Friday, October 25, 2013

It’s the Blood Not Poem


We are human and we do make mistakes, but sometimes we nimble on tiny one and do not bother about the big things that encompass us. This smallest of faults takes life with quarrels, divorces, and suicides. The poem talks about suffering while he and his wife misconstrue. The misunderstanding is created because of not knowing ‘Who they are?’ The sharing and trust also matter to have no broken heart. The poem is the reflection of what I feel, and what I have seen over the fences.

 
My tears roll on this page
As I am made to
A sentiment overflows unceasingly;
So painful to take
My life’s thwarted
Lacerated.

I am living to die
I can’t change
Only you can
The dark lines will live;
This faded excitement,
Dimmed view
This dullness
I can’t see
Why can’t I?
What have I done?
Was I very unlike self?

Can’t you cry?
Seeing the falling;
Have I wronged you?
My so many wrongs
Have broken me by your one wrong;
You separated me
This one is brutal.

Now I drink my teardrops;
Drinking it to stop,
But it flows
And on my face its burrow.
It’s fickle, lost and nervous,
Lifeless and oblivious,
Creating enemies with this surge
I blame, this I disparage;
Is my fate destined to be?
Why I am here?
Why I came?
I don’t know.
I am now pointless;
Wandering in a wondering street
Seems flying to the dreary places.

Lack of your love
Droopily I wander
Kicking the block of bricks,
Punching the remains wall
I don’t sense the hurt
I wound my skins red
I sprint to and fro
What place is this?

People pass by
I drift through the swarms;
Nobody bothers to give a glance,
Nobody heeds what’s next to
I am a single in the mass,
I feel, because you singled me out.

My feet took on
And the aches pass on
Days scratch me down
I focus on, but useless
To me, it’s theirs;
This world of charms and jollities
I am away from this magic of living
And in the angle of miseries.

Depressions hover me,
It fogs up with so many reasons for
We shouldn’t have been separated;
What will happen to our kids?
And the trust of our relatives?
To you and me;
To meet, and memories,
Attachment and affection
Every detail will slowly killed

Now those relationships crushed me
I have been so attached,
I call back howling,
Flinging my body on the floor
Love kills me
My skulls break
Why is life cracking like this?
Why is life created like this?
I didn’t craft this situation
Nor anyone’s art.
It’s the movie
And it has reached to climax
To lay myself
Buried
Dying like a cat,
Freeing from everyone’s care and burden,
Since I have been a poor man
I was unmatched to be well-off
And I wasn’t suit to be a husband and a father
And I wasn’t made to love.

Let me lay now,
As distorted man has no heart to give!
Nobody disturb the depraved corpse.
What sin had I committed?
The offense of loving!
The sin of unapprised reciprocal care?
The fault of fathering offspring?
The failing of keeping silent?
Everything happens in life
But not in loving!
I am dead of my sins
These sins make me mad
Atoned me for if I had wronged.
But don’t you know these are our sins?
Don’t you think these are our lives?
I hark on others live;
They say the interferences, the obstacles, the rebukes
Are the parts of lives?
Each one has restricted love
Further by their children
They keep on together
They know each other.

You said and I said, we have;
Sharing, understanding, saying we can grow again
By and by, you must know me
And I must know you
Who am I?
Who are you?
Where do things go wrong?
I knew not you or me
That’s where we got wrong
Sensible, a person must in whatever
Sense is an affair reality
We cannot lead a poetic life
As all people grave down
I have mind now
And I feel I cannot live
It’s hard to live without you
The distance I keep now
Is the millions of years of distance?
The gap between us
The gap between our children
Is the distance of shade?
The gap is a piece of shade.

As you wish
As you wanted me to separate
These distance and gap
The spaces and mountains
Between us is unbearable
When you had told me dithering words
When your father told me to get a divorce
I did what you desired
I asked what I needed
But you fell to provide me
For the love of you
I did everything.
I am a nag, I nag
But now, here I cry
I cry
The songs I hear make me tears
The room I live makes me submerged
I am crushing
In-between two walls
I am bleeding
My blood are all tears
Our children are also crying
You may be crying
Our children might be longing for sweets
What made you cry?
Here I am having sleepless nights
Turning round and round
Glimpsing about the incidents
The incidents that we had created
To go all underground
It came vividly on the walls
You may say, “I am unlike others,”
We are different
But we are bounded by one
Unbreakable love.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

My favorite Buddhist Parables


Many teachings of Buddhism is taught and told in short and delightful parables. They are usually designed to develop the mind and to free it from distortions and so to connect with our spirit.

Many of them are really inspiring and enlightening. It is helpful to the mind to think about them and feel the deeper meaning. Even if it is not possible to grasp them fully, the beauty and simplicity of the message usually get through to us one way or the other.

Some parables are a selection of the ones I found most inspiring and really worth pondering about. Some may be instantly understood, some others need to be thought through and recognized in oneself. We must always keep in mind two crucial principles: the Buddha Mind and serious practice. Without practice, and without the determination to achieve Buddha-hood for the benefit of all sentient beings (Bodhi Mind), parables merely feed the intellect and may become, in the words of D.T. Suzuki, "mere bubbles." 



1.       The Moving Flag

Two Buddhists monks were arguing about a flag flapping in the wind.
"It's the wind that is really moving," stated the first one.
"No, it is the flag that is moving," contended the second.
A third interrupted them. "Neither the flag nor the wind is moving," he said, "It is MIND that is moving."


