TLDR: When someone we love walks away from Buddhism, the real practice begins: learning to respond with patience, compassion, and letting go instead of fear and control. This reflection explores how equanimity, non-clinging, and genuine kindness can hold relationships together even amid spiritual differences.
“I don’t see the point of Buddhism anymore.”
A heretical opinion landed over dinner. No early signs.
A friend’s son, who used to sit with us at the vihāra (Dhamma hall) every Sunday, announced his position on the religion plainly.
The youth looked his mother in the eye and announced like he’d been rehearsing for months.
He, who once asked such sharp questions about the suttas that we joked he’d end up a monk, could no longer picture himself practising the Buddha’s teachings.
His mother shared with me that awful news the next week. I sensed she’d been replaying that moment ever since – her horrors multiplying with each recollection.
“We have raised him in the Dhamma. He used to love going to the temple. Now, he calls it a place of ritual and superstition.”
I’ve heard this retelling of someone’s departure from Buddhism more than I’d like. Some versions from parents. Others from friends, who had watched someone close drift away from the practice.
The details change but the feeling remains the same: a dull, heavy weight sinking into the abyss. An initial mix of pity, disappointment, and helplessness. Maybe even hints of betrayal. Perhaps doubt towards your own spiritual practice. Eventually, grief washes over.
You think the faith towards the Dhamma practice is a precious bond you share. Now, the other person has handed the path towards freedom back to the Buddha. Your spiritual journeys are no longer conjoined.
So what do you actually do?
Having sat in this situation with others, there are a few things I’ve learnt. Some lessons the hard way.
What to do first?
Steady your mind in the present.
Panic may be your first instinct. Acting on it rashly may not be skillful.
If your reaction to “I’ve left Buddhism” is denial and guilt-tripping out of fear and despair, your own practice still needs to work on holding space for difficult conversations.
The Dhamma teaches equanimity (upekkhā) – not indifference nor suppressing your feelings. Equanimity is the ability to be with something painful without being consumed by pain.
Your friend has plucked up courage to initiate an important subject. Their vulnerability awaits your reciprocity. If your mindfulness spirals with unwholesome feelings, your unskilful actions may push their sincere bid for connection away. It might even reinforce their conviction that Buddhism is not for them.
Breathe. Be still. You can feel hurt without performing hurt. Holding space for your feelings to arise and pass away mirrors the same awareness you can offer for your friend, who yearns dearly for empathy and kindness.
Let your sense of self go.
The mind loves to find a cause; moreover, it loves to attribute that cause to a self.
“Maybe I pushed too hard. Maybe I didn’t explain it well enough. Maybe I should have taken them to a different teacher.”
Here’s the thing: what if it was never about you?
The Buddha taught in the Kālāma Sutta (AN 3.65) that people should not accept teachings simply because of tradition, or because a teacher said so, or because it’s what they grew up with.
He taught the Kālāmas, who were overwhelmed by various religious doctrines, to test the teachings against their own experience. After verifying, they should only take up what they found to be true and beneficial to their well-being.
Your child is doing exactly that. They tested the teachings and, for now, decided to put them down. Their decision is not a failure of your parenting or friendship. That’s a person exercising the very discernment the Buddha encouraged.
In the Sigālovāda Sutta (DN 31), the Buddha talks about the duties between parents and children. One of the parent’s duties is to “hand them over to a suitable inheritance.” But notice what the sutta doesn’t say: it doesn’t say the child must accept it. The giving is the parent’s job. The receiving is the child’s choice.
Taking their choice as proof that you failed is its own kind of clinging (upādāna). You’re attaching your sense of self-worth to their spiritual choices.
Notice that attachment. It’s worth examining. It is also worth letting go.
Cultivate patience.
Don’t give up on your friend.Not the relationship nor their capacity to find their way.
The Dhamma teaches a concept of planting seeds (bīja) in the mind. Some seeds take root quickly. Some stay dormant for years. Some need conditions that have yet to arrive.
The suttas describe people who hear the Dhamma and walk away (or even insults it), only to return much later when their own life experience brings them around.
Most people return to the Dhamma practice through their own suffering, in their own time, not because someone told them to. They can definitely benefit from the space and time provided by your patience.
Your relationship with this person is larger than Buddhism. It was there before they met the Dhamma, and it continues after they’ve stepped away from the Dhamma. You need not reduce the whole relationship into one disagreement about spiritual practice.
