Dedication

For humanity of the past, the present and the future.

Acknowledgement
My gratitude goes to Ian and Sally Timm as well as Liz and
Mike Leahy who spent a great deal of time editing this book for
me.

Einstein Questions, Buddha Answers (The New Edition)

Dedication
Acknowledgement
Contents
Introduction
Chapter one

Einstein questions, Buddha answers

Chapter two

Einsteine mc2

Chapter three

The constituents of human life

Chapter four

Finding the true self

Chapter five

Do you know what a normal mind is?

Chapter six

The final frontier

Chapter seven

The tube of intellect

Chapter eight

Here and now, truth and reality,

and the innocent perception

Chapter nine

The perfect harmony between the absolute element

and the law of change

Chapter ten

Final perspective

Glossary

Introduction
This new book was written to update and merge two earlier books titled: Do you know what a
normal mind is? and Einstein Questions, Buddha Answers. I have decided to rewrite the contents
of each chapter but still maintain the titles of most of the chapters.
Those who are familiar with my work know that I continue to emphasize the existence of the
ultimate truth and the means to it. In this book, I use Einsteins interest in wanting to find the
absolute ruling point in nature and his quest for the theory of everything as the basis to connect
with the Buddhas wisdom regarding the existence of the ultimate truth, which he called
Nirvana. My prime duty is to help you to understand that this ultimate element has everything
to do with each of us, intimately and significantly. This is reflected in the contents of this book:
finding our true self, the state of a normal mind, the final frontier and so on. Finally, I reveal the
nature of the ultimate truth by connecting it with neutral terms such as here and now, truth and
reality and the innocent perception.
We are now living in an extremely complex global society where it seems to many that our
whole way of life is governed by a very small handful of people in a banking cartel, or
plutocracy, who have created the epic scale of deception in which we are trapped.
Consequently, we are living in an absolutely distorted culture which aims to breed stress,
worries, anxiety, depression, breakdown and suicide due to the series of problems thrust upon us
on a daily basis. I cant help but thinking how can the Buddha's prescription for self knowledge
and inner peace ever work under such unwholesome predicament? We all have to walk into our
work place from where we make something, either knowledge, goods or services, which in one
way or another contribute towards an increasingly unethical situation predominantly based upon
the deceptive financial system! Illnesses, wars, drugs, criminality and even human (labour and
sex) have been turned into industries making more money for the wealthiest. No wonder why
we are so messed up. Researching into these ugly facts almost discouraged me from carrying on
with my work, which is about helping people to get rid of their daily stress and all kinds of
mental turmoil. How can I encourage my students to maintain their morality, integrity, kindness
and compassion while the financial activities and unlimited greed inherent in developed
societies are clearly wrong, twisted beyond imagination and utterly amoral in the first place? I
did feel like making myself disappear into thin air and shutting down everything I do, thinking
that my work in dispensing the Buddhas teachings might have no impact whatsoever in this
crazy world!
Although being saddened and shocked by the appalling global situation, I am still lucky to have
enough wisdom to see and confirm that this human realm is truly a prison of life. So, helping
even just one person to realise this predicament, and to lead him/her to be free from this
imprisonment, should be enough reason for me to carry on working. So, while admittedly the
moral advice in my entire works, including this book, may seem naive, irrelevant and even
impossible to practice in this deeply distorted world, this advice must continue as far as
rationality goes, I am afraid. To attain the ultimate truth and eternal inner peace, one must think,
speak and act wholesomely. There is no other way round. You just have to do your very best to

maintain your moral integrity, which I know is very difficult. You can only achieve this when the
ultimate goal of life finding the ultimate truth is clearly underlined.
In this cutting edge global society of the 21st century, religions have been viewed by some as
outdated dogmas that not only offer false hope but also are being used as a means for personal
financial gain by religious, political and economic elites. Critics argue that there is no real
tangible basis for the religious ideologies, i.e. believers make their own images of God, The Tree
of Life, The Kingdom of God, Heaven and Hell. Even the non-God based ideologies like Tao
and Nirvana are no different and are criticized as being far-fetched ideologies that seem to have
no connection whatsoever to our daily lives. Some of the Buddhist establishments, a culture I
grew up with, are crumbling very fast due to the lack of practice and wisdom among many
religious officers. Having put all these weaknesses into consideration, the contents of this book
may help bridge the gap between science and religion as well as pacify the cruel realities that we
face in our daily life. To be more precise, it is my coinage, the innocent perception (one of the
28 terminologies representing all believers) that can offer us the ground to work on and work
with as we engage in this spiritual path to attain the ultimate truth. Perceptions are real and
scientifically based; they are not some abstract philosophical ideology that offers false hope. In
chapter seven, I have emphasised that human thought, (Jerry), is the very characteristic that
paints us the wrong image about the nature of the final element. Therefore the innocent
perception, in my view, is the most substantial, accessible and understandable platform we can
step on to pursue our common spiritual goal the ultimate truth!
This can also help us to bypass all the conspiracy theories inundated the Internet, some of which
are shocking and there is no way to get to the bottom of the truth. Without knowing the ultimate
truth, it will be extremely difficult to find inner peace in this troublesome world.
Once the ultimate truth becomes clear as a goal, you can then appreciate it and be motivated to
engage in the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness or bringing your mental self back
home, which once again, is immediately available and understandable. This practice is nothing
more than having more awareness of our breathing, movements and physical sensations, which
are tangible and very real. This is the direct method to attain the real truth and subsequently to
gain the benefits of inner peace, harmony and balance.
If this book can make a life-changing experience for just one person, it will then fulfil my duty as
an author and a teacher.
Supawan Green
6 April 2012

Chapter one

Einstein Questions, Buddha Answers

Albert Einsteins historic success happened over 100 years ago. In 1905, he published
five papers, one of which was the Theory of Relativity. As part of the centennial
celebration, there were regular documentaries about Albert Einstein, some of which I
watched while writing the original version of this challenging book. This viewing has
given me some insight and helped me tremendously to piece together all the following
information and thoughts, which enable me to find the connection between Einsteins
notions and the Buddhas.
The run-up to the Theory of Relativity
I feel most grateful to Albert Einstein, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, who asked
the most vital question on behalf of humanity. He asked, what is the absolute ruling
point in nature?
I am no scientist and dont have much of a clue about what Einsteins General Theory
of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are all about. I am only interested in why he
needed to find the absolute ruling point in nature in the first place. From what I can
gather, this absolute ruling point could be used as the fixed standard to measure
everything against so that the results would be universally precise and accurate.
Einstein, however, failed to find such a definite ruling point because he found out that
there is absolutely nothing standing still and the universe is constantly moving,
therefore everything is moving relatively. Consequently, we can only measure
everything in a relative manner by nominating an assumed point.
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a
pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity, said
Einstein.
Lets elaborate further for clearer understanding. Take our body weight as an
example. Our weight is closely related to gravity; whatever our body weight is on
earth, it will be six times less should we weigh ourselves on the moon. Say... if you
weigh 60 kilos on earth, you will weigh only 10 kilos on the moon. So, when we talk
about our body weight, we naturally assume that we use the weight on earth as the
standard of measuring, not that on the moon! Water is liquid and translucent when
you touch it gently but when you bang the surface of water with force and high speed,
the water become more solid until it hurts your hand, and if a plane drops onto water
at 800 miles per hour, the surface of the water is as solid as cement. London is near
when you live in Brighton but it is farther when you live in Edinburgh; it is even
farther when you live in New York. Compared to Jane, Lucy is pretty but compared to
Sally (the beauty queen), Lucy is very plain. Experiences like these have given birth
to our familiar phrase, relatively speaking, which actually governs everything in the
universe, not just physics.

Such an initial notion is, nonetheless, the run-up to the Theory of Relativity which is
totally out of my range from then on!
Einsteins quest for the Theory of Everything
After the Theory of Relativity and his landmark discovery about the close link
between energy and mass, e= mc2 the equation was later applied to the invention of
the nuclear bomb1. Einstein developed Quantum Mechanics based on finding out that
everything in the universe works in the same way as throwing a dice. The result is
based on probability, which is the very nature that Einstein could not surrender to.
Basically he could not bear standing on loose ground (probability, changing nature);
what he needed was a solid base, which he thought only mathematics could offer. As
a result, Einstein was downright hostile towards his own Quantum Mechanics and its
performance despite its huge importance and success. Einsteins Quantum Mechanics
was the early stepping-stone leading to the advent of cutting edge science and
technology of the 21st century.
What held Einstein back was his religious nature, his belief in God. Together with his
overwhelming passion in wanting to know the sheer precision of everything through
mathematics, these two ingredients combined and triggered a chain reaction in the
thinking of this genius once again. Einstein embarked upon a quest that constantly fed
his mental hunger until the last moment of his life. He relentlessly tried to find a
unified theory which, in his belief, would be able to explain all phenomena in the
universe and give the answer to everything. This caused his quest for The Theory of
Everything the persistent task that continued until his death.
God would not play dice
Einstein believed that the precision of mathematics was the answer to everything and
this too must be able to explain how God built the universe. As he said:
I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that
phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His
thoughts; the rest are details.
The Theory of Everything was his wanting to find an equation that could reflect the
mind of God and his artwork in creating the universe. Although the nurse tending his
death bed tried to tell him: Maybe God didnt want us to know his mind, Einstein
1

Einstein was a pacifist; he never thought that e= mc2 would be developed into a nuclear bomb some 40
years later. Following his landmark discovery that a tiny amount of mass could be turned into immense
energy should that mass be travelling at the speed of light squared Einstein gave an interview to the media
saying that making that theory work should be compared to shooting a bird in the dark in a country where
there were not many birds around. He never thought that there would be any technology that could make
this theory work. However, one of his physicist friends worked out how to do it by using protons to split
the nucleus of the atom. Its chain reactions would cause the immense energy that was later developed into a
nuclear bomb. This friend came to see Einstein in the US and asked him to write a letter to President
Roosevelt because they were afraid that the Nazis would develop this nuclear technology and use it against
the Allies in the war. What was supposed to be a warning letter to the President gave the United States the
know-how technology of a nuclear bomb. The first ever nuclear bomb was finally made, deployed and
dropped over Hiroshima in 1945, followed by the second one over Nagasaki. Albert Einstein was devastated.

wouldnt have it. God would not play dice, nurse! said Einstein stubbornly. His
quest was fruitless; he left the world without finding the answer.
Had he found it, those who survived the holocaust and the Asian tsunami victims
along with the rest of humanity, might be able to answer their challenging questions
beginning with the really big WHY? Why did the almighty God not help his
children at the most critical and most desperate moments of their lives?
Einsteins admission to Buddhism
Although Einstein left the world without finding the answer he had been looking for
all his life, he, however, left a most valuable speech for mankind, for which I am
immensely grateful. The following speech can still urge us to ask the fundamental
questions he posed on behalf of humanity. Towards the end of his life while he was
struggling to find the unified theory, he began to suspect that Buddhism might have
the answer he was looking for. In his book titled The Human Side published in
1954, Einstein said:
The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a
personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both natural and
spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience
of all things, natural and spiritual and a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers
this description. If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific
needs, it would be Buddhism.2
The great man was spot on. The unified theory for everything that Einstein was
looking for, had been described by the Buddha over two thousand five hundred years
earlier.
Einstein questions, Buddha answers
As far as I am concerned, Einsteins initial notion of wanting to find the absolute
ruling point and his quest for the unified theory referred to the same wish.
Fundamentally, he wanted to find something that was absolute, solid, definite,
everlasting and unchanging so that he could eternally and unconditionally rely on this
very final certainty. These definite descriptions sound very much like the ultimate
element, in other word, the absolute truth. If this is the case, Buddhism has the answer
for it because the enlightenment of the Buddha is all about his uncovering the ultimate
element in nature called: Nirvana. It seems to me that the final ruling point and the
unfound unified theory cannot be anything else but the absolute truth or Nirvana in
Buddhist terminology.
Humankind must know that this ultimate/absolute element in nature does exist. The
Buddha found it on the night of his enlightenment nearly 2600 years ago. Indeed, all
through the history of Buddhism, there have always been some enlightened followers
who came forward and confirmed the ultimate truth or Nirvana. This is one of the
main factors which have kept Buddhism and its culture alive to this day. The ultimate
2

Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh
Hoffman, Princeton University Press

truth will certainly fulfil the same characteristic and give the same result at absolutely
every time and place in the entire universe. This definite and reliable nature is exactly
what Albert Einstein had been looking for all along.
28 terminologies for the ultimate element
Being the ultimate element or the absolute ruling point in nature, it therefore has
everything to do with each and everyone of us in our daily life. Hence I come up with
these 28 terminologies to facilitate people of all beliefs religious, spiritual and
scientific so that everyone can connect with the ultimate element from their own
psychological comfort zone. I think they may help all of us to relate with the ultimate
truth one way or another. I shall explain a few of these terms in this book so that you
can understand your status in relation to the universe including finding your true
self. Here are the 28 terminologies referring to the ultimate truth:
1. The ultimate enlightenment
2. Nirvana
3. The Kingdom of God
4. The Tree of Life
5. Godhood
6. Tao
7. Eternity
8. Immortality
9. The ultimate (absolute) truth
10. The ultimate reality
11. The grand ultimate (the meaning of Tai chi)
12. The absolute ruling point in nature (Einsteins concept)
13. The absolute simplicity
14. The absolute ordinariness
15. The absolute normality
16. The ultimate certainty
17. The true self
18. The real self
19. The non-self
20. The eternal peace
21. The absolute harmony
22. The ultimate freedom
23. The end of suffering
24. The true (real) happiness
25. Here and Now
26. The final frontier
27. Life out of prison
28. The innocent perception (my coinage).
The truth is right in front of our nose!
My invented term the innocent perception is the result following my Eureka
experience in the autumn afternoon of 1997. That extraordinary experience gave me
the courage and confidence to confirm that the answer to the absolute ruling point in
nature and the unified theory has been, all along, hidden in the very simple experience

called the innocent perception existing right under our nose! I will explain how you
can achieve this ultimate element in chapter nine by using the analogy of the two
trains running at the same speed.
The ultimate truth cannot be found by the power of human brain (thinking, imagining
and conceptualising); it must be initially pointed out by those who themselves have
been through the ultimate enlightenment. Tackling the ultimate truth is based on the
principle of sheer common sense and simplicity, which makes it extremely difficult
for us to understand, especially for intellectual geniuses, who are keen to delve into
their tubes of intellect (exercising the thinking faculty) the nature of digging endless
rabbit holes! I will delve into this issue in chapter seven.
Here and Now
I will also cover the issue of here and now, which is a very neutral and familiar
phrase and has the scientific connotation. Here and now is the exact answer the great
man would have wanted to locate but failed; the ultimate nature can clearly be
explained by using the allegory of the two trains running at the same speed. Here and
now, in my view, is the absolute ruling point in nature. In chapter eight and nine, I
will explain the preliminary concept of here and now as the nature of the truth:
simplicity and normality.
However, trying to have access to here and now is indeed another matter. It involves
practising certain mental skills called the four foundations of mindfulness very
much like learning how to ride a bicycle!
Asking the right question
All professional writers know that they could face a mental block when they begin
their piece of work with a wrong sentence or wrong paragraph. Although it may
sound beautiful and seem perfect, writers cant move on unless they try another
sentence, maybe with a different approach. The change of the sentence and approach
may sound a bit dowdy and not attractive, but it works wonders as it takes away the
obstacle and allows the brain (the mind) to work flowing like tap water!
The human mind is a funny old thing and full of mysteries. You must know how to
handle the mind skilfully to make it work well for you. If not, you get nowhere. It
works the same as piecing jigsaw puzzles together. Unskilful people will begin the
puzzle without grouping the pieces first, which makes them progress very slowly.
Whereas skilful players will group the different colours pieces together first and will
certainly begin from the straight edges; with this strategy, they will progress much
quicker.
Likewise, when questions and approaches are wrong, we get nowhere in finding the
answer. Einstein trusted mathematics so much that he walked deeper into his tube of
intellect, but sadly a dead end was all he found. As far as finding the ultimate ruling
point/absolute truth is concerned, it is important to take advice from the enlightened
people such as the Buddha and his enlightened followers. These people can help us to
ask the right question and endeavour on the right path so that the ultimate truth can be
easily located. This book is my attempt to help you asking the right question about life

so that you can find inner peace and harmony which I think it is most urgent for our
mental well-being. The innocent perception that I will talk extensively in this book is
the very nature the ultimate truth or the absolute ruling point in nature.
The relative nature is the same as suffering
Relativity certainly extends to our mental state too. It can be described as our mental
nature standing on loose shaky ground. This unstable predicament is the nature of
suffering or impermanence in the Buddhas terms. This relatively changing nature
(suffering) had urged the young prince Siddhartha to search for the end of suffering
and Einstein to pursue his quest for the Theory of Everything: the mind of God.
Indeed, the Buddha found it but, unfortunately, not Albert Einstein. Following the
ultimate enlightenment of the Buddha, the Eastern wisdom perpetually echoes this
maxim: if the truth is not right here in front of us, where do we think we can find
it? This profound saying confirms further that the innocent perception is the very
ultimate truth.
One ultimate truth
Logic suggests that if there was any ultimate truth at all, it had to be one, not two or
three, and it cannot conveniently belong to any religion. The ultimate truth has to be
totally and absolutely universal, beyond any religious belief as well as human
language too. Nirvana, here and now or the innocent perception covers all those
credentials. I shall elaborate this as the contents are progressing.
In the mean time, it is important to know that the ultimate truth is waiting right here
for everyone to uncover. It is not reserved only for monks, priests and spiritual
people. It is absolutely for all of us regardless of our age, gender, race, nationality or
belief. Should we have the right tool for the right job, we can uncover the ultimate
truth all the same. This is a guarantee.
Vipassana
What is so special about the Buddha is that following his discovery of the ultimate
knowledge, he also taught us the means to the end, which is as important as the
ultimate truth itself, if not more. There is no point to listen to someone praising how
beautiful Rome is if the guide cannot lead us to witness Rome with our own eyes. The
clear means to inner peace and full control of the mind is very much lacking in our
academia. The Buddha is the greatest teacher because he shows us the very lucid path
so that enthusiastic people can reach this ultimate wisdom just like he did.
The renowned Buddhist practice of the four foundations of mindfulness or vipassana
is the exact tool leading us to the ultimate truth. This practice can be easily adapted
and performed within any religious environment as well as used as a neutral exercise
like what I do in my Tai chi class. Vipassana is nothing more than the mental skill of
raising higher level of self-awareness by learning to observe our breathing,
movements and physical sensations including our inner phenomena created by our
thoughts, memories and feelings. It is a very scientific means suitable for people of all
beliefs, religious or non-religious.

Vipassana is the path to world peace

It is a shame that Albert Einstein didnt have a chance to bump into a vipassana
teacher during his time, otherwise the world might be much different from what it is
now. With the zeal from a great man like Einstein, it could well mean that vipassana
might have been globally recognised as a valid scientific means to restore mental
stability, normality and full control of human mind. This first class recognition would
subsequently have guided the scientific research about human mind in the right
direction and subsequently shape the global culture towards less greed, economic
equality, no class distinction and the eventual peace among humankind.
With the green light from a Nobel prize winning physicist like Einstein, vipassana
could have well become a main component of our mainstream education across the
globe. Vipassana is the first domino that will collapse all nature of problems surfacing
from the heart of an individual human being all the way to the whole of humankind.
This is the only formula for world peace and it is indeed what Einstein would have
wanted to see, as he was very much a peace lover.
Einstein wrote this formula without knowing vipassana:
If A equals success, then the formula is: A=X+Y+Z. X is work, Y is play,
and Z is keep your mouth shut.
Had Einstein known vipassana, he might have said this instead:
If A equals world peace, then the formula is A=X+Y+Z.
X is inner peace in all men results from practising vipassana
Y is inner peace in all women results from practising vipassana
Z is wise speech and action results from practising vipassana
Moral relativism
Due to the lack of true wisdom towards the ultimate truth, The Theory of Relativity
has influenced our contemporary way of thinking leading to moral relativism. Having
no absolute ruling point in nature, it also means there is no moral absolute. We
therefore judge our actions whether good or bad, moral or immoral, in a relative
manner. Consequently, common thieves are allowed to think of themselves as better
persons than first time murderers, who feel they are better persons than serial killers.
This relative way of thinking can go on forever in both directions: good and bad alike.
Moral relativism, consequently, is responsible for the dramatic decline of morality
throughout the world community because we can always find someone morally worse
to compare with, which makes us feel a bit better about ourselves. With the tendency
to use corrupt people as the assumed standard, immoral conduct flourishes and
becomes more acceptable. Infidelity, which used to be morally wrong, has become
more common because it has been practised among the rich and the famous: e.g. some
government ministers, some prime ministers, some presidents, teachers, even monks
and clerics! The breaking up of family units and poor parenting causes fewer people
to become qualified to be role models for our young generation. This results in a

massive moral vacuum. Consequently, morality is brought down to its knees, resulting
in more chaos and increasing entangled social problems.
The ultimate ruling point can eliminate moral relativism
To eliminate our confusing social and moral climate, we must stop moral relativism.
To do that, we must know the reason behind classical moral guidelines; society must
know why every saint in the past gave us the same message telling us to be morally
good. The ultimate ruling point or the ultimate truth is the only entity that can
straighten out all the moral and social confusions humanity is facing. There are, in
fact, very good reasons behind moral conduct. Honest, truthful and law-abiding
people can be relaxed and at peace no matter where they are whereas deceitful and
corrupt people are perpetually stressed and worried fearing that they will be caught
somewhere and somehow. Inner peace is a good enough reason for people to be
morally sound.
This brings us back to Einsteins initial notion again and why we need to know the
absolute ruling point in nature. Should we find the ultimate ruling point, society will
have a chance to restore order and bring back true normality. Although such a chance
seems remote due to the distorted global society caused by the injustice and the
corrupted cartel banking system, which are the root cause for the majority of human
suffering, we should at least try our very best first. The difference between having and
not having the ultimate ruling point is extremely dramatic and irreplaceable. Without
the fixed point to measure against, everything is freely shifting, moving and
subjective, which ultimately results in the problematic moral relativism. In the
contrary, with the definite ruling point, the result will be absolute and no longer
subject to individual interpretation. We would consequently know exactly why we
have to be morally good. I have talked about this issue quite extensively in A Handful
of Leaves and The User Guide to Life: The Moral Diet and The Law of Karma.3
Why geniuses prefer simple jobs
Some years ago, I watched a documentary following up on the lives of a few adults
whose IQs were exceedingly high from a very young age and were labelled children
prodigies. While the world expected to see these whiz kids holding prominent
academic careers in their adulthoods, they, instead, turned out to be a plumber, a
carpenter, a farmer or a chef.
This is because people with genius minds know it as a fact that one door is merely
opened to yet another door and another endlessly; there is no exit (solution) as far as
the use of the brain is concerned. Once intellectual geniuses have reached the brick
wall of the 10th inch mark in the tube of intellect (chapter seven), it is a natural
process that they would make a U-turn and find their way back to experience Y (the
innocent perception). Through experience, they will soon find out that the simplicity
and ordinariness surrounding every avenue of their lives have a much better taste than
exercising the power of their brains. This is the reason why those whiz kids ended up
doing simple jobs instead of seeking a blaze of glory in the intellectual world.
3

These three books are available in Kindle-format via Amazon. As for the paperbacks, please contact
supawanpg@gmail.com

Making a U-turn
Albert Einstein was one among those geniuses who was in the process of making a Uturn and heading towards experience Y (the ultimate truth/the innocent perception)
as his speeches contained a high level of simplicity, humility, normality and
ordinariness, which are significant qualities of the truth or the innocent perception.
These quotes below by Einstein are the clear signs of his enthusiasm supporting the
fact that he was engaging in his outward-bound journey towards the 1st inch mark in
the tube of intellect. They are:
1. A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need
to be happy.
2. Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.
3. Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.
4. We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course,
powerful muscles, but no personality.
5. The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday
thinking.
6. Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created
them.
7. The only source of knowledge is experience.
8. If I had my life to live over again, I'd be a plumber.
9. All our lauded technological progress - our very civilization - is like the
axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.
Although Einstein left the world without knowing the ultimate truth, his legacy
continues, especially the fundamental questions he asked on behalf of humanity and
his pointing towards Buddhism. His notions can certainly raise awareness about the
wisdom of the Buddha and bridge the gap between science and religion, leading the
believers and non-believers to meet at the central stage of the truth, honesty and
humility.

