japan’s one is the worst. Yeah.
[00:01:53] Cheryl:
It’s very scary and he’ll play it on repeat. So first time, I close my eyes. Second time, my friends watched so I need to pretend to be very courageous, and even after watching like one snippet for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, I cannot shower for like a whole week. Many years later, I’ll still think of the scene (in fear).
[00:02:11] Kai Xin:
I can empathize. I’ve been there before and I think we can also share a little bit more about perspective on ghosts, how to view them, how do we respond when we actually encounter one, or in the scriptures, what did the Buddha teach about all this.
In fact, this entire month is also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival. The seventh month in the Chinese calendar, which falls in August and people believe that this month the Hell Gates will open and then the beings from the underworld they’ll come out and it includes the ancestors that have passed away.
[00:02:45] Cheryl:
Most people would usually have more ghostly encounters as well.
[00:02:50] Kai Xin:
Oh, yes. Or like you would suddenly see a lot of funerals under your void deck.
Yeah. Goosebumps.
By the way, we are recording this at 1125pm. Cheryl is making a cockroach looking expression. Hopefully the fear would change to something else at the end of the episode.
All right. So I think we can start off by asking first the whole thing about Ghost Month, is it a Taoist thing or is it a Buddhist thing?
[00:03:10] Cheryl:
I think a lot of people’s knowledge is that, Ghost months you just make sure when you walk on the road, just avoid all the Joss sticks or the paper. Actually it’s very interesting, the Ghost Festival, has its roots in the Buddhist festival, Ullambana.
So the Buddhist origins of the festival can be traced back to a story from India. There was this well to do merchant Maha Mogallana who gave up his trade and he then went on to become a Buddhist monk, and he was the monk That’s foremost in psychic, and so after he became an Arahant (fully awakened being), you know, being very filial and all that, he wonder, “Hey, what happened to his parents?” So he used his psychic power to travel all the universes and realms. After you died and born either of the higher realms or the lower realms.
So he found his father in heaven. Good. Nothing needed. But then when he found his mother, his mother was reborn in the realm of hungry ghosts. As a lay woman, she was very rich, but she was not generous.
So when she died, she was reborn in this low realm. So Maha Mogallana Alana went down to the Hungry Ghost realm, and eventually saves her from this plight, and the story ends with this festival and the rescue of his mother from hell.
[00:04:23] Kai Xin:
The interesting part of the story is that the Buddha, specifically in the Sutta, the Ullambana Sutta mentioned that even like the Heavenly Kings, and even Maha Moggalana, an Arahant, by using his power, he was not able to be able to elevate the mother from, suffering from the hell realm. So Ullambana is basically a gathering of all the Sangha members, the monastic, and then lay people would offer certain things usually like robes or food and it’s believed that the power of this gathering and the merit, probably uplifts the mind of the lower beings to then be able to reborn in a better place. Which we will cover more, later how, you know, the mechanism work, ’cause I think there’s also a lot of misconceptions around it.
And interestingly we have a submission of a story from KS, and this is in Malaysia and I wouldn’t say it’s like a ghost, ghost story, but I found it quite touching actually.
I’m gonna give some context first for clarity. ’cause this is a recount of, his or her aunt. And basically what happened was the, the aunt has four children and passed away at a relatively young age because of cancer. So, The account over here is not long. About few months after the passing away of aunt who, whose name is Ah Soon, uh, suddenly a family member received the information from somebody through word of mouth to say, “Hey, somebody is looking for the husband of this person, named Ah Soon, which is the aunt,” and then the uncle was then notified and apparently it was some person from the temple that is really far away from where this family is living, and it’s like, okay, what’s going on? So they brought the entire family there, located like eight km away. They’ve never heard of this temple before.
And apparently in the temple there is this medium did this ritual where, um, kind of get the aunt to communicate through his body I mean as a medium. So in the conversation, the aunt actually communicated how she felt very unjust and resentful, like why does she have to pass away at such a young age? And then very painfully due to cancer at the age of 40, and then living behind a husband and four children who are still relatively young. I think the max that was mentioned here was like secondary school age. So she also shared that she’s currently residing in the third level of hell and she was quite descriptive during this whole ritual.
She explained that there are levels of hell categorized by punishment, torture or suffering. And the first level is the least suffering and the deepest, which is the 18th level being the harshest suffering. Then, her current level is third level, so she can still chant every day and shared that she’s destined to be reborn in human realm again after 10 years.
Then according to the uncle and cousin, who’s the children of the aunt, this was the first and the only time that the aunt came to the temple conversed with them through the medium and there’s no other accounts already.
[00:07:40] Cheryl:
I think the part where she was lamenting about having passed away so painfully, the submitter also shared that through some notes that the deceased wrote few months before her passing, she did indeed share that same sentiment.
It is quite interesting because such a far away temple was able to accurately know the name, the situation. So what do you think Kai Xin? Do you think hell really exists? What do you think of the story?
[00:08:08] Kai Xin:
I can’t say for sure ’cause I’ve not seen hell, but I do believe and have some faith that it exists. In fact, in the Sutta the Buddha actually described quite in detail, the different levels of hell and the different kinds of punishment.
Some of the realms can actually receive some form of merits from like us human beings. You know, if we dedicate, they’ll feel joyful. But some, no matter how much you try, right, also cannot. So there are different levels and there’s more than one Sutta that actually talks about hell in the, the Pali canon and in the Mahayana scripture. In fact, I think the question is why are peopleborn in hell.
Right? We, I think just now we have, uh, an example about being stingy. You know, we are not generous enough. And then in terms of like the account of KS, so it is believed that if you die with a very negative mental state, the negative energy will just bring you down to the lower realm.
Yeah. And the last thought is very important, so it might be the case that she feel that resentment and that became a condition for her. So in other there’s this very interesting exchange between Yan Luo Wang, or King Yama, and somebody who just entered the hell realm.
King Yama or the hell of God.
[00:09:35] Cheryl:
The God of hell.
Hell of God. Yeah, it’s God of hell.
[00:09:41] Kai Xin:
He’s like the God of hell. And it’s interesting because God of hell is actually very compassionate when it’s described in the Sutta and it’s also there to teach beings in that realm of what they did wrong so that they can reflect.
What happened is that, the King Yama was lecturing this being and say, Hey, you know, uh, didn’t it occurred to you that if a person were to do evil deeds, even before you die, you’ll already be tortured, which is true, right?
[00:10:17] Cheryl:
If you conduct a crime, let’s say you go scot-free for 10 years.
But can you imagine the torture every day? Just worrying whether people will find out whether there’s any tracks that she didn’t cover.
[00:10:29] Kai Xin:
Yeah, it’s a mental torture in itself, right? Very interesting ’cause king Yama was saying that, even like here and now, evil actions have a punishment, then what more the life after?
So from that note, Wouldn’t you reflect that, hey, I need to do good with my body speech and mind. And he say, as we are living on earth, we will probably see the divine messengers . So, sickness, aging, and death. Then didn’t it occur to you that you are subjected to all of this and because of that, you shouldn’t just squander your youth away.
You should use the time to, be a person of integrity, do good, guide your mind, et cetera, which I found to be quite interesting ’cause we don’t necessarily have to even believe in the afterlife, but you just think about like this life, and if we are able to see like the divine messengers, then we would be able to do good, purify our mind a little bit and uplift our entire spirit.
[00:11:30] Cheryl:
We think about hell as external, a place to go to a, a place to be fearful of. But hell is actually within your own mind.
[00:11:42] Kai Xin:
Yeah. So you ask how exists or not, it can be metaphorical or it can be literal, right?
[00:11:47] Cheryl:
Yes. And there’s this, Sutta sharing, it says that evil is done by oneself. By oneself is one defiled; evil is left undone by oneself, by oneself is one cleansed.
It shows that hell, suffering is a consequence of unwholesome actions. but you also have the ownership to get out of that place. You can change if you find yourself to be suffering because, you do a lot of unwholesome things but there is the opportunity for you to take responsibility, to get yourself out of that hell. Evil is left undone by oneself, by oneself is one cleansed. So there is no God there to punish you.
[00:12:32] Kai Xin:
Then some people might ask we offer all this food. If cannot, then why do I offer all this food?
I think sometimes it’s also about whether we have the capacity to. If I’m just overwhelmed and overcome by anger, it’s actually very difficult to think straight and to say that, oh, you know, I have to repent and I have to do good. ’cause it’s always in hindsight.
We need like a spiritual friend or some wise people to pull us back on the path, in order to have that clarity of mind. So regarding the question at the very beginning we talk about, hey, you know, all this offering, does it really work? What’s the mechanics behind?
I got this Karma point and got this karma point, but it’s really about recollection of one’s virtue. So like you say, right? Because if the evil is done by oneself, then oneself is being defiled. If a person has virtue, and we recollect that virtue, then the mind brightens. So the, there’s also another Sutta that talks about specifically offering food to deceased relatives.
So it’s like, outside the walls they will stand and then they return home. Then, no one remembers them and say, oh, such is the karma of this being. There’s no person to actually, dedicate.
[00:13:48] Cheryl:
Oh, that’s quite sad.
[00:13:50] Kai Xin:
So, I think even like in this lifetime, sometimes we are forgotten by people, and you see people who are very lonely, they age alone and stuff.
Some people can also attribute that to causes and condition and karma, like, have you been a good person? The more virtuous you are, then you’re surrounded with great friends that are very appreciative, that would support you. So if you’re talking literally in the Sutta, it was described that, those who feel sympathy for their relatives will actually give timely donations, and you’ll wish may this relative be well, which I think is very beautiful act as well, because it’s like you’re appreciating them like, ah, you were my relative who have done me good, or I’ve benefited from your presence.
[00:14:34] Cheryl:
And it’s also simply that, that gratitude, right? Where it’s understanding without you, I won’t be here as well. Without all your ancestors, even though you don’t know them by name or form, without them, you can’t be here.
[00:14:46] Kai Xin:
So it’s not so much like we do all these offerings, , tolong (please) don’t come and disturb me. But it’s more like, oh, this is an occasion for me to appreciate you and to practice gratitude.
[00:14:56] Cheryl:
There was this case where King Bimbisara was very lucky to offer the Buddha, a wonderful meal, Dana.
But then he forgot to share merits to his relative. So after that meritorious deeds, what happened was that he heard a lot of crying sounds, so then he could ask Buddha, Hey, Buddha, how, why, like that Then Buddha say, ah, cause , you never go and share your merits and this occasion to, give food to the Buddha is so, so rare, your relatives have been waiting for a very long time, but you didn’t share with them, so they are quite upset with you. So then, King Bimbisara did it again, and then this time he shared all the merits re- collecting all the goodness that he’s done, wishing for his relatives to take part and rejoice and, there was no more, wailing sounds and, and they were also very happy after that.
[00:15:49] Kai Xin:
Every time we do good, we must think off the conditions that allowed us to do good and just dedicate the merits to our departed relatives. And going back to the question of, okay, so how does it work? I thought we are the owner of our own Kamma.
I had this question many years ago and a friend gave me this super cool analogy if you are sentenced to say 10 year of prison sentence, right?
You can’t do anything in prison. And he is like, oh, I have to wait it out. And sometimes the conditions can, can be quite bad, like depending on, you know, which squad. So he kind of compared it to like, hell. If somebody visit you at the prison, like a relative and say that, Hey, I did this, this, this good deed, and when I did those, I thought of you or I donated this, in your name, how would you feel?
Like, wow, happy, right? Like you thought of me, I don’t feel so lonely. Then because you feel that maybe your conduct in prison would be better and because of that your jail sentence is also shortened. So, It’s not so much that you are, paying off people’s negative, karma or like helping them to free them from punishment.
We are still the owner of a karma, but it’s more of like both the receiver and the giver gain merits because we are happy about the process of giving and it’s the uplifting of the mind. And because of that, then we create the conditions to be in a better space. Yeah.
[00:17:23] Cheryl:
It’s so important because it’s so easy to forget the goodness and the merits that we do. So if I recollect the times where I feel very depressed and I feel like, oh, life doesn’t have any meaning, uh, that sort of dark mental state just clouds the mind and I’m just not able to remember or think about any of the goodness I’ve done and that further weighs me down.
[00:17:47] Kai Xin:
That’s so true.
[00:17:49] Cheryl:
So having that brightness, of good deeds just being shared, just being generously, uh, rejoiced in, is, is so, so, so powerful. And that one mindset can lift beings up, sometimes even from the hell real to an instantaneous rebirth. If it’s lifted so high, especially if maybe it’s a form of recollection with regards to the Buddha, and maybe a faith that is so strong can instantaneously lift them into a higher, a better rebirth.
[00:18:19] Kai Xin:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s so true. In fact, a friend has shared with me before when she was in a really dark place, She’s like, can you share, some good things ’cause I really cannot think of anything that is joyful. I can’t think of any good things that I’ve done. Can you just share with me, what is good in your week so that I can rejoice?
Sometimes even this life, the darkness just clouds your mind and it really helps to have somebody there with you to recollect.
[00:18:46] Cheryl:
A very good practice for, for everyone also who perhaps find themselves sometimes pegged down by the burdens of the world and we can become a bit pessimistic, is to have a diary or a small journal to just write down all the good deeds that you do and how you’ve helped someone, how you even thought a good thought, in your mind. You know, maybe feeling happy for a friend. Just write that down. And occasionally when you’re feeling down, you can just look at it again.
I have a relative who shared with me that I’ve actually done a lot of good things in my life. A lot, a lot, a lot of good deeds, but I don’t remember them. And that’s why I always feel very depressed. So then she also started this and it helps her, not only recollect that, on her death bed, but also on her day-to-day to increase her wellbeing.
Speaking about death, it is a good practice to read to a person who is dying, recollect all the good things that they have done so that their, their mind is bright when they’re departing. And, it’s also said that, you shouldn’t be crying. It’s like, why you leave me? It, it’s kind of like the auntie story, right? It’s like, I’m so young. I feel bad for leaving my kids behind, my family behind. Then they go with a very, very down mind. So it’s good to have this diary so that your loved one, like let’s say if I’m on my death, Cheryl please share it to me all the good things I’ve done. All the times a lot la uncountable good deeds done.
[00:20:19] Kai Xin:
I’m not sure whether I can recollect all of them when I die. I think who, who knows The bad karma in the past might have ripened during my death moment. So yeah, it would definitely be helpful to have this, jot down somewhere.
And I think it helps the living as well to be able to look at your loved one to say, wow, actually this is such an amazing person, how actually the best lesson learned from separating from loved one is to live your life well as like a living person, that’s the best gift that you can give to them.
[00:20:54] Cheryl:
I don’t understand that. Can you share more?
Why is it the best gift? The person died already.
[00:21:02] Kai Xin:
To lead a good life yourself is the best gift that you can give to them. So that they don’t have to worry. You know, like how they wouldn’t know, ah, haven’t you seen ghost movies, the attachment is a thing, right?
So if a person is burdened by family duties is good to live a good life so that you don’t have to worry them and you don’t be the cause of why they are in a lower realm. Just like, you know, my life is good. Don’t have to worry. Just go, go to a better place. Everything is taken care of.
[00:21:35] Cheryl:
And I guess like if you live well, you’ve got more good things to share, more merits to, to give them as well. And, that will be very helpful. Like if they happen to be lower. We can also share some interesting things about merits.
[00:21:51] Kai Xin:
I’m gonna share another story. This one is Army. So people, guys who have served the army probably also have experienced, something similar. Like how, how do you react or respond when they are supernatural encounters?
So this story goes like this, OCS days, that’s like about a decade ago up. So this person, our follower Jaden, was sharing the story of how they had to do like this night navigation at the top of Rambutan Hill. Never served NS before so some of the terms I don’t know, but basically, this hill, you have to go in groups and then there are different checkpoints to clear, within a stipulated amount of time that everyone would have like their helmet, their vests, et cetera, and the torchlight.
And they would tape up with a red tape with very, very small square window so that the light emitted is very minimal. So he was navigating the pitch black forest for very long. Only cleared two out of four checkpoints and was very desperate.
So at the time, most of the other cadets have already completed their course and went down to the foot of the hill and to prevent losing cadets in the forest, the instructor, would say that if you cannot finish clearing your checkpoint by a certain time, and if you hear the whistle start walking down a hill or return to the last checkpoint that you were at.
So it was really humid at night, and he was very tired from climbing the steep terrain and from all the falls that he had. And he was walking around aimlessly, like there’s no sense of direction, but he knew that he was somewhere near the highest edge of the hill because of the, the noise of the highway beside, which also meant that he was very far away from the base.
Then suddenly he saw someone in uniform. Cheryl is making a funny expression. And she says she pretend not to hear. Okay, I’m gonna continue anyway,
Those of you who are scared also, you can, uh, fast forward. So suddenly he saw someone in uniform walking towards him. But he was very happy. He was happy to see this other person because he was walking alone for a good 15 to 20 minutes and he couldn’t quite see the face, like, ’cause you know, helmet was low.
Then his eyes squinting ’cause all the sweat and he went to ask this person, do you wanna join me and find the checkpoint together? And the person didn’t look at him, always had his back facing him. So he told Jayden that he came from a checkpoint that is not too far from where he was.
And then he pointed the direction. Then suddenly the whistle sounded so it’s like a cue for them to go back. So Jayden invited him to walk to the checkpoint that he said that he came from since the course has already ended, so we have to go to the nearest checkpoint.
