Before you get the wrong idea, this post is not about the “political tsunami” that hit Malaysia on 8 March 2008. It is an extract from the book Glimpse After Glimpse – Daily Reflections on Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, which happens to fall on March 8.

I find some of the “glimpses” particularly insightful and simply would like to share them here. Here’s the first:

In his very first teaching, Buddha explained that the root cause of suffering is ignorance. But where exactly is this ignorance? And how does it display itself? Let’s take an everyday example. Think about those people—we all know some—who are gifted with a remarkably powerful and sophisticated intelligence. Isn’t it puzzling how, instead of helping them, as you might expect, it seems only to make them suffer more? It is almost as if their brilliance is directly responsible for their pain.

What is happening is quite clear: This intelligence of ours is captured and held hostage by ignorance, which then makes use of it freely for its own ends. This is how we can be extraordinarily intelligent and yet absolutely wrong, at one and the same time.

This morning, on a whim, I checked out our Opposition Leader’s website, and chanced upon a hot-off-the-press posting by Dr. Chen Man Hin. In his posting, Dr. Chen suggested that the Prime Minister invite Raja Nazrin Shah, the Crown Prince of Perak, to be his personal adviser, in light of the latter’s speech at the first Malaysian Student Leaders Summit 2007.

For what it’s worth, I must say that that’s an ingenius and interesting idea from Dr. Chen. I wonder what Raja Nazrin thinks. (By the way, Raja Nazrin’s credentials are quite impressive. Check out the link to his entry in Wikipedia above.)
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Last night, after a meeting where I made a presentation on strategy, I left with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was relieved that I managed to do my job and make the presentation according to plan. On the other hand, though, I was a bit disappointed with the reaction of certain individuals in the meeting.

My presentation, basically, looked at the current situation of the organisation, the hopes of the organisation, the strategies available and, last but not least, urgent areas for focus.

No doubt, there will always be supporters and detractors in whatever we do. And, I’ve attended enough meetings to know that some people just talk for the sake of talking.
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