What to do next?
Be curious about their lives.
Apart from how they relate to Buddhism, there are plenty of other aspects in life where you can show interest in. Their work, their hobbies, what food they like, what they’re watching. Let life be the bridge.
Before making peace with reality, you may be tempted to find every opportunity in daily conversations to slip the Dhamma back in. Once you accept your child or friend as who they are and respect their choices, you allow for genuine connection to arise in your conversations.
The Mettā Sutta (Snp 1.8) describes an unconditional goodwill towards all beings. You can wish someone well, in spite of the differences, because they’re sentient beings.
When you show up without an agenda, your presence speaks louder than any discussion about the Four Noble Truths.
Challenge yourself to develop a genuine interest in who they’re becoming. Not who you hoped they’d become.
Reflect on what’s going on within.
This one is uncomfortable but it is crucial for understanding how the mind works.
Why does their leaving bother you so much? Is it because you’re worried about them? Or is it because their choice reflects on you?
The Sallatha Sutta (SN 36.6) teaches that when we experience pain, we often add a second layer of suffering on top of it:
The first arrow is the genuine sadness that someone you love has stepped away from something precious to you. That’s real. Feel it arise, watch it stay and then let it pass away with time.
The second arrow arises from the story that the untrained mind spins around the feelings. I’m a bad parent. People will judge me. What if they never come back. What does this say about my own practice?
That second arrow is where most of the suffering lingers, even after the initial sadness has gone by. And that’s the one you can work with.
Stay with the discomfort. Examine the narratives that are not helping you to abide in peace. This reflection might be the most honest practice you’ve done in years.
Live your practice.
The Dhammapada opens with “Mind is the forerunner of all actions.” Your state of mind will show in everything you do. If the practice is real, it shows up in how you treat others when they don’t meet your expectations. The practice culminates in peace and an undistorted awareness of situations: just as they are, not what you wanted them to be.
What if your child or friend never returns to the Dhamma?
Then you would have practiced something the Buddha teaches constantly but most of us avoid: letting go.
Let go of your idea of who someone should be. Let go of the outcome you wanted. Letting go of our expectations of others allows us to love fully without needing them to be a certain way (before we are ‘happy’).
This letting go of what causes suffering is a crucial part of the practice. It does not have to exist only in theory.
Allow the practice of letting go to arise in your actual life, with your child or friend, on a random Tuesday when change hurts.
One last thing
The Buddha compared the Dhamma to a raft (MN 22). You use it to cross the water, and then you put it down. He never said everyone would pick up the raft. He never said the ones who picked it up would hold it forever.
What the Buddha did say is that each person has to see the truths for themselves. You can point at the oceans of suffering. You can describe the far shore of liberation from suffering. Yet you cannot carry someone else apart from yourself across.
Your loved one has put the raft down. Maybe they’ll pick it up again someday. Maybe they won’t. Either way, the most useful thing you can do right now is to keep crossing the vast oceans of suffering.
Keep practicing. Keep being the kind of person whose life quietly answers the question: does this practice lead to long-lasting peace?
The next time your loved one walks away from the Dhamma practice, keep steering your raft towards awareness and peace. Just be there as someone who cares.
That’s goodwill towards yourself and your loved one. The best part is the other person does not have to believe in anything at all to feel your kindness.
Wise Steps
Hold space before reacting: When someone steps away from the Dhamma, resist the urge to panic, convince, or correct. Practise equanimity by listening with calmness and allowing difficult emotions to arise without letting them control your response.
Separate love from expectation: Reflect on whether your suffering comes from concern for the person, or attachment to who you hoped they would be. Letting go of spiritual expectations creates room for unconditional goodwill and genuine connection.
Live the Dhamma quietly: Rather than trying to persuade others back into Buddhism, embody the teachings through patience, kindness, and steadiness. Often, how we live speaks louder than what we preach.
TLDR: My mother was a lifelong Buddhist who planned her final rites well in advance. When my overseas sister tried to convert her in her final days, the family spun into confusion and fear. This is how I steadied myself, respected my mother’s wishes, sought guidance from a monk, and learnt to hold interfaith differences with gentleness.
Editor’s note: Key individuals and roles have been masked, given the sensitive nature of this life event.
The Quiet Faith My Mother Carried
My mother never made a show of being Buddhist. She didn’t quote suttas or correct anyone’s beliefs. She simply practised. Quietly.