Chapter two

Einsteine mc2
When Heisenberg announced his uncertainty principle in 1927, it caused a nightmare for all
1
physicists in the world. This was because certainty, definite reliability and the absolute are the
known qualities that all scientists, especially physicists, wanted to rely on and therefore have
great aversion to the opposite. No theory is, however, carved in stone. Science is ruthless when
it comes to testing all theories over and over.
Einstein declared there was nothing in the universe that could travel faster than the speed of
light. This axiom, resulting from his theory of relativity, has been the bedrock of modern physics
since 1905. At least, the physicists could count on this very factor (the speed of light) to have
stability. Most of the modern high-tech inventions depend religiously on this stable fact.
Then again, life moves on with time, and so do learning, experimenting and creating. In 1905,
there wasnt any CERN or a gigantic particle accelerator, which is a huge particle physics
2
laboratory. With the employment of 3000 full time scientists and 7931 visiting scientists and
engineers from 608 universities and 113 nationalities at CERN constantly doing high-energy
physics experiments, Einsteins iconic formula of e = mc2 is now being challenged. In just a bit
over 100 years of faithful belief in the constant speed of light and that no particle (mass) can
possibly move faster than the speed of light, this reliable fact has now become the past, and the
familiar iconic equation may be transformed into e mc2.
Then again, this is hardly a surprise. The universe is filled with intrigues. One minute we
(scientists) think this is what it is, next minute she (the universe) drops us a bombshell and
proves us wrong just like many other facts that later were proved wrong when better tools
became available. In pre-scientific society, it was widely believed that the earth was flat or a
round flat disc or a log floating in an ocean. Throughout most of recorded history, everyone
1

Published by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the uncertainty principle was a key discovery in the early development
of quantum theory. It implies that it is impossible to simultaneously measure the present position while also
determining the future motion of a particle, or of any system small enough to require quantum mechanical
treatment. In other words, the more precisely one property is measured, the less precisely the other can be
controlled, determined, or known. Consequently, Heisenberg concluded that there is no final certainty.
2

CERN refers to The European Organization for Nuclear Research whose purpose is to operate the world's largest
particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the FrancoSwiss border.
CERN's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics
research. Numerous experiments have been constructed at CERN by international collaborations to make use of
them.

believed that the earth is the centre of the entire universe, which made a lot of sense, because
everyone could plainly see it with their own eyes. Everything you see in the sky obviously
revolves around the earth, and you don't have to be a great philosopher or scientist to see it.
Following his observation of the ways maggots would seemingly generate out of animal
carcasses, Aristotle (384-322 BC) put out the hypothesis about life spontaneously coming into
being from inanimate matter like slime, mud, and earth when exposed to sunlight, a theory
proved wrong as recently as the 1700s by Louis Pasteur and later Charles Darwin. Before the late
20th century, scientists strongly believed that the earth is constantly expanding or increasing in
volume, which later was replaced by the much more sophisticated theory of tectonic plate
movements. With modern high quality telescopes and greater imaging technology, the once
Martian Canals (a network of gullies and ravines on Mars) turned out to be optical illusions
caused by streaks of dust blown across the Martian surface by heavy winds.
Of course, there will be many more facts and theories that will be challenged as time moves on.
It isnt a matter of if but a definite when. Just like everyone else whose theories are subjected
to challenge, so are Einsteins. He had no way to know that the sub-atomic particles called
neutrinos would be the very element that disproved his Nobel Prize winning theory 106 years
later.
A neutrino is a subatomic particle with a small but non-zero mass (meaning having some mass).
It is similar to the more familiar electron but does not carry an electric charge, which enables it
to penetrate even the densest matter such as the earths crust with no interaction with other
particles, just like light goes through fog. Recently scientists at CERN have launched a beam of
neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso, a laboratory in Italy, over a distance of 732 km. Much to
their amazement, they found that the beam of neutrinos arrived at the destination faster than they
had expected. That is 60 billionths of a second (60 nanoseconds) faster which means the
neutrinos run faster than the speed of light! How can this be possible? Light has no material
particle; it is therefore moving fast at a definite speed of 186,000 miles/second to earth
anyway. For that reason, there should not be any mass that can possibly move faster than the
speed of light, not until CERNs recently-measured neutrinos, which still have some mass, came
along! Of course, scientists do not make any definite conclusion from the first few experiments.
But, after 15,000 times of repeatedly firing the beam of neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso in
Italy through the earth crust 11.4 km below the earths surface, the results remain the same
every time. Not only that, when scientists at CERN asked the scientists based in a laboratory in
Illinois to go through the experiment and verify the finding, the result was still the same. In a
billionth of a second, a beam of light travels about one foot. So a difference of 60 feet a beam of
neutrinos make in a second was something they cannot just ignore, not even for Einstein and his
e = mc2.
Recently, the scientists at CERN had no choice but to announce this astonishing scientific
finding to the world. When this historic piece of scientific news was then released to the world
media on the 23rd September, 2011, it had an effect similar to a 10 Richter scale earthquake,

especially among those physicists who hate uncertainty! Some are pleased in the sense that this
will open a new gateway to modern physics (a post-relativity era) which also means more Nobel
Prizes for those who can explain why. But, to the majority of the physicists, this finding is yet
another nightmare because it means that the entire foundation of modern physics might have to
be revised. Every textbook would have to be rewritten, every experiment recalibrated.
Michio Kaku, a currently renowned physicist, has said the following:

Cosmology, the very way we think of space, would be forever altered. The
distance to the stars and galaxies and the age of the universe (13.7 billion years)
would be thrown in doubt. Even the expanding universe theory, the Big Bang
theory, and black holes would have to be re-examined. Moreover, everything we
think we understand about nuclear physics would need to be reassessed.
Every school kid knows Einstein's famous equation E=MC2, where a small
amount of mass (M) can create a vast amount of energy (E), because the speed of
light (C) squared is such a huge number. But if (C) is off (unreliable), it means that
all nuclear physics has to be recalibrated. Nuclear weapons, nuclear medicine and
radioactive dating would be affected because all nuclear reactions are based on
Einstein's relation between matter and energy.
Reputations may rise and fall. But in the end, this is a victory for science. No
theory is carved in stone. Science is merciless when it comes to testing all theories
over and over, at any time, in any place. Unlike religion or politics, science is
ultimately decided by experiments, done repeatedly in every form. There are no
sacred cows. In science, 100 authorities count for nothing. Replicable experiments
count for everything.
To be honest, I have no interest in the current debate among the physicists about Einstein being
right or wrong. The way I view his relativity theory, Einstein has already confirmed that there is
no real certainty (no absolute ruling point in nature) and therefore we must measure things in a
relative manner. Had Einstein been alive, he might greet this electrifying news with a chuckle
instead of despair. Just like all scientific facts of today, it is just a matter of time before better
tools are available, and the current theories will be proved wrong. This is the very reason why
Einstein turned his back on his own quantum mechanics the very content of uncertainty
(probability), which turned out to be essential for modern technology; instead he was determined
to pursue the doomed unified theory of which he wished to read the mind of God who created
this universe. Why? He had hoped that he could find something that was utterly final, certain and
absolute lets call it the ultimate truth for easy understanding that he could entirely and
wholeheartedly rest upon. This precise goal is the very part that makes me bow respectfully to
the great man. There havent been any scientists since Einstein who have posed such challenging

questions, such as; What is the ultimate truth? Fundamentally, the great man wanted to know
the big picture, the whole structure of life in relation to the universe; he had moved on from the
small details such as relativity, quantum mechanics and so forth. Although Einstein left this
planet without finding the answer to his Theory of Everything (the unified theory), his questions
about the existence of the absolute in nature still stands firmly in my heart, which is the
inspiration for this book.
Once again, regardless of what Einstein and Heisenberg said, I want to confirm that there is
indeed a state of the final certainty, a perfect knowledge that has total security from error. I am
convinced because I myself have had the experience of such wonderful knowledge and feel
compelled to share this piece of good news with my fellow humankind so that individuals can
find clarity of wisdom and eternal peace.
A complete lack of doubt is often viewed as undesirable by intellectuals, but in fact, having
doubts, lack of understanding and confusion are mentally unhealthy and entail enormous mental
suffering especially the doubt about our true self and human consciousness. This unhealthy state
is the backdrop that drives scientists to perpetually search for something solidly reliable and
certain with an underlying hope to be restful, content and happy. The hunger for reliable
knowledge is now so great and so diverse that many have completely lost their primary intention
and goal being peaceful and happy. Scientists and intellectuals have been characterized as
creatures akin to rabbits, who are constantly digging their rabbit holes for the sake of digging
without the clear purpose of true happiness.
Never before in the history of humankind have so many people had so much wealth, knowledge,
information and so many tools at their disposal, yet at the same time, many people from all walks
of life have been forced to go through mental turmoil and suffering in one way or another. Our
gigantic pile of intellectual knowledge including scientific knowledge merely pacifies our greed
for more material wealth but is in no way helping us to gain inner peace. Peace on earth is still
far away. Thats why we should have respect for Einstein and his quest for the final certainty.
Although his iconic theory might be written off due to this current finding, at least the great man
didnt lose his goal of searching for the ultimate truth the same nature as reading the mind of
God in Einsteins term and the subsequent eternal peace. Without locating the ultimate truth
(the final certainty), scientists will be constantly challenged by new findings always have been
and always will be!
This is where I am standing: pointing out to humankind that there is indeed a state of a final
certainty or the ultimate truth, upon which all people can truly depend. This ultimate nature is
beyond the boundary of change and guarantees long lasting inner peace. The Buddha found this
final certainty on the night of his ultimate enlightenment. This is the very element/state/nature
(whatever one wishes to call it) that Albert Einstein hoped to locate but failed.

The image below depicts the structure of knowledge between the details that Einstein disliked
and the entirety of life in relation to the universe. All the intellectual knowledge including all
scientific findings are merely examples of the diverse small details fitting within the boundary
of change, which I coin as the prison of life, whereas the ultimate truth is a unique
element/state/nature which is totally beyond change and therefore absolute. The Buddha is the
only teacher who has set a clear guideline as how to attain the ultimate truth which he called:
Nirvana. To accommodate people of all interests and beliefs, I have given 28 terminologies to
represent this final certainty, including my own coinage: the innocent perception. The clear
means to the definite goal that the Buddha has given to humankind is the practice of the four
foundations of mindfulness or vipassana, which I call bringing your mental self back home.

Through this simple practice for humankind, one will be able to locate ones own tiny standing
point amidst this gigantic cosmos filled with infinite phenomena to be understood and
knowledge awaiting to be learnt. Only then can we appreciate the genius the Buddha really was
being able to give us just a small handful of knowledge; enough for us to find long lasting inner
peace and clear wisdom.
My entire work, as a follower of the Buddhas teaching, is based on systematically and nonreligiously guiding people out of the prison of life by means of Bringing the Mental Self Back
Home (BMSBH).

Chapter three

The constituents of human life

Please bear in mind that the enlightenment of the Buddha is about his finding of a unique
element in nature which was not known to anyone previously in our recorded history.
Despite being beyond the reach of humans thoughts and language, the Buddha had no
choice but to call this ultimate element Nirvana for the sake of communicating and
leading his followers to it. This is the ultimate missing link that once it is known, the
whole picture of life can be in perspective too. The rest is all the details that can be
easily bypassed including all the conspiracy theories that have troubled so many people
in the world. This wisdom is the very essence that Einstein wanted to achieve; he had no
time for details. So, if we want to know what Nirvana or the innocent perception is, we
must understand how our life form, body and mind, works. It is this life form after all
which will experience the innocent perception/Nirvana. This chapter will be the main
reference as I delve into the different topics in this book.1
The five aggregates (groups)
Mind experts view the human life form as a body to which the brain belongs and the
mind as being part of the brain, but the Buddha viewed it very differently.

A cartoon view of human life as a physical body in which the mind is within the
brain.
1

Although I begin to use the term ultimate element to represent Nirvana, one of the 28 terminologies mentioned in
chapter one, please bear in mind that it doesnt have any material form like those in the periodic table of elements.
Nevertheless, this ultimate element is still classed as a natural element just like others, the difference is that it has a
definite, ultimate and absolute quality, and also beyond human thoughts and language. Thats why it is extremely
difficult to talk about it. I, however, want to use the term ultimate element for Nirvana to depict the notion of being
scientific and not some kind of religious dogmatic concoction for the purpose of building up faith for the public. All
these will be elaborated in chapter nine of this book.

According to the Buddha, the human life form consists of five different groupings one
group is material or mass and the other four parts are of a formless nature which I would
like to describe with the word energy for now. They are shown in the illustration below.

The Buddha separates the human life form into five groupings: body (physical
self) and thoughts, memories, feelings and consciousness (mental self).
According to the Buddhas approach, these five aggregates are his way to explain how
the four natural mental elements work together. This nature of grouping is, of course,
unfamiliar to the non-Buddhists especially those with scientific minds but they can
clearly and splendidly explain how human mind work. Each group of element has its
own quality and function. Lets have a look.
1. The body (mass, rupa in Pali) is made up of earth, water, fire and wind which are
the familiar basic common elements. Each element has its own quality and
function: earth element is hard, water element flows, wind element blows and the
fire element is hot.
2. The memory element (sanya, in Pali) is a formless element whose function is to
accumulate data which come as experience in the form of sights, sounds, smells,
tastes, textures including mental events. This element appears in the head or the
skull area.
3. The thought/thinking element (sankara, in Pali) is another formless element
whose main function is to reason, elaborate, proliferate, expand, delude, including
to simplify or complicate matters. This thinking element works hand in hand with
the memory element. The former provides the data/information whereas the latter
expands, creates, concocts and shuffles into mental events/activities. The
thinking element is similar to a master chef who is capable of throwing a series of
ingredients into a massive bowl of salad. This element is well known to Buddhists

as sankara a very significant characteristic! It can be both creative and

destructive causing greatness and mayhem! This thinking element can turn a
man into a saint or a world class murderer depending on whether he has the right
or wrong view towards the ultimate goal of life. Whether a society has war or
peace entirely depends on this element. It can transform a molehill into a gigantic
mountain just as energy can expand itself faster than viruses.
Concocting,
deluding and expanding are what this particular element is very good at. Once
concocted into mental events, thoughts appear as our mental monologues some
of which will be subsequently materialised into speeches and actions, good and
bad alike. This group of element also appears in the head or the skull area.
4. The feeling element (vedana, in Pali) is yet another formless natural element
whose main function is to feel or produce mental feelings and emotions. This
element is a direct result of the other two groups, memories and thoughts. This
group of element appears in the chest area in both positive and negative feelings.
The negative feelings can be weighty as if carrying a mountain on our chest
whereas some of the positive feelings can make one symbolically being on cloud
nine.
5. The consciousness element (vinnana, in Pali, mental self) according to the
Buddha, is also another natural element whose distinctive function is to know, to
be aware or to be conscious. This element doesnt produce any monologue in
our heads.
Apart from the earth, water, fire and wind elements which make up our physical body,
the other four (formless) natural elements lets regard them as energy are unknown to
physical scientists and therefore they do not appear on the periodic table of elements.
Because of their intangible formless nature and being trapped in our life form, I shall use
the universal cartoon characters of Tom and Jerry as a tool to demonstrate their functions.
Therefore, from now on our mental self or consciousness element will be known as Tom,
the cat and memories, thoughts and feelings will be rounded up and replaced as Jerry. By
using the comparison as Tom and Jerry, I will have more flexibility to explain how
human mind work, which also makes it easier for you to grasp the concept with better
comprehension.
Different groupings
The intellectual world may place consciousness within the body to which the brain
belongs. Mind experts tend to believe that consciousness has a direct connection with the
brain, which connects with our nervous system and the functioning of the body. As a
matter of fact, after two centuries of debating, mind experts havent really come up with
any satisfying conclusions to the question of what consciousness and the mind really
are. In contrast, the Buddha places the brain with the body grouping while
consciousness is another separate independent entity, as are the other three formless
elements.
We must also admit that these five elements work very closely together in a mysterious
manner. It is very true that the brain has something to do with human consciousness.

There are certainly some connections between the brain and consciousness. When
something is wrong with the brain a blood clot for instance we can become
unconscious. Once the blood clot is removed, consciousness can return. The use of
anaesthetics that can block the whole of our nervous system, allowing surgeons to
perform surgery, also strongly supports the fact that the brain has something to do with
human consciousness. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with the brain at all
during a deep sleep, yet our consciousness becomes absent. People can faint and become
unconscious without anything wrong with their brains. Similarly, those who are in a
coma for a length of time can regain consciousness without having to rectify the brain.
Not all dying people have problems with the brain; their brains can still be in good
working order, so why does their consciousnesses still disappear? For those reasons, lets
admit first that there are a great number of mysteries about these fundamental elements
which make up our body and mind. Let them be a secret of Heaven for now.
My goal here is to merely present the Buddhas teachings regarding this important topic
of the human life form so that we can make connections with other relevant subjects I
shall bring up in this book, i.e. the nature of our true self, the state of a normal mind, the
final frontier, the tube of intellect and above all the ultimate truth as the absolute ruling
point that Einstein wanted to locate. Without the existence of our life form, nothing
would matter. For this reason, it is very important to see how the Buddha views this life
form. Through his perspective, all the loose jigsaw puzzle pieces and the final missing
link will easily and amazingly click into place. Only then will we be able to know our
position in this gigantic cosmos, the subject with which I shall deal in chapter nine.
Metaphoric language
It is very difficult to explain our mental states due to their energy form. The only way I
can communicate with you is by using metaphoric language and personifying their
characteristics so that we can make better sense of all these natural elements, four of
which are trapped in the physical body. I shall personify the term consciousness
element as a mental self so that it can correspond to our body or physical self. But
when this consciousness element interacts with our thinking and feeling faculties, I shall
refer to it as Tom as opposed to Jerry. This will enable me to offer easy comparisons and
allegorical examples, to give you a clearer perspective.
The core of life
Now, lets look at the 1st and the 5th grouping first. A complete life form must have both
the physical self and the mental self. There is a Thai saying that comes from the
Buddhist influence: mind is the boss, body is the servant. For a clear image, I shall depict
them by using these toy characters, which I have been using in my lectures.

A complete life form is made up of both a physical self and a mental self.
To support the fact that the mental self is the true self, you have to see the difference
between a birth of a predictably crying baby and a stillbirth. A crying baby has both a
physical self and a mental self, whereas the stillbirth is similar to a glove/shell without a
hand. Imagine the physical self as a glove and the mental self as a hand; you will see
right away who the real captain of this ship is. The glove cannot function without the
hand as without a captain, a ship is like an empty vessel.

A crying baby hand in a glove is a successful birth with both a physical self
and a mental self, and a stillbirth is a physical self (shell) without a mental self.
The following four incidents further support the notion that the mental self is the real self.
They are:

When one falls into a deep sleep, is unconscious, either with or without
anaesthetics, is in a coma, or when one dies.

