What have I learned on Thursday?

Ashok asked me what value-add I got from Thursday's Integrative Healing talk. If I have to name one thing, I would have to say I learned the 21st century's terminology to describe awakening.

Amit (tongue-in cheek, perhaps) calls it Logon. It's an apt metaphor in the computer age. After all, if one does not logon (or login) to a computer, one only has pens and paper to do math or write a note.

An unawakened (untrained) mind is a "monkey mind" that is busy with figuring, worrying, calculating, seldom at peace and certainly unoptimized. It is vague about creativity, joy, happiness, determination. It is unaware of the power that the quiet mind knows. What then is the power? It's the power to create.

Just think...the lecture was created by an intention--an intention of being connected to a cause and purpose that is higher than self. I got to know Ashok because we both served on the board of Diversity Council. We had the intention to help build an inclusive world. Similarly, ANG/LPG came into being and persist for more or less the same reason--an intention to share. From that intention, with no specific plan, friendship circles formed and grew and joined to form bigger circles. It's the old saying: one thing leads to another. With a trained mind, you can direct your attention to find the connections you want. Result, in this case, we got to logon to the same program, the same lesson, the same space on a lovely Thursday afternoon, people from all parts of the world got to enjoy the the same time/space continuum of the universe.

Coincidentally Amit the keynote speaker and Parul the IBMer in conversations after the talk found out that they both came from the same city in India and shared a common bond of a university there. In their hometown neighborhood, they had not known each other, but wonderfully and magically thousands of miles away on a lovely afternoon in an austere auditorium at a computer company, logged on, their paths finally crossed.

The way I look at it what I witnessed was a creation of the "Trained Mind"--an intentional, universal consciousness--a synchronicity. So, beyond the word lesson (ancient and modern wisdom) that Ashok and Amit shared with us on the scientific and medical benefit of breathing and meditation to good health was a world lesson--an experiential lesson, which says whatever you pay attention to the most, you will find. Seek and you shall find ... that is the ultimate value-add.

Finding your strengths

Watching CPAN Washington Journal this morning, which featured two high school teachers talking about the High School U. S. Government Exam and its importance to students getting into colleges, brought back memories of my first encounter with understanding the US government.

It was my freshman year in college as a foreign student from Hong Kong. For some reason, I was taking a US Government course. Since Hong Kong was a British Colony then (and would remain so until 7/1/1997), I had no personal experience of local, state and federal governments, no idea of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. Everything was strangely new and exciting about that US government course. I had to study very hard and I got an A on the course. My American classmates who had personal advantages were surprised how natural I came to know the subject.

In fact, history, government and literature were my best subjects in my first year of college. I still love them today.

I have often wondered how my life would turn out if I had pursued what was naturally easy and appealing to me instead of choosing "safe", left-brain oriented majors in computer/information science and electrical engineering.

Would I have been happier, more successful? Luckily, it's still not too late to ponder this kind of questions now that I am retired from IBM with most of my mental, physical faculties still working well enough.

In May, LPG will focus on the idea of finding and focusing on one's strengths.