Open your gate. There is nothing to hide. Dis-cover more.

Living in Thailand now for over two years I am more and more aware of all kind of gates people living here have around their house. We just moved and also have a gate now.

Gate’s in Thailand are not only to protect. Lot of times they are open. They show well being and wealth. When you have a big garden most of the time the house is at the end of the lane starting at a beautiful gate. A kind of dress to impress and the ego show must go on.

The image of a gate brings me to more and more experiences I have in my life. During my life in The Netherlands, after connecting with other people or friends entering their gate, a lot of times I felt happy I got the opportunity to enter my own gate again. Not so bad inside as I thought.

A lot of suffering behind ‘closed doors’ is going on. Showing the outside everything is fine. The show of happy living goes on. Using Facebook the outside world looks bright! Everybody (including me) most of the time shows ‘the best’. It’s all laugh, light and love. But… listening deeply, being available, being there… other stories occur. Lots of people are crying inside.

People hide between walls and have an inner threshold guard to protect themselves from being hurt (again) or showing their real world. Labyrinths, in a nice way, show the inner world and the outside world. Many people are trapped in their inner world and when they go outside they start to take care of others so they can forget their own war inside.

They are in a vicious circle believing that their future is only the past again entering through maybe another gate. Not knowing how to get rid of this disturbing inner believe hearing their inner voice (voices from the past from others) instead of listening to their source of silence.

Hiding has become a natural self learned pattern starting early in life. Most of the time not even necessary any more now. It has to do with showing the, not existing, ego being happy and valuable.

Osho says: “You think your ego is something valuable? People simply laugh at it. Except you, everybody else is against your ego. Except you, everybody else knows the ridiculousness of it – about your ego.

What is the ego? It is a very ridiculous standpoint. The ego says, “I am the center of the universe. The universe exist for me.” But you are not the center of the world – because the world was here when you were not, and the world will be here when you are not here. You cannot be the center. You are not the center. If there is a God, then only God can say “I”, nobody else. It’s okay as a formal expression.
The (not really existing) ego gives you an imaginary rock to stand on. It is just a dream. The ego is a declaration that “I am separate from others – separate from the trees, the sky, the sea, your ancestors – but you are not. To say ‘I’ is simply absurd. You cannot be independent, totally independent. So just be and know the ego is just only an imagination.”

How open is your gate? What are you hiding for? When you open your gate there is a lot valuable reality to discover for yourself outside your gate and for other people, without even knocking, inside your gate.

When you know who you are there is nothing to hide. It’s worth sharing. The world is waiting for you. Nothing courageous to be done. Do not show, just be and live. 

Frans Captijn
Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight

Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or an organization.” 

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com

What is life all about?

During a buddy program I joined a class with my guest at the Suan Dok Temple in Chiang Mai connected to the Buddhist University.

Buddhism is not a religion. It is a philosophy of how to live life without suffering. This tuesday afternoon the theme / teaching was; "What is life all about?"

I will try to express my understanding and feeling. During the class I discovered that life has to do with Peace, Mission and Forgiveness. 

Peace, in the first place, has to do with the peace within yourself. When you are suffering, most of the time you are not in balance between thinking (creating your own reality, but not thé(whole) reality) and feeling (intuition  / insight / inner wisdom). And when you are not in peace with yourself, it’s easy to start a war with somebody else (the world around you). So when you want to live who you really are you first have to work on peace within and accept who you realy (all one) are.

Nobody is here at this world to do nothing. You have to learn and to fulfill your mission. To find out your mission is one. It’s only to recognize all your talents and gifts and to discover the way you are called to bring them into the world. 

The second thing is to come into action to do it. Be the missionary to bring all (your unique set), instead of only a few, of your talents and gifts into the world. You are in charge to do the things you have to do. The world is waiting for it. 

Forgiveness is a topic on itself. Not realy a Buddhist one. 

Life is NOT about suffering. Pain is inevitably. This is not a pessimistic view. It is the reality of life. Suffering is optional, a choice. Again you are in charge, you make your own decisions. You have the possibility to make free choices. Stop your general excuses, think out of the box and see your obstacles as opportunities. You are not a failure as you fail. Every failure is a step closer to success.

Forgiveness is to let go. To give a new chance to do good. And think about the idea that you are the only one that decides what is ‘doing good’ (for you and out of your reality). It’s only your perception.

You can be disappointed or maybe even ruined because of disappointment in hope. False experienced hope.There is a lot in life that hurts us. You can sometimes feel hurt by what other people have done to you.But people are human, they make mistakes, they may be under stress sometimes, they say a sharp word. When your heart is open this can sting it. But most of the time there is no real malice, nothing personal intended in that. It is just that people are fallible and in different situations they act hastily and make mistakes. It is really easy to turn oneself in somebody wronged…, thinking; ‘this always keeps happening to me…’, everybody is against me.

Maybe, in a different way you think, they try to make you a success. We are not perfect sometimes.

So open up to forgiveness. We need not feel graved and feel not retaliate when things turn against us. Because actually everybody has his best interest and heart but some of the times they don’t show it. Some people are unfortunately so out of touch with compassion, love and wisdom, that they persistently do things that harm others. That’s  tragic but we should not lose heart when we notice that. We have to know that there are people who are desperately confused and have yet to learn that the way to live is to abandon desires and cultivate kindness to all beings.

And remembering this, that enables us to live unselfish, live for the good of all beings doing that with promotes happiness and harmony.

Life is about peace, mission and forgiveness. What an insight. 

Frans Captijn
Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight

Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or an organization.” 

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com