When any of the four events happen, the mental self is not with the physical self just
like the hand is not with the glove. You may ask where the mental self goes during those
events? I am afraid your guess is as good as mine. Knowing too much can complicate
matters at this stage. As long as this approach can lead us to an effective cure for
reducing mental turmoil and restoring inner peace, that is all that matters for now. We
can bypass this question, and leave it in the mystery list for the time being. Lets focus
first on the more urgent matter by piecing together the loose jigsaw puzzles to form a
perfect understanding of life in relation to the universe. We can do this without having to
answer that out-of-range question yet.
The important point you must know is that the physical self cannot function without the
presence of your mental self or consciousness element. Although all the sense organs are
there, they cannot perform their usual tasks of perceiving or sensing. When one falls into
a deep sleep, one might not be conscious even if a marching band is trooping through the
bedroom. When that happens, it would be like eyes that cant see, ears that cant hear, a
nose that cant smell, a tongue that cant taste and a body that cant feel texture. But as
soon as the mental self (consciousness element) returns to the body, the awakening
happens, only then can all sensory organs function normally again.

When a person is in a deep sleep, unconscious or in a coma, the sensory organs: eyes,
ears, nose, tongue and skin cease to work as usual.
To confirm the existence of your mental self/consciousness element as the true/real self,
here is another example. Suppose a husband had an accident and he suffered a period of
amnesia having no memory of his wife! Under such circumstances, although they both
are physically together, there is no difference from being with a total stranger. To the
wife, it is the husbands true self (Tom) with his memory (Jerry) whom she misses most.
In other words, it is the mind(Tom and Jerry) of her husband that she want it to return.
So, when she cuddles his physical body, she would feel like she is cuddling a shell. Her
feelings are incomplete due to the absence of her husbands true self (mind). But when
the husbands memory returns, she is very happy because she can now relate to his

true/inner self. The details of losing and retrieving memories is also another secret to add
to the mystery list.
From these examples, we can then draw a conclusion that the mental self is the true/real
self or the core of life. Therefore, I shall also substitute the consciousness element with
true/real self depending on the context.
Understanding Rupa
Now, lets explore the first group/aggregate the body or the mass. The Buddha used the
Pali term: rupa. Many Buddhists tend to think that rupa means only the physical body,
but in fact, rupa covers significantly much more than just the physical body.
According to the Buddha, rupa not only refers to the physical body but also includes
everything in the universe as one single entity or singularity! It is because the physical
body has sensory organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin) which act like bridges
corresponding to perceived sense objects of sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures.
Therefore, without the existence of the physical body means the perceptions are absent
and consequently the entire external universe is accordingly absent too. Thats why the
Buddha swept the entire universe under just one word rupa. Please take your time to
digest this profound concept.
Sometimes the Buddha replaced the word rupa with the words: ocean or universe. He
says that the ocean does not just mean water and the universe does not mean just stars in
the sky. Water in the ocean is just one sight and stars in the sky are yet another sight. The
genuine ocean here is profoundly abstract and staggeringly colossal. It is the ocean of
sights, ocean of sounds, smells and so forth. The real universe is also the universe of
sights, sounds, odours and so on.
No matter how much we know about this cosmos, our solar system and earth, including
everything that is happening on the surface of this blue planet from domestic to global
affairs yes, plus our precious intellectual knowledge this colossal entirety is referred
to as a singular noun and is swept into the first group, rupa!

Rupa, the first aggregate, covers the ocean of sights, the ocean of sounds, the
ocean of smells, the ocean of tastes and the ocean of textures.

Rupa includes absolutely everything from our physical body to the edge of
the universe. It covers the universe of sights, the universe of sounds, the
universe of odours, the universe of tastes and the universe of textures.

After describing the diversity in the external world as rupa, the Buddha then breaks all
this external data/rupa into the categories of sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures.
Therefore, every piece of collective knowledge about our solar system all the way to the
edge of the universe is narrowed down to mere sense perceptions in the Buddhas terms.
These sensual data of sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures next make their journey
through the sensory organs (bridges) of eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. You must try to
digest this piece of knowledge very carefully so that you can realise how insightful and
ingenious the Buddhas description is.

Rupa = sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures = external Jerry (data)

Rupa represents the five external Jerrys: sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures
plus the physical self which has eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin.
Einstein two, Buddha one!
If you understand the term rupa correctly, you will know that Einsteins energy and mass
equivalence is within the rupa grouping because it involves light, movements, electrical
waves, electro-magnetic fields and so on, which are all parts of the material (external)
world. It means that while Einstein uses two words to represent the material world mass
(m) and energy (e), the Buddha uses only one word rupa.
E
Rupa =
M
Therefore, it isnt wrong to say that the Buddha knew about the mass and energy
equivalence nearly 2500 years before Einstein!
Who is the centre of the universe?
By using the Buddhas approach of the five aggregates, it isnt wrong to place yourself as
the centre of the universe because without your senses, the cosmos does not exist for you.
When you are sleeping, being unconscious or in a coma, your senses cease to function as
usual due to the absence of your mental self/consciousness element. At that moment,
your very own private universe disappears too, although it very much exists for others
who are fully conscious. This makes each and every one of us become the centre of our
own universe.
The co-existence of the two selves

The two selves (mental and physical) have to rely on each other to make a perfect lifeform. One cannot function without the other. The mental self (real self) can access the
outside (material) world only through the five bodily senses. If you are blind or deaf,
which means these bridges of perception are broken, the result is your mental self will not
have access to the ocean of sights or sounds (data). Your real self will have no experience
of sight, shapes, colour and sounds. For those reasons, the mental self can fully
experience the external universe only when the five bridges of perception (eyes, ears)
are in good working order.
External Jerry becomes internal Jerry
Once these vast diversities of sense objects travel over the bridges of perception and enter
your inner world, the five sense objects (external Jerry or rupa) have no choice but to
abandon their material forms and turn into the non-material entities (energy): memories,
thoughts and feelings (internal Jerry). Therefore, external Jerry dematerialises into
internal Jerry both of which carry exactly the same information (data) and details.
However, please note that the energy form of the three internal Jerry has nothing to do
with Einsteins mass and energy equivalence (e=m) because Einstein did not analyze the
human mind.

The external Jerry travel through the sensory organs of eyes, ears, nose, tongue
and skin, and turn into the internal Jerry of memories, thoughts and feelings.

When you are watching a football match, no matter how diverse those exciting events on
the football field are, those awesome happenings of the match begin their journey into
your inner world as sights, sounds, odours, tastes and touch. The five mice would then
sprint through the five bridges (eyes, ears, ), and instantaneously transform into the
formless energetic Jerry (memories, thoughts and feelings), which are perceived by your
mental self. As a result, your mental self (the big boss) receives the facts and information
about the match and knows directly whats going on. Only then, will the whole

experience of the football match be completed. This whole network of sending data from
the external world to the inside world happens at a staggering speed from start to finish.
This explanation breaks up the sequence in slow motion for clear understanding.
Should a completely blind man sit in the match, he would know everything but the facts
about sights. Should a completely deaf man sit in the match, he would know everything
but the facts about sounds.
Domestic problems
Likewise, the various problems that you have with your partners, your children, your
colleagues and your pet or even with the environment, no matter how diverse they are,
are reduced to the five metaphoric mice (sights, sounds...) who always have to run
through the five bridges and turn into three internal Jerry for the acknowledgement by
your true self.
To break it down in slow motion, the memory Jerry will record the event/data in his
memory box, which is its function. The thinking Jerry (sankara/the master chef) will then
process the data by spicing and adding more ingredients into the salad bowl
proliferation! As for how many more ingredients this master chef will add into our mental
salad bowl is subject to the situations and the moral quality of that person, i.e.
empathetic, forgiving, loving, compassionate, reciprocate and so forth. The adding of the
mental ingredients varies in different events and situations, influenced by how close a
link the perceiver has towards the people they perceive, or how much financially gain and
loss and the status quo will be affected. If the events involve your loved ones, more
ingredients will surely be added. These are all good examples for relativity.

For example, you find a loving text message on your husbands mobile phone (sight).
You call the number and hear a womans voice (sound). You smell perfume on your
husbands jacket that you know doesnt belong to you (smell). Your assessment of these
objects as clues, of your husbands affair, absorbs into your inner world and turns into
internal Jerry, with whom your mental self (Tom) will deal.

From the moment that you find the text message, your master chef/thinking Jerry has
already begun his ingenious work in elaborating, crafting and expanding the perceived
data. Finally, the feeling Jerry will complete the mental proliferation by scratching and
punching your mental self causing an excruciating pain in your heart. This full cycle from
finding the text to the pain happens at a staggering speed; it is so fast that no material tool
can measure its speed. Just at the snap of our fingers, the cycle has already repeated itself
countless times....so the Buddha said. All you can experience is that you have already felt
the pain in your heart at the moment you found the text message. If you feel that the pain
doesnt change at all, it means that the cycle keeps on repeating itself over and over just
like the way a film is made. That is, the individual frame of picture keeps on running
through the projector and subsequently turns into a film (in our head). The master chef
has been very busy in concocting this huge bowl of salad. This makes Jerrys proliferate
themselves so rapidly that your mind turns into a huge mental jungle with your mental
self trapped in it.

The thinking element/Jerrys can proliferate itself so rapidly!

With the functioning of the thinking element (sankara), the three inner Jerrys weave a
dense mental jungle in which our mental self is trapped.
There is no way to stop this excessive thinking element from working in our heads, not
without the help of the Buddha. Due to this natural thinking element (sankara/master
chef) in our head, the Buddha at one time compared the human being to a crumb of dust
being trapped in a carts wheels and thrown back and forth, unable to set itself free.
Thats why our thinking has become our own inner enemy causing humanity endless pain
and subsequent havoc.
A blessing in disguise!
If you are blind and/or deaf, you will have fewer matters to worry about than those with
good eyes and good ears because you cant read the newspaper or hear news ranging
from terrorism, diseases, stock market crashes and wars, to the alarming climate disasters.
As long as the information about the outside world cannot reach your true self, you have
no mental reaction to it whatsoever despite living in the middle of mayhem.
In one of my books2, I told the story of Yee Gow who was deaf. She was forgotten and
left alone in a temple in Shanghai while there was a fierce war going on. The shooting
and bomb-shelling went on right outside her temple, but she wasnt aware of the frightful
political upheaval outside her temple wall. Sticking with her daily routine in her quiet
quarter, Yee Gow had escaped a potential nervous breakdown only because she was
utterly deaf! Consequently, the turmoil of the outside world mainly sound in Yee
Gows case could not travel through her broken bridge (deafness) and reach her true
self, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise!

The User Guide to Life The Law of Karma, in the appendix.

So pensioners, please feel blessed in having poor eye-sight and weak hearing. These
conditions offer the benefit of providing the opportunity for less grief and to live in
peace!
Knowing the 6th sense
By using the five groups (aggregates) approach, outlined at the beginning of this chapter,
the Buddha has placed the consciousness element (mental self/Tom) as an additional
sense, the 6th sense. The Buddha always described humans as a life form with six senses,
whereas intellectuals view it with five senses only. The 6th sense is the mental eye
belonging to the mental self. If this is true, what then are the sense objects of the 6th
sense? The answer is: internal Jerry (memories, thoughts and feelings).
Every sense must correspond to its own sense object. They cannot cross perceive. You
cannot use eyes to perceive odours; neither can you use ears to perceive thoughts,
memories and feelings. Internal Jerry must be perceived by Tom only. They must work
together in pairs:
Eyes perceive sights
Ears perceive sounds
Nose perceives odours
Tongue perceives tastes
Skin perceives physical textures, sensations
Mental eye (5th group) perceives thoughts, memories and feelings (2nd, 3rd, 4th
groups) or Tom perceives Jerry

Unlike the five pairs of sense organs, both the 6th sense (Tom) and its sense objects
(Jerry) are in non-material forms or energy. The Buddha calls these non-material forms
nama, and the term energy, in my opinion, is a good translation for it, because it
sounds modern, is definitely more familiar to the ears and, to say the least, is a nonreligious term.

This metaphoric Tom and Jerry are the pair that mind-experts have great difficulty
understanding due to the lack of Buddhist wisdom. The Buddha is, so far, the only great
teacher who talks seriously about the 6th sense and its sense objects in a scientific
manner.3
To understand mental activities or the working of the mind the interactions between
memories, thoughts and feelings you must first have a basic tool: sense! Without the
eyes, you cannot possibly learn anything about the visible world in front of you.
Likewise, without your mental eye (Tom), you cannot possibly know how your inner
world works it is as simple as this!
By calling both Tom (the sense) and Jerry (the sense object) with just one word: mind,
scientists subsequently categorise the mind under the bodily grouping (rupa) by
associating it with the brain so that the mind can be perceived scientifically by our five
senses. By doing this, scientists have to leave consciousness dangling in limbo, not
knowing where to place this curious but most significant piece of the jigsaw puzzle. It is
then difficult for them to form a clear picture of life in relation to the universe.
Associating the mind with the brain is taking a wrong turn, as far as the Buddhas
wisdom is concerned. Thats why, after two centuries of research and debate, mind
experts are still divided and unable to come up with a definite conclusion about what the
mind and the consciousness really are.
The ambiguity regarding the human mind and consciousness is so muddy that it has
become harmful. By squeezing both the metaphoric Tom and Jerry into the skull, mind
experts think they have no choice but to use medication to cure mental imbalances
stretching from stress and depression to breakdowns and potential suicide. This mental
illness has made prescribed drugs become a huge industry. It may look good for the
economy, boosting the GDP, but certainly a disaster for humanity. While many
individuals believe the anti-depression drugs work for them, researchers from Hull
University, UK, claim that this could be just a placebo effect people feel better by
assuming a medication would help them!
Alternatively, the Buddha simply uses meditation and vipassana (BMSBH) to keep the
mischievous, wandering Jerry at bay. Simply engaging in the BMSBH practice,
practitioners will be equipped with the right tool (the 6th sense); they will subsequently
understand their mental weakness and the strength by just watching the coming and going
of Jerry a real scientific observation on mental level. With some guided wisdom i.e.
the subject like the host mind and mental guests, the illusive Jerry and the nature of the

The scientific manner will be revealed once you engage in the practice of bringing the
mental self back home a meditation practice described in part II of my book, Bringing
Your Mental Self Back Home currently near the printing stage.

ultimate truth BMSBH practitioners will be able to be one step ahead of illusive Jerry
and will finally defeat their inner enemy.4
The illustration below clearly shows the contrast difference between the cause and effect
of mental illnesses and the cure, which can make a huge difference to ones life too.

Without a scientific means for observing the mind or having the right tool for the right
job the 6th sense mind-experts cannot possibly find out how Jerry works in human
minds. One has no way of knowing that Jerry is the real culprit who carries all the
problems in the material world into the inner world and subsequently uses the mental self
as a punching bag all the time. Jerry is the root cause for our social, economic, political
and environmental imbalance, which results in the global injustice, inequality and endless
suffering among humankind. Comparatively speaking, Jerry has bullied Tom ever since
the beginning of humankind, yet we have not realized this not even now!

My book titled: Bringing Your Mental Self Back Home, which consists of two volumes:
theory and practice, cover all the significant subjects, the guided wisdom, that you need
to know.

On the physical level (external world), the 1% wealthiest known as the plutonomy
(banking cartel) is the real ruling class of the world doing nothing but robbing from the
poor through the greedy and distorted banking system but on the mental level, Jerry is
the one and only ruler who governs the entire humanity all along, always has and always
will. All crime scenes initially happen in the mind before being materialised into actions.
That small handful wealthiest (the plutonomy) still have to use their Jerry to plan their
strategy to steal from the rest, which causes corruptions on every level from the top to
the bottom of the society. Consequently a great number of humanity struggle to make
ends meet on a daily basis and live in perpetual misery, not to mention the one billion
people on this planet starve to death every day. This is how powerful Jerry really is.

Nothing left dangling!

I hope you now have a clearer picture about your life form in relation to the universe we
live in. You can easily distinguish between the two equal worlds this way:
Physical self (five senses) relates to the external world of sights, sounds,
smells, tastes and touch (the world of mass, rupa).
Mental self (with mental eye, the 6th sense or Tom) relates to the inner world
of thoughts, memories and feelings (Jerry).

These two worlds are actually equal but in different forms.

Summary
By using the five aggregates approach, the Buddha covers every aspect of life. There is
absolutely nothing about life that is left dangling without any classification or grouping.
This will subsequently give us a much better understanding about life in relation to the
cosmos as well as help us find long lasting solutions for international harmony.
One can easily imagine a huge loss when a person is blind. Not recognising the existence
of the 6th sense in global education, means the entire human race is sharing a profound
mental/spiritual blindness. The catastrophe is inconceivable. Hence, the ignorance
towards the existence and the function of the 6th sense is the fundamental causality of
every problem on earth. Empathy and evil happen in the mind first!
Without the perspective of this real wisdom, I cannot see how humanity can change for
the better. We simply recycle our lives and problems. One of the greatest scientists
mankind ever produced, Albert Einstein, had a glimpse of the wisdom in Buddhism; its
high time we took his advice and listened to the wise the Buddha!

Chapter four

Finding the True Self

Few days ago, as I was doing my yoga, I thought I would put on the news just to find out what
madness had happened in the world in the past 48 hours. I didnt get round to news channel but
stopped at a program when the suave presenter Kilroy Silk was leading the audience talking
about Too scared to grow old.
Although such a talk-show wasnt my choice, I was stunned by the expression of a woman of my
age, probably very late 40s (at the time), very well dressed and quite elegant. She was saying:
Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I find it hard to admit that the wrinkled face in the
mirror is me because I dont feel like that person. That is not my real self. In my heart I feel like
another person who is not like that face in the mirror.
As she was revealing her true feelings in front of the world, I could share the agonizing pain she
was going through in her heart. Her make-up might be able to hide a few wrinkles on her ageing
face but in no way could it hide her fear and vulnerability showing all over in her eyes. I deeply
sympathise with her and was wondering how on earth this woman could live her life, as she had
to grow older every day. Indeed, it was also her phrase, my real self which was the reason I
stopped and continued watching the program till the end.
As the program went on, there were more and more revelations about what and how women had
to do to combat their inevitable aging process. The most popular one is of course having plastic
surgery and the Botox treatments, which involve injecting a very tiny amount of poisonous
substance into the wrinkled area so that the sagging skin will swell up and fill up the spaces in
between the creases. The Botox treatment has to be done every 4 to 6 months to keep up with the
so-called perfect look and it costs around 200 to 300 pounds per each visit, so I learnt from the
ladies in the program. Although I was aware of such practices in society, it was still quite
amazing to listen to the first hand experience of those individuals who felt so strongly that they
needed to deal with their old age and that they actually went through with either the painful
plastic surgery or the Botox treatments.
As the discussion went on and the opposing audience frequently brought up the phrase Why
cant you be your real self, I felt a bit desperate to hear some real wisdom. To my
disappointment, apart from hearing no real wisdom from the audience, something also went very
wrong. Following a question from a young audience member who clearly felt the privilege of his
youth why are you so scared of growing old? Whats wrong with it?, a woman in her 50s
answered, Well, please dont forget that growing old means dying as well. Do you want to die?
Another woman in her 40s talked so proudly that she could seduce a man younger than her and
manage to keep him with her so far. Some of the young people cringed and showed their disgust.

Apart from the older people showing no wisdom, the young ones also did not grasp the fact that
in another 20 or 30 years time, which will pass by just like a snap of the fingers, they too will be
in exactly the same position as the older people they criticised. Maybe they will feel the need to
sustain their eternal youth as well. Although there were just a handful of people in the audience,
their dialogues do mirror the actual view and practice of a large number of people in affluent
societies. Plastic surgery has become a norm. People as young as 12 years old up to people in
their 80s have been through plastic surgery one way or another. There was a case of an 83 yearold grandma who had a boob job so that she could feel attractive to men! Even a more shocking
case was a mother who injected Botox into the face of her 8 year-old daughter as a way to
prepare her for a young American beauty pageant! This self love and emptiness are powerful
driving forces behind this huge multi-billion pound industry, which solely aims to boost the
vanity in both men and women.
Not trivial at all
To those who have no time for vanity, all these issues may sound trivial. But in fact they were
talking about a few of the most important issues in life, facing old age and death; how to sustain
eternal youth or immortality and above all struggling to find the mysterious true self. It is quite
shocking that such important topics havent been clearly addressed in our mainstream education.
Consequently, false views and misguided actions take over and result in having more sad and
unhappy people in society. As a matter of fact, Buddhism and its practice can provide good
answers to all these important issues.
People like to talk about being our real self as if it is a very easy thing to do. If being our real
self was as easy as many think, I am sure we wouldnt have so many sad people around to
participate in talk shows like that and merchants definitely would not make huge amounts of
money out of peoples vanity. That is for sure. Being our real self is, in fact, a very difficult task
and thats why we all have problems of knowing our real self.
Investigate our real self
To begin with, can anyone give a straightforward answer as to which part of our life form is our
real self, the real I or the real you? OkI am sure most people would answer, not the body
but the mind is our real self. So we shall then move on to the mind and ask further questions.
When the word mind is mentioned, it begins to get complicated as far as its definition is
concerned. There are at least ten definitions to the word mind, i.e. a complex of elements, the
conscious and unconscious mental activity of an organism, a substratum or factor in the universe
and so forth. One can narrow it down by asking, what really is the mind? Is it the brain, the grey
matter in our skull, which we (are led by scientists to) believe produces thoughts, feelings and
emotions? Or is the mind another independent formless entity which has its own autonomy to
control and order us to act upon our thoughts and feelings? Although I dont have the figures
handy, there is no doubt that the majority of the western intellectuals would go for the meaning
of the word mind as the brain. Although the research into the human mind is still going on and
there hasnt yet been any conclusive outcome, intellectuals have a tendency to believe the mind
is the brain.