Then, weirdly enough, this person rejected the offer and insisted on going to another checkpoint on his own. Then the whistle sounded again. So I, I think at this point you can really tell that maybe the person is not a person.
So he’s just like, ah, yeah, this very stubborn guy. So he made his way down to the direction.
Then just like all 10, 20 steps, and then he saw other cadets and instructor. Then the instructor shout at him and asked him whether he saw anyone who was also like as equally lost as him, and then, He said yes, but then he turned back then ’cause 10, 20 steps only, he turned back then suddenly nobody.
So very long story short, the instructor informed all the other instructors via the walkie talkie to do a head count at the base. And then, they call back and say that everyone has returned, left only the three of us at the checkpoint. After returning to the base, he went to ask around if anyone saw him, talk to him. Like who was this like fellow? And most of them look like they have been back for a very long time. Uh, then he look at the direction of this dark hill, then he froze.
And before leaving the base and returning back to, their bunks, he look up at the night sky and then he put his palms together. He believed there Bear spirits everywhere in trees, in rivers. And that one just had to be respectful to the environment, especially if it’s not our property and place.
So I think he realized that, actually the someone that he saw that was actually nice enough to help him was not a person ’cause everyone else was already at the base. And, so all the goosebumps are for nothing. ’cause this is not really a scary story. Some might say that he’s a bit thinking too much or maybe he counted wrongly or hallucination, but he truly believed that it was like somebody that he talked to.
There’s really no way for the person to return in such a short span of time, after that interaction. And he felt thankful that the being actually led him to the checkpoint ’cause he was so lost and he told himself to be more respectful and believe that Hmm, perhaps there are also good spirits around.
So it’s not really like a malicious spirit per se. It’s like Casper, the friendly ghost.
The very long and interesting story. What’s your take on this? Are you less scared of ghost now? Like you had the perception like, oh by, hey, this, this goes so nice.
[00:27:12] Cheryl:
I still scared.
[00:27:16] Kai Xin:
Why are you scared?
[00:27:30] Cheryl:
I think it’s just the idea of something that is not human anymore that is very scary. But of course they may have good intentions. They sometimes may have not so good intentions, but it’s like how we are scared of sharks because of all the movies that portray them to be extremely dangerous.Yeah sharks are so gentle.
They generally don’t bite humans unless unless you’re go and agitate them. I think a lot of this fear is very, unfounded is coming from misinformation, and unfamiliarity. So there’s this story that Ajahn Somchai, a monk, the vice abbot of what Maja, um, shared actually about fear and ghost.
So it’s very common for these monks to, you know, go to the charnal ground where, you know, they just put the dead body there, in the open or because they’re planning to cremate it maybe the next day or something. So he was sharing how one of the novices the brother died, uh, young, some young boiler.
And so they placed the body of the young boy and he planned to do his meditation there. So usually what monks would do is that they’ll go in the afternoon to survey the area so that they recognize the trees. They know that at night if they think too much , it’s just overthinking, ’cause they already saw the tree in the afternoon, but he didn’t get to do it in the morning.
So he could only go into the charnel area at night. and that was when everything is extremely scary. So he was sharing his experience, how he sat there and he was just so terrified. He kept looking over to the area of the boy ’cause he was scared, like, “Oh my God, the boy is going to like, suddenly stand up and, scare me or like, haunt me or whatever.” For many, many, many hours, he just couldn’t make his mind settle down. ’cause he was that terrified. It was just pitch dark. It’s only him and the body there. And so he made the determination. He’s like, okay, this fear is not going to go away. I will just keep doing my walking meditation until it goes away. So, For the first few hours he, when he was walking, he was just, he kept like imagining every time he turned around, the being was gonna be behind him but through his perseverance, he managed to overcome that fear, to realize that actually fear is not so much in external things in the ghost, in the body, uh, in the whatever thing out there, but rather fear is within himself.
And with that, he was able to watch over the fear in his mind , and he was able to overcome that fear of death, of channel, ground, of the body. And his mind became very, very, very bright because of the peace and wisdom that he found.
And long story short, while I’m sharing this story, is because, yes, I’m very scared because the external goals is very unfamiliar to me.
I don’t know where the ghosts come from. Is it a bad intention or good intention ghost, but knowing that fear is within my mind, is something that I can overcome with mindfulness, brings the power back to me and I don’t have to be so scared. And I can then choose to use Metta like the Buddha shared in the Metta Sutta, right?
To share loving kindness, goodwill to all beings, regardless of what form they take, whether it’s scary or pretty or whatever. That’s my reflection.
So are you less scared now?
I talk until I less scared now.
Kai Xin:
If we can see them in a different light and learn from them, uh, that, that’s how I overcame my fear. ’cause if you think about it, if I die and like I need help, then I go to my relatives, or my family then they run away from me. I’ll feel so sad. It’s like, hello, you’re supposed to help me. The more you go near them, the more they run faster.
Exactly. I do feel that these beings are very sorrowful and to our best of our ability. Of course, provided that we have virtue, then we have something to share.
Then on another hand, it’s also, virtue really helps to stabilize the mind. ’cause if I never do anything wrong, then why am I scared of? Why, why am I afraid that they would come after me?
Cheryl:
No, I kind of disagree. Like you scared sometimes it’s not about what you are trying to hide, but it’s more about trying to protect your life. Like what if they come in, I dunno, possess me, then I don’t have my life anymore or what, right?
[00:31:59] Kai Xin:
I think if the virtue is strong enough, then your mind would be bright and they wouldn’t be able to disturb you . Of course there are malicious beings. Not to say that, all beings are kind. Some might actually be very revengeful. So we definitely have to be careful and like, uh, Jayden mentioned, right? Be respectful of the environmental, don’t purposely go and find trouble or criticize them.
If we can understand causes and condition, and I think virtue, not in a sense that, we got nothing to hide, therefore we are not scared of them, but we are so confident in our own morality that there’s really nothing to be scared of. That’s like literally the best protection. It’s not the amulets, but even when we chant, you know, it’s a way of to dispel the spirit.
But actually in the middle of the chanting we are steadying our mind and recollecting the virtues, and that is the protection. I feel like virtue is very important. There’s, uh, then there’s nothing really very much to be scared of. Rather it just like, oh yeah, you come, then I feel for you. Uh, is there anything that I can share than just wish them, well.
In fact, the, there is one famous discourse called the Karaniya Metta, where the monks actually encountered beings that are very naughty. Like they go and disturb the monks when they were trying to meditate in the forest. So it was close to the Rains retreat, I think. And then they’re like, they all have their own experiences like that.
The ghosts going to disturb them. Then they realized that everyone is being disturbed by this ghost. That, okay. Okay. Go back to the Buddha and ask like, for his advice and the Buddha’s, like why, why you come back and, uh, ask them to chant this, go back again. And the entire suta is basically recollecting about how one should be contented, easily satisfied.
And it, it’s not really like, oh, go, go away or hey, you know, stop doing all this nonsense, but it’s really about rejoicing what are some of the, the virtues that we should be cultivating in this life and whatever beings you are think of that as well. And the beings actually stop disturbing the monks, and they coexist during the period.
Mm then it always goes back, right, that the mind is a fore runner of things like how keeping your mind in a wholesome state is what protects you in moments of fear, in moments of the unknown.
Cheryl:
I actually really like the point about being respectful. I think if we can just treat like other beings even including ants or animals, insects, with respect as you were to a friend, rather than criticize or be rude and offensive.
I know someone who can connect with these beings, have shared experiences of where these being can be offended through wrong speech.
[34:55:44] Kai Xin:
In fact, one of our listeners shared a story about how she was disturbed by a spirit because of something inappropriate, which he said he or she, this is anonymous, so happened around like Bukit Timah area, at night.
So when, I’ll just take it as a “She”, when she came home, then she felt very uneasy and, uh, chanted like, oh, money pay me home. But it didn’t really help and it was quite, uh, visual. So she sat at the side of the bed and somehow just lie down as if cannot be controlled, if feels almost like a possession.
This my interpretation and felt like, oh, this invisible energy creeping up, from the leg to the body as if somebody, something is taking over the body. Right when it’s just right below the nose, like creeping up, she chanted Guru Rimpoche seven line prayer and suddenly felt the force retreat. And it was scary because it’s like the thing is still in the room and felt really disturbed for the period and had like a mental meltdown and snap, and so this person has access to some high Tibetan Monk who happened to be in Singapore during that period and felt like the force just needed to seek help from the high master.
Two points to take away from this story from my perspective is, number one, guarding our speech. Be respectful. I’m not sure whether the inappropriate thing was about the being or something they walked past, or is it just about somebody? And then, somehow there’s this being kind of just latched on and it seemed like the being is also trying to ask for help in order to meet like the high master to maybe gather some merits as well.
Yeah. I personally have heard, some stories in the monasteries where beings will come and, just like really want to tap on the merits in order to then be reborn in a better realm. Yeah.
Cheryl:
Yeah. I think putting it in the perspective is just turns on the switch of compassion, right? It’s like, you can see them as beggars, that they need something that we have, that we can offer, and beggars, if you think about it, they don’t come in lavish clothes, right? They usually come in very, dilapidated, outfit, and their hair is disheveled. Their face is dirty. So in that, in that same sense, they don’t always appear very beautifully. But that’s because they, they, they don’t have much and they need something and we can always, give them and, and share with them, hopefully to alleviate their, their misery.
Kai Xin:
The Ghost Month really have a lot of things to teach us. We’ve covered quite a lot. I mean, stories as well as, you know, the, the different, conditions. In terms of teaching, to me, I feel number one, compassion is definitely yes. And then filial piety or a sense of appreciation and gratitude and also teaches us how not to end up in those state. It it’s really about guarding our body, speech and mind to cultivate virtue.
And even if we don’t believe that hell exists, it doesn’t matter because just in this life we will be able to reap all of the benefits of all the, the good virtues that we have cultivated. And like you say, like you mentioned quite a few examples about how when the mind is very down, you know, or depressed or like angry, we are in hell on earth.
So it’s important to take this away rather than look at the hell beings or ghost in a fearful light, think about what they can teach us.
Cheryl:
Yeah. And one more thing to add is the idea of karma, right? That all actions, um, be it wholesome or unwholesome, there will be a certain result and you, the person who had the intention and conducted whatever act you’ll be the owner, you’ll be the heir, you’ll inherit, this karma as well. And no one, even the loved ones or no external god creator, can take that for you, can save you away from that.
The power is within your hands to change to be more intentional in cultivating the wholesome, the skillful. With that, then you can be assured that you are, wherever you go. There will always be good wholesome results following you. With good coming down and with the good and wholesome results. Also remember to think of people who have helped you along the way and in the best of your abilities, dedicate them to your departed relatives or any beings who need them.
Kai Xin:
If you have an opportunity to take part in the, the Ullambana ceremony, Sadhu, it’s very virtuous. Otherwise, you don’t have to wait for ghost month in order to dedicate merits. I think you can do it on a daily basis, we make it a habit actually after every Dhamma talk. There’s this sentence that I really like a lot.
I feel joy listening to the Dharma talk. I, I wish that other beings would be able to experience this joy as well. Or like, may they be free from suffering and may I be free from suffering?
Cheryl:
Oh, I’ve not heard of that. Thanks for sharing.
Kai Xin:
Yeah. So we wish others well. And may you be well listening to This’s episode and if you wanna continue to do good things or you wanna do more, you can go to our directory directory. Handful of leads live for events. listen to DMA talks, volunteer. Do offerings like there’s alms giving every weekend, actually every day at Wat Palelai Buddhist Temple as well where you can offer food to the monks and me your virtue allow you to build the conditions to meet with more goodness.
Yeah. Hope you’re not too freaked out by this episode it’s actually not very scary. I think it’s more heartening and inspiring than scary. So may you be well till we meet again. Goodbye. Stay happy and wise!
Buddhist Youth Network, Lim Soon Kiat, Alvin Chan, Tan Key Seng, Soh Hwee Hoon, Geraldine Tay, Venerable You Guang, Wilson Ng, Diga, Joyce, Tan Jia Yee, Joanne, Suñña, Shuo Mei, Arif, Bernice, Wee Teck, Andrew Yam, Kan Rong Hui, Wei Li Quek, Shirley Shen, Ezra, Joanne Chan, Hsien Li Siaw, Gillian Ang.
Editor and transcriber of this episode: Cheryl Cheah, Susara Ng
We’re experimenting with a visual format for podcast. As we’re still bootstrapping, we’ve not upgraded to a studio yet. Let us know what you think about this new format. Join the conversation via Telegram.
About Our Guest
Yong Hong is an ordinary young entrepreneur, he started Greendot at the age of 22 with his good friend Justin. Green Dot was started with the thought to help professional women to stay healthy and love themselves. With this as motivation, it has grown from a small vegetarian stall to a vegan food restaurant chain in Singapore.
As a young CEO at age 33, Yong Hong currently manages a team of 200 staff. He is responsible for Green Dot 15 stores, including 12 Green Dot outlets Lotus Heart Vegetarian Chinese Restaurant, Greendot Patisserie, and a central kitchen. To him, work is a journey to cultivate himself and an opportunity to find insights within. Yong Hong has a great passion for yoga and music. He hopes to learn n grow with the people he meets.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Cheryl:
Welcome to the Handful of Leaves podcasts. Hi, Yong Hong.
[00:00:03] Yong Hong:
Hello!
[00:00:03] Cheryl:
Welcome. So today we have an interview with the CEO of Singapore’s largest meat-free chain, Green Dot, and I’m very happy to speak to him today because I would love to know about his reflections on his entrepreneurship journey, his reflections on his growth in Buddhism. And recently Yong Hong became a father of a beautiful four-month-old baby girl. So we will also be speaking to learn about his insights and what parenthood has taught him. So, Yong Hong, to get things started, for those who do not know you or who have not heard of Green Dot before, can you share more about your entrepreneurial journey with Green Dot?
[00:00:45] Yong Hong:
Sure. Thank you so much, Cheryl, for this opportunity to be here and to share my experiences with the audience. So I started Green Dot about 12 years ago when I was at NUS, National University of Singapore, during Year Two of my studies. I was studying Business back then. It was one of the toughest periods of my life. I remember I have to pack my modules into two days and for the rest of the days, I have to work at the outlet.
So, how Green Dot started was because I didn’t think so much. If I think so much about how tough entrepreneurship is, then probably I wouldn’t have started Green Dot, especially in food and beverage. So, I started Green Dot because my business partner Justin, he’s a vegetarian since he was a baby. Back then I was in Chung Cheng High School. I knew him since Secondary One. And back then it was not easy being a vegetarian in school because you have no vegetarian store.
So he has to bring his own food, or he has to ask the aunties, and uncles in the canteen store to cook special meals for him. He felt that being a vegetarian is a lifestyle choice or a personal choice. Why do we have to have so much inconvenience? He thought that having a vegetarian store and having quality food in school maybe will help to make the younger generations who are vegetarians like us feel proud of being a vegetarian because there’s an option. So that was how it started. We didn’t think so much and then we started our first store at Temasek Poly.
[00:02:20] Cheryl:
What about Justin that makes you want to go into a partnership with him?
[00:02:24] Yong Hong:
They call it fate. We got along well. I think it’s a very interesting thing. I’m the CEO of Green Dot, one of the largest chains of vegetarian restaurants in Singapore, but I wasn’t born a vegetarian. So when I was younger, I’m a meat lover. No meat, no happiness. When I eat a McDonald’s burger, I must remove the…
[00:02:43] Cheryl:
Take away the vegetables.
[00:02:46] Yong Hong:
So I don’t like vegetables at all. Even till I founded Green Dot.
[00:02:50] Cheryl:
Yeah. It’s like me. I hate vegetables last time and I’m actually a vegetarian now.
[00:02:54] Yong Hong:
That’s why I think sometimes it’s just fate that you walk this path. Like Steve Jobs always say, you only can connect the dots when you look back. I just have a voice within asking me to try.
[00:03:06] Cheryl:
That’s very courageous, and also I would say a bit impulsive, not thinking too much, and just jumping into trying this thing out, which then eventually turned into something bigger than you ever imagined 12 years later.
[00:03:19] Yong Hong:
Of course, I always wanted Green Dot to do well. Because to me, Green Dot is not just a vegetarian chain because you look at your grandparents, your uncle, and your aunties around you, and as they age you’ll see that the diet actually changes. Less meat and more balanced meals, more vegetables. So I feel that this change of diet will come but you want it to come later in your life or earlier in your life. I have friends around me who are in their late thirties but they have gout because of seafood, beer, and alcohol. Their diet is impacting their lives.
Because of Green Dot, I was exposed to a plant-based diet. I realized that, hey, actually, brown rice can be very nice, vege can be very nice. This journey of Green Dot also changed my diet and impacted me to change earlier in my life. I hope that Green Dot can not only be a place where we serve quality plant-based meals but also be a channel where we can help more people start their more balanced meal diet earlier in their life. It’s not to fully convert you first, but at least 21 meals a week. Maybe you can try 3 meals a week. Change can start earlier.
[00:04:29] Cheryl:
It’s so beautiful how an entrepreneurship that was just part of your hustle became something that actually changed your perception about diet, lifestyle, about keeping healthy. I’m curious if there were any other changes that you experienced when working and growing with Green Dot, for example, in spirituality.
