Thursday, January 27, 2005

Seeking for The True Happiness ...


SOMETIME in the winter 1995, shortly after reading a famous work from the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and two hours continuously walking under a heavy rain along a lakeside trace in Amsterdam, I was suddenly awakening during my meal, sitting on a chair.

A FEW DAYS after my awakening and after many hours continuous walking to Nowhere, It was silent and very restful in my mind. I experienced something strange, very strange happenings that, until today I do not have any clear answer.

MY SENSES seemed to be more open, much more sensitive than they used to be! Just touching my daughter's hand, I heard the incredible sounds of her heartbeats, very loudly !. Middle in the nights, I heard her breaths like thunder. I could smell some strange odor very clearly from afar. I could read very small signs of music from a book at very far distances...
And many other amazing things ...
Put it another way, the working range of my senses and my mind seemed to be extended far beyond where they were supposed to be ...
It is amazing !.

IT LOOKED AS if I usually observed the outside world only through some very small windows, or some very restricted openings. During a few days at that time, the openings were wider, or perhaps some more windows were opened ...
That means we could be more capable in perception of something than we suppose to ...

IT REMAINS SOmany open questions ... if all the windows were opened, at that time ...
If not, what are the ultimate abilities of our senses? Is there any provable method to extend the ranges of our senses when we want to? What else could we experience if we are in the state of totally open for a long time? ...
I DID NOT try to investigate further those questions yet , because these are out of my abilities for now, I believe. But my awakening and these happenings disclosed a new dimension for me.
My view of the world is totally changed ! There are still so many unanswered questions ...

SINCE THEN, with the help of famous works from the Zen masters Thich Nhat Hanh, Diana St. Ruth, Tarthang Tulku, Dennis Genpo Merzel and Narada Thera, I gained some successes in search for the true Reality of life, for my Happiness, although I never have a chance to be a student of any of them.

AT THE SAME time, I stopped smoking, drinking tea, coffee, beer ... and many things, one by one, without any effort, without any intention.
It is another extremes, the objections of whom I used to be.

IN THE NIGHT of the 24th of June 1996 and the day after, I experienced the True Happiness for the first time.

SUDDENLY IT WAS silent !.
Just like the moment directly after the ending of the war 21 years ago:
Suddenly there was silent, strange silence. Something was happening. No sound of weapons. No warplanes. No body did say anything...
Nothing !.
It is the dead of a being and the birth of another one. Or it is the transformation of some beings into something new.

BUT THERE IS something more, now.
Times and Space seem to me indifferent !
It is Silence, sweet silence. It is Peace in my mind. It is relaxing everywhere in my body and and the space around me.
Some kind of Joy and Peace is slowly arising from somewhere inside the unknown ...

I am the breaths. I am the space around me and I am the space outside the window. Except my breaths and the space around me, there is nothing else ...
I am in Nonthinking state !.

THAT NIGHT, (almost) all my background processes have been eliminated from my mind (or perhaps in non active state) . I slept as a baby for the first time since I was born...
During the night,the built-up energy in my brain was not wasted for something nonsense's.

THE NEXT MORNING when I woke up , I was another person, in full power, in very pleasant feeling and wanted to be out of bed immediately...
It seemed to me, as if I was just back at home from a long walk through the wood, in the morning ...

SUDDENLY I LOOKED around me: the sleeping room, the bed, outside the window ..., and smiling: I am happy, now !
Just me and the bed, the sleeping room, the sitting room, the books ...
Just cooking, washing, cleaning, reading ... doing something ...
Just doing something in Happiness without any reasons. !

It was the first time in my life, my mind-computer was totally shut down that night .
It is amazing!

IN THE WINTER 1997, I discovered some analogies between our states of mind and parallel computer systems. It is amazing ! Our mind is the most powerful recursive process that no computer system could ever truly parallel in any way, I believe.

AT SOME instances, I heard my thoughts slowly arising from somewhere inside the unknown world, the world of minds, the world of non-substances...
There are still so many unanswered questions!.

I DID NOT try to do some researches in those directions further, because I am not a Zen master, and neither am I a master in psychiatry.
I am merely someone searching for the Reality of life, for the True Happiness, for My Happiness, now !.

ON THE OTHER hand, the world of minds is totally unknown to me. It is a recursively defined world. You could easily lose your way in there and never have enough power to be back in the Reality again.
It is another dimension !.

THE SPACE between our world of Reality and the non-substances is also very interesting. It is the gate to the Unknown. It is some kinds of Interface between those two worlds, just as the interfaces or the Microprogramming Level in Computer Science, between software and hardware. I believe.
By chance, I got some experiences in this space, but ...
There are still many unanswered questions!.

I UNDERSTAND it is the greatest challenge in Artificial Intelligence to simulate our brain. Perhaps you should be at the same times a Zen master and a computer scientist in the field of Artificial Intelligence to be able to do something about that.
You could be the second Einstein who discovers the law of Existence in the Universe, or the first android on earth.

ONE YEARlater, In the spring of 1998, walking in Utrecht I smelt from afar the Turkish hot bread along the canal...
Suddenly. I am hungry.
After four years of objections, it was the best food I ever had in my life. My mind is the Turkish bread at that moment. ..

DURING ONE whole week in April this year, 1999, I experienced once again the True Happiness. Just like a child, non thinking, enjoying some kinds of freedom, doing something ...
Just doing something...
Every day I woke up in full power, in Happiness, in very pleasant feeling without any reasons.
It is amazing!

It is silent, totally silent !.
I was there, not in Nirvana, but in The True Happiness . ..
I am an old man of hundreds of years, and I am a child of one ...
Streams of thoughts ceased to exist in my mind.

Time and Space seem to me indifferent ...
I am an island of myself, a Nondependent very happy creature...
I knew I was born again at that time !.
It is still amazing!

SO MANY doctrines ! So many arguments !.
So many books!. So many definitions!. So many words! ...
And finally, no words, no definitions, and even no Nirvana. ..
Nothing!
It is the Nonduality, the Nonpreference, the world of no reasons !...
When you finally at the other side of the river, you let the rowing boat behind !

DURING THIS one week, I understand so many things, without the need of any definitions, without the need of any words ...
It is the whole Universe and at the same time, it is the Empty Space !.
It is still amazing!

THE NEXT Friday I took the train to Utrecht looking for some books. Outside the windows along the railway, the yellow sun rays falling on the trees in some small forests. Some cows eating in the fields at some distances. The houses, some new, some old, colorful houses...
Some horses running far away...
Such as beautiful sight I never saw before !
It is not the Imaginations of some thinking minds, but the Reality at That Moment ...




SO, WHAT IS THEN THE TRUE HAPPINESS ?

IT SHOULD deserve its own page. It should deserve a publication, a life work from many years ...
It should deserve a real scientific research with many proofs, many evidences.
It should also deserve thousands of vehicles, thousands of books, and thousands of faces to bring the Truth to thousands of different abstract levels in the society ...

ON ONE side of the River we need doctrines, we need definitions, we need arguments, we need debates .. to say something ...

AT THE OTHER riverside, we need ... nothing !
Shiddhartha began The Great Way some twenty five hundreds years ago ...
So ...

October 1999,
Nguyen Sau Rieng


  FURTHER IN About ... Me ! ......

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You might have read "DDa^u La` Cho*n Ha.nh Phu'c" ? by Thie^`n Su* Thi'ch Thanh Tu*`

Happiness is not far to find. It's so near and within our reach when we stop look around but look into ourselves!

11:18 PM  

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