Stephen Hawking regards the brain (the mind) as a computer which will stop working when its
components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story
for people afraid of the dark, Hawking told the Guardian newspaper in May 2011.
If the mind is indeed the brain, this means that we havent yet really abandoned the body as our
true self because the brain is part of the body, is it not?
How exactly can we be our real self?
Even if we agree that the mind is the brain and is responsible for all our thoughts, feelings and
emotions, which frame of mind can we truly call our real self then? Since we have such a wide
range of thoughts and feelings coming through our minds, which thought and which feeling can
we precisely call our true self or real self? How exactly can we be our real self? Does it mean we
must hold firmly onto certain thoughts, certain beliefs, certain feelings or what?
Ok lets suppose that was the answer. We must hold on to a set of thoughts or beliefs saying
something like: I must be my real self. I must not be afraid of old age; I must enjoy life as it is; I
must live my life of today and not worry too much about tomorrow, and so on.
The next question is: how can we sustain those thoughts, beliefs and feelings? We all know that
our thoughts, beliefs and feelings change all the time just like clouds, constantly moving and
changing their shapes and locations. We are also social animals, we need to socialise and interact
with people. Consequently, our mental activities are conditioned by our environments, i.e. our
own perceptions, the materials we read, the television programs we watch, the political party we
listen to and the daily conversations we engage in and so on. We know from experience that our
thoughts and feelings can change so easily after interactions with those daily events. Its true that
we have tried our very best to cling to certain thoughts and beliefs: i.e. keep on telling ourselves
not to be afraid of old age and death, we must not pay too much attention to vanity, it is the least
important as there are millions of people who die of starvation every day, we must let ourselves
grow old gracefully, and so on. But whenever we have to socialise with someone who is
mentally stronger than us, we cant help to be swayed by their opposing views. We cant prevent
ourselves from being conditioned by other peoples thoughts and beliefs.
The power of advertising
Lets put the right and wrong issue aside first and focus purely on the environmental influence
thrust upon us on a daily basis just by having perceptions, which we cannot escape. If my close
friend strongly believes in self love and vanity, she must look her best in older age, and very
likely will seek the magical result of what plastic surgery and Botox treatment can do to
transform a woman of our age. On top of that we are living in a highly materialistic culture in
which advertising plays a huge role. The advertising industry can make us think that vanity is
immensely important as it means being trendy, fashionable, sexy, classy and so forth. They can
even make some of us feel guilty if we dont do something about our aging face and body.
Back to square one again

Of course, we are only human and would naturally be tempted to think and believe what our
friends (who have also been influenced by advertising industry) and the media tells us. Their
views count a lot if we are mentally weak the result of not knowing the true self! Then, we are
back to square one, back to the point when we have to struggle to hold firmly onto certain
thoughts and feelings, whatever they are, and try to believe that they are our real self. Then, we
find ourselves trapped in this vicious circle, dont we?
What a mess we are in!
Trying to break away from this vicious circle means that we have to go back to alter something
in our brains or rather to adjust an out of balance chemical in our brain, which (we are led to
believe by our doctors) is responsible for our stress, worries, anxiety, depression and so on. If
that is the case, it means that trying to be our real self (our happiness) lies in the hands of doctors
and chemists, who are also in the chains of making money themselves. It might be possible that
these people doctors, chemists, drugs companies are using mental illnesses as a
commodity to make profits for self-gains; they might have to lie to people to achieve that goal.
Despite the research from Hull University, which underlined the placebo effect of antidepression drugs, corporate firms use the propaganda engine (advertising) to convince people
(consumers) that we need anti-depression drugs, which are now dispensed to mischievous
children as young as 8 years old!
This wide spread prescription drug culture has further
affirmed that we have little or no control over our minds whatsoever. Our lives, our destiny,
happiness and suffering are placed in the hands of doctors, chemists and drug companies, and the
rest of the medical system. Now, not only have we failed to find our true self, we also have had
to absorb these shocking claims made by the medical community surrounding our daily life.
Can you see that once we really investigate and look into the issue of finding our true self, it isnt
as simple and straightforward as many people seem to think? Most of the time, we dont even
know if we are coming or going. We just know that we are all being dragged along by all these
daily events, some of which have real impact in shaping our entire lives. In between all this
chaos and turmoil, we try to search for the real meaning of life by asking who our real self is.
This is where we are now.
My answer is that as long as we dont know the real meaning of the mind, and its location, we
will never find our true self either. This is the main reason why I always insist that my students
should ignore their past assumptions that the mind is the brain. If they dont totally abandon that
piece of information, it is impossible for them to make room for the Buddhas wisdom which,
thankfully, will give them a much clearer understanding and ability to find the location of the
mind.
The Buddhas analysis of the mind
The knowledge about the mind has been clearly explained by the Buddha under the topic of the
five aggregates, which I have elaborated in chapter three. I have clearly stated that a complete
life form is made up of both the physical self and the mental self and how the two selves work
together so that we can have a so called life and living. I have made it clear that our
consciousness element (the 5th group), which I call mental self, is indeed the nature of our true
self. Without the consciousness element/true self, there is no life. The woman who was scared of

her own reflection in that chat show was quite right when she said that in her heart, she didnt
feel like she was the old face with wrinkles in the mirror; she felt like she was another person
who was not old. She was, in fact, talking about her physical self and mental self, which are two
separate entities. Unlike our physical self/body, the consciousness element/mental self, which is
in energy form, doesnt age and bears no wrinkles. The quality of this consciousness nature is to
know, to be conscious, to be aware of our physical body, thats all. All the monologues in our
heads, i.e. the worry about the old age, scare of the bleak future, and so on are Jerrys talking.
Being lost in mental jungle
In Chapter three, I talked about the four formless entities, which I allegorise as Tom and Jerry,
blending into what feels like one whole nature that we subsequently call mind. But in fact, the
mind is made up of Tom (the subject/observer) and Jerry (the object/observed). The problem is
that without the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness or bringing the mental self back
home, our true self (Tom) is being entangled with Jerry (thoughts and feelings), which is
associated with all the vanity issues and the fear of old age. This predicament symbolically
equates to our mental self (true self) being lost in our own mental jungle woven by Jerry a long
series of fearful thoughts about old age.

This is the reason why we cannot be our real self. Our true self is being bombarded with all the
thoughts and feelings related to our old age and the urge to follow the trend in prolonging youth
just like those who give importance to vanity. Being lost in a physical jungle is a straight forward
matter; we can easily locate the problem, seek help and find our way out of the jungle. This is
not the case when getting lost in a mental jungle; it is a much more complex and profound
matter. Without the enlightenment of the Buddha and his guidance, we have no way to really
know our predicament of being lost in our own mental jungle piles of thoughts, memories and
feelings.
Being attacked by inner enemies

It is much easier if you can round up all the problems in your head and heart into mere Jerry. Our
own thoughts, memories and feelings are our worst enemies. The reason you want to do some
form of self defense is to deter the enemies from coming near your physical body. If they do
reach your physical body, youll be in grave danger especially when you are out-numbered by
the enemies. Not understanding the co-working of the five aggregates equates to not knowing the
existence of our mental/true self, which means we then let our three inner enemies reach our
mental self without any protection. Thats why mental wounds, despite being intangible, are
much more agonizing and burning than physical pain, because the enemies have reached our real
self. The pains are enough to make some people kill themselves. Our inner battle field is always
one against three, if not a whole army of Jerrys as I depict in the following images.

Our weak mental self/true self is being bombarded by the three enemies: thoughts, memories and
feelings.

The fear of old age is compared to our mental self/Tom being stabbed, hit and chopped by Jerrys.

This lack of independence of our mental self is the root cause of the problem making us afraid of
our own aging and death.
The cure
By using the analogy like the above, it is easier for us to see from where our mental problems
stem. Once we can locate the root cause of the problem, we can move on to the cure. If our
mental self is lost in our mental jungle, the cure is to bring our mental self safely home. Home is
the first place any lost person would think of. Home is also a safe place where no one can hurt us
and we can totally relax being our real self. This is the concept of home. Having said that, living
in a physical home still has no guarantee that we will always be safe as dangers can often happen
in all households. That is because the physical home belongs to our physical self, which is not
our true self only a shell! This is not the case for our mental home, which accommodates our
mental self or real self. If the real self can find its way home, eternal peace is a guarantee.

Strengthen Tom up
By using the analogy of Tom and Jerry to illustrate how human mind works, it is easier to
understand the cure too. If Tom is weak, Jerry will run wild, rule Tom and make Tom as his
slave; that is, answering to our unwanted and sometime painful thoughts by materializing them
into speeches and actions. As a matter of fact, Jerry has been ruling the world for millennia due
to the lack of understanding of the five aggregates (explained in Chapter three). Without the
wisdom gained from the correct practice, we have no way to safeguard and protect our mental
self whatsoever. It is similar to the mental self standing naked in the middle of a fierce battlefield
surrounded by a whole army of enemies. Do you think the enemies would spare you?! I dont
think so. Thats why the world is in such a mess as it is with one billion people live in starvation
everyday.

If we want to stand up to Jerry, the strategy is to strengthen our mental Tom up by giving him the
essential vitamins. Once Tom is strong, awakening, alert and fierce, Tom will have the strength
to protect himself and chase Jerry out of the house (our mind). All the dangling and sticky
problems that come with our thoughts will disappear into thin air once our mental self is strong
and awakening. Only then will our mental self gain true independence, freedom and long lasting
inner peace.

The descriptive analogies I have used, either about bringing the mental self back home or
strengthening Tom up, all point to one sole practice: the four foundations of mindfulness or
vipassana. This is the reason why I came up with the phrase bringing your mental self back
home. This is the precise practice that will separate our mental self (Tom) from the
bombardment of Jerry the root cause of all problems. As you engage in the practice of the four
foundations of mindfulness, it is as if you are defending and protecting your true self, deterring
Jerry (enemies) from getting near your mental self similar to a form of martial art protecting
your physical self.

As a result, your mental self/true self is being shielded from your own thoughts and feelings
the groups that bite you. This is exactly how you can be independent from your own thoughts
and feelings; hence you are able to maintain your real self and keep you from being swayed by
all the perceptions regarding vanity. Only then, will you be able to let yourself grow old with
grace. Without true wisdom and the practice leading to it, it is impossible not to be affected by
perceptions one way or another. Our current advertising industry is nothing more than a huge
propaganda machine. It is extremely difficult to avoid being convinced by them. Thats why you
need a wiser strategy.
Finally through bringing your mental self back home, you not only find the location of your true
self, you also find the way to look after your true self from danger caused by Jerry. That is by
keeping up with the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness. Bringing this practice into
your daily life is the only guarantee to maintain the independence of your true self.1

The practice of the four foundations of mindfulness can be found in my book titled: Bringing Your Mental Self
Back Home, and my workshop teachings which are on my website and YouTube.

Chapter five

Do You Know What A Normal Mind Is?

One day in 2004, I had a phone call from a young man asking me for my book, A
Handful of Leaves. He said he came to my local tai chi class two to three years before
for just for a few sessions. I explained to him that it would be better if he could attend
my class again so that he could grasp the meditation skill since reading my book alone
wouldnt give him the full benefit. He agreed to come to my class at the university the
following week. Since he lived in the same area as mine, I offered to give him a lift so
that I could explain a few basic meditation concepts and techniques so that he
wouldnt be thrown into the deep water without preparation.
As we were talking in the car, I found out that he was in recovery from a nervous
breakdown, which happened two years before. He had been diagnosed as having
psychosis and still needed regular therapy as well as being on medication. He said he
was feeling much better now and the reason he wanted my book was because there
was something I said in this book about the void, a concept that struck him when he
first read it.
I then realised I was sitting next to a mentally unstable young man. I was very calm
and tried to let him tell me more about himself. I could gather that he was taking
cannabis at the time he came to my tai chi class nearly three years ago. His mind had
made up a lot of things that, he believed, were real. Having read about the notion of
the void and enlightenment in my book at the time, he believed that he had
experienced the state of the enlightenment, Nirvana or Godhood! I guess that his
parents must have tossed out that book since he slipped out that his mental state
became worse after he had attended my tai chi class! This was the reason why he
phoned me to ask for another copy of my book. The story of this young man inspired
me to write this chapter.
No bruises
Unlike physical illness, mental illness is a much more complex matter to deal with.
When a person is physically ill, it is usually a straightforward matter. You go to your
physician or a specialist; they then diagnose your illness and do their best to cure you.
Whereas with mental illness, it isnt easy because there are no cuts, bruises or clear
signs of infection to deal with. Mental disorder is about something wrong with the
mind, which is related closely to memories, thoughts, feelings, emotions and
consciousness.
No conclusive knowledge
As far as the mind is concerned, there is still no conclusive knowledge telling us
what the mind really is, where exactly it exists and how it works. So far, we are led to
believe that the mind is in the brain, so treating a patient with mental illness is about
treating the brain. Before we get carried away with the idea that doctors know exactly
what they are doing, lets have a quick look at the arguments among the so called

mind experts. I read an interesting article by a book critic, A.C. Grayling,

commenting on a book called Consciousness written by Rita Carter, published in the
Daily Mail on Friday August 23 2002. This is what he said:
Traditionally, the problem of the mind and consciousness are the province of
philosophy. But in recent decades, neurologists, psychologists and computer
scientists, all of whom bring powerful new theories and methods to the endeavour,
have joined philosophers. Although a great deal has been learnt about brain
activities, such as which parts of the brain are involved in vision, hearing, language
use, movement and so on, there are still a lot more mysteries and ambiguities as far
as the study of the mind is concerned. Some say consciousness exists independently of
brains or any material thing. There are those who say that brains and minds are
identical. There are those who say brains cause minds, and those who say
consciousness is a mere by-product of brain activity, with no reciprocal influence on
brains. There are those who say we will never be able to understand how
consciousness arises from brains and there are even those who deny that there is such
a thing as consciousness at all.
Judging from this diversity of opinions from mind experts, it is obvious that they
havent yet understood what the mind really is. This is very worrying because if mind
experts dont know what the mind is and how it works, how can they possibly treat
mental patients? And what exactly are they doing with mental patients now?
Investigate
Lets use logic to investigate and help us solve this mental problem, shall we? First of
all, we must agree that the minds of all patients with mental illness are abnormal one
way or another in different degrees. The question is, how can we measure abnormality
if we dont know what normality is? For all we know, this young man I am talking
about could be truly enlightened as he had claimed and I was the one who was totally
self-deluded and needed to be checked out! How can we judge who is sane and who is
insane if we dont know the true nature of sanity?
You may think that mental sanity (normality) and insanity (mental abnormality) has
nothing to do with the nature of the ultimate truth or the absolute ruling point. In fact,
it does connect, and very closely too. In the same way that if you dont know the total
distance of your journey, you wont know whether you are very far, very near, half
way, or of the way to your destination, will you? You must have a starting or
ruling point to begin with before you can judge or measure anything at all. The
ultimate truth/the final certainty has a connection with everything as the absolute
ruling point in nature. It is particularly connected with our mental state/mind, which is
in fact the real centre of the universe for each of us. Without a mind, the universe
doesnt exist. Whether the universe of perceptions (sights, sounds...) is sane or
corrupted, depends entirely on the normality or the abnormality of the mind. If your
mind is sound, your perception will be sound too, but if your mind is twisted, your
perception will be corrupted accordingly. Therefore, this ultimate truth or the absolute
ruling point, will allow us to judge how far away ones mind is from the absolute
normality.

Now, you can understand why Albert Einstein needed to find the absolute ruling point
in nature. It is the same nature as the absolute normality. Without an absolute ruling
point or normality, there is no real standard of measurement, is there? Without the
absolute ruling point, the result of all measurement has only a relative value which is
not the real value no matter how accurate it is. Thats why I have a high respect for
Einstein in posing this most significant question. His notion of finding the final
certainty in nature has everything to do with every fibre of our life and all the rest of it
including our psychological states/mental states. If we dont know what a sane/normal
mind is, neither can we know what an insane/abnormal mind is; it is as simple as that.
My role here is trying to make connections between all these significant subjects of
our lives and helping you to understand why it is important to closely investigate
these questions.
Found it, not create it
Briefly speaking, on the night of the Buddhas enlightenment, his mind had suddenly
reached the state of absolute sanity/normality/purity. It had transformed from a
corrupted mind to a pure and absolute normal mind. That was the beginning of his
knowing what is what similar to finding the loose end of a tangled up ball of
thread. He could see the whole structure of life in relation to this gigantic cosmos and
beyond. Upon his enlightenment, he realised that Nirvana (life out of prison) is the
ultimate goal of life for all people. Thats why I give you 28 terminologies1 to
represent this final certainty so that humankind can connect with the ultimate truth
from their own comfort zone.
It is important to know that this is not only about Buddhism and the practice of the
Buddhas teachings. The Buddha simply found a final and absolute element in nature.
This extraordinary finding involves the whole of humanity and the entire universe.
This ultimate nature has been here for eons, always has been and always will be,
regardless whether the Buddha is here or not. He simply found it, he did not create it.
My concept of God is very different from the traditional notion of God creating the
world. God, as one of my 28 terminologies, doesnt have the same meaning as that of
the Christians who view God as an almighty creator. My meaning of God is the same
as the innocent perception and the ultimate ruling point in nature.
The absolute normality
How can we judge if one has a normal mind or an abnormal mind? We cannot
possibly measure the different levels of abnormality/insanity at all if we dont have an
absolute ruling point (absolute normality), which luckily the Buddha found on the
night of his enlightenment. It is imperative that you are willing to have confidence in
the Buddhas enlightenment and his finding of the Noble Truths; otherwise you will
have great trouble in understanding this book. Thats why the Buddha told us to have
faith and confidence in his findings first so that we can more easily verify his findings
and follow in his footsteps and finally attain the absolute normal mind for ourselves.
Without the initial faith (trust and confidence) in the Buddha and me as your
immediate guide to absolute normality, we cannot move on. Nevertheless, I dont
1

Please refer to the glossary for a listing of these synonyms.

believe in blind faith either. Thats why Ive been trying to rationally investigate for
you, or rather, drawing a life-map which can be done using the Buddhas methodical
teaching plus my own Eureka experience.2 This combination enables me to match
words with experiences and the subsequent understanding. Without one or the other,
this book couldnt have been born.
A tangled up reel of cotton
Lets investigate further. Upon his enlightenment, the Buddha then realised that the
state of the human mind is very much like a tangled up ball of thread. His
enlightenment has the same nature as finding the loose end of a tangled up ball of
thread when, upon his discovery, he could easily untangle and straighten it up from
one end to the other. What does it mean then?

To begin with, the Buddha highlighted the state of insanity a mind similar to
a tangled up ball of thread which he called suffering (dhukka), the first noble
truth.
He then told people that illusive Jerry, the carrier for all defilements
(unwholesome thoughts), is the root cause of insanity/suffering the second
noble truth.
He then announced that he had defeated Jerry, and thus had reached the state
of the purest (Nirvana), the absolute normality or the ultimate truth the third
noble truth.
Finally, he systematically laid down the precise means to fight and overcome
Jerry so that humans can untangle their twisted minds and reach the absolute
sanity just like he did the fourth noble truth. The means to absolute sanity is
the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness, vipassana, or bringing the
mental self back home.

Traditional etiquette
Before we move further, we must first of all admit and have respect for The Four
Noble Truths that the Buddha found, and recognise that there is a state of the purest
mind that a human can possibly achieve. So long as one engages in the practice of the
four foundations of mindfulness or BMSBH, one will be able to progress along the
noble path and will finally reach the final destination just like the Buddha and his
enlightened followers did. Once you have your own enlightenment, you will then
realise that the list of my 28 terminologies point to the same ultimate experience one
attains upon personal enlightenment. If you havent had your own ultimate
enlightenment, it is important you be willing to have confidence in me as a follower
of the Buddha and follow my guidance carefully. Without this traditional Buddhist
etiquette, you wont learn anything that is truly worthy of knowing. You will
inevitably waste your time in chasing after an enormous amount of details and have
no way of seeing/experiencing the whole structure of life. Details are what Einstein
look at with disdain.
The four level of holiness

Described in A New Hope for Humankind, Chapter 1.

Fundamentally speaking, the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness or

BMSBH is the means to undo the twisted or the entangled state of mind. In other
words, the BMSBH practitioners are those who are walking towards absolute
sanity/normality. The Buddha classified practitioners on the path to enlightenment by
judging the various levels of their mental states, which he called the four level of
holiness. They are:
1. The Stream-Enterer (Sotapana)
2. The Once-Returner (Sakadagami)
3. The Non-Returner (Anagami)
4. The Worthy One (Arahat)
To create a perspective image for understanding the four level of holiness, please find
a rubber band and secure both ends round your two index fingers. You will see two
independent lines of the rubber band.

Lets represent those two lines as my metaphoric Tom and Jerry. The mind of a fully
enlightened person (Arahat) is like the two independent lines of the rubber band.
Their metaphoric Tom and Jerry have been disconnected upon enlightenment due to
the collapse of their mental magnetic field. The consciousness element/Tom is totally
free from the sticky and illusive Jerry. This image (two independent lines) represents
the state of the absolute sanity/normality. As far as human mind is concerned, this is
precisely the absolute ruling point (the entirety of sanity) where we can start
analyzing the different proportions of sanity and insanity.

