Post-Meditation Camp Reflection

Hi readers! It is the end of the year, and I believe most people would be preparing their new year's resolution right around this time. I, on the other hand, have another thing occupying my mind. I have just returned from a 6-days meditation camp at Puncak, and that trip, despite its shortcomings, was nothing less than insightful for me. I understand that I (again) have abandoned this blog for almost 3 months now (last post was on October, I was surprised myself) and I would not do justice if I do not attempt to bring you readers up to speed as of what I have been doing and stuff, but I was doing exactly just that in another blogpost draft and I can't seem to finish what I intended to write in the first place. So now I shall start straight away with what I needed to write down first, and perhaps, close it with some personal updates.

The camp was organized by the Vihara I often go to whenever I am in my home country. The camp itself was held between 22-27 December, targeted for people between 15 and 28 years old (supposedly, but lack of participants might stretch the age range quite a bit. The youngest participant turned out to be 13 year old and was really a nuisance). Although initially I was skeptical, this trip turned out to be one of the most insightful camps I have had for the past few years; it allows me to rediscover myself both worldly and spiritually. Below are some of the things that I get from this trip.

Attention: there are some religious stuff here that some may not want to see, so if you are one of them, please skip to the part that says "Religious stuff ends".

Firstly, I found out that it is extremely fortunate for us Buddhist to be born as, well, Buddhists, around this time, place, and condition. To put it into perspective, let us zoom into each of the aspects one at a time.

Time. Some or maybe even most Buddhists may not know about this, so let me provide you readers with a little background information. It is said that the Dhamma (Buddha's teaching) only lives in short periods of 5000 years along the age of the universe, separated by long periods of time where there is no government, law, or religion which governs people's lives. Now, most (if not all) of us Buddhists will know that next year we will be celebrating 2559th Vesak Day, which was counted from the day the Buddha parinibbana ("ascension", in layman/Christian term). This means we are already past the halfway mark of the period of Dhamma's existence. We are very lucky to be able to live in this era when Dhamma still exist, though not in the perfect condition.

Place. There are not many places in the world where we can exercise our rights to practice our religion without disturbance or even threats from other parties. I am fortunate enough to be born in Indonesia, to be exact in Jakarta, where freedom to practice religion is generally upheld. If I were to be born in the less fortunate parts of Indonesia, or even other countries, I may not be able to practice the Dhamma. I am also most fortunate to be born in a Buddhist family, and a fairly devoted one at that.

Condition. Most Buddhists should know that the Dhamma is most accessible to those who are born as human. Most Buddhists should also know that it is extremely hard to be born to be a human being. One analogy that the Buddha had used to express how difficult it is for one to be born a human includes a turtle which is swimming in the ocean, only goes to the surface once every 100 years, and when it does go to the surface, its head just exactly goes into a ring, whose diameter is exactly the same as that of the turtle's head. If one were to be born as lesser beings like animals or spirits (I meant Peta, to Buddhists out there) or even greater beings like gods, Dhamma would not be as accessible. It is quite obvious: as lesser beings, one is constantly occupied with one's sufferings (animals by their animals' instincts, for instance). On the other hand, as greater beings, one is constantly occupied with one's happiness (in Buddhism, we believe that gods can materialize anything, any time they want). There is also a problem of "language". Animals, of course, do not understand human language, or at least they do not understand our language the way we do. So do the gods. Those greater beings, as I was told, can only communicate with us humans through our minds. On the other hand, we humans can understand each other comparatively easier, as any language can always be learned. This is not the case when we are talking about language across realms; gods cannot learn human language. 

I do not know about you readers, but personally, these things gave me the chills. I mean, just look at each of those aspects. The Dhamma have lived off half of its lifetime, and we do not even know what we have been doing in all those years when we were born as other beings. I am sure we are all aware of how little the number of Buddhist who lived in this world. We could easily be born in any other family who does not know the Dhamma, being raised without it, and may even grow to hate on it, if I happen to born as a fanatic of another religion. As for condition, I think my explanation said enough about how fortunate I feel to be born as human.

I have been practicing Dhamma for my whole childhood, and still, I feel I have wasted this precious opportunity to be born in the right time, place, and condition. I have been gradually abandoning the Dhamma while I am studying in Singapore, even to the point when I am thinking of becoming an atheist or at the very least, a free-thinker. I am really glad that I joined the meditation camp and had the chance to renew my belief to the triple gems of Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. I have this guy with initial AV to thank for my renewed faith.

Religious stuff ends

Another thing I discovered from participating in this camp is my outgoing personality. I thought I have changed over the years I lived in Singapore, becoming more quiet and less outspoken, and it was all because of that thing I will never finish writing. I still remember the days when I was much more outgoing, had many friends and did crazy stuff. I thought that time was over. As it turned out, in that camp, I spoke much more than when I was in Singapore, did some stupid stuff too (there were 2 days full of games after the actual meditation, so yeah, you have plenty of time to be crazy too). And I felt alive like never before. I felt like my personality from 6 years ago came back to me. Not entirely, as I still have the reflective and quiet part of me showing from time to time, but in general, I was quite outgoing during the trip. I am so glad to be able to rediscover my lost outgoing personality; I am sure I will need it to face the upcoming year.

As to why I lost it (my old personality) in the first place, I am also not entirely sure myself. I always attributed it to that thing I will never finish writing, but it must have been a combination of things. I may also have been depressed due to the stress from the Singapore's tough education system. Some of the symptoms do match, so I actually have been considering going for counselling for the longest time, but that's a story for another post.

I think I would end my post here, although I discovered many more things from the camp, such as a renewed motivation to deepen my meditation and doubts about the degree I am currently pursuing. However, if I were to delay publishing this, waiting for me to finish elaborating on those two, this post may never be published at all, so if any of you readers would like to hear the full story, please do not hesitate to ask me; I would be more than glad to share it with you! =)

PS. As I "proof-read" (more like merely re-read) this post, I realized I was supposed to provide some updates about what I have been up to while I am gone. Well, I did quite OK for the semester, despite it being another drop from the previous semester. I am currently working on 2 projects, one is with my friends, building a web application for people who want to learn to play guitar. The other project is for school; the project is to build a virtual machine for JediScript, a language that is used for one of the first programming modules one can take in NUS. The two projects, as it turned out, took very little of my time so I still can spare some time going for the meditation camp.