Gerald D'Cunha

I was helping a small group of youngsters, yesterday, on writing skills.. There was a cup on my table and it was empty, as I had just finished drinking my tea. The exercise I had given to them was to make a small write-up, or tell a story, using an image word. As an example, I told them this popular story, using the image word - cup… O nce, a scholar from the West came to a Japanese Zen Master to learn the Buddhist philosophy. As a tradition, before enrolling the Western Scholar as his student, the Zen Master served him tea. As the Master was pouring tea in the cup, the scholar cried, “Stop, stop… The cup is full, it’s overflowing!” The Zen Master smiled and said to his would-be student, “Just as this cup has no space in it for more tea, your mind, too, may be full and may not have any space for more wisdom… You need to empty your cup, my friend.” S ixteen--year-old Utsav, my own Scholar, here in this group, interrupted me, the moment he heard ‘Japanes...

“I am the first victim of my anger… I am the first victim of my hatred.” -           S.N. Goenka I have sent scores of New-year messages… and I have received hundreds of them: “Wish you a Happy, Peaceful, Prosperous and Blessed New-year.” Deep down in my heart, I am aware, that those are just words… hollow, meaningless words. All of us are ‘pleasers’ and we do what we do just mechanically… just to be ‘like everyone else’… And, there we are, here in the New Year, now! Have things changed for us? How can they? How can outside things change unless things inside us do?  As the Zen saying goes, “Wherever we go, we carry ourselves!” If we have carried all the poison – our anger, hatred, jealousy, fear, guilt, worry, arrogance and the rest of mind’s illnesses -  from 2017 into this newly-born 2018, we can’t expect to be any better… Happiness, Peace, Prosperity a...