The features of the holy people

We can now measure the different level of our mental insanity/abnormality by
judging from how far it is from the two independent lines of the rubber band. The
following are the mental features/qualities of the four levels of holiness. These levels
are very clear-cut and straight forward.
1. The two independent lines without twist refer to the fully enlightened ones or
Arahats who have overcome the illusive Jerry and have firsthand experience
of the ultimate element in nature/the ultimate truth becoming a local guide
who no longer gets lost in mental jungle. Thus, they are able to see the big
picture or the whole structure of life in relation to the universe. It is as if one
has reached the zenith of a mountain and is able to see the whole view of the
valley with all the small details in it. This is how I can come up with the 28
terminologies to represent the ultimate element; I can clearly see the
connections among all the details. I also realize that the whole of our
intellectual/worldly knowledge is merely scratching a huge pile of details just
like rabbits enjoy digging endless holes or intellectuals enjoy rowing
conceptual boats in a gigantic lake without knowing their own imprisoned
predicament. Einsteins gut feeling was right; he suspected that there must be
5

something significantly greater than details! It is a pity that he wasnt born in

a Buddhist country; if he had been, he might have found the answer he
desperately searched for.
2. The one twist refers to the Non-Returner (Anagami), who have committed to
the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness for a length of time and
subsequently gained intuitive wisdom and meditative strength. Their mental
eye (Tom, consciousness, the 6th sense) is very sharp, alert, awakening and
sensitive; they clearly understand how Jerry works in the mind. Consequently,
they have worked out, seen through and detached from all illusive worldly
values concocted by Jerry, i.e. wealth, fame, power and status. Their main
mental accomplishment is having overcome greed and full-blown anger, but
they still have minor dissatisfactions arising from perceptions due to illusive
Jerry. The Non-Returner will however detect the minor scratches from Jerry
almost instantaneously, which makes the mind return to its normal state
similar to the rubber band with no twist. The Non-Returner will have to wait
for the total disconnection between Tom and Jerry which is the final stage of
the practice. According to the Buddhas standard, the Non-Returner is classed
as having a small proportion of mental abnormality (represented with one
twist on the rubber band) due to minor dissatisfactions caused by illusive
Jerry. This is a very clear-cut and straight forward judgment. Once the NonReturner experiences the final disconnection between Tom and Jerry (the
mental magnetic field snapped off), he/she will know and will subsequently
become the fully sane person attaining the absolute normality.
3. The two twists person refers to the Once-Returner (Sakadagami). They are in
the process of trying to overcome greed and detach from worldly values. They
will have to observe the moral precepts and strictly engage in the practice of
BMSBH. The intuitive wisdom from the practice allows them to know the
illusive nature of Jerry and try to let go. But their meditation strengths are not
strong enough to deter Jerry on the spot, so their minds will be scratched and
bruised by Jerry. This causes them to still have attachment towards things that
are most dear to them, such as loved ones, objects with sentimental value,
appearances, and so on. The Once-Returners havent yet overcome full-blown
anger, although it happens less frequently due to the practice of having
compassion knowing that all sentient beings are bullied and terrorized by
Jerry all the same. Once anger has subsided, they will realize the unnecessary
pain and the harmful effects of anger. This causes them not to be complacent
and to pursue the practice further so that they can overcome anger. For these
reasons, the Once-Returners have a higher proportion of insanity/impurities
(represented with two twists of the rubber band) when compared to the NonReturners, who have already overcome anger.
4. The three twists refer to the Stream-Enterer (Sotapana). Generally speaking,
the Stream-Enterers are not that much different from the four and five twists
groups of people in the world. The difference is that having met a good
friend who has introduced and guided them to know the Buddhas teaching
about leaving the prison of life, they can then rationally recognize the
suffering and understand their imprisoned predicament and decide to follow in
the Buddhas path to leave the epic prison of life. As a result, their path of
thinking will be different from the majority of people in the world. That is,
they have a clear purpose of life: to defeat Jerry, attaining long-lasting peace
or leaving the prison of life. They will strictly observe the moral precepts. It

may be the first time for some who have just heard about the reality of the
practice of the four foundations of mindfulness as the means to gain eternal
peace. Those who have heard the terminology before may be inclined to think
that such practice belongs to forest monks and serious temple goers only and
has nothing to do with them as lay people. Nonetheless, they havent yet
overcome any greed and anger due to the lack of meditative strength, and
intuitive wisdom has yet to arise. They understand the teachings through
reading and listening. Without sustained practice, they havent developed the
inner strength to overcome greed and anger brought upon by illusive Jerry. For
these reasons, when compared to those in the above three groups, the
sotapanas have higher proportions of insanity represented with three twists
on the rubber band.
No compromising
You can see that because the Buddha had the experience and was symbolically
holding a real straight ruler to measure the mental states with him, thats how he could
classify the different proportions of sanity and insanity in humans. Generally
speaking, the practitioners of the four foundations of mindfulness/BMSBH are people
who are in the process of untangling their twisted minds/twisted ball of string, and
they have been successful in different degrees. Even having just one twist, the
Buddha classed those persons as being impure/insane; there is no compromising as far
as the Buddhas mental standard is concerned. The goal of all vipassana practitioners
is to undo the twists between Tom and Jerry until they reach the stage where the two
lines are totally separated meaning Tom and Jerry are totally disconnected.

The Buddhas classifications of mental purity can be made because of one sole reason
having an absolute point and a real straight ruler to measure mental normality (full
enlightenment/no twist). You can see that without this precise and definite tool, we
cannot move forward with confidence because we will inevitably deal with unstable
and changeable relative truths and colossal piles of details.
Four twists: the high moral threshold

We shall now move on to see the level of mental abnormality/insanity of the majority
of people in the world. The four twists and more refer to people who havent yet
known the ultimate purpose of life or leaving the prison of life. Please twist the rubber
band four times and still hold it in a straight position as in the illustration.

This four twists of the rubber band represent a sizable number of the people in the
world who are able to function well in their daily life: i.e. looking after their personal
hygiene, having the ability to learn and to reason, making sensible conversation,
taking responsibility for oneself and family, going to work, being law-abiding and so
on. They consider themselves normal people who can take full control of their lives,
plan their future with discipline, work their way to achievement, deal with all the ups
and downs and experience pains and worldly happiness like all humans do.
Technically speaking, their mental state is classed as having fundamental
insanity/abnormality due to the four twists but in practice they feel absolutely normal
because there are many people like this in the world.
What differentiates the four twists group of people, from the next category of five
twists, is the significant indicator of high moral conscience: knowing right from
wrong, and also very likely having natural kindness and compassion too. These
people would try their very best to do things right in the moral sense. They can resist
temptations better than the next group down. It is because this group of people is on
the threshold of crossing over to be holy persons knowing the definite path to leave
the prison of life (Nirvana). They naturally carry a strong sense of morality and
compassion with them.
One can easily bump into this type of individuals in daily lives. These people have a
high tendency to do charitable or social work and can quite often be spotted and
chosen as a role model for good citizenship. The four twists group of people
nowadays is considered rare in a society that almost has a moral vacuum and has been
taken over by an amoral material, economic competition and increasing violence.
There are fewer and fewer of this type of people but there are still a sizable number of
them around.
Nonetheless, the four twists group of people is still symbolically living in a Matrix
(illusive) world and knows nothing about life in the real world. This is in contrast to
the four level of holiness who are making their way to the real world (the ultimate
truth/freedom). The fully enlightened people are those who have symbolically reached
the real world. What will help the four twists people most is to stumble onto a good
friend (anyone in the four levels of holiness) who may offer them a book or point
them to a person who can guide them towards the noble path towards the real world,
which will be a life-changing experience for them.

Crossing over of the two groups

However, in not knowing the worthy knowledge and the BMSBH practice, they are
still very human, like they often claim, and are subjected to the harassment of illusive
Jerry the root cause for greed, anger and delusion, whichever degree depending on
their moral threshold. Nonetheless, in not knowing the ultimate goal of life, their
minds have a higher proportion of mental abnormality compared to the StreamEnterers. As far as dealing with the emotions is concerned, I often say that these two
groups of people are not much different. The distinction lies in their paths of thinking:
the three twists knows clearly the ultimate goal of life, the four twists doesnt. So in
the same way that the high moral threshold group of people can easily cross over to be
the Stream-Enterer, or vice versa, the Stream-Enterer can easily fall back to being a
four twists individual.
Compared to the size of the world population of nearly seven billion, those who have
worked themselves up to the four levels of holiness are only a handful, and they are
often regarded as being weird and not quite normal people. That is as judged by the
five twists standard, which are the majority of the world population (I will talk about
this later). So, if the Stream-Enterers are not self-motivated, committed and dedicated
towards the clear path to the definite goal of life, they will be swayed and tempted by
worldly values, and can be easily lapse or fall back to the unwholesome path again. I
may contradict the Buddhas teaching on this point as he said the Stream-Enterer
would be naturally flowing along the Noble Path just like water flows from the upper
ground to the lower ground or the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. It is
because global society has changed beyond recognition since the Buddhas time and
is now full of temptations luring people into Jerrys strong grip. Admittedly, it is
much harder for the committed Buddhists especially the first two levels of holiness
(three and two twists) to walk this very lonely Noble Path to Nirvana.
Actually, I do not totally contradict the Buddhas words. Having said the above, the
Stream-Enterers who may temporarily have lost their ultimate goal, but after
experiencing the spiritual darkness of dealing with insignificant details that many
people can die for, i.e. money, power and status, and facing excruciating mental pains,
they may find they have no choice but to cross back to the lonely but illuminating
Noble Path again. This time they will make sure that they will be more self-motivated,
and will likely join a support group. They will be more committed, disciplined and
work harder so that they wont be pulled back to the dark plain of the Matrix world
again. Only then, will they be able to flow along the enlightened path the Buddha
illuminated.
The five twists group of people
The next category down is the five twists group of people. Their main mental feature
is still similar to the four twists individuals, who can be responsible for their daily
lives and feel more or less in control of their ups and downs. The difference is in their
moral threshold. Their ethical conscience is thinner than the previous group and
consequently they can be easily lured into craving fame, power and money. They can
conveniently give in to temptations without much resistance. Nevertheless, they feel

absolutely normal as far as their mental state is concerned, just like the rubber band
can be pulled straight despite the five twists.
This group of people (and to be fair the four twists too) is extraordinary because they
are responsible for shaping our worldly education, culture and civilization. They can
use the reasoning Jerry to delve into the tube of intellect and acquire knowledge so
that they can sustain life and survive on this planet. Nonetheless, their knowledge is
based on dealing with the details of all things: the nature of rowing a boat in a huge
lake or digging the rabbit holes for the sake of digging, without realizing the ultimate
goal of life as depicted below.

By not knowing the existence of the mental self (true self/the 6th sense) the five twists
people become vulnerable to becoming a punching bag for Jerry. Their mental
protection is nothing more than smoothing over the pain by inviting the pink and
white Jerry into their mind. Symbolically speaking, the mental self is being moved
from a black and frightening forest full of thorns to a forest of cherry trees filled with
pink cherry blossoms. At least, the pink forest is not scary and is more pleasant to live
in than the thorny dark forest. This pink forest represents the sensual indulgence, i.e.
eating good food, listening to favorite music, having sexual pleasure and so on. Pink
Jerry/forest is created by materialism and capitalism which have provided humanity
with endless entertainments and sensual indulgence. However, some people become
sick and tired of indulgence in the pink forest-type of thinking and search for yet
another mental jungle to live in. As a result, they invite the clear and white Jerry into
their minds intellectual knowledge!
For the above reasons, the four and five twists groups of people are responsible for the
birth, the spreading and the flourishing of capitalism and materialism, which
technically is the abnormal/insane way of life. Although this has been our mainstream
culture for centuries, materialism is a total misconception and a wrong model of living
the result of the four and five twists of mind! People are misled by scientists and
economists to think that we can indefinitely use the natural resources on this planet
and that nature will replace them for us. The fact is that the resources on this round
planet are of limited supply; once they are used up, theyre gone forever, i.e. oil, gas,
iron, gold, silver and so forth. Today, humanity still acts, on a whole, as if resources

10

are in infinite supply and we are entitled to use them excessively through mass
production and planned obsolescence the intention to quickly outdate new consumer
products for more financial gains, e.g. electronic items and personal household
products and so forth. In addition, it seems that, money which humans created to
facilitate the exchange of goods and services, has become a big cause of many more
problems, i.e. crimes, injustice, poverty, slavery, hunger, wars, not to mention a
billion people live in starvation and died in millions every day. All these badly twisted
paradigms are the artistic work of illusive Jerry, which is totally unrecognized by the
four and five twist groups of people. Hence the insane way of life has been created.
As I am writing this chapter (October 2011), there is a global protest against
capitalism, especially the banking cartels, starting on Wall Street in New York City
and spreading to many places in Europe. Finally, it seems, many people have begun to
realize that capitalism/materialism is not the answer for assuring stability and the
world order, and that things must change. Regarding change to what exactly, nobody
knows yet. They cant go back to communism as it has already proved to be
unworkable. It is highly likely that experts will begin to dig yet another rabbit hole or
row the boat in yet another direction.
The bottom line is that no matter what political and economic paradigm they will
come up, the truth is that they havent yet left the forests or the lake or the Matrix
world remaining unaware of their imprisoned predicament! They are still very much
lost in their mental jungle. Without help of a Knower of the ultimate truth (knowing
the real world), it is impossible to escape from this dilemma.
For the above reasons, the mainstream culture and education are based on the false
standard of normality (four and five twists). Recognized by the majority of people in
the world, this false paradigm has been treated as normal and as if it is a uniform
standard the product of illusive Jerry yet again! The five twists abnormality
therefore becomes normality/sanity in the relative sense, but in no way in the absolute
sense. As a result, humanity remains in the Matrix world.
More and many more twists
The five twists man-made normality/sanity is the beginning of more entangled states
of mind. The competition for more financial gains and struggling to survive in the free
market has caused pressures and stress in every level, especially from the executives
to the middle classes. The wide gap between the rich and the poor has created much
suffering among the grass roots people due to being taken advantage of by the rich.
Big fish eating smaller fish happens at every level of the social ladder. It is always
the majority of people at the base of the pyramid who suffer most. Although they
work extremely hard, they still struggle to feed their families and get nowhere on the
economic ladder. On top of that, global society has been facing increased uncertainty
from all avenues; social problems, violent crimes, organized crimes, illegal drugrelated problems, wars, shaky economies, spreading diseases, more frequent natural
disasters and so forth. All these add more stress and worries to humanity and create
more twists in peoples minds.
The features of more twists

11

For easy understanding, I will summarize the features of more mental twists in the
following list. Please bear in mind that this is merely a rough guide to give you better
images how far one is from the state of normality (no twists). Here they are:
Five twists are those who have good control over their thoughts and emotions.
Six twists are those who have mild stress.
Ten twists are those who have chronic stress, worries and anxiety.
Fifteen twists are those who have depression.
Twenty twists are those who have a nervous breakdown.
Thirty twists are those who feel suicidal.
Fifty twists are those who are completely psychotic and have needed to be
institutionalized at least off and on.
In between the five to ten twists, if one has sudden dissatisfaction, envy, vengeance,
an outburst of anger or fear, their mental twists can suddenly increase, adding a few
more to the ones they already have. The twists will reduce once a person calms down.
Complex thinking can also increase the number of twists in between Tom and Jerry
although the person may seem sane/normal compared to the five twists standard. The
more complex thoughts one pursues, the more twists one adds to their mind.
Intellectual thinking in all fields of knowledge especially philosophy and imaginations
generates excessive and increasingly complex thoughts. This type of thinking will
also create more twists in the mind, twists that can be rather difficult to undo when
one is ready to know the ultimate truth or the innocent perception, which can be
achieved only with the total absence of Jerry (no twist). I shall talk more in chapter
seven when viewing the number of twists from the aspect of intellectual knowledge.
Fighting an enemy in the wrong battlefield
Mind experts must know that we have been fighting our mental enemy in the wrong
battlefield for a long time. The real enemy is the illusive Jerry, an independent
element in our life form which is not situated in the brain. I have illustrated the
contrasting view between that of the Buddhas and the mind experts when it comes to
the cure of mental illness as shown below.

12

You can clearly see that mind experts cannot move beyond the brain due to the
misconception about the constituents of the human life form, which I have
explained in chapter three of this book. There is a huge difference between
viewing the life form as one element (physical self) with five senses, and the
life form as five aggregates with six senses. Scientists can only deal with the
physical self and its sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures, which is only
the external world, whereas the Buddhas wisdom includes the inner world,
which is made up of Tom and Jerry. It is obvious that the Buddhas knowledge
of the human life form is much more extensive than that of most scientists. The
five aggregates structure gives us a much clearer perspective and a solid
platform to work with as it also leads to the solution of all problems.

Without recognising the existence of our 6th sense, it is impossible to fight the
enemy in the right battlefield because Jerry enters our mind at a staggering
speed. There is no material tool that can be used to scientifically observe the
astounding speed of mental activity, but we can use an inbuilt tool that is
already with us the mental eye/the 6th sense! So, if we can use the Buddhas
approach of the five aggregates plus the vipassana or BMSBH practice, we can
certainly see our life form in much better perspective and subsequently fight
our enemies in the right battlefield.
Fewer twists, fewer problems
Without the Buddhist wisdom, mind experts whose minds are very likely to be
at the four or five twists, can only manage to cure mental patients to return to
the five twists standard, which is still not a total cure. It is merely a relative
cure with a relative value, thats all. Mind experts cannot run away from the
fact that they have to use their one and only defective tool (illusive
Jerry/thinking) to investigate the mind. This has led us, humanity, to a dead
end. Judging from the problems we have in global society, it can only mean
they are the outcome of all the abnormal minds with various numbers of twists.
Fewer mental twists mean fewer social problems.
The mind is the centre of the universe

13

As I said earlier in the chapter, the human mind is the real centre of the
universe. Without the mind, the universe doesnt exist or has nothing to do
with us whatsoever. For this reason, an abnormal mind will surely produce a
twisted universe of sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures. The twisted
universe in my meaning refers to the experience of not innocent perception
due to its being spiced up by illusive Jerry. Consequently, humanity has been
misled and attached to the false worldly values of wealth, fame, power and
status.

14

In the reverse, a normal mind, which is free from illusive Jerry, will produce a
peaceful and pure universe of sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures, which
is the innocent perception the same nature as the ultimate truth. This universe
can be achieved only by means of bringing your mental self back home.

Before the BMSBH practice, one needs to see how far one is from the absolute
normality the two lines of rubber band without twist. Those who have many
twists must try to undo their mental twists by cleansing chemicals from their
bodies, leading a healthy life style, having a healthy diet and beginning to
observe the moral precepts. That is trying to make their way towards having
only five or four twists first. This will be very helpful for everyone who wishes
to cross over to the noble path, and involves the BMSBH practice.
Sirimaya and others
When he was teaching, the Buddha came across many people whose minds had
many twists, such as Kisagotami whose first baby died and Angulimala who
was a serial killer. Also when he left the palace to search for the cause and the
end of suffering, his father, step-mother, his wife and his son psychologically
suffered a great deal because he had left. Sirimaya, the Buddhas former wife,
15

must have suffered more than anyone because not only had her husband left
her on the night she gave birth to their first born, he also later came back to
take her only son away to be ordained in the order of monks. Just like any
woman in her situation today, Sirimaya must have gone through a period of
depression, if not a nervous breakdown at some point. The Buddha,
nonetheless, helped all those people to undo their twisted minds until some of
them reached the state of true normality.
Compassion, real wisdom and clear practice of BMSBH are the key factors to
cure mental illness. My two parts books titled: The User Guide To Life: The
Moral Diet and The Law of Karma aim to undo and reduce the numbers of the
twists in the minds.
Summary
Finally, I am sure you have realized how sensitive and controversial this
chapter is. It isnt easy to talk about sanity and insanity without knowing what
the real normality is. As I said at the beginning, the young man, with whom I
sat in the car, could well be an enlightened person and I could be a totally
delusional or insane woman. But on second thought, if I was insane, I dont
think I would have the ability to sit here and write or talk about all these
difficult and profound topics with you. I can do it only because I have found
the loose end of the tangled up ball of thread, which enables me to undo the
knots and straighten up the cotton locating the true normality.
In the end, it is entirely up to you to decide if you have confidence in me as
your immediate guide to the Buddhas teaching. As far as the mind is
concerned, it is impossible to learn anything positive without accepting help
from a Knower. I hope very much that this chapter has helped you to know
what a normal mind is.

16

Chapter six
The final frontier

Spacethe final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, its
continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new
civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
If you were a Star Trek fan, you would know that was the theme of this famous science
fiction series. Ive been a fan of Star Trek since the beginning. Just like many others who
are drawn into science fiction with the same reason: the mysteries and the intrigues of
space and the universe. The fascination of space and the universe will endlessly fuel this
curiosity in humans minds and subsequently take us into various space missions. When
Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon, I was 15, felt absolutely electrified and
wholeheartedly believed his historical speech: a small step for a man but a giant leap for
mankind. Wow! We would be all right, I told myself.
Sadly and shockingly, apart from the opinion that the moon landing could be a hoax,
humanity has hardly leapt anywhere at all. I cant even say whether we are walking
backwards or not, since we dont even know how much forward or backward we were in
the first place, whatever that first place was. How confusing it is! Nevertheless, this is the
heart of my entire work helping you to find the beginning and the end!
The desire to find the grand ultimate
When the term the final frontier is used, even in fictional terms, it still seems to me that
they want to find a state where nothing can go beyond. Once again, this is the notion of
wanting to find the ultimate nature, isnt it? The desire to find the grand ultimate or the
absolute entity in the universe has always been with humans. We dont realize this
because we often get caught up with other less important things in life and have lost our
primary intention.
Wanting to find certainty
Humans are mortal. We have fears, especially the fear of death. This is why we have the
notion of God coming into our heads because we need to trust something or someone
entirely so that we can take refuge and reduce our fear and insecurity. Even when one is
not a God-believer, it doesnt mean that one does not have the drive to want to know the
ultimate truth. Atheists, agnostics or scientists, or whatever you want to categorize
yourself, deep down you are afraid of death and you still want to know that you can truly
rely on something that is permanent and not subjected to change. In other words, you
want to know the ultimate truth with the hope that this ultimate nature will put everything
straight for you and maybe be able to explain death rationally so that you will have no
fear of death and the mystery beyond it.