I grew up watching her bow before the altar, chant softly before bed, and make offerings with a calm that seemed to lighten the whole flat. The smell of incense was part of home. Her faith wasn’t dramatic; it was a quiet practice. Never pushing others to be Buddhist and being ultra chill when my sister converted to another faith.
When she fell ill, she didn’t panic. She had arranged her funeral rites years earlier and even noted the chants she hoped the monks would recite. She used to joke that her children only needed to turn up and not mess anything up.
None of us expected the “messing up” to come from faith itself.
The Call That Changed Her Mood
One evening, when her illness had weakened her badly, my sister from overseas called. She belongs to another religion and believed she was helping. She said conversion would guarantee salvation and pressed the point on my dying mom.
I wasn’t there. Our mother was too frail to say much that night.
The next morning, our helper pulled me aside, with a shaky voice: “Sir, Madam is different today. Something happened yesterday.”
In the room, I saw a look I had never seen on my mother. She was a fog, a lostness. She struggled to meet my eyes.
I learnt she had verbally agreed to convert because she was exhausted and overwhelmed. It wasn’t a free choice. It was pressure at a moment when she could barely hold a cup in her hand.
The Panic That Made Me Regress
I froze, then spiralled. What if her life of practice was being overwritten? What if she died confused? What if this changed her rebirth?
Instead of thinking clearly, I did the most childlike thing: I leaned close to my mom and kept repeatedly saying, “Buddha is good. Buddha is the best. You cannot convert.” It was almost embarrassing. Fear made me sound like a five-year-old guarding a toy.
My mother looked at me with tired eyes, confused by my tone, my urgency, the storm around her.
In that moment, I realised the main problem wasn’t my sister’s action. It was my untrained reaction.
Settling Down
As I walked away from her bedside. Anger came next. It was hot and sharp. Why do this when Mum was so weak?
“How could my f***ing sister hellishly do this to mom??! Is she insane??” I muttered under my breath. If I had not controlled myself, I would have bought the earliest air ticket to the USA to hit her.
Why force what she didn’t believe? Do you lack basic human decency?
Anger helped no one. It only made the room heavier.
So I stepped outside. I breathed slowly and remembered a teaching I had heard many times: if your mind is messy, don’t go near the dying; they feel everything. That thought steadied me.
I went back in, sat by Mum’s bed, and held her hand without saying anything. No chants. No arguments. Just presence. Her shoulders softened. She didn’t need me to fight for her religion. She needed me to be calm.
Seeing her shaky with my angry tone was enough to make me not raise this up in front of her.
When She Passed, We Followed Her Wishes
Two weeks after that, my mother passed away. My sisters moved with the national day parade like precision.
They respected her original Buddhist funeral plans fully with the chanting, offerings, and the rites she had chosen and trusted. No one mentioned the phone call. No one tried to claim a last-minute change of faith.
It felt as if Mum’s steadiness guided us back.
A Monk’s Guidance On What Faith Really Is
Still, a lingering anxiety would not leave. I went to see ShifuYG, whom I trusted, and told him everything, including the childish “Buddha is good” moment.
He listened, then said something simple that cleared the doubt: if your mother had deep confidence in the Triple Gem, no pressured statement can uproot that. Faith is not a legal contract; it is the pattern of the heart. What she lived by is what she carried.
He added that at the moment of death, it’s the state of mind that matters, love, peace, and gratitude more than any external declaration. Keeping a kusala (wholesome) mind state is key.
Something in me let go then. I was relieved. My mother’s life spoke louder than any phone call-driven conversion.
Letting Go of My Sister’s Actions
Once fear eased, anger had nowhere to sit. I started to see my sister differently. She acted from her love language. In her pursuit of what she thought was best, it created confusion. She did not mean it. She truly thought she was helping.
Our beliefs clashed, but our intentions were not enemies.
Forgiveness wasn’t instant, but it became possible. It felt like a continuation of my mother’s gentleness. What would Buddha do? I would ask myself.
He would forgive again and again.
What This Taught Me About Interfaith Families
In Singapore and Malaysia, mixed-faith families are common. When sickness or death arrives, differences can sharpen quickly. The Dhamma keeps bringing me back to a few truths:
Protect the dying from conflict. Peace of mind is the best gift. It matters more than winning a religious argument.
Don’t weaponise religion. No faith thrives on pressure; real faith is offered, not imposed.
