Be easy with life

No 438 of Living Life Series 1

Do be easy with life. Do not spit fire into life and be burnt by life. Do not live as though there is no tomorrow. 

Do not live as though tomorrow will be worse off than today. Do not live in the past. The past may be good or bad. It does not matter so long we know how to live today and prepare for tomorrow. The past is history. The present is a present. Treasure it. The future can still be mystery even if we prepare for it.

Live life. But do not live as though we will never die. Do do live as though we will surely die. We must know why we live and why we have to die one day. We do not deny life. We do not need to die to life. 

Be easy with life and trot along
Do not race along as though
if we don't do so we will die

Go easy with life. Learn from each moment of life. To be at peace with the moment is momentous gain. To welcome the next moment is more worthwhile. To accept the past moment is to add to the peace of here and now. To be at peace with the now is to make the future more easy. 

Be easy with life. That is the way to be. That is Tao of the sages of old. Religions should teach man to live life in peace and not to live as though we must return to yesterday or live only for tomorrow. 

Do not be victims of prophets of doom and gloom. Do not live as though we will surely die or as though there is no tomorrow. 

Go easy with self. Be easy with life. This is the doctrine in the image of the lord saint Lord Bo Tien. 

Be steadfast and steady like as encouraged by the left hand of the lord in salutation. 

Hold on to the principle of living life correctly as depicted by the right hand of the lord holding on to the scepter of life and living. 

Live the good life by balancing and moderating as depicted by the feet of the lord atop the elements and polarities of life - the yin and the yang. 

Do not live as though we will never die and do not live as though we will surely die at the next breath. Be at peace with life and death. 

Go easy with life. But do not give up, for that is to die even before we live. Do not go for more and more. That is to ask for trouble and create more. That is to live to die. 

Be easy with life. Be like Lao Tse and ride into life on a water buffalo to be closer to life and nature so as to have more life. Less is more and more is less. 

The far may be near to peace of life and the near may be far. This too did Lord Bo Tien say. 

Those, who think that going for more can be good, may be far from good. Those who think that having less of life is bad may indeed be far from bad.  

Ji Gong has more though he lived a beggarly life. So did Gautama in his life time as man after becoming the Buddha when he went round for alms.

Ji Gong

Go for life at a comfortable pace. Slow down the pace to suit our pace of life. Do not rush along and do not idle way. Do always have breather time to smell the flowers along the way.

Take things at restful pace and yet make the day. Be like Ji Gong everyday for all days. He can do so even though he is a saint with more to care than us. Why cannot we when we are far from being saint?  

Go easy with life and life will not be hard and unyielding. Life will be more fruitful and rewarding that way. 

Religions too must take the lead to teach men to go easy with life and not threaten them with hell fire if men do not toe the line and do their bidding. Religions will be more appealing that way. 

Omitofo sets the tone of how to go easy with men and how men live. No need to belong to him or kowtow to him. If we do need help, we need just call his name - Omitofo. There are no strings attached and no bargains. This is for sure as he is saint of saints. He is the provider of heavenly life even on earth so that we can walk the Way, be it called Tao or the Middle Way. 

Amitabha Buddha we seek for thy guidance

No 437 of Living Life Series 1

Of all saints we pray to, all converge on Heaven. In Heaven, we have Amitabha. Amitabha is the Buddha of Light. When we call upon his name, we call upon all saints.

Ji Gong and saints too will invoke Heaven by calling on Amitabha - Omitofo to be exact. Kuanyin and Lord Bo Tien do so as well. Omitofo once again and in all directions. 

Religion should be simple but men lost in complexity and confusion make religion complicated and baffling. All we need to do is believe in goodness of Heaven. 

There is no need for temples in form of concrete buildings, no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple. The doctrine is around kindness. This is stressed not only by Amitabha but also by all saints as well as the Dalai Lama. 

It is necessary that Buddha be in our heart more so than in the temple or on the altar table. Ji Gong adds that what matters is not what we do or what goes through our gut but what is in our heart. If the heart does take control, life will be that more simple and peaceful. 

Simplicity takes pride of place. Simplicity is key to life, mundane and divine. Be simple and be pure. Do be kind not only to others but to self. Do not make religion and Heaven so remote and distant when all it takes is to have the heart. That will do and should be. Namo Omitofo. 

Go to the upper stream for clear water

No 436 of Living Life Series 1

Go to the upper stream for clear water. This Lord Bo Tien said. In any religion or sect, if we want the basic and pure teaching, that is untainted and unpolluted by men,  we must go to the upper stream for the original clear teachings. This is likely to be more refreshing and thirst quenching for the seeker of truth. This is likely to be the same teachings across all religions and sects. This is the inner truth behind all religions and sects. 