[00:04:51] Yong Hong:
Yeah. Actually, it’s been 12 years. There are a lot of things that I’ve been through, all the highs and lows. Looking back, I feel that this journey has really changed me. I’ve been through three stages of Green Dot. It wasn’t all happy and smooth sailing. It was really very tough. During my first few years of Green Dot, every day I wake up, I go and cook at the store, I feel like giving up. Every night I tell myself, I think this is the last day. I tell Justin, I think you’ll continue. So the first three to four years of my initial startup phase, I treated Green Dot as work. I find no meaning in it because I have no F&B experience before this. I don’t like F&B. I never stepped in the kitchen before. So even before I start going, I don’t know how to cut broccoli or cook rice. I remember on the first day the uncle say, Yong Hong, go and cook some rice. I said, how to cook the rice, how to measure the water, put in the water? So overall, the first three to four years, it was work for me.
[00:05:49] Cheryl:
Even the way you describe it sounds like a chore already.
[00:05:52] Yong Hong:
I hated to go, but because I chose this path, so ego kept me going. But for the second phase, after I started Green, it grew to a few outlets. Then NUS also gave me a fund because they also acknowledged me as a young entrepreneur. Finally, some acknowledgement. From then on, it became a career for me because I was being packaged as a young entrepreneur from NUS. I was driven by results. I wanted to grow Green Dot and do well, and to show that I’m a successful young entrepreneur.
So I was driven by that. That’s where I also faced a lot of problems. Although my business grew to many outlets, but it wasn’t making money. There were a lot of people problems because I’m raw in management. Then I wasn’t happy. I broke up with my other half. My health was in bad shape because I was working every day. I wasn’t happy. My life’s all about work and I wasn’t earning a lot of money because it’s in a growth period. So the only thing driving me is because I’m a young entrepreneur. I was in my career stage where I just work every day. So I achieved some success on the surface, but I wasn’t happy.
It was about five years ago that I had to find answers to change this. One morning, I was YouTubing, and I saw Venerable Jing Kong’s (淨空法師). At that moment, I felt that there was actually another way of looking at life. That was when I start to have more balance in my life. I got a personal trainer. I start to go for music. Then I realized that although I don’t work as long, I have a bit of balance, but my business got better. At that moment I start to really go deeper into understanding what is vegetarianism about. And that’s where it became a mission for me. And that’s where Green Dot started to get better and better. Three phases, from work to a career to seeing as a mission.
People say there’s an aha moment, but sometimes it’s an accumulation of a few things. Change isn’t one moment. People sometimes oversimplify change. Change is like 1%, 1% every day. Not everybody can, *snap* then this moment. So I think it’s being oversimplified. I always tell people learning is not always about learning new things. Actually, the biggest and most important learning is learning about the toxic in yourself. Life is about removing all the toxic in you. Like for example, when we are babies, we are very pure. As we grow up, we start to have disappointment, frustration, anger, and jealousy. So all these are within us. So as we grow up, and we start to understand this, our journey starts to take out all this toxic one by one. Jealousy maybe, it’s at level 10. But today you can take out one level, so left nine. So you keep taking them out. So I feel that change is not that moment, but it’s just that, oh, we realize and you do it day by day. It’s not that today you read and you will change. It just starts you on the journey. Every day you remove something.
[00:08:38] Cheryl:
Incrementally build up that sense of self-awareness. And with that self-awareness, then you put in the patience, the effort to remove it, as you say, take out the toxins and then become purer and purer in heart and body.
Because you mentioned jealousy as well, I think jealousy is something that is so deeply rooted in all of us. It’s almost deeply rooted in our conditionings. From a young age, when we are in school, jealousy is almost a thing that drives us to excel, ’cause you see that someone else is doing better, someone is scoring more, President of CCA, then you push yourself to do. But what that accumulates is all of us become young adults that are so insecure. They are so fearful and lack the courage to try something new. So it is very, very toxic in a way.
So back to the three phases that you shared in the mission phase, it sounds that everything in your life started to become better. You were finding balance, you’re becoming happier. And ironically, because you found that happiness, that drive, that energy, your Green Dot started to see more success as well, right?
[00:09:44] Yong Hong:
Yeah, it’s all about the mindset. Looking back, I know why I wasn’t so happy when I was starting a business. Because of one mindset, I always tell myself 创业要很辛苦. It means entrepreneurship must be tough. That’s why my mind is really tuned to make my life very tough already. I realize that if I don’t feel that my life is a mess or very miserable, I don’t feel that I’m going through entrepreneurship. That’s when I realized that all the actions I do I subconsciously make my life miserable.
[00:10:15] Cheryl:
Because you need to be hustling and you need to feel awful.
[00:10:18] Yong Hong:
The second mindset, they always say 赚钱很难, earn money very tough. That’s why I always use very tough ways to earn money. I mean, of course, money is not everything, but money is important. But I realize that money is a byproduct of excellence in the things you do. If you are not earning money, it means you are not so good at the things that are doing yet, money is not attracted to you yet. That’s when I realized that a lot of mindsets make me very, very miserable in the earlier stage of my life.
And I think that Buddhism always talk about in life there’s a lot of suffering but there are actually causes. Buddhism helped me understand what are the causes of my suffering. I start to go deeper into phasing all the internal reasons that lead to my unhappiness. Then that sparked a change in me.
[00:11:06] Cheryl:
Yes. And in the Four Noble Truths, the reason why we are facing so much suffering, so much disappointment is always because we are clinging to something that we wanna be, refusing to accept the way things are. And I think the most beautiful thing about Buddhism is not that it tells you that there is suffering, but it actually tells you there is a way out of suffering and that gives us so much hope to put in the effort to free ourselves from this misery. Can you share maybe one of the biggest challenges that you faced in the mission phase of your career and your life, and if relevant, how did Buddhism specifically help you overcome it?
[00:11:45] Yong Hong:
The biggest challenge was deciding to become a vegetarian honestly, ’cause my whole family is not vegetarian. It’s not difficult for me to be a vegetarian because of my work. My chef always R&D new dishes for me to try. But one of the challenges is my parents. Well, I remember one weekend I told my mom, I want to become a full vegetarian because it’s something that I really believe in.
So my mom says no as usual. She says, ah, why? You don’t eat well, not enough nutrients. I said, but let me try to decide what I want, respect my decision. And then she said, okay. Then the next weekend, because it used to be a habit, every Sunday, they will buy Nasi Lemak or Roti Prata for me. Sunday I woke up. I open up the breakfast. Then it was Nasi Lemak.
[00:12:27] Cheryl:
Oh no, cannot eat.
[00:12:29] Yong Hong:
Yeah. How? Should I eat or should I not eat? To me, it was not a point where I become vegetarian. I tell myself my family, my mother’s belief and respect are still very important. I asked myself as a wise person or wise monk in my situation, what will you do? The key is not to be angry at my mom or parents for not understanding. But the key is becoming a better person after becoming a vegetarian in that I must prove to my mom that, after I become a vegetarian, I’m still her good child that she loves and I want to become a better person. Of course, she starts to accept my decision. But at the initial stage, she was very embarrassed to share with my relative that I’m a vegetarian. Two to three years later, they started to prepare vegetarian options for me. I realized that, ah, finally…
[00:13:15] Cheryl: Getting more acceptance.
[00:13:16] Yong Hong:
So this journey is like that. Buddhism has helped me in practical aspects in facing challenges like that and not be angry or be embarrassed or doubt my own decisions. It’s all about changing your mindset and it’s all about changing yourself. The change can always start with yourself.
[00:13:30] Cheryl:
I think it’s very, very wise of you. Because what you’re doing is that you’re not attaching solely to your view that I am vegetarian now, I must only eat veggies. Everyone must approve. But rather it is being respectful and considerate about other people, yes, and making sure that it’s convenient to them, it doesn’t make them feel slighted that you don’t eat their food. So it’s very wise of you.
[00:13:52] Yong Hong:
It was not easy, but change it’s not immediate. Some things can be immediate. Sometimes know that things take time and patience. Talking about patience, looking back on my entrepreneurship journey. I was from NUS Business School. In school, I have many driven classmates, very intelligent classmates very resourceful classmates. After 10 years, why am I here and getting some results? I realized the key difference is patience.
We wanna believe that if we put in the effort today, we wanna get results tomorrow. But you realize that all these things take time. And I think the biggest, biggest quality that young people need to have is patience. Patience to put in the hard work and live in the moment. When you are working, you enjoy your work. When you are at home watching TV, you enjoy the TV. When you’re in the podcast, you enjoy the podcast. You know that the result will come, but it’s not immediate.
[00:14:48] Cheryl:
But I guess a lot of people do not have patience or lose patience because they do not have faith that the result will come. Any advice that you may have for that?
[00:14:57] Yong Hong: In this world, we need to be more optimistic. As a CEO people always ask, what is your five-year plan, three-year plan, or 10-year plan? Honestly, it’s very hard to plan for a very long term in the context where the word changes very fast. Aim to become a better person every day and become better in what you do. I think that’s the key and the most important thing is being present. I also don’t have a way to tell you to believe that the goal will happen. I think enjoying the moment is more important.
[00:15:29] Cheryl:
Enjoy the process, that’s the outcome. Not the final destination that is the outcome. Because I think when you adopt that kind of approach as well to life, then you allow yourself to open up to the possibility that life could give you, maybe it’s not what exactly you plan for, but it could be something even more beautiful.
[00:15:47] Yong Hong:
Yeah. Because the goal is what we believe is beautiful. But maybe when you reach there, you realize that not necessarily as beautiful as you think it is. But it’s the moment that we open our minds up to awareness, up to what’s happening around us and grab the opportunities, maybe that will be the best journey for us. The goal is what we think is the best for us, but it might not be. When you move forward and open up, then you realize the opportunities change.
[00:16:13] Cheryl:
Wonderful. So stepping a little bit back from the business perspective, the CEO perspective, you have recently become a parent of a beautiful girl and congrats on that.
[00:16:24] Yong Hong:
Yeah. Thank you.
[00:16:25] Cheryl:
I also wanted to ask you on a more personal level, how did becoming a parent change your perspective on mission, meaning and priorities in life?
[00:16:37] Yong Hong:
It is a huge change for me and a very meaningful experience for me because becoming a father. When you look at your child, it makes you feel that whenever you have any problems in your life and work problems, you look at her and all your problems will fade away. It made me realize what’s important in life as well. After I have my baby, of course (some) aspects of my life slowed down. Last time, I used to go to yoga six times a week. Now, one time a week is really a bonus to me. My life is all about work and going home to accompany her. So I realized that it’s about finding a balance. Life cannot be in full throttle in all aspects. So you need to know that sometimes this thing is faster, sometimes this thing is lower and there’s nothing wrong.
Sometimes people get frustrated, ah, because of my child, I have to give up so much. But you have to understand that this is part and parcel of life and instead of thinking that you have to give up, why do you think that this is a happy time for you being with your children? I’m thankful that she’s a happy baby and a healthy baby.
[00:17:42] Cheryl:
That’s wonderful. And even just seeing you speaking about her, I can already see the joy in your eyes, that smile that you have when you’re speaking. It’s so wonderful. And I wonder what’s your aspirations for her when she grows up?
[00:17:55] Yong Hong:
To become a person of good character. Confucius’ teaching has four modules. The first module they learn is always the values. What is the right value? What are the right principles? Second, they learn the way you speak, the way you act. Third, they learn about their culture and history. And last, they learn more about their profession. During my time, we are more focused on studying science to become a doctor or earning a relevant degree to take on a certain profession. In Singapore, what I feel can be even better is values teaching. The most important thing we can do for our children is to let them learn the right values. What I can do is focus on myself, and become a person of good values, so that she will also be inspired to become a good person in the future.
[00:18:39] Cheryl:
In a way, walking the talk, being the role modelfor her. She learns from seeing, from admiring how you behave, how you treat others, your wife and the employees that you have as well. So you were saying just now that all aspects of your life cannot be in full throttle all at the same time. You’ll only go crazy like that. So at this point, it seems like family is taking the forefront. Then how are you balancing or how are you managing the stakeholders at work? What are the aspects of that? Do you tell them like, okay guys, I’m clocking out at five?
[00:19:12] Yong Hong:
So I always believe in knowing your priorities. I believe there are four pillars of life.
The first pillar of life is 身心健康, inner and physical health.
The second thing is family happiness.
The third thing is 助人致富, earning money through helping people.
Lastly, 广结善缘, making meaningful interaction with people and helping others, giving back.
These four pillars, I think maybe a lot of people understand, but the key is that there’s a priority. You must build upon this in the right order. When you’re very young, some people say, oh, I need a lot of networking. Then you spend a lot of time networking. But all this networking is pointless if you don’t have the first three. See, let’s say you don’t have a career yet. You go and network, but when you network, you are asking people for help. You don’t have the experience and even the resources to help people. Or let’s say you have a very good career but you don’t have a family to fall back on, or you don’t have health to fall back on, that’s where you become empty.
Career will always be very, very tough. Why? Because you take a salary. You must exchange it with your hard work. So if you ever find a work that doesn’t need hard work and gives you a salary, call me. There will always be hard work, which means there will always be disappointment and frustration. It’s okay. Because when you have frustration, then you go home. If you have a wife or husband or mother, you tell your mother, Mommy, today my work was very tough, my boss scolded me. She’ll say, never mind, ok, good girl. That’s where you’ll have a good night’s sleep and you go out and try. Then let’s say you have a hobby, then you fall back on the hobby. You see, your work is very tough, you fall back, you go up again, fall back and go up again. This constant way of falling back and going back again makes you rise up in your career because the two foundations stop you from falling all the way down, keep you there and keep you going up.
[00:21:07] Cheryl:
It’s almost like a bouncing net of resilience. It keeps you bouncing and you bounce higher after that.
[00:21:13] Yong Hong:
That’s why I think that it’s very important to build the pillars of your life. That’s how I make my decisions in life. It’s about priorities. I exercise maybe two or three times a week but that’s the most important for me, I will allocate time to do that, but work and family still take up the majority of my time. It just means your priority, you make time for that. You tell your wife, hey I need to go for this one-hour training. Can you please step in for me? My wife will say, okay, please. We all agree. We know that health is very important.
[00:21:43] Cheryl:
And when you communicate these priorities as well, then it becomes the non-negotiable for you and you’re able to take care of yourself and take care of others. Because when you take care of yourself, you show up better as well to other people. Treat them nicer, and don’t get angry so fast.
[00:21:58] Yong Hong:
That’s how we balance that. And my wife also agrees and we encourage each other, we cover for each other. When we go for our hobbies, our exercise, and things that we need to do to serve the family and our work better.
[00:22:11] Cheryl:
For 身心健康, taking care of the physical and the internal mental hygiene I think Buddhism has a lot to contribute there. Some useful exercises that people can do would be a short meditation, daily practice, end-of-day journaling or even starting your day with gratitude and contentment. Just wake up and find two to three things that you’re thankful for to be alive at this moment. Yes. And that can definitely help keep a very, very healthy mood and well-being. Any other tips, Yong Hong?
[00:22:42] Yong Hong:
I think reading. Reading has been a huge part of my life. If you don’t like reading, you can do audiobooks. I spend a lot of time on the road, I spend a lot of resources on reading and learning. I think it’s very important. So many things are happening in the world, and we tend to be FOMO, fear of missing out. But Buddhism has taught me that actually the key is not to be so worried about things that keep happening, but rather learn a lot more about the right values, and the right principle. This will guide you to make decisions even without knowing what’s happening all around the world. We need to be updated on the news but don’t feel like we miss out a lot or you feel very nervous because we don’t know a lot of things happening. It’s more about understanding the values, principles that help you make better decisions.
And of course, I feel that learning is also learning about yourself and growing a lot more by learning about the bad things about yourself. Looking at cycles in your life, like for example, you used to argue with a friend in this company. You say, oh my friends are very bad, always bad mouth me. You change to another company, but things still happen and you say, this company is not good. The culture is not good, the boss is not good. Then you change. Then after you change again, you argue again, ah, the cleaner auntie is not good. That’s why I argue. So I realize that the problem is who?
[00:23:55] Cheryl:
You! You’re the only constant in those, those environments.
[00:24:00] Yong Hong:
Look at the bad cycles in our life and jump out of bad cycles, that’s how you always improve in different aspects of life, just reflect. It’s one of the very useful ways in improving your life.
[00:24:12] Cheryl:
Yeah, and that really reminds me of a quote, the problem never goes away until you learn from it. Then that’s how you solve it and resolve it, and then it will go away on its own. I think we’ve had a really long, wonderful conversation. Talking about your entrepreneurial journey, talking about your learnings and growth from the Buddhism aspect. I see that it’s really peppered in your life principles, in even some of the decisions that you make as well. Touching a little bit about how having a daughter really brings to the forefront what is important, while at the same time balancing the other pillars of your life.
So if you were to end on one piece of advice to young adults out there who are trying to find purpose, what is that one piece of advice that you’d share with them?
[00:24:57] Yong Hong:
Of course, the first thing is, what is your definition of success? There’s no right or wrong. I think this success changes according to age and what you’ve been through. So you define what is success to you at this moment in time and the next three to five years. Even if you say at this moment I wanna have a lot of money, okay, it can also be so, but just be happy doing it. When you face challenges in trying to go for a goal, just accept it because it’s what you define as success.