Respect lifelong practice over last-minute confusion. Decades of cultivation outweigh a frail moment.
Steady your own mind first. The dying absorb the emotional weather; a calm presence helps more than frantic chanting.
Forgive sooner than you feel ready. Forgiveness is not approval; it is laying down a weight.
Remember intention. The quality of the heart shapes the journey on; love and clarity travel further than fear.
Closing
My mother died as she lived: quietly Buddhist, quietly steady. Her faith did not falter. Mine almost did.
This whole episode showed me what the Dhamma looks like off the cushion: not flawless serenity, but the courage to pause, breathe, and choose kindness even when the heart is shaking. If your family has wrestled with faith at a hard moment, may this story remind you that clarity and compassion can find their way back in.
TLDR: Caring for our ageing parents can be challenging. Yet, by practising love, compassion, joy, and forgiveness, caregiving can become a path of Buddhist practice in everyday life.
Ageing can sometimes feel scarier than death. It is a slow spiralling towards one’s death, and it affects the person who’s dying and those around them. The Singaporean movie A Good Child explores dementia and its impact on caregivers who must juggle careers and caregiving responsibilities. I explore the different Dhamma themes I uncovered when watching the film.
Love can be loud and rough around the edges. At other times, it can be soft and gentle.
Jia Hao, a drag queen, takes care of his mother, Ju Hua, who has dementia. Even while grappling with childhood trauma and frustration inflicted by his parents, he continues showing up for his mother. He stays when it matters most.
Jia Hao’s partner, his boyfriend, stood by his side. He offered space for Jia Hao to vent, gently called out his insecurities, and allowed him time and distance needed to care for his mother.
Sometimes loving someone means not “chaining” them down. As one gentle sign in a park reminds us: “Please admire the flowers by not plucking them so that others can admire them too.”
By breaking down the word “Loving-kindness” into its two root words, Love and Kindness, I believe that even when we struggle to love fully, we can still choose kindness. One good example of this was when Jia Hao wished for his pregnant sister-in-law to take care of herself.
Love is not a performative act. It is not love only when others can see, hear or praise it. Love is when you can express it in whatever form possible in the simplest ways.
This is exemplified through the dilemma of an older brother in the sandwich generation (someone who has to take care of both elderly parents and younger children), who has to travel frequently for work and has a new family.
I grapple with this myself. I live and work in Singapore while my ageing parents live in Malaysia. While my middle brother cares for them directly, I often feel uneasy about not fulfilling my role as the eldest son, creating an emotional tug-of-war. My parents sacrificed greatly for me, mortgaging our family home to send me to the USA for my studies. Yet I did not complete the Computer Science degree they hoped for. I send a sum of money home monthly to help support my family, but is that enough? How else can I express my love and repay my parents’ kindness in their waning years?
How can we stay compassionate towards those who have hurt us? Compassion may grow more easily when we understand that they, too, have suffered. Their behaviour may not be a true reflection of their feelings towards us.
For example, corporal punishment such as caning or scolding for misbehaviour may serve as a way to protect us from harsher discipline inflicted by others. In A Good Child, Jia Hao was punished harshly by his mother when he was young. Looking back, we see she was trying to protect him from worse treatment from his father. While corporal punishment is no longer encouraged, her intention was rooted in care, even if expressed unskilfully.
One of the most mouth-gasping moments in the movie is when the sister-in-law suggests sending the mother to a nursing home, providing a SWOT analysis of the nursing home options. The initial reaction may be: “How dare she?” This is as unfilial as one can get.
Spoiler alert: We learn that the sister-in-Law is pregnant, which explains why she can’t take care of the mother.
Upon further reflection, it was a wise move. Compassion needs to start with oneself. We cannot care for others if we are not able to care for ourselves. Just like in-flight safety videos that many of us globe-trotting travellers have seen: you put your oxygen mask on yourself first, before you put it on others.
Joy does not need to exist only when life is going great; it can appear in the midst of life’s challenges.
“I will be happy when…” or a variation of such a phrase is often said by many.
But the question is, when does that moment truly arrive? There’s always something new to achieve, a bigger mountain to scale, and the moon to land on.
Psychology calls this hedonic treadmill: the chase for new highs after getting used to what once brought joy.
As Buddhists, we learn to remember impermanence. Can we be sure we will still be alive and healthy when that long-awaited moment finally arrives?
