By Yang Miang

In a short span of about a month, three weddings and three funerals took place among my relatives and friends. Weddings are happy occasions. The couples are embarking on their life journeys together, and in Singapore, most married couples want to have children, so it is the prelude to a new life.

In contrast, funerals are sad occasions. Friends and relatives are there to bid their final farewell to their loved ones and to offer their condolences to the families of those who passed away. Of the three funerals that happened recently, two were for elderlies and one was for a friend who was in his forties. To me, it was particularly devastating to see a younger person passing away, especially when he has three young children.

These recent events got me thinking. Although funerals and weddings among my relatives and friends seem frequent recently, it is nothing compared to the global number of births and deaths per day. Based on a 2011 estimates, there are 250 births and 105 deaths per minute. As highlighted by the humourist Emily Levine (who passed away on February 3, 2019) in her Tedtalk, life is “a cycle of generation, degeneration, regeneration.” This is a natural cycle. It is impossible to resist death, because life and death are different sides of the same coin. 

The wisdom that Emily showed is refreshing, but not new. The Buddha had expounded this truth more than 2,000 years ago. The Buddha taught that everything goes through four stages of “成，住，坏，空”, which are roughly translated as “formation, continuance, degeneration, and cessation”. This natural cycle happens to everything, including the stars in the universe, our earth, the mountains, the buildings we live in, and… all of us. The more we get attached to things and people, and the more we resist this natural cycle, the more suffering we will experience at some point in life. In short, all of us have to deal with impermanence (无常), i.e. nothing stays on forever and the only question is “when will death occur?”

I don’t think Buddha wants us to escape suffering by avoiding all relationships and possessions. If that is the case, we cannot get married, cannot make friends, and we should isolate ourselves from the world and become hermits. I believe the crux of the teaching is that we should cultivate the ability to be aware of our mind constantly and not be controlled by its tendency to cling onto things and people. When it is time to let go, we should let go. In this way, we would have achieved liberation and will no longer suffer because of the natural cycle of life and death.

True liberation comes from the ability to be serene with events in life, yet caring for the needs of others and fulfilling our duties. To achieve liberation, we have to first accept the Truths expounded by Buddha, who is essentially an enlightened individual who fully comprehends the workings of nature and is truly liberated. However, like what a good friend says when I tried to share Buddha’s teachings with him, all these are “just theory”. Thus, after accepting the teachings, we have to do our best to put the teachings into practice every single moment in life. 

The practice requires us to maintain pure awareness of our mind. Each arising of thought is like a new life, and each cessation of thought is like death. Many-a-times we cling onto a thought, creating a series of new thoughts after that, and the thinking machine seems to take on a life of its own and we are taken on rides with it unknowingly. At times, this thinking machine is positive because it helps us solve problems, get things done, and if the thoughts are happy thoughts, we feel happy. Other times (such as at the point of the death of a loved one), it can be horrible to have the thinking machine churning on inaction, because it can generate extremely negative emotions, for instance tremendous sadness, anger, hatred and resentment. 

Similarly, the thinking machine will cause us to suffer immensely when we face our own death, because we will cling onto life even when our body can no longer function. Thus, Buddhist cultivation not only helps us to face the death of others, but also our own death.

If we continue to practise being with our pure awareness, at some stage, we will attain the ability to just be aware of our thoughts, and have the choice to only entertain positive thoughts, or thoughts that are useful for the situation that we are in. This is the key to living well in a world governed by the inevitable cycle of life and death. When there’s life, treasure it and make full use of it positively. When there’s death, acknowledge it, but do our best to let go and accept it as soon as we can. For most people, it is not possible to achieve liberation instantly, but it is worthwhile to work towards it, because it affects our bliss and the happiness of people around us.

I have had my wedding, two baby showers for my kids, and I have no idea when my funeral will come. Meanwhile, I am making full use of my life to help spread the positive messages expounded by the Buddha. Concurrently, I am preparing for my eventual death, by constantly learning to let go of negative and needless thoughts.

