Living the Teachings

At various times I've heard variations of the following story. There are a group of pious old women in church fervently praying a novena. They have been going to church at the same time for the past several days but one day they are disturbed by the sound of a child playing at the doors of the church. This irks the women and they take turns cursing and scolding the boy, driving him away from the church. The boy then crosses the road and is run over by a car.

If you have encountered people or have known anyone who displayed such schizophrenic behavior in or out of the church, then you have come face-to-face with one of the underlying challenges of anyone exposed to spirituality. As you have seen from the story, this challenge is not limited to people who are on the spiritual path.

I believe this dichotomy of behavior stems in large part from the fractious way we view ourselves and society. We tend to compartmentalize our actions, like when you punch out of the office on a Friday afternoon, your "work mode" ends and "party mode" begins. It shouldn't be surprising since compartmentalization is a survival trait, like when we blot out bad memories. Unfortunately, our lifestyle and environment reinforces this sense of separateness so that life becomes a series of disjointed events happening one after the other.

This inability to integrate different aspects of one's life and experiences manifests itself as chaos. We still see a lot of people who fail to make the connection between a poor diet and ill health. Or in being oblivious to the effect one's bad behavior has on other people.

A big part of the disillusionment with religion is the fact that followers and even religious leaders fail to follow the very teachings that are inherent in those religions. Many people tend to view the wisdom teachings like a museum piece - a curiosity that deserves study and appreciation but is left behind and forgotten after closing hours. But spiritual teachings are more than just a cognitive exercise, they are meant to be a way of life.

One objection to living the teachings would be to say, "It isn't me." But what exactly defines your life at the moment? Ill health? Poor relationships? Bad luck? Are those conditions really so important that it's worth it not to make the effort to integrate spiritual teachings into one's life?

We are creatures of habit, and changing a habit requires a lot of effort. So maybe that is really the issue. It's so much easier to follow a routine than it is to change one's direction. Transformative change is not always instant, that's why it often requires a lot of effort, usually a whole lifetime or several lifetimes of it.

This brings to my mind what Jackie Chan's character said in the Karate Kid remake: "EVERYTHING is kung fu!"

Most people associate kung fu with Chinese martial arts, but the real meaning refers to a skill that one does well and has achieved through persistent effort. So a five-star chef's cooking skills is indicative of good kung fu, for example. When we apply the principle of kung fu to our whole life, it implies that we not only work towards excellence in our work or our hobbies, but to our interpersonal relationships, how we view and treat ourselves and others, and our connection to God.

We don't need high-faluting spiritual terms or techniques to work towards good spiritual "kung fu." We already know what needs to be done in order to be a good person. We just need to go out and actually do it.

The effort of ennobling oneself is a process, and because of that we can still regress and make mistakes. As Master Choa Kok Sui keeps saying in his books, the key is not to beat oneself up for every mistake but rather to learn from the mistakes and resolve not to repeat them.

What is important is that one makes the effort. Persistence will do the rest.