The second thing, after you define, it’s good to focus on who you are becoming rather than what you are accumulating. Cause what you are accumulating is attracted to you. It’s not that you chase after them. So focus on who you are becoming. If you become a person of good values, good quality, good leadership, or you have good skills, good things follow you, and good people will follow you.
[00:25:45] Cheryl:
Thanks for sharing and thanks for your time throughout this entire podcast. Thanks, everybody and I hope you continue to stay happy and wise. If you like this episode, please give us a five-star review on Spotify. Thank you. Bye…
[00:25:59] Yong Hong: Bye…
Resources:
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Buddhist Youth Network, Lim Soon Kiat, Alvin Chan, Tan Key Seng, Soh Hwee Hoon, Geraldine Tay, Venerable You Guang, Wilson Ng, Diga, Joyce, Tan Jia Yee, Joanne, Suñña, Shuo Mei, Arif, Bernice, Wee Teck, Andrew Yam, Kan Rong Hui, Wei Li Quek, Shirley Shen, Ezra, Joanne Chan, Hsien Li Siaw, Gillian Ang
Editor and transcriber of this episode: Tee Ke Hui, Cheryl Cheah, Koh Kai Xin
Jason* is a pseudonym as this topic is very sensitive and involves many other people’s stories. Jason wants to be mindful and avoid implicating the people involved in the past relationships, and thus an altered voice and pseudonym are used.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Cheryl:
Welcome to the Handful of Leaves podcast. My name is Cheryl, and I’m your host today. We will be talking about the topic of cheating and can leopards ever change their spots? We have a very interesting guest who has courageously come up to share his experiences of being cheated on as well as cheating on his partners.
So I invite you to listen with an open mind as we delve into his past, to understand why people cheat, as well as to explore the question of whether someone who has cheated should be forgiven.
Can they be forgiven? Can they ever change? This episode will be enjoyed best with earphones because we will be altering the voice of this person and using a pseudonym*. So with that, let’s get started.
Hi Jason*, thanks for coming to this episode to speak to us today on the condition of anonymity. So I think first off, I would love to understand what’s your definition of cheating.
[00:01:06] Jason:
I think generally most people talk about cheating in two forms, emotional cheating, and physical cheating. Physical cheating would be engaging in sexual behaviour with someone else apart from my partner. To make it clear, in this case, it’s not just sexual behaviour, but nonconsensual sexual behaviour.
[00:01:25] Cheryl:
Thanks for clarifying that for us. And maybe you can also share with us your experiences of cheating.
[00:01:32] Jason:
For my experience of being cheated on, it’s very interesting. I think till today, I have no clarity on whether it actually happened. Before the time of smartphones and dating apps, we had to use IRC Chats to get to know people. I, later on, found out that even though we were together, he went out to the IRC channels to meet other people with the intent of dating. So that to me felt like it should be cheating already. But that was my first relationship. I went through many years trying to think whether that counts as cheating or not.
[00:02:07] Cheryl:
Well, it must have been very confusing for you because it’s also your first experience and what did you feel?
[00:02:14] Jason:
The initial reaction was shock, then came, is it true? Could it be someone else impersonating my boyfriend? So when I actually tried to clarify he gave many reasons. I was just like, am I being cheated on? What’s happening? What am I supposed to do? It’s just very overwhelming.
[00:02:35] Cheryl:
I see. And I think that is really inflicting a lot of pain inside you as well, where you have to doubt yourself, doubt whether your partner is lying to you or not, or are they actually telling the truth.
Putting into the context of Buddhism. So Buddhism doesn’t really have the connotation of sin or whether things are right or wrong, but rather, sexual misconduct where cheating is actually viewed as unskillful and unwholesome because it causes a lot of pain to other people. It harms other people. In the context of cause and effect, when you do something bad, you’re really planting the seeds for something bad to happen in the future whenever that ripens. I think you really brought out the point that it just causes a lot of unwholesome states of mind to arise within yourself as well.
[00:03:30] Jason:
Cheating as a behaviour itself causes a lot of harm. At the same time, I feel that it indicates that generally there’s a deeper issue at hand. This might be a precursor to even more unskillful behaviour that may happen later down the road. So some people may think that it seems like a very small, innocuous action but the effects are quite severe.
[00:03:53] Cheryl:
And tell us a little bit more. So how did that manifest in yourself? And in a way, how did that experience of cheating kind of lead you down this vicious cycle of hurt where you eventually then became someone who cheated on others at some point in your life?
[00:04:09] Jason:
My ex-partner and I, we both hurt each other a lot. At one point, I was threatened with suicide and a lot of emotional manipulation. It’s not unfair to say that I was traumatised by the first relationship, and I didn’t know how to recover from it. So I started dating very serially, rebound partner after partner. Even if I didn’t feel like I was in love with the person, I just kinda crave another person.
Eventually when I realised that I wanted to end the relationship, but I didn’t know how, subconsciously what happened was, I cheated in order to get out of the relationship. Yeah, in hindsight it’s really horrible, but I look back and I realised that at that point in time, I had no idea what I was doing. That sounds like I’m probably trying to find excuses for the cheating but that felt like what was happening.
[00:05:01] Cheryl:
And how do you come to that realisation then?
[00:04:57] Jason:
It took many years. It took a few relationships and very unfortunately, that was not the only time I cheated. After the death of a loved one, I decided that I wanted to see a therapist. With the therapist, I worked through a lot of different issues about grief, about relationships, about the cheating behaviour. At one point, there was a question that was always on my mind. Since I have cheated before, does that mean that I’m a cheater and I will always be a cheater? It took me many years of therapy and a lot of work on myself to discover that I cannot define myself by my behaviours.
[00:05:31] Cheryl:
Yeah, I think that’s a tricky one, right? I know people who have been cheated on before, and they will be in that dilemma where, can I trust my partner again? Or am I just being stupid? Because in a way, a leopard never changes its spots. Right? What can I do once this trust is broken?
But as you mentioned, a lot of things, the actions, the behaviours are really just the superficial layer and there are always underlying reasons or root causes behind them. Not to say that the behaviour is correct. I mean it causes harm, causes hurt. You can’t deny that. But if we go deeper, we can really see that there are a lot of root causes there.
I’m just curious, for yourself it was because you experienced a hurt very deep from all the trauma from your first relationship, and it was kind of like your defense mechanism to then hurt your future partners, is it?
[00:06:33] Jason:
Yes. I think you put it very well. It was a defense mechanism, to hurt before I get hurt. It’s quite sad and looking back the amount of hurt I inflicted on my ex-partner was very unfortunate. The person had no hand in whatever trauma I received. But looking back, this behaviour caused so much hurt to my ex-partner, an innocent party, for no good reason.
[00:06:55] Cheryl:
I see. Because it’s very complicated, right? When you were in the moment, you really didn’t know what you want. I guess all you felt was just a desire to go on the app to find someone else, but you can’t really pinpoint what’s happening as well. So how can we avoid even putting ourselves in these situations where we may lose control? How can we better create conditions to not hurt other people so much?
[00:07:21] Jason:
That’s a difficult question and I’m glad I’ve gone through sufficient therapy and worked on myself and I have my spiritual practice to support me on that. How to stop? Should I not put myself in situations where it is likely that this behaviour will happen? If it’s subconscious, are you sure that you can stop it? Cheating is never just that one spur-of-the-moment decision. What we see is that action. What we don’t see is what happens behind that led to that action. Maybe there’s some unhappiness in the relationship or there is something that the person doesn’t want to handle within themselves.
So for me, I didn’t want to handle the hurt from the previous relationship. So, I just diverted my attention outwards. And when some additional trauma comes in internally, then I think it spills over, and whatever external measures I put in, it’ll all be pointless. So what I realized is that we must always work on ourselves. Whether you’re in a relationship or not, make sure that you’re a person who can live a wholesome life so that you don’t bring your personal problems into a relationship, or you don’t cause the relationship problems to be unable to be resolved because your own personal issues are standing in the way.
[00:08:37] Cheryl:
Yeah, it does make sense and it really gives me a different light because a lot of times people are very quick to judge or condemn people who cheat, and straight away criticize and judge and put a lot of labels. But then as you share, I realize that there’s so much suffering within one person to bring them to that action of cheating and of course all the steps that it takes to reach that behavior. They cannot contain it anymore and then it just spills over. Sadly, with this spilling over, it burns them as well.
Any practical tips that you think could be helpful? Maybe stop using the apps when you’re in a relationship or don’t look at people who walk around with blinders.
[00:09:12] Jason:
Practical tips? My response to what you said about not installing the apps. I thought that would work. I honestly tell you, I’ve tried it. But the horrifying thing is that, when the intention is there, whatever you want to make happen, you probably can. So, a practical tip I would say is to get in touch with your inner self whether it’s through meditation, or through other means available for you. Find out what are the areas of your life that may cause you problems when you’re in a relationship. A lot of people like to use this term, oh I’ve already found my better half, or my other half. My own personal belief is that we need to be whole before we go and meet another person so that we are two people who are whole that come together in a relationship that is healthy and they both grow.
[00:09:55] Cheryl:
You’ve brought up a very important point thatthe mind is the forerunner of all things. If you don’t take care of your mind, you don’t prioritize mental hygiene, then you know that uncleanliness will spill out one form or the other, and no external thing, no people will be able to fix you for you, you gotta fix you for yourself. But of course, we can always lean on others but not a hundred percent, and throw our problems at them.
[00:10:22] Jason:
To allow my mind to be less likely to tend towards such things, the Buddhist principle of morality is very important. And it’s something for us to practice on a daily basis. Tend your mind towards wholesome thoughts, wholesome behaviours, and actions, so that the imprint on your mind will be more wholesome and that it slowly grows with time, and we let go of the more unwholesome behaviour, which goes back to the Noble Eightfold Path, Right Effort in this case.
[00:10:50] Cheryl:
Indeed. Really plus one to that because I feel like the undercurrents of greed, hatred, ill-will or delusion is very, very strong. And for me, sometimes I find it very fascinating that it can come out so strongly. Generally, I’m a normal person. I don’t have very crazy thoughts. I don’t indulge too much in violence, but when I feel either very hurt or I feel betrayed or if I don’t get something that I really want, the thoughts of anger, of wanting to hurt people can come up very strongly. As you said, if we practice inclining our minds towards wholesome states, towards skillfulness, then that restraint really helps to protect us to actually turn all of those thoughts into action.
I think we can also segue into moving beyond the identity of both being cheated on and all the connotations that you may hold about that, as well as someone who has done these actions. What was your journey in forgiving others and forgiving yourself?
[00:11:54] Jason:
Forgiving others turns out to be easier than forgiving myself.
[00:11:57] Cheryl:
Oh, interesting.
[00:11:59] Jason:
I think what helped was realizing that this person was very hurt and therefore might have acted without being fully conscious about what he was doing.
It feels like cheating is like trauma and like how intergenerational trauma works. If a person has been hurt so much and is unable to process that hurt and let go of that hurt, that person will go on to hurt other people.
I think forgiving that person came a lot easier when I realised to have compassion for the other person, knowing that this person doesn’t have the intent to hurt. And to be fair, I think nobody on Earth has a true intention to hurt. I believe that. But if somebody is hurting, there must be some reason that the person is unaware of.
But forgiving myself, that was a whole different ball game. The question about, will I always be a cheater? haunted my mind so much. I had a friend who told me, my principle is I’ll never make friends with cheaters. But you, Jason, you’re my good friend and I understand what happened. Her forgiveness might have helped me to also see that she hates the behaviour, but she doesn’t hate the person. That made me realize that at some point, I need to separate the behaviour from the sense of me. I cannot keep latching on to that behaviour, identifying with that behaviour.
[00:13:24] Cheryl:
Where you’re able to see the entirety of yourself as bigger than the acts that you have committed.
[00:13:34] Jason:
I think that was why the first time I encountered a teaching by Ajahn Brahm, one of his famous stories, it’s about the two bad bricks in the wall. He misaligned two bricks and all he could see was that these two bricks were just so horrible that they ruin the whole wall. Until one day he realized that there are so many other beautiful bricks there.
He used that story to explain that when he went to a prison to teach, he didn’t see prisoners, he didn’t see rapists. He saw people who murdered, people who raped. But apart from looking at just this behaviour, there’re so many other aspects of this person that we can look at. That teaching touched me deeply. It made me realize that there are so many other aspects of myself. Even though, yes, I made a mistake, it’s a really horrible mistake, I made it more than once. But that doesn’t mean that I’m a person who is incorrigible.
[00:14:23] Cheryl:
Yeah, Sadhu. Very good to see that you’ve come around to this. I think it’s important to not let yourself be burdened by all of this guilt as well because if you keep carrying that burden of I’m not a good person and berating yourself, it just causes you to be in a very unwholesome mindset state. When you’re in an unwholesome mindset state, when you’re not thinking clearly, habitual tendencies can arise more quickly. So when you are moving away into a lighter mind state where you are at least abiding in forgiveness, in self-love, in mettā, unconditional loving kindness, then the clarity of mind is there to inform you to make wiser decisions the next time you’re in difficult situations as well.
[00:15:08] Jason:
Yeah, and it feels like common sense but it actually took me a while to grasp the fact that I need metta for myself, so that once I can sort out all the hurt from the past, then I can have the capacity to go and stop harming others, be kind to others. If I want to be kind to others, I must first start with myself. By being kind to myself, I stop holding on to the past and let the past hold me back.
[00:15:36] Cheryl:
Very beautiful. I’m just curious, I don’t know if you have had any closure with that person. But if he were to listen in and you were able to share with him something, what would you say?
[00:15:45] Jason:
I would say, thank you for the good times we had. As much as we’ve both hurt each other a lot, I think now looking back, I’ve tried to find things I’m thankful for, things that I’ve learned in the relationship. And I forgive you because it’s what is not easy to do. Made me realize that we all are hurting in this world. I hope that you’re having a good life and that all of us can take good care of ourselves and stop hurting others.
That’s a great question. I feel like I’m in some therapy session. That was an amazing question.
[00:16:24] Cheryl:
I’m sure a lot of our listeners will feel deeply touched by you really acknowledging the suffering and the capacity for us to continue to love, and continue to be kind. And what would you say to Jason in the past?
[00:16:38] Jason:
I would say, you tried your best. There were times when you didn’t know what you were doing. You were hurt so deeply, by so many things in life. Maybe you hope that you could have done better, that you shouldn’t have done all this and you’re probably scolding yourself for being such a messed up person, for hurting other people and everything.
I just wanna tell you, it’s okay. Let go of all these. Don’t have to hold on to it. It really hurts a lot to hold on to all these. It may cause you to hurt even more people later on. If you can just let that go, I assure you that you’ll become a really beautiful person down the road.
[00:17:16] Cheryl:
Wow. I think that was not just for Jason. It really goes into all of our hearts because we’ve all done things that we’re not very proud of, big or small. I’m sure there are some things that we still hold against ourselves, but allowing ourselves to let go and forgive. That’s a very, very beautiful way to end our episode today.
We covered a little bit about cheating, the experiences of Jason being cheated on, and how that hurt propelled him into a really dark place in life, where hurting others and cheating multiple times was almost his only way of finding happiness at that point. We talked about how we forgive ourselves and not define ourselves as just the bad acts that we do, but also look into all the 98 other beautiful bricks that we have within ourselves. That gives us more confidence, gives us more strength to love others, love ourselves, and create less harm in this world.
[00:18:18] Jason:
Wow. What a beautiful way to end this and I just want to say thank you for making this podcast a lot less difficult than I thought. I’m very thankful to you for all the really great questions. Going through this podcast has helped me to learn a lot and to reinforce the message for me to be even kinder to myself.
[00:18:35] Cheryl:
Sadhu Sadhu. I hope all of our listeners will also take away something and continue to stay happy and wise and see you in the next episode.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Buddhist Youth Network, Lim Soon Kiat, Alvin Chan, Tan Key Seng, Soh Hwee Hoon, Geraldine Tay, Venerable You Guang, Wilson Ng, Diga, Joyce, Tan Jia Yee, Joanne, Suñña, Shuo Mei, Arif, Bernice, Wee Teck, Andrew Yam, Kan Rong Hui, Wei Li Quek, Shirley Shen, Ezra, Joanne Chan, Hsien Li Siaw, Gillian Ang, Loo Tiong Ngee
Editor and transcriber of this episode: Tee Ke Hui, Cheryl Cheah, Koh Kai Xin
Venerable Thubten Damcho is a Buddhist nun residing at Sravasti Abbey, one of the first Tibetan Buddhist training monasteries in the United States. Born and raised in Singapore, she graduated from Princeton University in 2006 and worked as a high school teacher and public policy analyst in the Singapore government before returning to the U.S. to take novice ordination in 2013. She tells her story in The Straits Times Singapore.
Venerable Damcho’s monastic life is rich and varied. She serves as assistant to Sravasti Abbey’s founder, author and well-known Buddhist teacher Venerable Thubten Chodron. Her other responsibilities range from translating Chinese texts into English to removing weeds from the Abbey’s 300-acre property. Venerable Damcho has given Dharma talks in Spokane, Idaho, California, India, and Singapore. She was the Chinese-English interpreter at a full ordination program in Taiwan in 2019, and has studied Tibetan through Maitripa College and with other teachers since 2017.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Kai Xin:
Hi everyone, it’s me again. Welcome to the Handful of Leaves podcast where we bring you practical Buddhist wisdom for a happier life. I’m Kai Xin. I started a business at the age of 19.