In the movie, the two brothers are caught off guard when the doctor declares that their mother has dementia. Simple moments, such as helping her put on make-up, having a meal together, and revisiting past moments to heal old wounds, turn out to be deeply meaningful and joyful.
Many of us chase future happiness like securing our dream job, ideal partner or home. But is that happiness truly lasting? Happiness is subject to impermanence as well. Instead, we can learn to relish the flickers of joy in our present moments.
Forgiveness starts with ourselves. A moment of enlightenment came to me when Jia Hao told his audience that he would stop sharing denigrating jokes about being a drag queen. Outwardly, he brushed off others’ insults of him and his drag queen peers, but inwardly, he carried internalised homophobia.
By letting go of the shame of being different, he began forgiving and loving himself for who he truly is.
We can still love someone before we fully forgive them. Forgiveness is a process that we may have to revisit over time, but it does not stop us from extending kindness and compassion when needed. Jia Hao loved his mother for raising him despite the pain of being ostracised for being gay and performing drag.
Forgiveness and love are not mutually exclusive emotions.
We can work towards understanding someone and still care for them while we heal. Our parents may not be around by the time we finish forgiving them for whatever “wrongs” they may have inflicted on us.
Buddhist meditation teacher and former monk, Jeff Oliver, has an excellent e-book on “Forgiveness for Everyone,” if you are keen to further explore the practices of forgiveness.
Love is love. Love wins. Love is like raindrops, falling on everyone without discrimination.
The movie highlights the challenges LGBTQ+ individuals face while showing that they can express love, compassion, joy, and forgiveness, as well as a range of other emotions, just like anyone else.
As the Buddha teaches, beyond gender, caste, or profession, we can learn to be kinder and more compassionate toward those around us, regardless of their sexual orientation. Respect and equality should not be reserved for Pride month alone. As wise Buddhist practitioners, may we aspire to be kind and compassionate for one and all.
TLDR: Home visits may seem like an ancient cultural practice to be merely tolerated, but by seeing Chinese New Year (CNY) home visits through the lens of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, we can see Dhamma being practised in our everyday living, not just on the meditation cushion.
Chinese New Year (CNY) often sends a shiver down many people’s spines. From the endless questioning by well-intentioned relatives to the interminable home visits from relatives we barely know, it feels more like modern-day torture than an enjoyable festive season to be savoured.
As I mentally prepare for the yearly CNY home visits, I have begun to reflect that Dhamma is not only practised on the meditation cushion but also in our daily lives. Many meditation teachers have said time and time again that the practice of meditation does not stop at the end of the retreat; it is also only the first half of the practice.
The real practice is in the real world, where you are tasked with living your one true, authentic life.
As a young child, I inevitably had my favourite homes where we could significantly fatten our “Red Envelope” collections with little fuss or worries. There were also others: homes belonging to three-times-removed distant relatives we saw only once a year, or homes where someone lived with a mental health condition that felt frightening to a young, ignorant child. “Making a list and checking it twice” was something my father would do, ensuring that no distant relatives, however far, within and beyond Malacca, were neglected. He would check with my mother to confirm that all relatives’ homes had been visited during the 15 days of the CNY season.
CNY home visits are a radical act of loving-kindness. Extending loving-kindness while omitting no one is the practice of the enlightened ones. My parents did not visit only the wealthy or the socially prominent; they visited family, relatives, and friends regardless of social rank.
Compassion is a verb. Showing up and bearing witness are great acts of compassion. My parents are by no means trained counsellors or psychologists, but they showed up, year in and year out, and listened to whoever had something to share during our CNY home visits. While this is not my origin story of becoming a counselling psychologist, those extended listening sessions may have planted the seeds in me to be like the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin – she who hears the cries of the world.
My mother would ensure that my brother and I were well fed before embarking on our 10-hour, 10-home CNY marathon. She would nudge my father when she noticed her children were tired or uneasy in someone’s home. Small gestures, in the grand schemes of things, to care for one’s child. As my understanding of the Dhamma deepens with knowledge and wisdom, I have learned to appreciate these acts of compassion more fully, whether offered to one’s kin or to others, with a knowing heart.
CNY is also a period of mutual celebration. Sharing the happiness and joy of others’ accomplishments is something to be celebrated.
Now we are ever-connected through social media and can easily receive updates from family, relatives, and friends near and far. Yet nothing beats the shared moments when you hear someone else’s success stories in person.