By Yang Miang

When I was young, I felt that competition was the fairest way to earn recognition, create opportunities and attain greatness. I worked hard to get good grades and did well in my extra-curricular activities. As I embarked on my career, my colleagues and I are subjected to annual performance appraisals, which will determine who gets a fatter bonus or the precious promotion. Thus, I worked hard, believing that my diligence will pay off eventually. I accepted such comparison and competition as facts of modern society.

I was an athlete back then in secondary school. During those annual school track and field meets, I often achieved the top three positions for events like 100m and 200m sprints. Despite that, I did not remember feeling satisfied or happy. That was because, to me, being second or third equates to losing. Even if I came in first, which was not very frequent, there was the constant fear of losing the next time. I brought this attitude with me when I started working. I was very competitive and I worked too hard. As a result, I suffered from insomnia and irritable bowel syndrome , and frequently, displayed bad temper towards my colleagues and family.  

I used to believe that cut-throat competition between people and organisations pushes us towards better performance and innovation. I was told at a recent conference that if we don’t continue to invent new things to disrupt other people’s jobs, ours will be disrupted. Does this perpetual sense of insecurity and animosity lead to better lives, I now wonder? At this point of my life, I cannot see the logic anymore. I believe the pace of change and competition is leading us to a lower quality of life. This megatrend is, perhaps, unstoppable. 

So, what can we do to survive then? What should we teach our children to enable them to survive this escalating pace of increasingly intense competition and degenerating quality of life? Many emphasised the importance of creativity, ability to learn, and technology to survive the new world order. 

I don’t think they are wrong, but I think they missed an important ingredient.

My personal take is that the true answer lies in spirituality. I think there is nothing inherently wrong with competition, but if people over-focus on material gains and personal ambitions, then competition, as a social mechanism, will cause more harm than good. 

Spirituality is about connecting with our inner selves, to understand our thoughts clearly. If we can understand our own minds, we can then act wisely with full awareness of the consequences of our actions. 

I believe spirituality is the fundamental survival skill for the future. The escalating pace of work, compounding level of stress, and ever-increasing demands of society will continue. If we do not have the ability to look inwards, and derive our own inner peace, then we can be easily consumed by the tsunami of stress and competition; leaving us feeling dissatisfied and inadequate. We must teach our children the importance of finding and anchoring to our inner compass and learn how to let go of our attachments to the desire to win, and the want to boost our ego. If we have the ability to let go and achieve inner peace wherever we are, I’m sure we will do well in life regardless of the competitive environment.

When we become so driven by competition, and determined to achieve our academic or career goals, we frequently lose sight of what is important. Many become tempted to sacrifice their family, health, and even moral values to achieve “greatness”. This “greatness” is often our ego, our desire to be remembered, leaving behind our legacy, which may not benefit humanity in the long run.

In contrast, many Buddhist masters have achieved amazing feats without competition with others. For example, Venerable Master Xuanzang travelled across the Gobi Desert, ice cold mountains and dangerous foreign lands to obtain Buddhist scriptures for China. He spent more than 15 years out of China at a time when the Chinese emperor forbade foreign travel. When he finally went back to China, he was greatly honoured for his amazing achievements, but he refused all offers of high civil appointments. Instead, he organised a massive operation to interpret more than 600 Indian scriptures he brought back. He then spent the rest of his life overseeing the painstaking process of meticulous translation, all these lasting about 20 years. I believe spirituality is the reason for Venerable Master Xuanzang’s achievements.

Spirituality allows us to see the inter-dependence among all beings, and encourage compassion. Like all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhist Masters, compassion energises us with a sense of mission to make the world a better place. We don’t have to cross the Gobi Desert to help others. All we have to do is to look beyond competition and material gains, and extend our helping hands to those who need it. Just do that little bit more for people around us, not for winning, but because we are all sentient beings living together in this Saha world, i.e. world of enduring suffering. Compassion can then lead to true greatness. A selfless form of greatness that truly deserves praise and admiration.