[00:00:12] Cheryl:
Hi, I am Cheryl. I started my anxiety, which is my best achievement from the age of 15.
[00:00:19] Venerable Damcho:
Hi, I’m Thubten Damcho and I graduated from Princeton on a Public Service Commission scholarship.
[00:00:27] Kai Xin:
And today we are gonna talk about the overachiever mindset, hence the introduction. We are gonna share more of our overachievements in this episode and how to balance that with our Buddhist practice. Venerable, for listeners who haven’t heard of you or listened to the previous episode, which was fantastic on sex and the Buddhist, can you share with our listeners a little bit of your background?
[00:00:53] Venerable Damcho:
So I was born and raised in Singapore. I went overseas on scholarship and I was on track to have a very good career in civil service. But along the way I met the Buddha Dhamma and that really got me questioning my priorities in life. And eventually, I ordained here at Shravasti Abbey.
I live in Newport, Washington, in the U.S. We’re on the West Coast and I’ve lived here for 10 years now. I received my novice ordination in 2013, and then I received higher ordination in Taiwan in 2016. So it’s always a delight to reconnect with everyone in Singapore. So thank you for having me here again.
[00:01:26] Kai Xin:
Thank you for being back. On the topic on overachievers, I just wanna ask all of you, do you consider yourself an overachiever?
[00:01:35] Cheryl:
I think so. From young, I’ve always had that mindset that I need to be the best at what I do. When I went to school, I got a scholarship to Singapore. I’m from Malaysia. And when I went to Singapore, I had to go to the best school, the most elite school. I won’t name it, but it’s one of the top elite schools. When I went to uni, it had to be the best in some sort of field. When I start work, it had to be the best in some industry. When I have my anxiety, I need to have the worst critic, the most overachieving critic to beat myself up. So yes, overachieving in all different senses. What about you, Venerable Damcho?
[00:02:09] Venerable Damcho:
I love this question because I’ve never thought of myself as an overachiever because I’m always number two. I’m just never good enough. So how could I be a real overachiever? I think for me, underneath that need to achieve is a strong sense of I’m just never good enough.
The first time I ever heard someone call me an overachiever was Brother PJ. He was actually my next-door neighbor, and we reconnected after I came back from the U.S. and so did he, and he was just casually saying, “This is how overachievers behave”. I was like, that’s not me. What are you talking about? So it’s actually been a slow revelation of what these behaviors mean because to me it seemed very normal or I guess I was placed into student groups where everybody behaved that way, so it seemed very normal.
And then your whole idea of what is success or failure is so skewed. I remember for the mock PSLE in my class, I got 91, which is still A* and I felt very proud of myself because my math is very poor and the class average I think was 94. So, 91 was below average. So because of that, I don’t see myself as an overachiever. And some of that is a lack of self-cognizance, self-awareness, I think.
[00:03:22] Kai Xin:
It’s interesting you say that because I can relate. I am also not number one, but somehow people call me an overachiever, so I scratch my head just like, yeah I’m quite average, right? I mean, I didn’t go to elite school. I didn’t even finish or pursue any further studies or get a degree. My highest education is a diploma in Business Studies. I think it’s maybe the accolades or track record that I’m associated with, that people say, “Kai Xin, you’re so smart, you’ve achieved so many things”. But deep down inside, I’m just struggling. If I were to look back, I did exhibit overachieving behaviors and mindsets. I have to study really hard, get good grades and just keep being very restless in striving and striving. So, I literally can’t sit still. I have to go for electives, CCA, partake in competition, win some medals. I have all these things on my shelf and I still don’t feel really good about myself. There’s still this imposter syndrome that’s like, am I really good?
There’s just never an end to the chase until I met the Dhamma, which brings us to another part of this conversation. I think the whole mode of striving, if it’s kind of misdirected, it can be unhealthy and not very conducive to the practice. So I’m actually quite curious to know, Venerable, when you became a nun, do you see any of these tendencies change?
[00:04:47] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah, slowly over time. I think first of all to even recognize the tendency. I moved here 10 years ago. The first time I sat a long three-month winter retreat, I had some goals. What are you gonna do with yourself if you don’t have goals to achieve? We’re talking about realistic goals, so Stream Entry, right? I wrote it out. So I was like, okay, let’s be real. Stream Entry can be done. Name what those things are. I actually really had a thought, maybe by the end of three months I will be able to walk through a wall. Yes, that’s how deluded I was. I was like, it’s possible. You just have to put the effort in. That’s how it’s been your whole life.
We have the Nine Stages of Sustained Attention or something like Nine Stages to Cultivating Serenity. Sometimes in the Tibetan Thangka’s you see a person with an elephant and a monkey. And it’s all symbolic of the stages of moving towards Samādhi. Then you have to combine that with insight. The first time I read this, I was like, oh, there are these nine steps. Now with clear instructions, sometimes you find the object, sometimes you are able to stay on it longer and longer and then you lose it.
Throughout the retreat, I was constantly asking what stage am I at? Is this stage one? Is this stage two? After a certain part I was like, oh, I think it’s really hard to even get to stage three, which is more sustained attention on the breath or whatever object it is. And I just really started to push. I would sit extra long sessions. I was so disappointed somewhere in the middle of the retreat, realizing I’m not gonna get past stage three or you’re gonna be stuck here. Even stage three itself is amazing to accomplish. But then I didn’t see that as an affliction at the time. It’s just how I’ve lived my whole life. So at the end of retreat, I realized, this is how I approach everything, with a lot of, let’s just push and make it through.
So just that slow recognition and then to see that repeat in so many areas of my life here at the monastery. I think it’s just having that space where I start to recognize these things. So, the next year I thought, okay, we’re not gonna push a retreat. Then I found myself distracted and I created some huge projects outside of the retreat. I’m sitting five sessions a day and then I’m gonna go and translate this very complex thing in all my breaks. I’m not gonna achieve it in the retreats, I’m gonna achieve it somewhere else, again, and again and again.
Venerable Chodron was instrumental in helping to point out these habits to me. She’s my teacher and the Abbess of the monastery. These are some habits and they don’t serve me. I really have to rethink how I approach my life. So, yeah, it’s been a slow process.
[00:07:17] Cheryl:
Two things that are particularly interesting to me. One is that you didn’t realize the afflictions that you were in. I think that’s the problem that a lot of us have. We just don’t know that we are in pain or we don’t know that we are suffering, and then we just continue with the same lifestyle until one day, either you have a terrible breakdown or your body just stops functioning. Then you’re like, I’ve been living life in a horrible way. I have inflicted so much pain on myself. That’s where you start to look for a way out and think, maybe I should change a little bit.
The second thing that was very interesting to me was the idea of how very strong habitual tendencies, if you don’t work with it, it can always change the object. First, it’s the meditation. Second, it could be some other project that you’re interested in. I thought that was very interesting and very relatable as well because I also never really understood my anxiety. Like I never really understood what is it for, what is it trying to protect? And it was kind of a pain. I was like, it’s good, if I’m not anxious, if I’m not critical of myself, I would just be a sloth and my whole life will just crumble. I never really saw how painful it really was to myself.
Just reflecting on my meditation practice as well, I realize I bring that into the cushion, the overachieving tendencies. It manifests in terms of so much tension because you must control how the sit is like. I need to experience that calm, and the calm cannot just be short, it must be long. It must be vision and brightness and everything like that. I just wanted to point out.
[00:08:42] Kai Xin:
Totally. There was once during Wesak Day, there were so many things going on. I was volunteering then I committed to sitting overnight and that was the worst overnight sit that I’ve ever experienced because I keep opening my eyes. It is starting at 9:00 PM then it ends at 4:00 AM where we do the morning chanting. Every single 10-minute block is just excruciating. And I keep telling myself, I’ve a lot of things that I need to do tomorrow. Am I able to do it? Here I am, having inner critics. I’m supposed to be peaceful, I’m not feeling peaceful. Why is everyone sitting so still? How long is this gonna last? I was so in pain that at 3:00 AM or so, close to 4:00 AM, I really just gave up. I went back, I took a cab and I was in tears.
The funny thing was, my mom knew about my intention to sit overnight and she discouraged me from doing so. I had this sense of ego, right? Ah, I’m gonna go back. My mom is gonna find out that I didn’t sit through the night, and she’s gonna say, “See lah, I told you already, don’t push yourself so hard”. I can’t stand that. So, my plan was to be very quiet, open the gate, and before she wakes up in the morning, I would wake up first and then go to the Wesak Day to volunteer. But lo and behold, I forgot to bring my house keys. And I tell you, I felt so lousy about myself. I really felt like a failure. I have no choice but to ring the doorbell and gonna get all these nagging.
At that point in time, it was quite an aha moment for me. I’m like, Hey, I’m suffering, you know? The practice is supposed to lead me out of suffering, but here I am clinging on to this idea of, I have to commit to my intention. I have to feel peaceful. Everybody else can’t know what’s going on inside me.
I was just wondering, from a Buddhist perspective, what do you think is the root cause of all this desire to achieve and how do we know when it is bringing us pain? How do we know when the pain of striving, which is sometimes good, can actually lead us to the end of pain? There are two parts, right? Pain leading to more pain. Pain leading to less pain.
[00:10:41] Venerable Damcho:
That’s a really powerful story actually. Your recognition of all those things going on in your mind, especially the I’ve gotta look like I have it together. I think that’s a really good clue.
From a Buddhist perspective, all our afflictions arise on the basis of ignorance functioning in many ways, right? First of all, thinking, here’s this real person in this body who has this mind, a possessor of it who is the mind, and so there’s someone here that achieves things that all these external things relate to. Here’s my achievement, my trophy, my accolades, and they reflect on me. Even just seeing ourselves in that way, seeing the external world as objective things separate from me and my mind that I have to obtain to be successful, or control. I want certain things. How am I gonna get them? Control the external world, which is very different from just creating the cause and seeing things in terms of dependent arising. On the basis of that, we get fixated on trying to organize everything.
And I think with achievement or this kind of painful striving, what’s at work is what we call the eight worldly concerns. That’s one of the teachings in the graduated stages of the Path to Awakening that we study in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. It’s craving for material success or material wealth and aversion for poverty or lack of wealth. Attachment to sense pleasure and strong aversion to unpleasant sensory experiences. Especially with the achievement piece, it’s attachment to your good reputation and complete aversion to having a bad one, and then attachment to praise, wanting people to say nice things about you and aversion to blame. It could vary for each person, which is the main driver. So sometimes we’ve had discussion groups here, look at which one is the main driver in your daily life behavior.
For me personally, it’s very much about attachment to praise or blame, especially from people I consider very important.
[00:12:41] Kai Xin:
You mentioned the root cause of the painful striving, is ignorance. Just to help our listeners here, you mentioned the Eight Worldly Winds, right? So there are four pairs. Praise and blame. Pain and pleasure. Gain and loss. Fame and disrepute. And because it comes in pairs, that means either side, we would suffer. Then how do we find the balance?
[00:13:03] Venerable Damcho:
I would say we have to step out of that framework completely. That’s the problem with these kinds of dichotomous frameworks. You get stuck in this, it’s either this or that. For a start, recognizing their disadvantages. Is this way of thinking serving me or not? Does it bring about benefits? Does it benefit other people? Does it benefit myself? And really making examples from our own experience.
Especially with the eight worldly concerns, what’s helped me so much is coming back to my motivation for what I’m doing, and focusing on what’s happening internally. With overachievement, it’s what am I getting outside? What’s this external thing? Whether it’s sense pleasure or some material thing. But now I come back to, why am I engaging in this activity? What kind of internal benefit is it going to bring for myself or for others?
If I’m very, very clear about my motivation for doing something and that it’s a long-term motivation, it brings benefits now and in the future. It might be painful in the short term, but I know it’s going to be beneficial in the long term, then it’s worthwhile. Then no matter what happens, people criticize me or whatever, I can come back to, wait a second, the starting point is good, my motivation is clear. That’s helped me a lot. Just coming back to that, taking time to really get clear about my motivation.
I’m thinking of when I used to teach. I really wanna benefit these students. But along the way, could this also be about my job performance? Because I’m a school teacher and how they do at school reflects on my teaching skills and the bonus I’m gonna get. Is that creeping in? I want this to be about the students. How do I make sure I pull that back? If it’s really genuinely about the students, then I always have the energy to keep going. It doesn’t fall into, you have to perform, everyone, on this test by the end of the year. I don’t care what you’re going through. I’m not looking at you as human beings. I wanna see those grades, which is really awful.
[00:14:54] Cheryl:
It’s so important to routinely check with yourself and remind yourself, what’s your motivation, what’s your intention? When we do that as well, it can help us to fixate less on the outcome goal and start to take note of the little progress throughout the journey as well, which can help us to take a more relaxed attitude and a more open and exploratory approach to wherever we want to get to.
[00:15:19] Kai Xin:
That’s interesting, and it almost seems like the achievement is the result of our good intention and effort, versus how originally if it’s misplaced, it would be the desire to overachieve driving us. We might not necessarily get the result that we want and that’s where our whole world crumbles because it comes from external sources, which is beyond our control. We can’t even control our own minds, what more what other people think of us or how other people would like to recognize us or reward us, et cetera. I find that to be very, very powerful.
I also wonder, because sometimes people might have this saying, don’t try so hard. I literally had Dhamma brothers and sisters come up to me and say, Kai Xin, I think you’re trying very hard. Maybe you should let go a little bit. But then I’m thinking, is it really about not trying hard or is it about trying hard the right way? If I were to recollect, the Buddha did try very hard. He touched the earth and he’s like, may the earth be my witness until I attain enlightenment. And he literally had to fight his defilements in order to realize what he realized and have the compassion to teach us. So it’s not dualistic per se. Then again, how do we reconcile? Are there certain signposts that you would look out for beyond the inner intention? How do you know you’re trying too hard, not trying so hard?
[00:16:46] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. But before that, to really look at what is this drive to overachieve before we get into the setting a good intention part. When we start to recognize some of these behaviors are perhaps perceived as excessive by other people. True or not true? What is my motivation behind this? Sometimes people come to tell us these things because they are our friends and they’re concerned.
When I first moved to the Abbey, people are like, you should take a break. I’m like, what are you talking about? Or you’re not getting enough sleep. I’m like, sleep is for the weak. I heard that as judgment. Like you said, you don’t like people to tell you, just relax. I’m like, leave me alone, I run my own life.
It took me a long time to even hear, okay, there’s some concern there. People are perceiving that I’m not balanced. You’re so fixated on the external achievement, you don’t see, oh, maybe I’m neglecting my relationships. Maybe that’s what my friends are saying. Or I’m losing my temper with them. The people who care about us are seeing something out of whack. Yeah. I will say that was the chief motivator in me, pausing and rethinking all these behaviors.
We had a community workshop here where we wrote feedback for each other. And mine was around, people are just concerned that you spend so much time working. This is taking you away from the community. I thought, wow. And that was the first time I actually started to listen to feedback and really look inside and see, yeah, what is driving that need to overachieve?
Because like you said, if the need is to feel better about ourselves, no external thing is gonna accomplish that. And that’s the painful setup, right? No matter how many trophies you have, I still feel lousy. Yeah. So if the striving is to heal some kind of internal sense of lack, make sure you’re not barking up the wrong tree. That’s right striving, right? It’s first of all, checking up on what is driving the striving, what are you actually trying to accomplish.
There was a young woman who came to the Abbey, who grew up with a lot of trauma. She was abused but externally presented as so incredibly successful, making tons of money in Silicon Valley and all that. And it was very interesting for me to watch her journey here. Letting go of the career was terrifying, right? She saw that the whole overachievement was like a shield. To protect her from a world that was abusing her, right? It’s like, if I have this career, if I have the money, if I’m independent, nobody can trap me. Nobody can bully me. This is my defense.
So, you know, I don’t come from a background of abuse, so it was interesting to see that’s one thing that can drive the overachieving. What is it for me? So for me, a lot of it was hoping to have love. Thinking having all these external things is going to bring love. And the moment I recognized that, it was like, oh, I don’t need it from outside. I can love myself.
So, yeah. I don’t know. Your thoughts? What’s driving that need to achieve?
[00:19:34] Cheryl:
I have so many thoughts on this. Is it true that it’s completely internal? Only we can give ourselves a reliable sense of happiness and love. Is it bad if we outsource it on external? What’s the balance? 50% external, 50% internal?
Because I was having a conversation with a friend who’s not Buddhist, I was like, you know, I’m camp internal. It’s all inside you. You can control that, you can generate it, you can train that right, purify your mind. And they were like, oh my God, you Buddhists are horrible. We need validation. We need people to love us and let us know we are worthy. That’s nice. That’s pleasant. That’s fun. So what is the balance that we should be ideally striving for in a healthy way?
[00:20:15] Venerable Damcho:
My goodness. I love our overachiever vocabulary. I just need to step back and say, is it right, is it wrong? Should I be doing this? What is the percentage? We need data.
[00:20:25] Kai Xin:
Oh yeah, that’s so true.
[00:20:28] Venerable Damcho:
This invisible world of standards that is shaping you that you don’t even know.
Yeah. It was a counselor who pointed that out to me. You might wanna look at some of the standards you have. And I looked at her like, what do you mean standards I hold, this is the way, the truth, the life. The world’s like this. I’m like this. You are like this.