Who God is and what he is like are best known by going to the upper stream. God is better portrayed as loving and less demanding with no strings attached for the love he has for all men and beings. God should not be portrayed as wrathful, jealous and intolerant. Such ungodly attributes belong to ignorant men and have nothing to do with God. God and saints are pure and free from such taints.

The same applies to the saints of Heaven as well, be they Jesus Buddha, Ji Gong, Lao Tse and Confucius. There will also be less mythical and metaphysical views of the saints. 

We will see them as men as us, albeit more perfect and God-sent - awesomely pure, simple and saintly. Modern day images of them are far from the truths projected by men of faith who somehow make martyrs and bewildering but nevertheless worthy fantasies out of them. 

Historically, they may be impressive and awesome but passive, humble, unassuming and tolerant accepting men of visions in their times. But modern men project them as activists, intrusive and even aggressive. 

As they are as man as us but more perfect and Godly, we will feel comforted that we can indeed be like them and not distant from them spiritually or otherwise. We too can in our own ways harvest the fruits of cultivation of spiritualism or Tao.

They the saints are the ones chosen to show people that they were wrong. To do so they had to go against the norms and yet be with the masses. They had to win them over even when they the masses chose to trample on them. They were victims of vilification in their times. 

Without going to the upper stream, we would not be able to know them better and know how we have been led to misconceive them. They are not what modern men paint them to be but they are truly somewhat better though the opposite of what they were portrayed to be. 

Modern society portrays Ji Gong as well dressed in majestic robes but he was actually dressed and behaved like a beggar. 

Ji Gong

Ji Gong is no beggar but he is a saint from within the heart. He was persecuted and disgraced as a monk and left the monastery. But he was cultivated and pure at heart. He won the hearts of men through his interactions. His teachings are actually simple. 

There is no need for outward show and no need to seek approval of men. The heart matters and not what one does or what goes through the gut. Yes, he drank wine and ate meat. He still does. But he is way better than many who don't.

Lao Tse

Lao Tse is portrayed as a great immortal. Indeed he is but the truth is that in his life time as man, he was a relative unknown until age of around 60 when he retired as the keeper of the emperor's archives in ancient China. He rode on a buffalo into the wilderness after obliging to write his thoughts on request of a border guard. The book came to be known as the Tao Te Ching. He is said to be the first author of the book.

Bo Tien

Lord Bo Tien is no general just because he is portrayed in Chinese general uniform. His portrayal as such is to show that the image is the doctrine and the doctrine is in the image.

Modern society portrays Buddha as the greatest immortal unequal even by Heavenly God - the Jade Emperor. Buddha was born as Prince Gautama but he renounced royalty to be beggar ascetic. He disappointed his royal family who blamed him for disgracing them by being a beggar ascetic. After enlightenment, he continued to lead the wandering life walking around bare footed and in robes which were no different from those of ascetics. 

Jesus was persecuted and downtrodden in his lifetime as man, both by the synagogues and the Roman Empire. He ever offers to save and is not a threat to men but modern men might think he is to be feared. This is not what it should be. On the contrary, he is meek, ever loving and lovable person. He is like the divine dove - the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, we need to go to the upper stream for clear water. Omitofo

Revealing The Mission Planning of Lord Bo Tien

No 435 of Living Life Series 1

There would be many who were not ready for doctrine or who were not receptive to spiritual life. They need to be saved and trained in other ways. They must first learn that the lord saint is real. Then they must like young children be told what to do. 

For the mission of the lord saint, there was no choice but to start off with the discipline and devotional phase. When the temple or mission was initiated, who were those who came? 

They were those who were like insects attracted to the flower for nectar. Blame not the flower for insects coming to it. This the lord saint said. 

Then the next step was to motivate them to do good, to help the needy and destitute. They might do so with view to seek approval of the men of the land. This was better than no good works at all. 

But this must give way to doctrine phase, The lord saint said that "the image is the doctrine and the doctrine is in the image." Sad to say that the image might be there 365 days a year but hardly anyone will notice or feel its presence, let alone the doctrine it is meant to bring to the lives of men. 

Thus above is the reason of why there were the devotional and welfare phases before the doctrine phase. But the problem is that the mission might be derailed by men at the welfare phase should they fail to grasp doctrine. 

Jist of doctrine 
in this booklet

The lord saint however assures that somehow there will be one or two who could make it. That would be enough for kicking off of the mission proper - the doctrine on yin and yang, how to be atop these and have inner peace regardless of religion we are in. The mission cannot depend on men. Mission is not the mission of men but the Mission of Heaven. 

Let us sum up the mission planning by the lord saint - mission via discipline and welfare phases before doctrine phase. 

Lord Bo Tien said that the universe is the premise of the temple or mission. The sky or Heaven is the roof. Religions and sects in all the cardinal directions are the pillars. All under Heaven are in the mission or temple.