The search for the ultimate nature has always been with mankind. Albert Einstein was
one of those people who desperately wanted to find the ultimate nature. The genius used
his own words such as: the absolute ruling point in nature, the theory of everything or the
unified theory and related it to physics whereas the Buddha connected the ultimate nature
to the end of suffering and Christ connected it to returning to the Kingdom of God.
Searching out there
The notion of wanting to find the final frontier in the universe is yet another way to say I
want to find the ultimate truth. Intellectuals, especially astronomers, naturally assume
that the final frontier of this gigantic cosmos is in outer space. As we like to say: the
truth is out there. That is why we need to travel away from the earth into space to
explore, to find out more facts and information. We hope that such information will help
us to understand the origin of our own planet, our lives (consciousness), as well as to give
us some ideas of the future of our home planet. We want to have comforting thoughts that
humanity will live on, which once again is the result of the fear of death and uncertainty.
We need to know the state of certainty so that we can rely on that hope. This urges us to
explore deeper into our tube of intellect, which is the source of acquiring knowledge. We
have gained knowledge in all avenues and subsequently transformed global society into
this modern civilization with all the technology and economy run by a few capitalists.
During the process of so-called development and progress, we have lost track of our
intention to find the certainty or the ultimate truth. Instead, we have been caught up in the
wonder and glory which science, technology and money can offer us the comfort zone
which overwhelms our intention to find the ultimate truth. Hence, human suffering due to
the widening gap between the rich and the poor continues and is even accelerating in
many countries.
Talking sense is all we have
So, lets bring back our primary intention to find the ultimate truth with the hope that we
can subsequently find eternal peace and happiness. Is the truth really out there in space?
Do you really believe that we can find the truth in the space by spending our whole lives
searching for it out there? If there was any truth out there at all, will that truth make us
any happier than we are now? You must seriously ask these questions. Most importantly,
do any of these ideas make any sense to you at all? Talking sense is all we have left here
if we want to know such a massive subject as the ultimate truth or the final frontier. If we
cant relate to things that truly make sense to us, perhaps we should forget about this
whole issue.
As for me, my common sense tells me that if we cannot find the truth right where we are,
where else do we think we can find it in this gigantic universe? It makes much better
sense to say that the truth is right here in front of us so that we can make some use out of
it while we are suffering the punches, bruises and mental stresses of this life. Dont you
think so?

The eureka experience

I have reached the point, following my eureka experience, that I am able to know
precisely what the ultimate truth is. Thats how I could come up with the 28
terminologies to represent the ultimate truth. To save your time to flip back the pages, I
put them down here for you once again. They are as follows:
1. The ultimate enlightenment
2. Nirvana
3. The Kingdom of God
4. The Tree of Life
5. Godhood
6. Tao
7. Eternity
8. Immortality
9. The ultimate (absolute) truth
10. The ultimate reality
11. The grand ultimate (the meaning of Tai chi)
12. The absolute ruling point in nature (Einsteins concept)
13. The absolute simplicity
14. The absolute ordinariness
15. The absolute normality
16. The ultimate certainty
17. The true self
18. The real self
19. The non-self
20. The eternal peace
21. The absolute harmony
22. The ultimate freedom
23. The end of suffering
24. The true (real) happiness
25. Here and Now
26. The final frontier
27. Life out of prison
28. The innocent perception (my coinage).
The ultimate truth has one taste, one sole experience, but that extraordinary and unique
experience can be called by different names, words and terminologies. Words and true
experience are two totally different things. For example, there are many different names
in different languages for a green thorny fruit with a very pungent smell and a creamy
taste and texture known in English as durian. But the word durian and the actual fruit
are two totally different things.

I suppose it is easier to draw the distinction with material object like the fruit but it still
works in the same principle when dealing with the non-material form as the ultimate
truth. It is important that we must draw the division between the actual experience of the
ultimate truth and its name.
You can see that among the above 28 terminologies, there are only four of them that you
can deal with in a scientific (rational) manner when a definition is needed. They are: the
absolute ruling point in nature, here and now, the ultimate truth and the innocent
perception. For the rest of the 24 terminologies, we would need to go through a lot more
debate, and more than likely a philosophical discussion and arguments, to be able to
reach acceptable and agreeable definitions.
Used as a verb
Having said that, even with those four mentioned terminologies, it is only the term the
innocent perception that can be used to describe an action of how one can perceive
things innocently. The other three can still be loosely and ambiguously interpreted and
defined. Furthermore, the innocent perception is based on the very scientific tools
humans have our senses! Therefore, it is only this coinage (the innocent perception)
that will allow us to work on and to find knowledge about the ultimate truth in a
scientific manner using direct observation.
In this chapter, I will do my best to connect these two terms for you: the innocent
perception and the final frontier. I am drawn to this term, the final frontier, because I
can clearly explain to people how our search for the final frontier as the ultimate truth has
gone wrong. It definitely goes wrong at the point of perception!
Two ways of perceiving sense objects
People do not realize that there are two ways of perceiving sense objects at the moment
of perception. You have the choice to perceive sense objects in the innocent manner or
the not innocent manner. This fact will only be revealed if you have engaged in the
practice of the four foundations of mindfulness for a length of time. This practice will

enhance the quality of the mind, which is made up of the metaphoric Tom and Jerry.1
Using this practice is how I know about this fact which has enabled me to know that the
innocent perception is the ultimate truth.
Experience X the not innocent perception
The not innocent perception is the perception with some thinking and talking involved:
e.g., upon seeing a round object, you say a ball in your head; upon hearing sounds, a
reaction in your head saying horrible music; upon smelling something, you
instantaneously say ohnice smell of coffee; upon tasting a lemon, you exclaim sour
and upon touching a soft toy, you note oh so lovely. This, of course, sounds very
normal to any human being. We are all bound to think or say something upon
perceptions. Well, this is very true to an untrained mind the mind of one who has never
practiced the four foundations of mindfulness. The majority of people in the world,
especially intellectuals, think that this is the only way to perceive sense perceptions. To
such persons, any alternative would imply that you must be unconscious or in a
vegetative state! This is however not true for those who have trained their minds through
the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness (vipassana or Bringing your mental
self back home).
Experience Y the innocent perception
The truth is that the vipassana practice can actually refine the state of humans minds. To
be more specific, this practice can enhance the quality of our consciousness element
which I have represented as the mental self with the mental eye (the 6th sense). If you can
go through the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness, you will gradually and
naturally progress until you reach the 4th foundation of mindfulness which I clearly state
is the innocent perception. This practice systematically reduces the number of thoughts
(Jerry) in your head. The first two foundations will take away all the loud, familiar noises
and chattering in your head. The 3rd foundation of mindfulness will prompt the
practitioner to be more aware of the very instant when thoughts enter the mind. This will
allow practitioners to clear the constant drifting and monologues from their minds.
Consequently, the practitioners mind (mental home) becomes silent, still, and at peace.
At that moment, your perceptions are all still there; the sensory perceptions do not just
disappear into thin air only because your mind is still and quiet. The difference is that
upon perception as experience Y, you are not drawn into the old traditional habit of
labeling your perceptions with names, giving attributes, reasoning, analyzing, moralizing
and philosophizing like we normally do with experience X. Experience Y or the innocent
perception is the very moment when you are able to perceive sensory objects innocently
or perceive things as they truly are. Consequently, experience Y is not tainted with
humans thoughts.
1

Please refer to chapter three, the five aggregates making up human life. They are one part mass (physical
self) and four parts of formless natures: thoughts, memories, feelings (Jerry) and the consciousness element
or mental self (Tom).

Humans thoughts are unreliable due to their rapidly changing nature and hence are
illusive. Thought is not the absolute nature; it also creates the state of dualities (good and
bad, positive and negative), which cause endless and sometime pointless arguments the
very source of all problems from domestic to global! So, its important to know that there
is an experience upon perception in which thoughts play no part and this is experience Y
or the innocent perception.
The final frontier is right here
For the above reason, experience Y, the innocent perception perceiving things as they
truly are is by all means purer than experience X. It also has the in-built absolute,
definite and ultimate characteristic we have all been searching for, and is qualified to be
the nature of the ultimate truth. We can call experience Y the final frontier or the absolute
ruling point in nature. Experience Y is the very nature that Einstein wanted to locate. This
experience Y is similar to having a straight ruler in your hand that you can use to measure
absolutely everything in the universe. Every issue about life and the universe will always
lead us back to this ultimate truth. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can go
beyond this experience of the innocent perception. All the intellectual glories, which we
assume to be development and progress, in fact belong to experience X, the not innocent
perception. This is because experience X prompts us to enter our tube of intellect, an
action similar to digging an endless rabbit hole without any clear purpose. I will elaborate
on this in the next chapter.
In the meantime, we can ask ourselves what else do we need or where else do we have to
go if we have already found the ultimate truth or have reached the final frontier. All the
searching can finally end right here! There is no need to explore the gigantic universe to
search for anything, is there? The exploration into space to find the unknown truth is far
too ambitious and doesnt bring happiness in individuals who walk on this tiny blue
planet for a staggeringly short length of time. To the contrary, the innocent perception as
the ultimate truth and the final frontier not only can fulfill the best ambition (purpose) in
individuals, it can also bring instant peace, true happiness, mental stability and
subsequently great harmony in humanity. This is the direct path to peace on earth. All
these benefits can happen instantaneously if only individuals know how to perceive
sensory perceptions innocently.
This makes much better sense and corresponds to a wise saying used for centuries, if the
ultimate truth is not right where we are, where do we think we can find it? Indeed, the
ultimate truth, as the final frontier, is right here under our nose, but we completely
overlook it due to our heads being constantly inundated with thoughts and feelings
(Jerrys) which prevent individuals from seeing the truth.
Purely rational
Please know that this notion is not far-fetched or delusional. It is purely rational and
scientific. The best part is that everyone can take part, can experience it, and can prove it

for themselves by engaging in the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness. There
is no other way to do it. This practice is considered a skill just like swimming, cooking
and driving: the more you do, the better you will get. The more you practice bringing
your mental self back home, the easier it will be to gain control of your own thoughts and
feelings (mind) and the quicker you will be able to reach your 4th home or have
experience Y, the innocent perception. This ultimate insight will allow you to gain
wisdom. Only then, will you be convinced and be able to make the connection for
yourself that the innocent perception, the ultimate truth and the final frontier share
exactly the same experience.
Hence, if we can all engage in the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness or
BMSBH, we will find out for ourselves that the innocent perception is very much
possible. Once your basic mental skill is good (knowing your breathing, movements and
sensations), you will progress to reach the 4th home and you will know exactly how to
perceive sensory perceptions innocently.
This is the only way we can help our fellow human beings to reach the final frontier, to
end all the on-going searching and to settle ourselves down for true happiness. Only
through this extraordinary practice will humanity definitely be able to find true and
eternal peace and live in harmony.
Dead simple
Simple explanations are always better than difficult and complex ones. The notion of the
final frontier I put forward is much simpler than searching the universe for an absolute
ruling point; it not only makes sense, it is also accessible to all beings. The sages of
eastern wisdom also said that the most profound wisdom in the universe has no depth.
Thats why I have not a shred of doubt that the innocent perception is the ultimate truth
as well as the final frontier.

Chapter seven

The tube of intellect

In The Final Frontier, I have talked about experience X, the not innocent perception
and experience Y, the innocent perception. I have also confirmed to you that the
innocent perception is the nature of the ultimate truth and the final frontier. This
chapter will talk about how experience X has led us into our tube of intellect, my
description of mental activity having a nature similar to digging endless rabbit holes.
This mental activity also causes us to be lost in our own mental jungle and prevents us
from spotting the truth right under our nose.
Experience X has everything to do with thoughts or the thinking faculty, which is
highly regarded in the intellectual world. Many people tend to think that all greatness
stems from thinking the more one can think, the better one becomes without
recognising the dark side of thoughts. Too much thinking especially the negative
thoughts can destroy individuals and already has brought immense turmoil and
suffering to global society. In fact, all crime scenes initially begin in peoples heads.
Whether one wants to rob, revenge, kill or start a war, one has to think first.
Two main groups of people
For easy understanding, I shall separate people into two main groups: the nonpractitioners of the four foundations of mindfulness who are the majority of people in
the world and the practitioners of the four foundations of mindfulness who are the
small minority.

The non-practitioners are the group of people who only engage in experience X; their
perceptions are not innocent due to having no means and no access to experience Y.
On the other hand, skilful mindfulness practitioners not only can engage in both
experience X and Y, but can also reach experience Y on demand should one need to
escape into the peaceful innocent world. It isnt necessary to stay with experience Y
all the time. It is impossible anyway because we, as social animals, need to use
thoughts while interacting and communicating with people, not to mention solving
problems of survival. However, not all mindfulness practitioners know exactly what

experience Y is, especially the beginners, but at least they have the skill of how to
have access to experience Y. Provided that they keep up with the practice of the four
foundations of mindfulness, they will eventually reach the 4th home and know exactly
what the innocent perception is. This is not the case for the non-practitioners who lack
the necessary skills to access experience Y.
Entering the tube of intellect
Lets start with the non-practitioners first. For example, upon perception, if there is
any thinking or mental talking involved, including labelling the perceived
objects/experiences with names, giving attributes, analysing, planning,
philosophizing, imagining, and so forth, it means that their mental selves have already
entered the tube of intellect. This is just the beginning of digging the rabbit holes. To
extend this metaphor for clearer understanding, suppose that this tube of intellect is 10
inches long. I will illustrate the levels of complex thinking by comparing it to the inch
marks along this tube of intellect.
Should you view a round object in front of you and simultaneously call that object a
ball, it means that you have already come to stand at the 4th inch mark in the tube. If
you carry on analysing, thinking and talking about more issues relating to the ball,
you may walk deeper into the tube depending how complex your thinking is and
whether the ball perception is connected to gain and loss with consequences that may
send you up and down the emotional ladder. Nevertheless, the 4th inch mark is the
average depth that most people walk into this tube of intellect as soon as naming
perceptions starts.
The link between thoughts, words and languages
Before I carry on with this tube of intellect, please allow me to sidetrack a bit. I want
to explain to you first that your thoughts, words and languages are the same nature,
but in different stages. Thoughts are the language you talk in your head before you
vocalize them into spoken words. The same thoughts can be materialized into
different languages. A round shaped object, called a ball in English, can be named
differently in more than a hundred languages.
You may want to ask where those thoughts come from. The answer is initially from
your perceptions: sights, sounds, smells, tastes and texture. (Please refer to chapter
three of this book.) Because you see a round object, you, then, have the urge to name
that object especially should you need to communicate with someone. So you think,
what should that round object be called?, you engage in some thinking, you use the
database from your memory box and then you mentally say or utter the sound, which
represents the thought in your head. The moment you call that round object a ball,
you are already at the 4th inch mark in the tube.
Intellect: our doomed vessel!
Our tube of intellect indeed creates the conditions of blocking our 6th sense (mental
eye) and also has more sinister and cunning characteristics, yet is fundamentally
profound. Intellect or the whole of our thinking faculty is humankinds fundamental
tool for acquiring knowledge and building our civilisation. Lets compare our

intellect as a vessel, in the hull of this vessel is an undetected hole. This vessel cannot
go very far; sooner or later, it will sink!
Having been used as the fundamental tool and having no other tool to rectify itself,
the illusive quality of our intellect tricks us into believing that our mental proliferation
is of a positive nature. We must not be fooled by our technological development
because the end of our tube of intellect is nothing more than a cul-de-sac! We must
admit that the advances of science along with our high-tech culture have offered us far
more than we really need to live a decent life. Still, we are not content and happy, are
we? Why? Askwe must!
The way that Einstein explored and trusted his mathematics, trying to come up with a
unified theory, was also his abandonment of experience Y deserting the truth or
the absolute ruling point he passionately wanted to find in the first place by eagerly
entering the tube of intellect. His mental pursuit is the equivalent to an author starting
with the wrong sentence or being an unskilful jigsaw puzzle player. As he walked
deeper into his tube of intellect, a dead end was all he found.
Simple-minded people stand at the 4th inch mark
The 4th inch mark represents the group of people who are very simple minded: for
example, very young children, countryside people, farmers, tribal people, nomads.
They are people who may never have been through any form of established education,
they could be illiterate or live closely to the natural environment and do not have
complex thinking. Upon perception, they will express themselves with simple
language.
When my middle son, Andrew, was about three years old, I bought five toothbrushes,
one for each one of us in the family. My son was very excited when I took the
toothbrushes out of the shopping bag. He took them away, laid them on the floor and
used his cute little index finger pointing at each one of them. While he was pointing at
each toothbrush, he also said: toothbrush, toothbrush, toothbrush, toothbrush,
toothbrush. Such expression of language was the result of a very simple mind due to
having a very limited memory. Whereas my five year-old boy who had gone to school
for over a year would have said something like: mummy bought five toothbrushes.
The term five toothbrushes is a bit more complex because it requires some thinking
and adding. The number 5 represents the total quantity of the objects, which involves
a bit more intricate thinking. You can see the difference between the expression of
language between preschool and primary school children. The older you are, the more
you learn and the more complex your mind will become. Tribal people who tend to
live in jungles or deserts and dont have much to do with the outside world also tend
to have simpler languages due to their limited environments and the lack of formal
education.
Who stands where?
Please incorporate this heading with the number of twists I talked about in chapter
five. They are in fact the same contents but talking from different angle. Lets come
back to the tube of intellect again and suppose further that the 5th inch mark represents
people who have gone through compulsory education up to the high school level. The

6th inch mark represents students having a university degree. The 7th inch mark
represents post-graduate students doing masters degrees and PhDs. The 8th inch mark
represents professionals in various careers who really have to do serious thinking
every day of their lives. They cannot switch off their thoughts easily even though they
are not working and are relaxing with their families, i.e. teachers, lawyers, judges,
police, scientists, doctors, business people, politicians and so on. The 9th inch mark
represents highly intellectual people who do serious thinking all the time. Finally the
10th inch mark represents people with the mind of a genius.

With this analogy, you can clearly see that the more intricately one can think, the
deeper one walks into this tube of intellect and the further away one is from the point
of zero (no twist between Tom and Jerry) where the ultimate truth is as shown in the
table above.
Far from rigid
Please bear in mind that this is only a rough guide and generalisation to illustrate the
challenges of complex thinking and to encourage reflection about where exactly you
stand or what your mental status is in terms of simplicity and complexity. Of course
such a placement is far from rigid. Although I placed farmers and peasants on the 4th
inch mark, I was thinking of poor farmers in Thailand more than western farmers who
may have degrees in horticulture and whose farming is a multi-million pound
investment. Those intellectual farmers are more likely to stand in between the 7th and
9th inch mark instead of at the 4th inch mark as it is obvious that they have to engage
in serious thinking to make their business profitable. The more you are conditioned by
gain and loss, the deeper you go into this tube of intellect too (and the more mental
twists you will have). It is also common knowledge that some secondary or high
school students may have the mind of a genius.
Why we need the absolute ruling point
The reason why we need to know our mental status simple or complex is because
we (as humanity) have no idea where we are standing; left, right or centre. We dont
know whether we are moving forward, backward, (coming or going) more to the left

or more to the right. This lack of understanding is the root cause of all the confusion,
chaos, injustice, inequality, unhappiness, turmoil and suffering of mankind. We need
to find a ruling point so we have some idea of where we stand. That ruling point
cannot be a relative ruling point. It has to be the absolute ruling point in nature. In
other words, we need to have an absolutely straight ruler to measure all things
otherwise well go round-the-bend like a hamster running round a wheel! Thats why
we need to listen carefully to a real knower. Following my eureka experience, I am
absolutely certain that the ultimate ruling point is the innocent perception (experience
Y). The innocent perception is that straight ruler we need so that we can put the
world to rights.
The big picture
Based on my certainty that experience Y is the straight ruler, I therefore am able to
use the illustration below to give you the big picture of exactly where we stand in
this gigantic cosmos.