Anyway. I think we come back to the principle of dependent arising, right? Multiple causes and conditions. In Buddhist practice, a lot of the emphasis is on what we can cultivate internally. But of course, yeah, you’re influenced by your peer groups, right? So sensibly, if your practice is not very strong, don’t hang out with people who are going to make you commit non-virtue, support you in committing non-virtue. It’s a balance of both, I would think.
Listening to advice from wise people. It’s who you trust to help you understand who you are. Do I trust the friends who are encouraging me to do things that are not beneficial or do I listen to my teacher, whom I trust is wise? If my teacher is disapproving, I will think carefully, not necessarily judge myself or feel poorly, but think, okay, something’s up here that I really need to look at.
[00:21:35] Kai Xin:
Yeah. It seems like there’s no black and white, like 50-50, 80-20. And it’s just about sitting with the uncertainty that maybe there is no right answer.
I think for my personal experience to answer Cheryl’s question is to also have the discernment to understand, okay, at this point in life, do I have the capacity to accept myself? And if I’m honest and truthful, I know, maybe I need to lean on somebody to offer me strength first before I can then offer strength within for myself. But to eventually realize that we can only rely on ourselves till the end, but we need somebody to walk the journey with us.
[00:22:15] Venerable Damcho:
From a Buddhist perspective, what can be shocking to your friend who’s non-Buddhist, is that refuge is the Dhamma. It’s not a human being. The refuge is in our realizations. It’s in the compassion and the wisdom that we’re realizing in our own mindstream, and it’s the compassion and wisdom that’s in someone else’s mindstream.
Like right now, what’s very big in our community is that a major teacher just passed away. Lama Zopa Rinpoche passed away suddenly, and people are shocked, or grieving. Venerable Chodron has been giving talk after talk about how the physical manifestation of your teacher passes away but what he has left with you is the teaching that you have every single day. That’s what this person was trying to impart to you. Same with the Buddha, right? He’s like, don’t cry or grieve. The Vinaya is your teacher. You’ll always have the Dhamma with you. The most important thing is to actualize it in your own mindstream. I think what I respect in my teacher is recognizing, they have certain ways of thinking that I want to emulate. They have behaviors that I think are really admirable, but I can cultivate them too. They do not rest in that person. They’re teaching me how to do it for myself and then I have to do that for other people.
[00:23:30] Cheryl:
It’s so beautiful.
We will go back to the question, what are the drivers for our overachieving tendencies? For me, it comes from a place of lack and unworthiness and it’s because growing up I was surrounded by relatives who basically did really well, and had full scholarships. And in terms of the family tree as well, my father was always the odd one out. And within my family, I was the smarter one compared to my sister. But at the same time, seeing all my relatives who were better, I always had that sense of lack. And I always had to prove that my family was not that weird. So I had to overachieve in that sense.
But because it comes from this place of lack, it is a very, very painful striving cause the whole insecurity, and uncertainty about myself, the doubt is always there as I tried to head towards a place of worthiness through external achievements.
[00:24:24] Kai Xin:
I think for me subconsciously, it’s about the proving part as well. I grew up never really wanting explicit external validation from people. In fact, I do feel quite lousy since young, because I’m a bench player in basketball. I feel like, okay, I have all these medals, but I don’t really contribute to them. So it’s a part of me that says, I need something that I can call my own that I have achieved for myself to prove to myself and also to other people that I can do it. I’m independent. I don’t need to rely on anybody. This is something that is mine, not shared.
And I think it comes very subconsciously. Also, the restless mind wants to just fill my mind with things so that I don’t really have to sit still and address the inner critic and the voice. So it’s about doing, doing, doing. And it comes off as overachieving, right?
But when I started learning the Dhamma, then really looking within, Hey, what’s the driving factor? I realized, okay, I don’t need to prove to anybody. But do I also have to prove to myself? What is it that I can really call my own?
So when I had a long retreat, one and a half months in Amaravati in the UK, I was kind of searching and also asking myself about the identity. So if I were to forgo the business, do I still call myself an entrepreneur? Because that was the identity that I was tied to for two, three years. It was very, very prominent. And I feel a sense of pride and people are like, how do you achieve so much?
Then having to let go of that thought was interesting because what do I call myself then? Who am I? Then, I realized it’s really the fundamental things about my virtue that are what I’m gonna take with me when I die. The memories of the good that I’ve done. It’s really not so much about the act of doing or the act of achieving anymore. So there’s a little bit of recalibration there. Again, outwardly it might seem like the same thing, but then inside, there is a shift in how I show up to day-to-day life and the driving force, which is much healthier.
I wouldn’t say that it’s always on point. Sometimes I still lose my way and I have to have friends to call me out to say, Hey, I think you’re working too hard. What’s your priority? What’s driving you then? I take a step back, recalibrate, and it’s a constant process.
[00:26:47] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. I just remember Venerable Chodron telling us, balance is like walking. You’re just constantly shifting your weight. It’s not some kind of magic steady state and it will forever be the same. Impermanence, remember?
What you both shared reminded me of two teachings I received from Venerable. Earlier on, she told this story about how her brother is a doctor and so she also had this whole high-achieving life. She went to college early and she’s on track to be a school teacher and has a good husband and so forth.
And then she becomes a nun and her whole family’s like, what? So she met up with her brother and he was just like, what do you want to do with yourself in the next five years? Have you just lost all goals and direction in life? And she said to him, I want to be a kinder person.
I was just blown away by that answer. I just sat there with that for a long time, and there’s a part of me that’s like, that’s all? That’s all you wanna be? But Venerable Chodron, you’re like super successful in my mind. It’s like, no, she just wants to be a kinder person, and that’s what matter. So yeah, just convincing myself or coming to it on my own terms, right? Actually, what genuinely matters is our virtuous attitudes towards ourselves and other people.
[00:27:59] Kai Xin:
I’m wondering whether it’s realistic for us to have this balance of sorts, whatever we perceive of it. Cause there are so many external forces, especially from society, right? In the capitalistic and materialistic world, you must strive hard, to get an A. And then we have tiger moms and parents. Then our academic system kind of only rewards those who are at the end of the bell curve. How do we then live in this world where we have this balance and say, yeah, I’m content. It’s good enough. I don’t really have to strive so much. Is it really realistic?
[00:28:33] Venerable Damcho:
There are two things. One instruction Venerable Chodron gave me very early on drove me almost insane. Because we were talking about a high achiever, you want some specifics, right? Like 50% or whatever. She kept telling me, you have to find your own center. I was like, what kind of new age nonsense is that? What do you mean find my own center? Like where is it? Can you be more specific? So I thought about it for a long time now, what is this center?
Maybe if I retranslated her instruction, it’s how do we learn to evaluate ourselves? And that’s really hard. You are conditioned from a young age. Cheryl, you had a great example of how your family conditioning shapes so much of how you see yourself. My family is seen like this. I am this person in my family. This is how we relate. So based on all this storytelling from other people, you can decide whether you accept the story or not. As a responsible family member, I must prove that we are not weird.
Or Kai Xin, then you’ve made your own story. What is an entrepreneur and what does that mean in society? I didn’t follow the conventional route of getting a degree, but you know what? I know better than you college people and I’m succeeding. There’s that whole story based on what other people tell us, how we wanna accept it, and to know that we can undo that as we get older.
Maybe as a kid, there’s a lot less agency, right? You’re dependent on your parents for survival. You live in that house. It feels like life and death at that age. Then you get older, it’s like, I don’t have to follow everything my parents taught me. I can be an adult and look back and see what is useful, what is not, what’s true, what’s not.
I always think of those Chinese fighting serials. You are from the Pan family. Then the Lee family disgraced us, so I must now kill everybody who is Lee. That’s the purpose of my life. I spent my whole life training in sword fighting. Then I go and kill all the Lee’s. Then I write poems in Chinese, why did I do this? I don’t want my life to be like that.
[00:30:31] Cheryl:
Especially in Chinese New Year, right? Where everyone compares who does what?
[00:30:35] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. But I don’t wanna spend my life living out my parents’ expectations. Thank you. That’s your idea of happiness, but that’s not mine. So that’s one piece. And then like you said, looking at what society expects. Is it true that getting good grades is the ticket to success? Maybe you challenge that strongly. What are you telling me about conventional education? Why do I have to believe this?
But I found that maybe the last piece I wanna add is just, if I’m driven by anger, when I need to prove myself, I need to fight you, fight your expectations, fight to show you who I really am, underneath that there’s a lot of anger and it’s exhausting. As opposed to being centered, I know who I am, a genuine sense of self-confidence, these are my values, these are my motivations and that’s what drives my life. I don’t need to prove myself to anyone. You can have your story about who you think I need to be and I don’t need to buy into it. I can give it back.
[00:31:31] Kai Xin:
There’s a tipping point also, right? Sometimes tip into the aspect of I’m more superior, I know what I want, I’m gonna challenge your assumption. Society doesn’t know what it’s doing. Then again, I know it’s overachiever to have signposts and frameworks, but how do we know that we have tipped over to the other side?
[00:31:50] Venerable Damcho:
So it’s learning your own internal signposts maybe. So that’s the internal achiever, maybe. That’s just learning to evaluate yourself. Only you know your own mind. I think that’s what our meditation practice helps us with. It’s just learning how every single affliction manifests in my own experience.
In Buddhism we have all these lists, right? Attachment, anger, and you spend time with that. So how do I know when I’m being driven by anger? Whether it’s physical, taking the time to see what kinds of thoughts are running in the mind and driving my behavior. And that’s how I find my internal signpost.
And so you’re right, the external behavior can be totally the same, but I’m, as you said, learning to calibrate internally. For me, some of the signs are that I’m actually happy doing what I’m doing. I don’t get burned out. I don’t get frustrated. There’s a lot of joy. And that’s when I know, okay, we’re going on a good path.
[00:32:43] Kai Xin:
So it’s less greed, less hatred, and delusion, the reduction of the three poisons, right?
[00:32:49] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. Guess what? That actually frees up a lot of energy.
[00:32:52] Kai Xin:
It does, it does. Cheryl, do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:32:56] Cheryl:
I’m just thinking it’s very hard because at the start where you mentioned that we always see things as like my achievements, my accolades. So that sense of self is very strong. It’s also very easy to fall into the whole conceit of feeling superior, feeling inferior, and feeling neutral. It’s almost like a very strong, automatic narrative in your mind.
Can you speak a little bit more about that comparison in relation to overachieving?
[00:33:24] Venerable Damcho:
It’s such a painful state of mind. It’s so encouraged in society. I remember when I first decided to move to a monastery, one of my old friends from JC called me up and said, we need to talk. She was very concerned about my life choices and when we sat down for lunch, she was like, how can you live without competition? I mean, she was working for Lehman Brothers, and then Lehman Brothers collapsed. But she’s like, no, it’s cool, I’ll find another job for sure. She’s working 12, 16-hour days in a fancy apartment with no time to do anything except eat, sleep, and exercise and go to work. And she’s telling me that competition’s very important, that if I don’t have competition in my life, I will not improve myself.
I’m like, oh, okay. At least I could sit there and be like, I hear that you’re very concerned for me, but that’s just not what I feel is helpful in my life. But I think you’ve nailed it. Just even naming the thought, I’m better in whatever way. So you don’t actually have any realistic sense of how you are in relation to others. Yeah. That’s the definition of arrogance, thinking you’re better than someone who is actually better than you, thinking you’re better than someone who is not as good as you, thinking you’re better than someone who is equal to you.
When I looked at that, I was like, oh okay. It’s just that thought, I am better. It doesn’t matter externally what the actual situation is. And what’s helped me a lot is just looking at how that has damaged a lot of my personal relationships. It sounds like this is resonating, but it’s only something that became very clear to me when I moved to a monastery. Maybe cause in the monastery we’re all supposed to be equals on the path, just driving together and supporting each other. I can’t stand you because I think you are better or I should be better. Like, wow, this is how I relate to people my age. I don’t compete with the older nuns because they’re older, they’re seniors, and I have my own story about them. It’s like, oh, I’ve related all my friends like this. Oh, so painful. So just seeing that and really rethinking, how do I relate to people in a way that’s kind, that’s not based on measuring.
It just comes back to a sense of lack I think. You have something I don’t, I better have something you don’t.
[00:35:37] Cheryl:
I noticed that in a 10-day retreat in Thailand, my mind was having a lot of fun judging everybody. But the thing that I noticed was that it is a complete seesaw. So one day I will walk around, be like, oh, I’m sitting the straightest. I’m sitting there longest. I’m better than all of you. Then the next day when I’m feeling sleepy or when the mind is just not getting together, I’ll be like, I’m the worst here, I’m never getting enlightened. It’s really torture because when I’m down then all the critical thoughts and the anxiety, everyone must be looking at me knowing I thought that bad thought. But then when I’m feeling good, that whole narrative of, everyone should be looking at me, look at how I sit, look at how I walk. The aha moment really came in, I realized this up and down is really stupid. What am I doing? If I feel great and I hold onto it the next moment I’m gonna feel shitty. It was very helpful when I just realized that it’s so pointless to cling on either of that good or bad, because it’s gonna change anyway.
[00:36:32] Kai Xin:
I think it requires a lot of introspection to even see that. But most of us don’t get to even quiet our mind for just one minute and we don’t have the opportunity to see what exactly is insight. When I’m hearing both of you, it seemed to me that it’s not so much about not having standards because the Vinaya is a form of standard, right? We have certain guidelines to uphold in order to support us in our practice. So it’s not so much about forgoing the standards, but it’s about clinging to the standards. Then it becomes a fetter, where we cling to rites and rituals. We cling to a specific framework or how things should be done, or should not be done. Then when it causes us suffering, that’s when we have to let it go.
Similarly, it’s also not so much about not having competition at all, but perhaps it’s okay to have healthy comparisons. We rejoice in other people’s good effort, right? If friends share with me about their amazing meditation experience, I shouldn’t be like, how come I don’t have?
Cultivate sympathetic joy, Mudita, to say, wow, good for you and use them as a source of inspiration. So then that’s where healthy comparison comes into the picture rather than oh, I’m not good enough. You’re better, or I’m better. You’re not good enough. It’s very interesting because when we stop looking at things from a dualistic perspective, not clinging on to, it has to be this way or that way, then a lot of all this affliction would just fall away. Like there’s really nothing to cause us suffering anymore.
[00:37:57] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. Like you said, rejoicing is a very powerful antidote to the competitive jealous mind. I think a lot of it’s just recognizing the affliction to begin with, what we’re describing. Yeah. I definitely got to see my inner critic very clean, clear at the first retreat I sat. Then years later, you read these texts that have these definitions of mental states, right? It’s like, oh, that’s arrogance. Duh. That is the different types of arrogance. Yeah. I think I’m better, but “I think I’m the worst” is also arrogance. It’s the flip side, right? Everybody’s so good. I’m so special. I’m worse than the worst everybody can attain. It just comes back to that. Anytime you’re thinking I’m special or I’m better, that’s you, arrogance. You’re not realistic. Go away. Doesn’t help.
[00:38:41] Kai Xin:
I’m worst of the worst reminds you of, you know, how we have a culture of who sleeps later at night because they’re working. It’s a form of ego and conceit, I suppose.
[00:38:52] Venerable Damcho:
No, it’s amazing. You can get arrogant about everything. We’re the Overachiever Club. You should have the podcast for the Underachiever Club. Who’s worse and who’s more gangster, who has served longer in jail or whatever. You can get arrogant about that too. That’s very nice.
[00:39:07] Kai Xin:
All right, we’ve covered a lot. Unfortunately, everything has to come to an end, but we hope this is just the beginning of our practice in terms of introspecting. Cheryl, any salient points that you took away from our chat?
[00:39:22] Cheryl:
Yeah, definitely. I think it’s really about going back into our drivers, our motivation and our intention. Especially when we are feeling kind of out of whack. That’s a clear signpost for you to just really check what’s going on. Am I moving away from the reason why I started?
[00:39:40] Kai Xin:
For me, what stood out most is about catching myself when I need certainty. It was an aha moment when you say, all these vocabularies that we are using, the frameworks, the percentage, and just learning to sit with, what if I don’t have the answer? How does that feel like? Yeah, I think that that’s my greatest takeaway. How about Venerable?
[00:40:02] Venerable Damcho:
Yeah. I love that you said this is just the beginning of our introspective journey, cause you touched on some really important things that really are at the heart of our suffering situation. Anytime our sense of self gets overly puffed up or we are holding onto some identity or story too tightly, that’s really causing us a lot of pain. And it’s very empowering to recognize that, oh, hang on, it’s actually just thinking about things in an unrealistic or inaccurate way, and I can take time to shift the way I think. And that’s what changes everything. It’s not about having to get something outside, or even go for some multimillion-dollar workshop. It’s really just how am I thinking about this and how do I slowly train myself to shift how I’m thinking about it?
Yeah. In the definition of joyous effort, I guess skillful striving might be another way to put it. It might be Venerable Chodron’s translation of Viriya, I’m not sure. But it has four aspects. There’s aspiration, right? So that comes from you already doing that inner work and reflecting, okay, what are the benefits of this? Why do I want to accomplish this? And then that very naturally drives your behavior. You don’t have to push, you don’t have to like must wake up at X time. It’s like, oh, I’ve thought about the benefits so it’s naturally going to arise and then keeping it stable over time. There’s joy in the mind.