Rejoicing in one another’s happiness strengthens bonds that rarely form through online updates alone. And yes, online, because, despite our unlimited phone minutes, how often do we actually speak on the phone anymore? As a self-professed shy introvert, I detest phone calls, but that’s just me, being me.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that, despite digital connectivity, we still crave that in-person connection whenever possible. For those brief two days of public holidays, can we extend this spirit of presence to our family and friends? Let us share our joy as people once did in the old kampong days.
Equanimity
When I was younger, I saw less of the world. Over the years and decades that followed, I have come to observe the cycles of lifeand the eight worldly concerns (also known as the eight worldly winds):
1 & 2: Happiness vs. Suffering
3 & 4: Fame vs. Insignificance
5 & 6: Praise vs. Blame
7 & 8: Gain vs. Loss
One thing that I have learned as a counsellor and a human going through life is that we can always learn from others, not only through our own hardships. Observing how people face both challenges and successes during annual CNY home visits has broadened my understanding of the human condition.
Through the four Brahmavihārās, we can cultivate loving-kindness when we greet our relatives and friends during CNY; listen with the heart and ears of compassion when hearing stories of hardship; celebrate with appreciative Joy by sharing in others’ joys and enriching our “bank account” of shared happiness; and return to equanimity when overwhelmed with others’ eight worldly winds, remembering that all beings are owners and heirs to their own kamma.
The First Noble Truth states that birth is dukkha; ageing is dukkha; death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; and not getting what one wants is dukkha.
With each passing CNY, I see more clearly the truth of ageing and death as dukkha. Yet rather than being flooded with overwhelming grief, I choose to turn my heart to the four Brahmavihārās, and I hope you might open your heart to them as well.
Zeb’s Reflections
Hearing story after story of life unfolding, regardless of status, makes me more compassionate towards others’ suffering. It’s one of the many factors that helped soften my sensitive heart and led me to seek ways to respond to the world’s cries, eventually guiding me towards psychology.
It also taught me to be equanimous towards others’ pain and suffering. Helping professionals need to be steady in hearing others’ pain, without being overwhelmed by the inevitable cries of life.
Now that I am older and, I hope, wiser in the Dhamma, I feel deep kataññutā(gratitude) toward my parents for teaching me about the Brahmavihārās in their own lived ways. The Buddha’s teachings are not confined to ancient suttas; they are also embodied in daily life.
One does not have to spend 5 years studying formal Buddhist Studies, as I did, nor countless days on the meditation cushion in a silent retreat, to understand the Dhamma. Sometimes, the Dhamma reveals itself simply by observing our parents.
As Ajahn Chah reminds us, “The heart is the only book worth reading.” We can learn by emulating the skilful teachings expressed through our parents’ daily conduct.
May you enjoy deepening your practice through your CNY home visits and celebrations ahead! And in the spirit of inclusivity, may all who celebrate the upcoming Lunar New Year have a wonderful celebration ahead!
TLDR: A decade’s search to release the mind from suffering through different Buddhist traditions. What I found was boundless love and wisdom across all through different dharma doors.
It has been more than a decade since I began practising seriously on the Buddhist path. I would like to share some reflections on this journey: what I have experienced and what I have observed.
Nothing here is meant as a criticism of any tradition, teacher, or practitioner. What you read is simply my own studies, observations and reflections. My interpretation of the different schools of Buddhism may not be accurate too, please use your discernment.
Seeking Liberation
Unlike many people I have met, I do not find human life particularly blissful. There are moments of joy, but ultimately, there is pain and separation from things and people we love or are familiar with.
We don’t even need to die to experience it. I was born into a family of four, but my parents are no longer with me, my sister is married with her own life, and friends from the past have drifted away. More people are living alone, with no one to care for them. Community and compassion are not easily found on Earth – something I had observed as a youth.
Though separation has always been painful for me, it was anger that led me to the Buddha’s teachings. Impatience runs in my family. I was quick to temper but also quick to forgive.
At one point, I felt betrayed by two close friends, and anger lingered in my body for several days. I noticed how it released toxic energy into my system and realised I needed a way to release it. By chance, I came across an online copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s book on anger, which drew me in.
Soon after, as if by divine intervention, I met a stranger at a vegan bakery. She was enrolled in a Tibetan Buddhism course, a seven-year program that progressed from basic teachings to tantra. She encouraged me to join, even though the course had already been running for a year.