With this illustration, imagining the box as a tube of intellect with ten at the bottom
and zero at the very top outside the box (the ultimate truth, the innocent perception,
no twist), we now have an image of the total distance of our life journey, which
allows us to know if we are in the centre, to the left, to the right, near, far, halfway or
nearly reaching the final destination. The deeper you go into this tube of intellect, the
further away you are from the ultimate truth.
A different ball game
As far as attaining the ultimate truth is concerned, it is a totally different ball game if
you want to reach the final certainty or the innocent perception. It means that those
who stand on the 4th inch mark (simple minded people) will have a better chance to
come out of the tube of intellect and witness experience Y than those who are at the
7th, 8th, 9th or 10th inch mark. The deeper you delve into your huge pile of intellectual
knowledge (more twists), the more difficult it will be for you to find the real truth/the
final frontier. A complex mind like that of Einstein could work out a lot of things, but
certainly not the dead simple ultimate truth. Being an intellectual genius, Einstein

could not stop thinking and working out the answer by means of mathematics; his
mind was totally taken over by Jerry too many twists! Unfortunately, the ultimate
truth cannot be reached by tools such as mathematics and thinking; it has to be
attained by the initial guided wisdom and the subsequent means of having a high level
of self-awareness (BMSBH) only.
Simpler minded people who do less thinking will have more chance to witness the
ultimate truth than clever ones and therefore have fewer challenges in reaching
experience Y. The mindfulness practitioners are groups of people who stand at the 3rd
inch mark and onward up to the zero point (no twist). They are equipped with the
necessary tools to find the truth (BMSBH/the means to the end). There are technically
the four levels of holy people identified by the Buddha. The 3rd inch mark people are
the committed mindfulness practitioners who have made a U turn and begun the right
path to the ultimate truth. They can be anyone who previously stood from the 4th to
the 10th inch mark. If a 10th inch mark individual found the path to the ultimate truth,
that person could make a huge difference to this entire planet and peace on earth is
very much possible. This could have happened had Albert Einstein made a U-turn and
worked to somewhere between the three to zero inch marks.
Digging the rabbit hole
Once we have located the absolute ruling point, we are able to have a clear image of
the entirety of knowledge. Comparatively speaking, if one knows a straight ruler, one
will certainly and easily recognise a bent ruler. Without my eureka experience, there
is no way I could come up with this huge and most challenging notion I am presenting
in this book. Indeed, I know for certain that the entire intellectual knowledge is a
matter of delving into the details of all things from the particles smaller than an atom
to the biggest scale of the entire universe, with a mammoth pile of details in between.
Delving into the small details is the nature of digging rabbit holes which quite often
is for the sake of digging without any clear purpose for that particular knowledge.
This is the very activity that also sends us deeper into space with a delusional hope
that we may find the truth or the final frontier out there. Consequently, we have a
mammoth pile of knowledge as big as a mountain and of a size that can crush every
single person and every animal on earth in one go. Yet those precious mountains of
knowledge havent made an iota of difference when individuals come face to face
with worries, pain, greed, discontentment, anger, envy, disappointment, sorrow and
fear. Mental turmoil and suffering still pinch and stab into peoples heads and hearts
and our egos are still easily bruised and dented, all of which further perpetuates global
problems.
Rowing a boat in a huge pond
Should I compare intellectual knowledge to a prison, the research and investigating of
our worldly knowledge is nothing more than stating, explaining and elaborating the
scenery of a prison cell while the researchers are totally oblivious of their imprisoned
predicament knowing nothing of the ultimate freedom of life! Similarly, it can be
compared to rowing a boat in a huge lake. All our intellectual skills and particulars are
similar to being trained to row different shapes and sizes of boats. As soon as we get
to a boat, we jump on it and row as best and as far as we can without realising that we

are rowing our boat in a huge pond. Consequently we have transformed global society
into what we are now: capitalism, communism, high technology, materialism,
poverty, crimes, drugs, wars, and destruction of the natural environment contributing
to global warming and climate change and so forth. We may think we have come a
long way in terms of development but we must not be fooled by smart phones,
Internet, GPS, IVF, stem cell technology, robots and space travel as real signs of
advancement; they are merely tools for convenience and comfort while living in an
undetected prison. Sadly, we know nothing about the true freedom outside this prison.
It is extremely difficult when you dont know what you dont know, because you
dont even know what and how to ask the right question. The difficulty of this whole
predicament is its sheer magnitude; it is so massive and profound that we cannot
possibly understand it by ourselves without accepting help from a Knower. Thats
why the Buddha said that kalayanamitta a good friend leading one to a real
Knower is the most important factor in attaining ultimate enlightenment. For this
reason, I feel compelled to come forward and tell you directly of this wisdom.
Adoring details
I hope you now can see clearly that all the popular intellectual programs on (British)
television that are highly rated and adored by millions: e.g. University Challenge,
Krypton Factor, Master Mind, including tools like mind mapping, are nothing more
than enhancing our thinking faculty, exercising our memorisation and widening the
memory box! In other words, we train our rabbits to dig better (widening the hole)
and faster. Thats all there is to it. Hence, we use all these details to measure our
intelligent quotients (I.Q). There is no real substance and wisdom there in terms of
leaving this gigantic life prison and finding true freedom and world peace, is there?
Our intellectual knowledge, e.g. medicine, scientific discovery, technology and so on
simply offers us a more pain-free and a comfortable life in the prison cell, thats all.
Einstein hated details
Due to being ignorant towards our imprisoned-like predicament, no matter how
correct and accurate the body of worldly knowledge is, it is merely composed of
innumerable small details. Details is what Einstein could not stand; he viewed them
with contempt. Thats why he abandoned his quantum mechanics and went off to
pursue his quest for the unified theory, but to no avail. Rather, he wanted to find out
the mind of God, why the Almighty created the universe like it is. In other words,
Einstein wanted to understand the big picture of life in relation to the universe. This
is what the absolute ruling point and the unified theory are all about wanting to
understand the big picture and not details.
This genius was absolutely right; had he found the absolute ruling point in nature/the
final certainty, this extraordinary finding would have definitely been a life-changing
discovery for us all leading us toward peace on earth!

Chapter eight

Here and Now, Truth and Reality, and Innocent Perception

In the previous two chapters, I have talked about Jerry and his ability to dig endless
rabbit holes in our heads as being the root cause that takes us further away from the
ultimate truth, the innocent perception. This experience already exists right under our
noses! I have also explained that the four foundations of mindfulness or bringing the
mental self back home (BMSBH) is the direct means leading us to the nature of this
definite truth. So, please bear in mind that we are about to deal with the ultimate nature
which is the experience outside the tube of intellect or at ground zero where our
thoughts/language are totally redundant. However, for the sake of helping people, even
the Buddha had no choice but to use his thoughts and language so that he could
communicate and deliver this newly found experience to his followers. Hence we can
make our own way to find the truth ourselves.
In this chapter, I will explain the nature of this absolute element by connecting it with
these more familiar terms: here and now, the truth, and the innocent perception.
Here and now
Lets first of all investigate the nature of here and now. This term indicates the state of
the present. Not until you look closer will you find out that the true meaning of present
has been very loosely understood. Where and when exactly is the actual present, or here
and now? When you say: ohlook, a fly is flying right in front of my face!, it sounds
very present as if it is literally happening right here and right now, but dont be so sure.
By the time you finish that sentence, that fly has been flapping its wings a hundred times
since you started the sentence or it might have flown away many seconds ago! Besides all
the things you have done in the past hour, or even minutes, look closer at your activities,
like your own breathing, which most people think is all about the actual present but it
isnt. What actually happens is a continuous on-going event.
Indeed, the actual present is not of a static nature, and cannot be pinned down by
anything. It is dynamic and always changing. You will have a much better perspective if I
compare the actual present, or here and now, to the second hand on a clock. It must be a
clock with the second hand sweeping along the face, and not the ticking type.

The real present is actually the border between the immediate past, and the immediate
future, which never stands still for a moment. The actual present doesnt tick along or
stop briefly for you like a ticking clock. Please look at the sweeping second hand of a
clock; you will get the picture right away. Here and now sweeps along in a constant
mode exactly like the second hand on a clock. That is the real character of the actual
present or here and now.
Here and now has very limited space just like the second hand on a clock; the rest is the
area which belongs to past and future. If you look at the face of the clock, you can clearly
see that past and future cover the area before and after the second hand, an area which
covers almost the whole face of the clock apart from that tiny space where the
continuously moving second hand is. Past and future also share the same characteristic of
being non-existent or not real because the past has gone, done and dusted, whereas the
future hasnt arrived. There is no real substance in them. The real existence is only here
and now, which is also constantly moving.
Here and now has been moving from whenever and will carry on moving till whenever in
infinity and eternity. This is an area of knowledge we dont need to go too deeply into as
one may be lured into Jerrys trap digging yet another unnecessary rabbit hole! For
example: saying that the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe and of time, is a
total imagination (Jerrys talk). Time in the chronological sense is infinite and has
nothing to do with a Big Bang or no Big Bang. Before the Big Bang, there were still
events along the time line even if it involved just one or two specks of dust flying around
in the vast space. As far as the Big Bang is concerned, it is a matter of cutting out a chunk
of time line and designating it as the beginning of time and events another rabbit hole!
Lets leave this mystery about the beginning of the universe as a secret of heaven and
take the Buddhas advice by trying to understand the reality that can lead us to the end of
our mental suffering!1 It is quite enough at this stage for you to know that here and now is
1

Trying to answer an impossible question like, when did the universe begin?, which many people
attribute to the work of an almighty God; the Buddha in contrast warned us not to question or think along
that line of questions because it can lead the thinker to insanity and it wouldnt reduce individuals mental
pains when parting from their loved ones. The Buddha gave the analogy of a man wounded by an arrow.
The most important task is to take the arrow out of the body, but the foolish man refused the priority
treatment. Instead, he wanted to find out who made the arrow, what caste the arrow-smith belonged to,
what material he used to make this arrow, and so on. Likewise, trying to answer how and when the universe
began and was made is similar to the foolish man asking about the arrow stuck in his body. Hence, the
Buddha emphasised for his followers to know just a handful of leaves, the important knowledge that can

moving constantly and endlessly. I shall connect the concept of here and now with the
truth later on.
Two domains of knowledge
The image of the intellectual knowledge (experience X), I presented in the previous
chapter can be separated again into two domains of knowledge:
conceptual knowledge and
experiential knowledge.
Before I delve into the subject of the ultimate truth, it is important we reach the same
level of understanding first because you may get confused otherwise. Lets agree on the
fact that the world is not all pure and innocent as we like it to be and yes, global society
has been contaminated by manipulation, propaganda through media and advertising,
conspiracy, exploitation, extortion, injustice and cynicism, i.e. 9/11, the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the conned monetary system, One World Order, the Bilderberg Group, GM
food, man-made poverty and diseases, drinking Coke is good for you, and so forth. All
these problematic issues contribute to this illusive world. All these facts are classed as
conceptual knowledge, the result of thoughts (a bunch of Jerrys) and having the nature
of rabbit-holes. This conceptual knowledge is an overall image of our global society
that I am very much aware of and we may not be able to get to the bottom of the truth.
Hence they are the main reason for my entire work because if we dont know the ultimate
truth, it will be extremely difficult to accept all those ugly worldly truth engulfing us. It
could drive any serious thinkers insane. For this reason, it is imperative we know the
ultimate truth so that we can at least keep our sanity intact.
To understand the heading of the truth I am about to delve into, it is important you know
that I am not talking about the perception of the big image of our global society that
might have been twisted one way or another through social manipulation. The truth in
this chapter is more aligned with experiential knowledge. It concerns our immediate
perceptions which are very direct, simple and absolute. For example, when I accidentally
put my hand over a hot stove and exclaim: oh...thats hot! That knowing hot in my hand
is the undisputable result of my direct experience/perception, which is complete, definite,
truthful and uncontaminated. Unlike conceptual knowledge which is made up by a bunch
of Jerrys in our heads and which is always subject to interpretation, dualities and endless
arguments.
Here is a clear-cut example. Advertising tells us that the sweet commercial drink called
Coke is refreshing and good for all of us. Such a statement is conceptual knowledge; it
can be true or false and subject to arguments. However, you now have a very cold, wet
and weighty can of Coke in your hand, you drink the dark liquid, you feel cool and fizzy
in your mouth and you may burp later. Now, these sensations: the coldness, wetness,

take away their suffering. That is quite enough. Asking the wrong question about life is similar to author
starts a wrong sentence and cannot move on or an unskillful jigsaw puzzle player who goes straight to piece
the jigsaw puzzle in the middle section instead of starting at the straight edges.

heaviness, coolness, fizziness and the burping are direct and absolutely truthful
experiences to you, hence they are experiential knowledge.
So, please make a distinction between these two domains of knowledge. Although these
two types of knowledge at this stage are still classed as experience X (knowledge
happens in the tube of intellect or the prison of life), the experiential knowledge just
mentioned is, however, closer to experience Y as described in the previous two chapters.
As far as this chapter is concerned, I am going to use the direct and definite experiential
knowledge as a platform to gain access to the ultimate truth (experience Y).
Initial notion of truth and reality
Now that you have a better idea of what the actual present or here and now is; I will
connect here and now with these words: truth and reality, both of which share the same
meaning. I must initially emphasize that the meaning of truth in the ultimate sense (holy
sense) doesnt strictly mean honesty, truthful words or actual events that have truly
happened or are happening.
For one thing, honesty is a very tricky subject these days when global culture is heavily
shaped by money, powerful multimedia, political spin doctors, and advertising, all of
which contribute in one way or another to huge propaganda machines. Hence, individuals
are conditioned to be more cynical towards almost all establishments: the economy,
politics, education, justice, religion, social service and so forth. This makes our social
landscapes, no matter how real we think they are, become a huge stage of drama pure
illusion! For example, a news-reporter reads news that is misleading, a judge passes a
sentence based on evidence that had been manipulated, a teacher teaches history that has
been twisted. No matter how truthful and correct they deliver, the whole event, despite
being factual, is classed as illusion or experience X.
For this reason alone, all the words that come out of peoples mouths no matter how
truthful they are, are not the meaning of the truth in the sense that I am trying to convey.
Indeed, even honest and truthful words belong to experience X the inconvenient truth
that we must admit! This is the reason why we need to know the real truth (experience
Y) by using the Buddhas guidelines. Without this revelation of the real truth, humanity
will be perpetually going around a hamster-like wheel for as long as it takes eons!
Secondly, written or spoken language, itself an abstract material form of thoughts (Jerry),
is of a constantly changing nature, hence being illusive. Words have to go hand in hand
with definitions which generate more words and quite often invite ambiguity. Words
(thoughts, Jerry) also allow speakers to give attributes to things which instantaneously
form a boundary and limitation. This can lead to subsequent disagreement and endless
argument especially when definitions are ambiguous or incomplete.
For example, John is a person who gives importance to looks. Ann is a fat lady in his
eyes, but to Jim, who doesnt care much about looks, Ann is only a plump lady, not fat.
To Ann, she sees herself being thinner than her sister, Barbara, whom she views as being

overweight. Now, who is going to judge what Ann really is, fat, plump, thin or
overweight? Can you see that it might take days to settle such disagreements? This
slippery and unreliable nature of our thoughts along with our instinctive egoistic attitude
contribute to a problematic and shaky society. This example also reflects Einsteins
notion of relativity. How we perceive Ann is totally related to our having preferences for
looks and appearances and the different level of our egos and vanity; this is relativity.
Not until you know the absolute element, can such relativity come to an end.

Viewing Ann through different colour shades of thoughts (illusive Jerry)

For the above reason, the ultimate truth or reality (experience Y) cannot be connected to
the paradigm of language. Neither can it be defined with words (thoughts, Jerry,
experience X). It must be something that goes beyond words, definitions and attributes,
and has the absolute quality in itself. Hence, the innocent perception fits such a
description. Therefore we must first of all pay more attention to experiential knowledge
(still experience X), which can take us closer to experience Y than conceptual
knowledge.
Two types of perceptions
To narrow the subject a bit further for clear understanding, lets leave conceptual
knowledge behind and focus on experiential knowledge, which is based on having
immediate perceptions that produce direct, indisputable and definite experiences. Lets
suppose you are looking at a stem of a single red rose; there are two results that can be
produced from such direct perception:
1. The not innocent perception (experience X) produces an experiential reaction.
There are voices in your heads saying: red rose, green and thorny stem, smells
nice, beautiful and so on. You know all these particular attributes because of your
direct experience. If you utter those voices in your head out loud, they become
language used for communications. Experience X or experiential knowledge
occurs to everyone who doesnt know about the four foundations of mindfulness
or the non-BMSBH practitioners, which is the majority of people in the world.
2. The innocent perception (experience Y) produces the ultimate truth (28
terminologies). It means that upon perception, there is not a single word in your
head for describing or naming attributes of what you are seeing. You manage to

look at that object as it truly is direct, simple, wholesome, truthful, definite and
absolute. Experience Y can be executed only by those who have engaged in the
practice of the four foundations of mindfulness or BMSBH until they reach the 4th
foundation/4th home/the innocent perception. A skilful practitioner can produce
experience Y on demand. So far, there is just a handful of people in the world
who manage to produce this most profound experience Y. Not all practitioners
grasp the experience of the innocent perception. Experience Y cannot happen
without a teachers guidance (guided wisdom as I am presenting in this chapter).
Cynical people may quickly jump to the conclusion that such innocent perception
belongs to brain dead people. This is not the case at all. To the contrary, this
most simple activity becomes the most profound wisdom in the universe! May I
remind you once again of the wise saying: if the ultimate truth is not right here in
front of you, where do you think you can find it?
The nature of the ultimate truth
Once you understand the two types of perception. You will now more easily understand
the nature of the ultimate truth, which relates closely to time, or here and now.
A knower of the ultimate truth can clarify the nature of the truth to you as follows: If you
want to understand the word truth in its deepest spiritual sense, you must look closely at
this very moment of here and now. Everything that you can perceive right here and right
now is real, is it not? Lets start with sight first. It doesnt matter what you are looking at
right now, it could be anything from a needle, a paper clip, a table, a rose, a tree, a dog, a
clump of cloud, a sea, a television, a mobile phone, a car, an advertising billboard, this
book and so on, as long as you literally see it right here and right now, and you see them
without uttering a word in your head (innocent perception), then these experiences of
seeing are already the ultimate truth/reality in this holy sense dead simple!
Its true, some of those items could even be branded as illusion, propaganda or
manipulation such as the advertising posters and billboard, but it doesnt matter; as long
as you perceive them without a single thought in your head, looking at them innocently,
they become the experience of the truth in the holy sense already. Please take your time
to digest this dead simple meaning of the ultimate truth.
To be more precise, all sensory perceptions, your sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and
touches, that you are perceiving right here and right now, as long as you are perceiving
them innocently (experience Y), they are then the ultimate truth and reality in the holy
sense because they are real to you: you can see them, hear them, smell them, taste them
and touch them. In other words, the direct experiences upon innocent perceptions are the
ultimate truth (reality) to you, and to you alone. Thats all there is to it.
Cant afford to be complex!
There is no need to go deeper into the scientific facts about our limited perceptive ability
and our perceptions could be illusive e.g. invisible light, minute organisms, and how our

perceptions relate to the chemical decoding of the human brain. Please completely ignore
all these complex issues no matter how factual they are because they are nothing but
another rabbit-hole of thinking that can trap you! You can reach the ultimate truth
without having to know all this information unless you are in a profession that needs to
know it. In the meantime, one must realise that the ultimate truth cant afford to be
complex; it has to be dead simple the significant credential of being ultimate!
The truth moves along with our senses
Lets delve further into the very nature of the truth in the holy sense. I have made it clear
that the truth and our senses must go hand in hand. The point is we (our life form)
constantly move, so are our senses and perceptions.
Right now, apart from the computer I am typing on, there are also many other objects that
are within the range of my sight, e.g. a cup, a comb, a clock, a computer mouse, a mouse
pad, two pieces of paper, a plastic folder, cds, books, a torch, and so forth. Indeed, all
these objects, which I can see in front of me right now, are the meaning of the truth in the
holy sense as long as I perceive them innocently. They are the truth simply because they
are tangibly and visibly real, and I can see them, touch them, smell them, and taste them
(if I want) right here, and right now. What are also real are the sounds of birds singing
outside my window, and the voices of my neighbours talking in their garden next door to
us. As long as I perceive them as they truly are (experience Y), they are then the ultimate
truth.

The truth is everything that you can perceive right in front of you. That which
cannot be perceived exists in a memory box (Jerry) and therefore is not reality or
the truth in the holy sense.
Once again, lets focus just on sight first. To narrow the definition of the truth even
further, the objects that I cannot perceive right here and right now are not real to me,
hence they are not my truth and my reality. For example, the back of me right now is (or
Jerry is telling me there is) a wardrobe with two black suitcases on the top. As long as I
dont look back to see the wardrobe and the suitcases, those objects are not my truth
because they are not tangibly real to me. They only exist in my head in the form of Jerry
(thoughts and memories), and are subject to change. The suitcases might not be on top of

the wardrobe right now; my husband or my son might have moved them but my
memory (Jerry) tells me they were there 15 minutes ago (the last time I saw), and they
should still be there now. The point is I wont know the whole truth, not until I turn
around and see with my own eyes.
Now that I have turned my head around and looked at those objects, I now realise that
Jerry (my memory) didnt tell me the whole truth regarding the objects behind my back
earlier, because there are actually more objects than I thought there were. Although the
two cases are still on the wardrobe, my memory totally missed many other things lying
around here and there, i.e. a rug, a slipper used as a door stopper, the radiator with a few
socks hanging on it, and the big door with my bath robe, a pair of jeans, and a towel
hanging on it too. These objects didnt exist in my memory box at all although I am in the
room with them. Can you see how unreliable Jerry (memory) is? Anyway, the objects,
which were behind me minutes ago, have now become the truth as I am looking at them
right here and right now.
In vice versa, the computer and all those objects that I was previously facing minutes ago,
have now themselves become Jerry (memory) instead; they are not real to me anymore.
They are no longer my truth and reality because I cannot see them right here and right
now. As long as my eyes are looking at the view facing the door, with my table and the
computer now behind me, all the objects on the table, which were real a short while ago,
are no longer real. If I insist on identifying the objects on the table I saw minutes ago, I
am sure I will miss something again. Not until I turn my face back and see them right
here and right now will they be real, and be the wholesome truth again.
Here is another example. Although I know for a fact that there is definitely a road outside
my house, that road is still not my truth/reality right now because I cannot see it. Not
until I step outside my house and see innocently with my own eyes, and hear innocently
the sound of passing cars with my own ears will that road, and the sound of passing cars,
become my ultimate truth and reality. I hope these examples give you a clearer idea of
the meaning of truth and reality in the holy sense. You will understand far better if you
attend one of my retreats (or watch the teaching video), where I demonstrate the concept
with gestures.
Please allow me to remind you again to keep this very simple. It doesnt matter if the
chair or the pair of shoes you are looking at right now were made in a sweat shop in
China or Thailand and tainted with heavy exploitation. We deal with this inconvenient
truth later after you have gained the intuitive wisdom from knowing the ultimate truth. If
you havent tackled the nature of the real truth (experience Y), you wont have the
wisdom to find solutions to those inconvenient truths that affect every fibre of our
changing daily life. They are totally separate issues. We must initially find the loose end
of the thread before we can untangle the ball of knotted thread.
Making perceptions become absolute truth

I hope you have grasped the meaning of truth and reality that I have presented. The truth
in the holy sense covers absolutely everything that you can perceive (sights, sounds,
smells, tastes, and textures) right here and right now. Can you see that the truth moves
along with your senses (or you) all the time during your waking moments? Wherever you
(your senses) go, the truth/reality goes with you (your senses).
Now, to make all these immediate perceptions become absolute and ultimate, you must
not utter a sound/Jerry in your head to name or label them. It means that your perceptions
must all be absolutely innocent or having innocent perceptions; this is the only way all
these perceptions will become the ultimate truth/reality for you.
You can see that this is almost the same as experiential knowledge except you dont call
or label your experience with words. Upon immediate perception, just take away our
usual label and attributes like: oh...its hot, cold, freezing, pretty, ugly, smelly, lovely, fat,
thin, delicious, sweet, bitter and so on. When you keep your mouth totally sealed and
your head totally quiet without a single word, what you have left right in front of your
face is the ultimate truth. You cannot miss it. The ultimate truth is already staring at you!
In fact, the simpler your mind is, the easier you will reach the innocent perception. You
must not think too deeply. Thats why it was too difficult for a genius like Einstein to
work this out; his mind was too focused on complexity too deep into the rabbit hole!
I cannot emphasise enough how simple this is. Although you dont need to be a genius to
practice and attain the innocent perception, it does need the wisdom of an enlightening
person to work out this dead simple answer to all our problems. I could not work this out
before my Eureka experience. I can now lucidly explain the nature of the ultimate truth
to you because I am looking at it!
The same nature
I hope you have noticed that the words I use to explain the two concepts overlap. Here
and now (the actual present) is the only real/true existence whereas the truth is everything
that happens right here and right now. Both of them are of a constantly moving nature. In
the same way that here and now sweeps along eternally, your own personal truth also
sweeps along endlessly with your perceptions (during every waking moment). You may
be sitting still with no intention to perceive anything in particular. Whether you like it or
not, the second hand on the clock is moving along constantly while you are sitting and
you inevitably have perceptions experiencing the continuous truth that engulfs your
physical body. You cant run away from here and now and perceptions its your life.
Although you may blindfold your eyes and put ear plugs into your ears, you still have
smells, tastes and textures to perceive. The whole making of our lives is already attached
to time and space. It is only right that Mother Nature gives each and everyone of us this
ultimate opportunity. Provided that one knows the means to the end (BMSBH),
absolutely anyone, regardless of the status quo, can have access to this utterly simple
ultimate nature! This is a huge contrast to the conventional truth (conceptual knowledge),
being tainted by an unfairness that engulfs the global society right now. It also fits in with

the wise saying: if you cannot find the truth right where you are, where do you think you
can find it? The truth, as experience Y, under this meaning, can be reached by absolutely
every individual on earth. Thats why the Buddha said that his teaching is for all sentient
beings (beings who have senses): humans and animals and so on.