But most important, the last piece there’s rest. I was so shocked when I received that teaching. It’s like, ah, part of joyous effort is rest? But that’s for lazy people. No, it’s knowing, this is my capacity and I need time to recuperate. I’m an ordinary being with body and mind. I want to keep going so I rest with good motivation and then I come back when I can. And that’s it. Yeah. It’s not that you become a slob. That’s two extremes. Either you’re the rabbit or the turtle.
That’s my sense of recognizing my limitations and I have aspirations and how to keep going and a steady, sustainable way.
[00:42:03] Kai Xin:
Thanks. Very beautiful way to wrap up. And I think it also ties back to how we started that it’s really gradual how we let go and shed all these habitual tendencies of over-striving or unskillful striving. So thank you once again, Venerable, for being on the show. And to all our listeners, if you like this episode, please do share it with a friend. Hit the five-star button on the review section and till the next episode, may you stay happy and wise.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
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Editor and transcriber of this episode: Tee Ke Hui, Cheryl Cheah, Koh Kai Xin
Mr. Ng Yi-Xian oversees the operations of the EtonHouse International Education Group which runs schools from infant care to high school in 11 countries across 120 campuses. As a second-generation entrepreneur and son of founder Ng Gim Choo, he is driven to take the group to the next level — he has been instrumental in the creation of new brands such as the Middleton International School, a revolutionary niche of affordable international schools in Singapore and The Eton Academy, that provides inquiry-led academic enrichment programmes from Nursery to Primary 6.
Prior to joining EtonHouse, Mr. Ng worked in a Hedge Fund in the United States. In his free time, he enjoys the outdoors, adventure sports, and pursuing mindfulness as he leads the culture of mindfulness and well-being in the organisation. A father of twin boys and a girl, Yi-Xian is experiencing the joys and challenges of parenthood while he also oversees the education and well-being of more than 20,000 students in the EtonHouse schools.
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[00:00:00] Kai Xin:
Hi there. Welcome to another episode of the Handful of Leaves podcast where we bring you practical Buddhist wisdom for a happier life. Today we have the CEO of EtonHouse, Ng Yi-Xian, and my cohost, Cheryl. We are gonna ask a lot of questions regarding how mindfulness can influence leadership behavior. And if you haven’t heard of EtonHouse, it is an international institution with 120 schools worldwide headquarted in Singapore and specifically their aim is to provide high quality international education for K-12 students. As of today, there are about 20,000 children globally, it’s a very, very big portfolio that you’re handling and we are curious about how you manage that and how mindfulness kicks in. So perhaps you can share a little bit more about how long you’ve been practicing mindfulness and what’s your relationship with it and how does it affect your leadership style?
[00:00:59] Yi-xian:
Thanks, Kai Xin, and hi, Cheryl. So I discovered meditation about eight or nine years ago, right when I stepped into the portfolio of EtonHouse, prior to this I was an investment banking analyst and a hedge fund analyst. I stumbled into a meditation center in Boston, my roommates asked me to go. I meditated for the first time there. And I remember asking the most bizarre questions to the facilitator. I think I asked him, when I meditate, do I go to enlightenment, or like why do people do this? I was probably 27 or 26 years old then, and I probably walked out even with more questions than I did have answers. When I came back to Singapore about eight years, nine years ago, I stumbled upon meditation because a friend sent me a YouTube link.
It was a mantra-based meditation, and I did it and I found myself in Samādhi. So I’m blessed to be able to fall into very deep states naturally. I would confess to say that when I first started without proper instructions, I would fall into deeper states easier than I did with proper instructions. So I experienced a world where there was a void. Honestly, it was an altered state. First time I meditated and I experienced this feeling. I kind of realized like, oh, that’s why everyone’s talking about this whole mindfulness thing. Then when I discovered that that was the exception and not the norm, and I myself began to discover what so-called normal meditation is, I realized that, oh gee, how do I get more of what I used to have this deeper state?
So, I ended up discovering craving and suffering for better meditation through meditation. That led me to a multi -year adventure with discovering more about meditation and I say religion. So I started, I started on a whim and it also helped me deal with the day-to-day struggles of leading an organisation.
Being CEO is quite a tough job. In fact, a good friend of mine, a mutual friend of ours actually discovered what I did for, he kinda looked at me and said, well, you have a really tough job. And I remember I had a good laugh at that and he said you know, a CEO’s job is to handle the poop that no one else wants to deal with. In a healthy, so-called healthy organisation where people make decisions below you, only the real poop comes to the top. If you get good news or easy decision, that means that people didn’t bother to make the right decision below you. And I would say that as a young man taking over an education group with so many students and feeling very awkward because I wasn’t the founder myself.
And 100 of these schools are preschools. I think I definitely felt all kinds of feelings from imposter syndrome to “I don’t really know what I’m doing here.” And I would definitely say that mindfulness and having meditation practice really helped get to grips with my reality and how to actually look at it very impartially as an observer and really helped me grow.
[00:04:05] Kai Xin:
Yeah, I think it’s a really big shoe for you to fill right? Because your mother is quite a legend. I’ve read her profile, mad respect for how a single woman can build up this entire, I would say, almost an empire of sorts and benefit so many kids. So I am quite curious, was there a particular instance where you felt like, “wow, this is the most challenging period of my career in EtonHouse?”
How has your mindfulness practice kicked in to help you with that?
[00:04:31] Yi-xian:
So, well, my mother is quite literally The Woman of The Year in 2022. The joke was that when she was given the award, my father made a quip cause there’s a Young Woman of The Year and there’s the Woman of The Year. So my father said, “Well there’s a young woman of the year. You must be the good woman of the year. And my mother, to her credit, actually said, “You know, I’m 70 years old. I waited 70 years for this honour. so if I’m the old woman of the year, so be it, which I thought was really cool. So yes, my mom’s a pretty cool lady.
And I, for better or for worse very soon after I joined the organization. I was pretty much left with Singapore schools and we weren’t doing very well cause we had overexpanded at that point. So I walked into a situation where I thought that I could take several years to learn the ropes, to understand what we do.
I previously worked in an investment bank, a hedge fund, which is an institution and the other is a bunch of people trying to make sense of the world on their laptops. I think I really expected what you would call a training period, I guess onboarding and I didn’t really get that.
And I was thrown to the fire and in a way that was very difficult for me cause I had never fired anyone before. I had made tough decisions that impact not just one person’s life but many people’s lives. The responsibilities I had after the Army and before coming to Etonhouse really revolved around spreadsheets, numbers and concepts not real people.
So it was very daunting to me. And I would say that what helped me is you know, I mean now that I have children, I understand the concept of the red zone. So when you are, you’re in that red zone, your anger really flares up and you, you say things that you wish you never said. And I think I mean I personally can say that probably the worst things I’ve said in my life have been in that zone.
Luckily I don’t go to that place very often. I probably have gone to that place less than a couple of times. I would say that I, I’d have to thank mindfulness and my meditation practice for this. The vast majority of our team members are women. So big emotions are a commonplace in schools, and also commonplace with our team.
And as a male leader, I think yes, I had to figure that out very quickly and, and now I’ve got to a point where it’s the norm. Recently I hosted a session where people were trying to understand what’s it like to lead an education organization, and they kept saying, “What’s it like to work with so many women?”
I said, I don’t know. Haven’t worked in the world. unlike this for a long time.
[00:07:17] Kai Xin:
And just now you mentioned when you first started out meditation, it’s like, oh, you know, is it for enlightenment, what it is? So if now you were to look back at that time again, how would you have answered your own question?
[00:07:30] Yi-xian:
Well, I think like most experiences in life, it’s really what you make out of it.
And like anything else, I would say that experientially meditation has so much to offer. I like the analogy where oftentimes our minds are muddy water that’s in a glass that’s shaken. And over time the mud and the dirt kind of settles down, and then we begin to actually see your clear mind.
I think that’s a pretty accurate description. I will say that that’s just the beginning and you can experience infinite space. I’ve heard of people who have experienced the infinite consciousness. I have not. But I would say that it’s, it’s a very fascinating experience.
I personally felt intense emotions of love towards the entire world and towards all beings. It was very brief and very fleeting. And I got into an argument with my sister right after that and it went poof, it disappeared. But I, I have felt all these sensations with great intensity.
I think on some layer we’re all searching for the answers to the mysteries of life, and I feel like meditation kind helps speak just a little bit about what’s behind that cover. So it’s something that I wish I had more time to do. I now have three young children under age of three, it is not advisable for your health or career to do this.
Sad to say, you know, on a good day I only do about 15 minutes in the morning. Once in a while I can squeeze in a longer block of half an hour here and there. But yes, yes it’s a lifetime adventure for me, and I do hope that with my dying breath I do hope to be in a state of meditation when I go.
[00:09:16] Kai Xin:
I hope so. For you too.
[00:09:17] Yi-xian:
Well, unfortunately, yeah. I also have a passion for extreme sports. So, a year ago I found myself in a cave. I’m a cave diver and I was exiting the cave and Long story short, I felt an intense sensation of pain and I, and it grew to a point that was so extreme that I actually thought that I, might die of some kinda gas poisoning cause it picked up so quickly and I can confess to you that I was not anywhere near the meditative state and what I felt was eventually a ‘poof’ and then something in my ear coughed out some blood underwater and then realized like, “Oh, I’m ok!” Well, no lasting damage. I think just a blood vessel somewhere that wasn’t working right. But yes, I, I, thanks to my extreme sports, I have come close and this wasn’t even that close. And I think I know how hard it’s to say actually to really endeavor to to be in a clear, a clear mind when you go.
[00:10:11] Cheryl:
Yeah. I think that’s why a consistent practice is so important, because at that moment where you revert back to autopilot. All the habital tendencies of fear, anxiety can just overwhelm your mind. And if that is the last mindstate that you have, it could be quite an unfortunate cause that could also lead to your next rebirth.
[00:10:29] Yi-xian:
Well I just think it’s a very bad way to go. When I was traveling around the world, I had a misfortune to actually be a first responder to a fatal car accident. There was a man that I was giving First Aid to that passed away, right front me.
And I think when, when you see life disappear like this, I, I think it’s, it’s something which you know, if it’s so hard to meditate on a good day or a bad day, And most of us don’t meditate when we’re sick. You can only imagine what it feels like on probably the last moment in our life, so lifelong practice maybe a fraction of us succeed. But it’s ok, you can try again the next round.
[00:11:11] Cheryl:
The journey continues. Also you mentioned sometimes you try to cut out, 15 minutes or 30 minutes in your day. I guess it’s extremely difficult with three kids under the age of three and 20,000 other children under your care. How are you being intentional with it? Do you set it as a daily routine?
[00:11:27] Yi-xian:
Yeah, so for me I wake up and it’s probably one of the first things I do.
I have my cushion in my study next to my bed. And I go to my cushion and it’s quite funny when your children barge open the door and then they kinda like swandive into your lap, but I feel like it’s important to make a routine. As much as you love something like this, it’s just so difficult to keep things up if you don’t make it a process that you follow every day. And I’m lucky that I fell into it this way.
I think another practice that I tried to do, I did it before I had children, is to go to annual meditation retreat. And you know, the, the Tibetans and Theravadans do this a very different way. So you compare the Vipassana style retreat where there’s noble silence and then compare it to a Tibetan style retreat where everyone’s talking all time.
And you know, I guess you can just choose your own fancy, whatever works for you. But I do feel like a good friend of mine gave me this advice very early on. He said, put this on your calendar one year in advance and so you have no way of getting out of it, and so you can just block them. When the time comes, you just go.
And I give this advice to people very often and I personally try to do it. But when you have young children, you have to seek clearance from multiple parties in order to go. So yes, I just returned from one and it’s probably my second one since I’ve become a father. And I’m very thankful to my wife for actually giving me the time to do it.
[00:12:59] Kai Xin:
Sadhu, I’m very curious, how do you convince multiple stakeholders to let you go on the retreat?
[00:13:08] Yi-xian:
Well, the story of how I went to my very first one was because of burnout., So I had set up two schools back to back in Singapore. The last school I did without power and water in 55 days, and it’s a large school with more than a thousand students.
And it really took a lot outta me. And after it was done, I couldn’t feel joy. So I had parents coming up to me thanking me for setting up the school. And it, it is probably one of the schools I’ve set up that I know have really made a big impact on society. And to me, I just couldn’t take in any more joy.
I was just out. So a good friend of mine, he had sent me this link to this, retreat in the US and said, “Hey, by the way, there’s this guy doing this retreat next week, you can consider it. And I booked it, flew off, did it, came back, and then when I met up with this friend after that, I said, “Hey, remember that thing you shared?
Yeah. I actually went for it. He said, really? I hadn’t expected you to.
So I fell into this cadence that way. With regards to stakeholders, I think the first time you do it, the people around you have this whole myriad of, of emotions, right? I think some of them think that like your boss is weird. Some of them think boss is running away. I’m sure alot of them think thank God, boss is not in my face.
When I came back from my first one. So I actually got to a place where I could hear my heartbeat at every moment, which was fascinating. I haven’t been able to hear that ever since. And to my team members I seemed Very out of it in a way, in reality, I had discovered what it feels like to experience everyday mindfulness. So they actually said, I felt lost and different, because I came back so different from what I was used to, and as time goes by, you revert back to your usual self. It is the way of the world.
The second one I went to was on a concentration meditation. One of the insights I had from it was the realization that it’s my life’s purpose to run Etonhouse, to run this international education group, and that’s why I’m in this world. So that realization came to me, and like all good realizations it’s, it’s very tiny part cognitive and it’s a much larger proportion knowing with your whole being.
And so when I came back, actually I had a lot of thoughts and ideas and the team came back very surprised. Cause, you know, the first time boss comes back very Zonked out, and second time the boss comes back fired up and actually a few came up to ask what exactly were you doing over there?
They’ve come to realize that it’s an important part of me and the first time I went, everyone felt I needed a vacation.
The second time I went, they realized that it was almost like it was gonna be good for the business. I think that’s the way how my boss, my mother, looked at it. Maybe. I think for my team members, they realized that it was my way to get greater clarity on what we were doing.
[00:16:17] Kai Xin:
Hmm. So they saw your transformation and they felt like it’s not so much of an obstacle for the business, but you going and coming back actually brings great benefit.
[00:16:28] Yi-xian:
Well, I can’t speak for what they say, but I mean, I do believe that, you know, it’s important for us to rest and recharge. We’re not machines and you know, this is important and relevant and it’s important for at least once a year we go for a longer break. How long is relative to everyone and it’s something I do encourage in my team, for my direct team members.
So yes, actually they do do that.
But I think what different about this is that you go alone and I haven’t actually spoken to them about being in noble silence. Cause one particular team member she’s incredibly talkative , and I’ve often joked to her. I mean, I thought to myself like, yeah, maybe you should go a meditation retreat cause you experienced the opposite.
So sometimes people ask me about this and I tell them that, you know, who are you when you strip everything away, where you can’t even express anything verbally. And who is this person left behind? And I get very weird looks when I, I say that to people, but I think for those of us that have retreats, I think we all understand.
[00:17:36] Cheryl:
That’s two very, very powerful questions. Who are you when you strip everything away? And who is this person left behind? And do you think you are close to finding the answer for those two questions?
[00:17:47] Yi-xian:
Well, I think in another world I would probably be a very happy monastic, but I also feel like I’ll be a very impatient monastic. I think there’s a side of me that does wanna get stuff done and sometimes I’ve heard before, that the greatest suffering is actually in the walls of a monastery, so far yet so close. But to me, yes, I, I think I’m generally a very happy person. After passing the first four days.
[00:18:16] Cheryl:
Your mind takes that time to settle down..
[00:18:21] Yi-xian:
Yeah.
[00:18:21] Kai Xin:
For me, I think day one is the most peaceful, cuz like, oh, finally I got a break. And then the last day is usually the most frustrating for me. Cuz like, it’s a form of escape, right? So I think it’s so important to be able to integrate that to the day-to-day life. And I wonder how do you do that?
Cause you run a school, a lot of people are under you. I think it’s good that you have the 15 minute a day practice. How else do you integrate mindfulness into your, your work or the way you lead?
[00:18:49] Yi-xian:
Well, I don’t do this. I mean when I first met Chade-Meng Tan, he introduced the concept of the one minute meditation.
And I really wish I could tell you that A, I did this in my team very often, and b, that I do this very often myself. But both of these are lies, I don’t do that very often. I have that you can say grounding exercises that are secular at work and in these small groups that I’m part of. And I think personally, I believe that I have very secular beliefs in terms of religion and I think even today I would, I’m not entirely sure if I would call myself Buddhist.
And also there are very many forms of Buddhist, so I can’t actually pinpoint if I am Buddhist what exactly I am. But when it comes down to what I would call secular practices, I mean just breathing exercises, body scans, and you can say, call it positive psychology or whatever you want, just telling yourself that you’re safe, that you have everything that you need and that you’re loved. I think all these things are secular. So I do do these things in public settings.
In my own wedding actually. I led a loving kindness meditation it was my wife’s idea. Yeah, it was pretty cool. And I think I wish I did it more and I’ve actually been told that I should, and I do feel like there’s this side of me that I don’t want to intrude on other people’s religious beliefs or as a bit of like an imposter syndrome of like, who are you doing these things?
But yes, I, I do know that I should do this more. And that when a leader does this, it shows to everyone that, look, I care about your wellbeing and that we want everyone to be space. So it’s something which I think is important for me to role model. And I’m doing more and more of every year, but I do still feel very important.