Late one night, I came across a passage where he asked: “Where is the flower? Is it the petals, the leaves, or the stem?” At that moment, I caught my reflection in a large painting frame before me and realised I was no different from the flower. I could not find “me” anywhere.
That realisation shocked me. I went to bed filled with fear, not knowing who or what I was after having lived more than thirty years of my life.
The next morning, however, I awoke with a sense of profound release. A heavy burden seemed to fall away. I no longer felt the need to maintain an identity or construct a personality of likes and dislikes. I felt free.
I had already been meditating on my own for a few years, focusing on the breath. But that morning, my practice took on new depth.
I moved through the day with freedom and happiness for an entire week. I knew it would not last. I wanted to put all my efforts into realising the truth of freedom and bliss within deeply.
Study and Practice in Tibetan Buddhism
The Tibetan school I first encountered emphasised study. Meditation was mostly analytical, guided by texts and structured reflections. We also held weekend group discussions, though since I joined in the second year, I often studied alone.
I remain deeply grateful for this course. It provided step-by-step instructions for practice, especially helpful for beginners unsure of what to reflect upon. Yet I was not a disciplined student. I relished the freedom to explore and test my experiences rather than to simply follow.
I also struggled with doubt, which made it difficult to embrace the practice of guru devotion fully. While the purpose of guru devotion is profound, I observed that many practitioners focused more on the outer teacher than on the inner teacher – our intuition.
Only later did I begin to grasp the depth of Tibetan Buddhism and why wisdom is emphasised at the outset. After two years of study and a retreat at Kopan Monastery, I stepped away, drawn more strongly to meditation than to analysis.
I didn’t realise at the time I was already doing a lot of analytical meditation in daily life through observations of the Buddha’s teachings in daily life.
Though my time in Tibetan Buddhism was brief, the tradition left a deep impression. Thanks to my sincerity and some depth in mindfulness meditation, a lay teacher shared with me the pointing-out instructions from Dzogchen (from the Nyingma Tibetan school), which profoundly deepened my practice.
Later on, I learnt of the Six Yogas of Naropa through reading, and was impressed by how Tibetan Buddhism covers all states of consciousness to help a practitioner realise reality in one lifetime.
Lessons from Zen
Seeking more meditation practice, I joined a Korean Zen centre in Singapore that offered monthly retreats. The school followed Seung Sahn Sunim and worked with koans in the Lingji tradition.
A koan is a paradoxical phrase, riddle, or story used in Zen Buddhism as a tool for meditation to help practitioners transcend logical reasoning and achieve insight or enlightenment.
While koans are meant to halt overthinking, they had the opposite effect on me, stirring even more thought. Eventually, I gave up the koan practice and returned to simple breath meditation, focusing on the abdomen.
During this time, I experimented with fasting and practised prostrations. At the time, I didn’t fully understand their purpose except to watch my craving and physical discomfort. Only later did I realise that fasting heightens sensitivity to the space in the body, while prostrations help reduce the ego and cultivate devotion.
Entering a spiritual practice through devotion makes the path much sweeter. However, I was more keen on the intellect and did not focus so much on my heart.
The Zen centre’s teachings focused on pointing out the duality of thought and its failure in providing truth. Many found them difficult to follow. Some practitioners studied The Blue Cliff Record, a classic Zen koan text, trying to decipher the meaning of each koan.
What I appreciate most from Seung Sahn Sunim’s teachings is the practice of “don’t know mind”—resting in openness and uncertainty. Learning to trust not knowing remains one of the hardest yet most freeing lessons.
Later, I discovered that the Caodong school of Zen, popularised by Japanese master Dōgen and further explained by Taiwanese master Sheng Yen, might have suited me better. The practice of silent illumination, simply sitting with full awareness and letting body and mind fall away, parallels the Tibetan experience of luminosity of mind: an open awareness grounded in the present amid thoughts and feelings.
Returning to Early Teachings
When I could not find clear meditation guidance, I enrolled in a postgraduate diploma course at The Buddhist Library. There, I was introduced to the early Buddhist texts, the Pali Canon. For the first time, I could read the Buddha’s discourses directly rather than only through commentaries. While the texts must be approached with discernment, given their more than 2,500-year transmission, some of the discourses deeply moved me.