2.       Goddess of Wealth / Goddess of Poverty

Once a beautiful and well-dressed woman visited a house. The master of the house asked her who she was and she replied that she was the goddess of wealth. The master of the house was delighted and so greeted her with open arms. Soon after another woman appeared who was ugly looking and poorly dressed. The master asked who she was and the woman replied that she was the goddess of poverty. The master was frightened and tried to drive her out of the house, but the woman refused to depart, saying, 'The goddess of wealth is my sister. There is an agreement between us that we are never to live apart; if you chase me out, she is to go with me.' Sure enough, as soon as the ugly woman went out, the other woman disappeared.
Birth goes with death. Fortune goes with misfortune. Bad things follow good things. Men should realize this. Foolish people dread misfortune and strive after good fortune, but those who seek Enlightenment must transcend both of them. (from The Teaching of the Buddha)


3.       A True Buddha

Three monks were drinking tea.
The Buddhist master asked the first monk, “What do you drink with your tea?”
The first monk replied, “I drink suffering, loneliness and make peace and happiness.”
The master nodded and exclaimed, “Oh, you are great, an enlightened one. You go now.”
The same question was asked to the second monk.
And the second monk replied, “I drink Buddha’s teaching, compassion and the Buddha himself with the tea.”
The master now fully satisfied with his explanation said, “You are a truly Buddha, an enlightened one. You too go.”
Then the master asked the third monk, “What do you drink with your tea?”
The third monk replied, “I picked out the fly from the tea cup and drink only tea.”
The master smiled and said, “You are the right person to sit in my place.”
And the master gave his sit to the third monk.


4.       The Buddha

There were two monks.
Younger is sitting in zazen.
Elder inquires, “Why are you sitting in zazen?”
Younger replies, “By sitting in zazen, I hope eventually to become a Buddha.”
Elder picks up a brick and begins rubbing it on a rock.
Younger laughs, “And what are you doing?”
Elder replies, “I am polishing this brick in hopes that eventually it will become a mirror.”
(The advanced story ends here, but for the rest of us it continues.)
Younger asks, “How can polishing a brick make a mirror?”
Elder retorts, “How can sitting in zazen make a Buddha!”
(And, true to the ancient formula, the younger monk instantly became a mirror.)

Saturday, October 19, 2013

This is A New Place


It is blistering. It is hot. It is tough. This is a new place. This is Yebilaptsa. This is a different place. But I don’t feel different. It is the same feelings - the feelings of lowliness and remoteness hang like goiters as of now. Because I am brutally separated from my loving family, I feel that if not this place is simply good. I think the powerful magnetic force of Zhemgang - every little thing of this place has pulled me here, aside. I believe that things will turn out good when it seems not so to me.

To be frank, Yebilaptsa is a beautiful place, the school and the hospital are located just four kilometers from Tingtibi and the national highway of Gelephug-Zhemgang-Trongsa that runs just below school. Yebilaptsa is surrounded by coniferous pine trees. The smell of cones and the long pine leaves scented around houses and schools. This lowland stands inside a forest of trees. The nearest village is almost four kilometers. There are only a few private buildings. All houses are for school and the hospital.

The school is MSS. It is a boarding school. There are 410 plus students schooled in by 22 teachers and countable numbers of supporting staff. There are as many cooks as the teaching staff. The classes range from seven to ten. The students here are well-behaved - a polite one, and very hard working. I came to know that this school is one of the best in the country. In a class, students’ silence could hear flowers budding. They believe in what teachers say. I told them only yesterday that they shouldn’t believe in everything in what they hear or read. I told them to experience and see themselves.

The fans of rooms rotate slowly, churning away heat. The lousy sleep creeps in. I am lying down. And it is almost winter, time to migrate, for good.


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Thursday, October 10, 2013

Praise is Worth a Thousand P☺unds


 “What an imagination Kinley!” a teacher praised his student.
  Kinley smiled and said, “Thank you.”

The teacher throws another question. All students put their hands up.
“Let me…,” someone says.
The teacher has a very complaisant and lively class. The teacher thinks students a good friends and the students think teacher the sun; the sun that shines warmly and equally.

The teacher uses encouraging remarks every time his pupils make slight progress. The students work hard to get the best remark from their teacher. They glow, gaining interest and arising curiosity and prepare for the best response. They are curious of what could be the next good word! They want to please the teacher, and the teacher wants to impress them; fulfilling both objectives and goals of his or her life at last.

The teacher uses so many means of verbal and written reinforcements like; how smart, I’m proud of you, what a good listener, magnificent, that’s the best, awesome, remarkable job, super work, outstanding, exceptional (Some remarks frequently used) and besides then he also makes written comments, pats, applauses, smiles, gestures, gifts and acknowledgments. The skill of reinforcement is a basic tool that a teacher uses to enhance teaching and learning.

For a systematic and successful teaching-learning process, the feedbacks of relevancy, immediate or timely, factual, helpful, respectful and sometimes confidential as per the need, would be of greater assistance.

The students also learn to do good things with good remarks. Pupils are like tender beans plants, if not supported, they will not flourish with the fruit.

Scientific study has found out, a badmash person would become a good person in a pleasant environment or surrounding and otherwise vice versa. The psychologists also argue that, “students of teachers who emphasize teaching behaviors such as praise and encouragement tend to learn more than students of teachers who emphasize criticism and punishment,” and that the teachers who “check students’ progress regularly and adjust instructions accordingly” are using effective teaching strategies.

So in teaching-learning area, the kind of environment and strategies adopted will decide and affect the students’ studies and living lives throughout.

An encouraging class will have supportive and attentive class, and by way develops enthusiasm in learning.
If observed thoroughly, people’s mannerisms will tell that the magic of reinforcements in teaching has so much effect in their studies and life also.

What are soothing to our ears are nicely said words/ sweet words, just as if sweets are sweets to our mouth. We desire and but sometimes we demand it and especially students must sometimes “Deserve and Desire.”