And perhaps it’s because. What I do for a living influences directly the lives of young children, that it might have a very strong impact to them their whole lives. I think the secular part of this is still very strong in me.
I’ve been called a hypocrite about this because people have said like, look if Christian schools have chapel, and if you consider yourself Buddhist then why do you feel awkward doing this?
And I think for me maybe it’s because I know I’m not Christian and I went to Methodist College and I really didn’t like being a chapel and I couldn’t get outta it. So perhaps that’s why I feel very strongly about their respecting peoples boundaries.
[00:21:22] Kai Xin:
How do you integrate that to your work culture too, because I mean, people usually also would associate mindfulness meditation with religion and I think some is like, oh, you know, is, is this the back door or to Buddhism? And do you face any resistance when you’re trying to, you know, ground people through all this practices at work?
[00:21:44] Yi-xian:
Oh, sorry Cheryl.
[00:21:45] Cheryl:
Oh, sorry. Just to add on, I think specifically also, cause I think you partner with Contentment Foundation to offer mindfulness, like formal programs. And with that context also, are there any resistance there?
[00:21:59] Yi-xian:
Yeah, actually both your questions implementing something like this in the organisation.
There are many mindfulness programs out there for schools, most of which are completely secular, which was important to me. And when I was exploring the implementation of this in schools, I began to actually realize what some people’s boundaries are.
I would say that well for most people when they experience the practices themselves, and I always invite people like, look, if you feel that intrudes upon your boundaries, stop. You can stand up, you can walk away. I wouldn’t take offense at all. And it’s your decision, but I always preface this very clearly. I give them a bit of a mini briefing about what I’m going to do, and my practices aren’t very long. The maximum I would do at work is five minutes. And maybe I have a very sensitive hearing. You know, when people aren’t really involved, when you start hearing very long sighs. I, try to read the room while leading it.
I’ve had people come up to me saying they’re not comfortable and I say, look, it’s okay, you can step out.
And for this particular person, what happened is, she spoke to her pastor and she did a lot of research online and the answer that came back with her was, I’m OK with a guided meditation to do with my body or to do with instructions that would make me feel happier and better.
I’m not okay with sitting down and having a blank space because, it’s my relationship with God, and I don’t want you to be part of that. And I really appreciated her actually telling me that this is her boundary and I respected that. So yeah, we were able to cross that hurdle.
And for our schools, for the Contentment Foundation, it’s very clearly secular.
Mindfulness is just the first pillar of four. Community is the second one. The third one is I believe self-actualization and the fourth one is very, it gets increasingly complex and I’ve always appreciated that cause Yes, mindfulness is a very internal journey, but there’s obviously a part to do with interpersonal relations, especially loving kindness.
I think the challenge is really living this and implementing this. There are plenty of people who meditate a lot of hours in a day, but then, you know, they might not be very nice people to be around, and then I would say it’s a failure, and so I think it’s important for us to be able to do the practices, but also be able to have a healthy culture within the organization.
I don’t do the Contentment Foundations program in every school. I do it for schools which I believe are open to this in Singapore, I believe four schools doing it right now. And it’s something that I hope to progressively roll out.
[00:24:50] Kai Xin:
Yeah, that’s very skillful because I think personally, I feel like breath, you know, everyone has it, it’s secular, and Buddhism is not really a religion also, but that’s my perception. So it’s very skillful for you to open the conversation with people to step out and say, “Hey, I don’t feel very comfortable with this. Can we switch it to something else?”
And also going back to the intent: why do we want to bring such activities or practices in the school is really to benefit people. So if they feel uncomfortable, then perhaps it’s further away from a calm mind, they’ll get more agitated, maybe don’t feel so good at work also, and it can backfire.
So thanks. Thanks for sharing that piece. I’m wondering if you don’t have this mindfulness practice, who do you think you will be today?
[00:25:43] Yi-xian:
I think anyone who’s been in a senior position and anyone who’s worked in a family business has thought about leaving. In family business, we have a joke about hotel California: you can check in but you can’t check out. and I, I don’t know if I would be doing what I’m doing now, and I think that might have taken me away from my life. So who knows? We just don’t know that it’s one of those unknown unknowns. I do think that I probably would’ve a more challenging relationship with my wife and I do think that I’m quite hard on myself to begin with and I think I might have be even harder on myself.
[00:26:26] Kai Xin:
Yeah. And I think people can be hard on you also. And it’s good that you do the loving-kindness thing. I think the, the wedding idea, it’s fantastic. Yeah. I would like to ask this question to Cheryl also, cuz Cheryl also guides meditation at work in different contexts. Who will you be, Cheryl if you don’t have mindfulness?
[00:26:51] Cheryl:
It’s a very interesting question, I think, cause I started meditation and mindfulness on the wrong foot actually. It started from a place of insecurity. So I was bullied and then it was kind of, I didn’t, I feel like I didn’t have any worth. Because being bullied. Yeah, isolated. Isolated, you’re different from everyone else.
So meditation, mindfulness was kind of an identity that I took on to protect myself. You know, I’m cool. I have something, this is my shield. So for many years I struggled with that until maybe like one, two years ago I realised that it was a form of escapism. And meditation is really not about that.
It’s about embracing the discomfort, embracing the unglam parts of yourself. And I think without mindfulness, I will probably be stuck in a very dark place uh not being able to become friends with myself, so just forever at loggerheads with my inner critic. But with mindfulness now, I think, I can put the inner critic aside and say, “Hey, thanks, thanks for your concern, but you know, you’re not exactly helping me out right now, so let’s change the narrative a little bit.”
So I wouldn’t want to imagine my life without mindfulness. I think it’s kind of part of my DNA now but not, not in the unhealthy way of it being a mask protection, but rather just a, I guess, a soft landing when life gets tough. So hope that answers the question
[00:28:21] Kai Xin:
Yeah, I loved it and I, I can relate to both because I am very hard on myself.
And also I think to some extent in the past without meditation, I’m just so busy and occupied with life and I thought that I’m living life purposefully, but I was just running away from my own thoughts. And when I finally was able to sit down, like, wow, you know, it’s so amplified, it’s so loud. I didn’t know I had all this maybe insecurities these worries and it really took a while for me to be courageous enough to look inwards and now even though outwardly I might be doing the same thing, but it comes from a very different place. And it is also my wish that I can die peacefully with the calm mind. Recently, I had a health scare and I thought I was gonna die.
And then it was quite interesting because that’s where the push comes to shove, and I know, okay, my mindfulness practice is not as good as I thought it is because I still had a fear and anxiety. And also like the how fleeting life is because I went to AnE and then I was asking the doctor how’s my organs?
And the moment the doctor said that, oh, your, your kidney is fine. Wow. I just went back to autopilot mode and started planning my week, my month, when’s my next appointment to rescheduling. And then when I look back in hindsight, it’s quite funny because the mind plays trick and there’s a lot of unconditioning that we have to do.
So yeah, mindfulness practice I think it’s definitely essential. It’s not really a good to have, but a must-have. And I’ve learned that if it is, like we see it as an essential part of life, we would find time to meditate.
[00:29:58] Yi-xian:
Actually, I, I like to build up on that cause
I began to explore this element. I experienced this myself where there’s a criticism, especially in some schools of Tibetan Buddhism that like generic mindfulness makes people more compliant. And in a way I kind of understand what they mean because I went to a particular workshop, I don’t how to describe this workshop.
It was effectively systems theory in actions. And certain very provoking things occurred in the workshop where Yeah, so basically you could say that people were triggering each other’s poop that was triggering everyone’s poop. And they’re like, yeah, there’s a lot of poop. And my boundaries weren’t very strong then.
But I almost feel like, in a way, cause of my mindfulness practice, I was able to let a lot in and to let a lot sit with me. And I began to realise that actually, boundaries are incredibly important. And maybe it’s because of what I do, or maybe it’s because of the way I’m choosing to live my life, but I’m not a monastic who can care about every and all degrees of suffering all around me all the time. And with equal attention. And that sometimes I realise that, ‘look, this is your poop within you, it is not my poop’. And I think that’s actually, and that, you know, I know who I am and I am not that. And I, I think there was actually quite an important realization of me. So you could argue that maybe when you meditate a lot, and especially when you mix around the crowd of people who tend to meditate a lot, there’s a lot of love for everyone around you. I mean, no pressure for like, you know, love for all sentient beings, but then on the other side it’s just not really that possible. And you have to realize that if this is this person’s suffering, that person’s suffering shouldn’t become your suffering.
I mean, obviously we want the help, but it doesn’t mean that this burden is compounded on me.
So it was a realization that I’ve had and I feel like there’s something that it wasn’t easy for me to realize. It was actually my wife who pointed that out to me. Like, what’s wrong with you? because I went to this 5 day course I got a migraine for four days.
[00:32:17] Kai Xin:
Wow. It sounds really intense.
[00:32:19] Yi-xian:
Yeah, it was really intense. But I think I have that course to thank for me to actually realize that, and yeah, just trying to process all of that.
[00:32:28] Kai Xin:
It’s interesting you call it poop, I guess because of your line of work, you can’t swear, so you tone it down.
Cause we have other podcast guests, they curse on our podcast.
[00:32:38] Yi-xian:
Yeah. I guess there’s pg and there’s G.
[00:32:43] Kai Xin:
It’s interesting you say Buddhists are compliant, so are you suggesting that we comply for the sake of complying and sometimes don’t set boundaries? And that’s where we might get our internal emotions stirred up or not very beneficial. So that’s where mindfulness comes in to know, okay, when is the line to be drawn? Just so I interpret your sharing correctly.
[00:33:05] Yi-xian:
Actually, I wasn’t applying this to Buddhists as a whole. When you’re taught generic mindfulness you’re almost taught to deal with and sit with discomfort and to sit with all these thoughts that come and go.
And to just, to sit through it. I mean, power hour is power hour, right? And I think a lot of us realize that that yeah, you know, all these things pass. Yeah. I think it’s something that we all realise and that’s great, but it shouldn’t actually build up, what I can call it stupid grit. You know, grit is good, but the same time, Yeah.
Yeah. Wisdom is very important. That’s why we do all this to achieve it.
Yeah. So don’t lose yourself while doing it.
[00:33:53] Cheryl:
And I guess that’s why mindfulness is always complemented with wisdom and loving-kindness. And loving kindness always starts with ourselves, making sure that we are full, we’re feeling good, feeling safe as well, and our boundaries are not overstepped, before we can then take on other people’s poop and, and help to reduce that.
But if we are not taking care of ourselves, it’s almost impossible to do that.
[00:34:14] Kai Xin:
Yeah, that’s so true. And I think to some extent you packing a bag and flying for a retreat is also setting boundaries, right? There’s a threshold and maximum amount of capacity that you can intake all these things that’s happening and sometimes, you know, hitting the reset button is good and you come back stronger.
I feel this is particularly important as an advice to Buddhist practitioners. Cause in the past especially, I would feel so lousy. You know, shouldn’t I be more tolerant? You know, shouldn’t I be kinder? Why am I angry? And then I take it upon myself, which is also not very good because that’s also moving further away from lessening greed, hatred and delusion.
So thanks for that.
[00:34:54] Cheryl:
I have a super curious question, and this comes from my reflection, talking with a lot of Buddhist friends who meditate and experience sometimes profound deep states that is very unusual and you cannot find this kinda pleasure in the world. So as you meditate, do you feel that sometimes you would have a disconnect with the world in general where you find yourself like one feet into the spiritual realm and one fit in the material world and you find at any point the divide is getting a little bit bigger, if you get my question.
[00:35:27] Yi-xian:
Yeah. Actually, I get your question. And I think anyone who’s experienced states like this, the answer is obviously yes. I think the framework and I understand what I’ve experienced is I guess they call it the Jhanas.
The analogy I give people is You can use depth, ocean depth as an analogy here. So I guess the conventional mainstream Theravada as an institution, Theravada Buddhism would describe the Jhanas as like maybe 1000 meter version. I’ve, I’ve probably experienced maybe the 300-meter or the 500-meter version of that, and I’ve also experienced the 5-meter version of that.
I personally think it’s relative, and I think definitely when you experience the deeper depth I’m talking about, yes for sure It’s something that it’s totally unlike reality. It is a new reality or I dunno, really what to call it. And I think for me when I exit these states the real world actually feels, I hear a difference.
My emotions are different and it’s actually very strange because I almost feel like a robot for a little bit of time because emotions just hit very differently. And cause you’re so at peace and everything is like, oh, okay, it’s like this and you can deal with it like this. And I think you can rub people off the wrong way cause they assume that you’re angry cause you have no emotion in your body. And for me, I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep for hours after this. And, it’s very unfortunate whenever I encounter this in way, cause like I tend to do it at night and then like, then just ruins my sleep cycle.
Unfortunately, you can’t really watch this away, so you try to work like a good Singaporean and I was incredibly productive, and then I’ll play computer games and I’ll get all highest scores possible. So I play first-person shooter and then then this like challenge move and I’ll get this high score that I’ll never achieve in a non-Jhana state.
And so you know, when you discover this other sense of processing reality, there’s also this learning that you have to go, you have to learn that look, it’s not the real world. And from what I understand I think the first time I got there, I actually thought to myself, oh, this is what enlightenment feels like all the time.
But from what I understand, they don’t feel that way either. Like their sense of reality is not what I’ve experienced. So I’m sorry this is a great mystery. I still have, but I do feel like that yes, this is another box of suffering to open up and to explore.
[00:38:18] Kai Xin:
Cheryl is deep in thought. How many meters is your thought?
[00:38:26] Cheryl:
Do you feel like it’s something that you need to reconcile with? Because like Buddha, just ran off in the middle of the night to go and explore after seeing old age, sickness and death, he couldn’t unsee that. And, you know, he, he decided that, okay, I need to go off and find the answers.
But obviously we can’t just do that. Or I guess, you know, general people wouldn’t just throw everything away, especially in your case, family, business, three kids, your wife and, and all this stuff. So is it something where you just kinda accept that this is the state where, you know, it’s, it’s struggle, it’s where I would just have to be, stay in it for a while and then answers would just pop out on its own?
Or are you doing anything actively?
[00:39:13] Yi-xian:
Actually, for me, I feel like I found my answer. This life my purpose is to run this school group to make the biggest impact possible. It’s very clear for me. And once it landed, I knew it. So my path is not enlightenment, this life or, and, you know, maybe never, maybe never life.
So I, I know that this is what I’m here to do and whatever practices that I know that are important to me in, and in a certain way I accept.
[00:39:47] Kai Xin:
I guess you can plan the seeds of enlightenment in whatever you do. That’s actually very beautiful and I think it also nicely wraps up the episode. We’ve covered quite a lot. I think when you first started, you also mentioned that you have this thing in you that, hey, you know, Etonhouse you wanna make the greatest impact.
You’ve talked about how it’s actually not so rosy, you know, like, oh yeah, mindfulness is putting work. Then what? Suddenly you become a saint, but it’s a journey. Sometimes you don’t react and respond so well, and that’s also okay. And however you try to integrate a routine in your day-to-day.
I think that’s very helpful and being able to identify boundaries. I think that theme came out quite a lot, be it whether it is kind of introducing mindfulness practice to other people, you know, what their boundaries are and our own personal boundaries when it comes to our capacity to help, to tolerate poop and to tolerate our own poop as well.
Yeah. I would like to ask if there’s anything else that you’d like to share before we officially end the episode. And Cheryl, as well.
[00:40:14] Yi-xian:
No, I was just laughing to myself. Cause you know, when I share that philosophy that I know that like the enlightenment is not my path. Like, I guess I get very interesting responses from Buddhist and then they go like, No, no. You Go ahead, bro. It’s ok.
[00:40:34]Cheryl:
I mean, everyone’s journey, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think for whatever way, shape, or form, like yeah, I know it’s not my yet.
[00:41:27] Kai Xin:
Yeah. Perhaps not this life. Maybe next, life you have a different, you know, intent and that’s also
[00:41:32] Cheryl:
or maybe next retreat.
[00:41:34] Yi-xian:
Oh, yes, yes. True. Yeah. We’ll see.
[00:41:41] Kai Xin:
All right. I would like to leave with one note. I just suddenly thought of it regarding mindfulness practice in day-to-day, cause I think you’re so busy. You have proven that it is possible to integrate in day-to-day life. And even if you can’t do even the one minute breath. I’ve learned this from one of the monk, I think it’s called the Luangpor Sumedho method whereby every door you walk past, you would just be aware of your breath. So you know how sometimes we enter a room without knowing that we enter a room or like we shampoo our head twice, things like that. So I found that to be very helpful. I mean, we don’t need extra time to be mindful, but just passing the door and that can be our sign post.
Thanks for listening to this episode. If you like it and benefited for me, please to share with a friend and give us a five star review on Spotify. It would help us a lot. And til the next episode, may you stay happy and wise!
Buddhist Youth Network, Lim Soon Kiat, Alvin Chan, Tan Key Seng, Soh Hwee Hoon, Geraldine Tay, Venerable You Guang, Wilson Ng, Diga, Joyce, Tan Jia Yee, Joanne, Suñña, Shuo Mei, Arif, Bernice, Wee Teck, Andrew Yam, Kan Rong Hui, Wei Li Quek, Shirley Shen, Ezra, Joanne Chan, Hsien Li Siaw.
Editor and transcriber of this episode: Tee Ke Hui, Cheryl Cheah, Koh Kai Xin