Later, I trained in the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition in Yangon, known for its detailed mindfulness practices, including extremely slow walking meditation. Though the slowness is often criticised, it helped me find the joy of walking mindfully (at a normal pace) even in busy Singapore streets, and carried that same presence into daily activities that don’t require thought.
I would note, however, that some schools may place strong emphasis on rigid methods, discouraging practitioners from exploring others. While methods are valuable at the start, the Buddha’s ultimate teaching is release: letting go. Clinging even to a method keeps the mind bound.
In my case, I practised one method which is usually dreaded by humans because it brings up fear and anxiety.
The Power of Death Meditation
Among all practices, the Buddha called mindfulness of death the “king of meditations,” just as the elephant’s footprint is the largest of all footprints.1
There are many ways to practice it: watching the impermanence of each breath, letting go completely with the out-breath, or visualising the decay of the body’s 32 parts. The breath practices help consciousness touch into the space in-between and also surrounding the breath. The 32 parts require deep awareness and the ability to mentally visualise each part in your body, and helps the practitioner realise that space in the body is unity, while the body parts are separate (though they work in unity).
At a two-month retreat in Thailand after the pandemic, I felt despondent, fearing I would never realise the Dharma in this life. Such was my yearning to realise the truth before I die.
Practising methods, watching the breath and daily reflections did not bring me any deep realisation of the truth. I did the 32 parts, but any realisation I had from this practice did not resonate with the depth of my heart.
My deepest fear is the fear of death, or the process of it. I also have a history of anxiety disorder. However, the fear of not realising the truth was deeper than the fear of death.
Desperate, and inspired by the Hindu saint Ramana Maharshi, I began imitating him by visualising my own death. I imagined my body dying in various situations and ceasing to breathe.
Fear arose at feelings, thoughts and consciousness dissolving into nothingness. Yet in that imagined death, a deep love and bliss arose in my chest. I realised that there is no such thing as nothingness! What’s left after the five aggregates (body, feelings, perception, thought and consciousness) dissolve, is something quite spiritual.
The Dalai Lama himself practices death meditation daily. He describes death as the greatest opportunity for liberation. It is at this pivotal moment one finds out the depth of one’s practice in life.
Toward a Unified Understanding
Over time, I realised that all Buddhist traditions, and indeed all religions, ultimately point us toward the same truth: the nature of our minds.2
From my experience, the three traditions have these characteristics that stood out to me (it might be different for each person).
The Theravāda tradition emphasises wisdom, the Mahayana school emphasises compassion, while Tibetan Buddhism unites the two through devotion (love) and analysis. Compassion, in the Mahayana and Tibetan traditions, is not separate from love. It is unconditional love grounded in wisdom.
The four Brahmavihāras—metta, karuna, mudita, and uppekha—taught in early Buddhism are also not separate qualities but a unified expression of the same boundless love. Equanimity, which is one of the qualities of awakening, is not a cold-hearted detachment. It contains compassion for all, while having the wisdom to know how one can, or can’t help oneself and others.
Boundless compassion comes from the wisdom of letting go and walking through fear with trust – indeed it is hard to trust ‘not knowing’ and to stay with deeply difficult emotions such as anxiety, to be open to it, and watch it cease.
My deepest understanding of the practice today is that when compassion arises with an open heart, we can stay with painful feelings without rejection or suppression – it can still be difficult and requires courage and trust, but something we can apply repeatedly until we can accept suffering and not be caught in it.
A friend once reminded me: practice leads not to the end of painful feelings, but to the end of suffering.
Perhaps it is in embracing the human experience fully, without avoidance or obsession, that one truly becomes human, and in doing so, transcends the human condition.
Wise steps:
If you are new on the path, be open-minded. There is something you can learn from each tradition because ultimately they all lead to awakening, including other spiritual paths.
Follow your heart, even though in this world, we have been taught not to trust it. Balanced it with wisdom. The heart contains intuition, and can lead us to places we need to be, not want to be.
1 Please note that there are different meditations for different mind states and personalities. Death meditation is not suitable for everyone, especially for those feeling depressed or anxious. I have anxieties over death, and it was with great determination and despondency for not being close to the truth (awakening) that I practised it.
2 The statement is based on my own research, reading and practice of different Buddhist traditions as well as other religions. Every religion has a public face and a less known side where the teachings and practice include meditation, recollection, and reflection. Most people are familiar with the public side, not the deeper side of religions.