So, lets conclude that here and now, the truth/reality and the innocent perception
(experience Y) share exactly the same nature.
A paper clip is the truth
Judging by this definition of the ultimate truth, there is technically not a single thing on
earth that is not the truth. Where there is an innocent perception, the absolute truth is
always right there. Most people like to philosophize about the truth by making a
connection with natural features like trees, flowers, sky, clouds, water, dew drops, and so
on. Such concepts of the truth are often labelled with names and attributes, which belong
to experience X, the philosophical reflection of a non-knower. They were created by
humans thoughts (Jerry) the creator of all conventional truths! Only a real knower of
the truth can say with conviction that a paper clip, a cup, a rubbish bin, a coffee jar and
absolutely every single sight, sound, smell, taste and texture are the ultimate truth as long
as you perceive them innocently.
Please also notice that this is not a speculation, a fantasy, an imagination or a dogma such
as an omnipotent person who built the world and the lot in six days. My version of the
ultimate truth is about perceiving a paper clip, a rubbish bin, a coffee cup, a telephone, an
orange and so on as the innocent perception no more and no less! Yes, even YOU can
do it!

10

Once we connect this holy meaning of the truth with the term rupa in chapter three, our
knowledge should come full circle here. Rupa represents all perceptions and therefore
rupa and the truth are the same thing.

Rupa = sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures = external Jerry = the truth

All matters and events in life are called rupa which are perceived as sights,
sounds, smells, tastes and textures. Once the sensual perceptions are perceived
innocently, they become the absolute truth/reality in the holy sense.
This notion of the ultimate truth cannot be conceptualised or rationalised by using the
intellect (thoughts, Jerry). It doesnt matter if you have an IQ of 170, you still may not
understand why a paper clip and a plastic bag can be the ultimate truth. This
comprehension is the result of a unique intuitive enlightenment (a Eureka experience) of
an individual. Whoever has such an enlightening encounter, they will repeat the same
tune as far as the ultimate truth is concerned. Only through an initial faith (willing to
listen), guided wisdom, confidence and the practice of the four foundations of

11

mindfulness (BMSBH), will practitioners be able to truly understand and verify this very
simple meaning of the truth for themselves how a paper clip can be the ultimate truth!
Unfortunately you cannot work this out with intellectual knowledge because academia is
the realm of experience X and is about digging more and deeper rabbit holes of thinking.

12

Chapter nine

The perfect harmony between the absolute element

and the law of change
What is the ultimate enlightenment?
Many people nowadays seem to think that religion is being used as a control system by
powerful elites to make sure that the population will behave in certain patterns: i.e. good doers
will be destined for heaven whereas sinners will be sent to hell. I can agree with this notion if
they are talking about religious establishments, and yes even including Buddhism. Indeed, you
could say that the Buddhist establishment has been brought down to its knees by this so called
control system! However, that perception is hardly the real Buddhism, is it? The real Buddhism
is the hard core wisdom gained on the night of the enlightenment of the Buddha. I wonder how
many Buddhists, let alone non-Buddhists, know exactly what really happened on the night of the
Buddhas enlightenment.
There are indeed few people who made their ways to Nirvana, the rest will be orbiting around
samsara,1
Judging from what the Buddha said above, it could mean that there might be only a small
number of Buddhists who know exactly the core teaching of Buddhism; the rest simply follow
the Buddhist tradition wishing to have a better rebirth which will lead to being trapped further
in the prison of life.
What happened on the night of his enlightenment is that the Buddha actually found the absolute
element in nature, which later on he called Nirvana. Despite my calling it an element, this
absolute nature is not in material form, but it does truly exist and the Buddha simply found it. It
was similar to Isaac Newton discovering the law of gravity, Alexander Fleming finding penicillin
and Christopher Columbus finding America. Gravity exists regardless, with or without Newton;
the continent, later called America, was there with or without Columbus; likewise this ultimate
element exists regardless, with or without the Buddha. Whether you want to believe in the
existence of gravity, America continent and the ultimate element or not, it doesnt make an iota
of difference, they exist regardless. Both Newton and the Buddha simply found something in
nature that already existed, always has and always will. This is a truth that not many Buddhists
know. This epic finding distinguishes the Buddhas teaching from other (God-based) religions
and even from most of the current Buddhist establishment itself. I think at least 95%, if not more,
Buddhists in Thailand think that Nirvana has nothing to do with them due to being misled by
many of the religious officers and some famous teachers.
1

Samsara means the cycle of rebirth or the prison of life (my coinage). The above discourse was taken out from
various places in the Tripitaka and translated by Ven. Buddhadasa when he created the revolutionary chanting book
by placing both traditional Pali language alongside the Thai translations. This chanting book has been widely used
by lay-people all over Thailand and pave the way for many Thai people to understand the real essence of Buddhism.
This sentence is very well-known by the Thai Buddhists who do their daily chanting based on the renowned Ven.
Buddhadasa chanting book.

The law of change

If you want to write a book about the absolute truth, it will be a ridiculous thing because
absolute truth freezes everything. The truth is that everything moves and changes all the time.
That was said by Jacque Fresco who is a social and industrial engineer, a futurist, the founder of
the Venus Project and an intellectual genius in my view.
C. J. Keyser, a mathematician, also said: absolute certainty is a privilege of uneducated minds
and fanatics
Werner Heisenberg, well known for the uncertainty principle, said: there is no final certainty.
Einsteins theory of relativity also confirms the fact about all things are in constant movement
and there is absolutely nothing that is fixed or remains still, not even for a brief stint because the
entire universe moves all the time.
No argument about constant change
As a matter of fact, the Buddha taught about the law of change before any of those people. While
those people mainly point to matters in the material world, the Buddha covers more. He said all
matters and events in the external world and internal world (thoughts and feelings) are subject to
the law of change, all the same. In fact, he kept reminding his followers not to take life for
granted by assuming that everything we have now will maintain its integrity (not change) in the
next breath let alone next hour, tomorrow, next week or next year. Things change all the time
and each of us is moving towards our eventual death, all the same.
So, lets make it clear first that the Buddha was well aware of the constant changing nature of all
things both in the material (external world) and the internal world (the mind) too. There is no
conflict whatsoever between the scientific view and the Buddhas wisdom on this changing
nature of all things. However, the notion of the law of change although being significant in the
Buddhas teaching, was not the real cause that transformed a man into a Buddha. His
transformation was the result of the absolute element he found on the night of his enlightenment
that turned a compassionate man into a Buddha!
Did the Buddha contradict himself?
Having strongly confirmed the law of change that governs everything in the universe, why did
the Buddha insist there is the absolute element called Nirvana too? Isnt this an obvious
contradiction? Not at all, there is no contradiction in the Buddhas teaching whatsoever. This is
the most intriguing and challenging subject for humankind and I can assure you that it is worth
your while to investigate further.
Why 28 terminologies?

Earlier in this book I gave 28 terminologies to represent this absolute element in nature so that
you can relate to this awesome truth from your very own spiritual and mental comfort zone.
Whether you are scientific, pious, atheist, agnostic or spiritual, one of those 28 terminologies
might strike the right note for you and prompt you to explore further. That is my strategy to help
you to know this absolute element. It doesnt matter who and what you are, this absolute element
has everything to do with you just like gravity applies to all of us on this planet. While gravity
pulls us down to earth, this absolute element removes mental pains and gives us real freedom.
In this book, I have been using the terms such as: the true self, the absolute normality, the final
frontier, the ultimate truth/reality/element, here and now and the innocent perception to build a
platform of knowledge so that you understand your human status in relation to the universe. I am
also certain that this absolute nature is what Albert Einstein had wanted to locate when he used
the terms: the absolute ruling point in nature, and the theory of everything.
Reflecting the same wisdom
To prove my point that the ultimate element is universal, above established religions and truly
for humankind, the life story of Eckhart Tolle, who wrote the book called The Power of Now
and Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor who wrote My Stroke of Insight are two very good examples to
support this fact. Both authors are current non-Buddhists who have had the experience of the
ultimate freedom (truth) due to the disconnection between their Tom and Jerry. Such awesome
events made them reflect the ultimate wisdom in singing their own tunes. But because it is the
ultimate truth that they have experienced, their words of wisdom, although from a non-Buddhist
background, are similar to those of the Buddhas. Both Eckhart Tolle and Jill Bolte Taylor
connected their mental freedom and inner peace (stillness) to the term Nirvana. They both also
warned people not to attach to their thoughts (Jerry). The following are Tolles account on his
transitional period after having suffered from suicidal depression for a length of time.
I couldnt live with myself any longer. And in this a question arose without an answer: who is
the I that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void! I didnt know at
the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that
lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next
morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no
self. Just a sense of presence or beingness, just observing and watching.
The mind-made self in Tolles term is the same as our mental self being bombarded by a whole
army of Jerrys which cause heaviness, problems, the unsatisfying past and the fearful future.
What happened to Tolle was that his mental self (consciousness, Tom) was disconnected from
Jerry; thats why his sense of self vanished. Jerry is the root cause of our strong sense of self and
also creates the diverse characteristics in individuals. But once Jerry is disconnected from our
mental self and disappears, whats left behind are the physical self (shell) and the consciousness
element which work independently from Jerry, in other words, having the innocent perception
(experiencing the nature of the ultimate truth). Thats why Tolle could experience the deep bliss
and the stillness in all events. The extracts below were written in newspaper when Tolles book:
The Power Of Now, was best seller.

Tolle recalls going out for a walk in London the next morning, and finding that everything was
miraculous, deeply peaceful even the traffic! The feeling continued, and he began to feel a
strong underlying sense of peace in any situation. Tolle stopped studying for his doctorate, and
for a period of about two years after this he spent much of his time sitting, in a state of deep
bliss," on park benches in Russell Square, Central London, "watching the world go by. He
stayed with friends, in a Buddhist monastery, or otherwise slept rough on Hampstead Heath. His
family thought he was irresponsible, even insane!
Most enlightened people are looked at and measured as being insane which is quite normal,
because they judge the mind from the fundamental and acceptable insanity at the 4th inch mark
(chapter five and seven) to which the majority of people in the world belong. To those who are
on the 1st inch mark or at ground zero, Tolles watching the world go by experience was quite
normal according to the enlightened standard. Tolles experience strongly confirmed that the
innocent perception (here and now, being-ness or is-ness) is the universal ultimate truth, which
has the quality to end human suffering.
Pay attention to what you are thinking. You are not your thoughts. said Jill Bolte Taylor. Those
two short sentences also reflect Jills enlightening experience while she was having a stroke; she
could clearly distinguish her mental self (Tom, consciousness) from her own thoughts (Jerry).
Thats why she experienced the deep peace due to having the innocent perception (leaning
against the ultimate truth or God).
Such ultimate experiences are witnessed and shared by all enlightened people with or without the
Buddhist background because they are universal. Jiddu Krishnamurti was also another good
example in this ultimate paradigm. None of those people, however, declared themselves as being
Buddhists but they certainly echoed the familiar profound Buddhist wisdom initially shared with
humanity by the Buddha.

Beyond the thoughts and languages of humans

Before I move on, I want you to read the discourse below just to confirm that the Buddha had
experienced a truly unique element which humans language (Jerry) cannot penetrate. The
Buddha said:
Listen to this Bhikkhus: there is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water,
nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the
infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither
perception, nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world; neither the sun,
nor the moon; neither coming, nor going; neither staying, nor passing away; neither
arising, nor establishing, nor evolving. This, just this, is the end of suffering (or
Nirvana).2

Udana 8.1 Nibbana Sutta

There is no need to try to explain or understand the above speech; I dont think the Buddha
wanted us to do so either. Those confusing paradoxical words only mirror a frustrating
predicament when the Buddha came face to face with the nature of this ultimate reality. As far as
the ultimate element is concerned, thoughts/words, no matter how truthful they may seem,
belong to conventional understanding (darkness/imprisoned predicament) whereas the ultimate
element belongs to the light; they can never mix, never have and never will. So, even the
Buddha, the discoverer of the ultimate truth himself, had to surrender to that thought-free
quality because he too could not explain this awesome truth by using a language of a human.
Thats why he came out with the above discourse, which, to most people, didnt make any sense
at all, but they do make a lot of sense to the enlightened people.
Jerry creates illusory images of the ultimate element
In chapter eight I have made connections between three terminologies: here and now, truth and
reality, and the innocent perception, all of which are neutral and scientifically based. I have
explained that the ultimate truth is the same nature as here and now and the innocent perception,
which moves along endlessly. Through my analogy of the clock with the sweeping hand and my
explanation, I have already shown you that the nature of the ultimate truth/element is moving
constantly; it isnt a fixed, static point as we all tend to think. The root cause of confusion can be
traced back to Jerry again. The moment the word ultimate truth or ultimate element is
mentioned, Jerry goes straight to creating an image of something that is static, fixed, still, not
moving, which contradicts the law of change right away. Consequently this illusory Jerry
encourages most scientifically minded people to ignore the notion of an ultimate truth as being
stupid and ridiculous as asserted by Jacque Fresco. So, I will do my best to explain to you that
the ultimate truth is in fact not of a static nature at all and how this absolute truth/element can be
perfectly harmonised with the law of change.
The answer lies upon the two trains
A rational answer lies within the analogy of the two trains travelling at the same speed. We all
know the fact that if we sit on one train moving out of the station and if there is another train
moving beside our train at exactly the same speed, we will feel like we are not moving and that
we have become stationary.
So, lets suppose the first train represents here and now or the actual present that has been
moving constantly for eons. I shall call this the here and now train or even the God train a
figure of speech. The second train is the life train, and we are the driver of this life train. The
moment we exercise our thinking activity, this life train will be trapped either in the past or
future. This thinking activity makes our life train run either behind or ahead of the here and now
train/God train. Our thinking about the past will make the life train run slower than the here and
now train whereas thinking about the future will make this life train run faster than the God train
as shown in the illustration below. My illustrator, Joob, is very creative in depicting the here and
now train as shown a perfect combination and unification of science, Buddhism and God based
religions!

Now, through the practice of bringing the mental self back home and as soon as you reach the 4th
home (having the innocent perception), the mind will become totally void of thoughts (void of
past/future, labels, definitions and attributes). This is the very moment when the two trains are
running in absolute parallel. When the two running trains are synchronized, suppose further that
the train we are in is running so smoothly that even water in a glass remains still, we would feel
that we are not moving at all. It would seem as if the two trains are stationary and havent yet
moved away from the platform. Not until you notice the moving scenery, will you know that you
are actually moving. This analogy can show exactly how the absolute entity can blend in so
harmoniously with the law of change. Many thanks to Albert Einstein who talked about the two
trains running at the same speed. I remembered this piece of knowledge from high school but
then didnt have a clue about what it related to. I had no way of knowing that this piece of
knowledge would be very useful to me 40 years later!

The analogy of the two trains running at the same speed is also the best comparison I can make
to explain how an individual can have access to the ultimate truth, Nirvana, God and the rest of
the 28 terminologies. As soon as one has the innocent perception, it is as if the two trains are
running in perfect synchronization. This awesome moment can be achieved by adopting the
practice of the four foundations of mindfulness (BMSBH). Such mental skills will help us to let
go of the illusive Jerry first before having the innocent perception. The Buddha has already
guided us to have access to this absolute element. Unfortunately this is the truth that very few
Buddhists understand because it is so difficult to teach.

When the mind is void of illusive Jerry or mental guests, the mental eye can view the
external world of sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touch innocently or having the
innocent perception/experiencing the ultimate truth. Symbolically speaking, this is also
the moment when the two trains running at the same speed.
The universal means to the ultimate truth

I have mentioned the awesome experience of Eckhart Tolle and Jill Bolte Taylor earlier. It is
quite natural for readers of the two mentioned books to want to know how exactly they too can
have a chance to attain the state of ultimate inner peace like the authors did, but without having
to go through the extreme suicidal depression of Eckhart Tolle or the stroke suffered by Jill Bolte
Taylor. Indeed, both authors have offered some sound advice to help their readers to attain this
profound inner peace, by focusing on the idea of detaching from our thoughts (Jerry) and having
awareness or concentrating on the present moment of now or beingness. Although some
readers could follow their guidance, there are also some who have struggled to understand and
master the know-how to inner peace.
I would like to emphasise to readers that the Buddha had already worked out the very clear
means to the ultimate truth, inner peace and freedom. That precise means is the four foundations
of mindfulness, vipassana or bringing the mental self back home, which is a step by step guide
for helping practitioners to attain the inner peace the two authors have experienced. It is also the
shortcut to the ultimate truth. I have elaborated the step by step practice in my forthcoming book
titled: Bring Your Mental Self Back Home, which consists of two volumes: the theory and the
practice.
Only one musical chair
If you have understood the meaning of the truth in the ultimate sense in chapter eight, you will
see that here and now and past and future can never share the same seat in our heart. This one
seat has to be fought over by two candidates. Thoughts in themselves represent past and future,
which are not real, nor having any true substance. The past has gone whereas the future hasnt
arrived. Thoughts (past and future) are merely a bunch of interacting energies in our heads. They
belong to the thinking faculty and always produce experience X (not innocent perception) and
the subsequent intellectual knowledge the nature similar to digging endless rabbit holes.
So, lets make it clear here that whenever you are using your thoughts (no matter how truthful
you are), you are either with the past or the future (which has no real substance), whereas the
innocent perception allows you to be with the constantly moving here and now, which truly
exists.

Two candidates compete for one seat.

We are NOTHING!

With a bit of imagination, the two illustrations below may help you to gain the perspective of
how the two trains can run at the same speed.

Viewing our life form with the innocent perception at close range.

Viewing our life form with the innocent perception from a long distance.

Lets represent the entire universe as the here and now train/God train, which is constantly
moving like the second hand on a clock, and the earth, being pinned with tiny dots of human lifeforms, as our life-train. As soon as we reach experience Y, this human life form instantaneously
becomes one small part of the whole universe, and this would consequently and comparatively
make the two trains running exactly at the same speed. Upon the innocent perception, the human
life form is reduced to a staggeringly tiny fragment blended in with everything else in this
infinite cosmos, and floats around most insignificantly and unimportantly in this awesome
infinity. In the face of this colossal universe, can you see that WE ARE absolutely and utterly
NOTHING! It is only our illusive Jerry and our defective education that has tricked all of us into
feeling the need to climb this symbolic hamster wheel so that we can be proud to be a
somebody. Unfortunately the consequences of the illusions and blindness have turned this blue
planet into what it is now near disaster!

I have not a single shred of doubt that this so called the innocent perception is indeed the very
final frontier and the nature of the ultimate truth where there is absolutely nothing that can go
beyond. With the above image and the analogy of the two trains running at the same speed, I
hope you can now clearly see that the law of change that rules the entire universe doesnt defy or
contradict the nature of the ultimate element at all. They actually blend together harmoniously as
long as one can attain the innocent perception.
Think simply
The most profound wisdom in the universe has no depth. Think very simply and the answer is
already right in front of our nose, just like the answer to this riddle.
What is it that has 2 in a week and 1 in a year?
To tackle the meaning of the truth, the clue is to never think too much or too deeply because you
will miss the answer. We can all have access to this ultimate nature or reach the final frontier
without having to travel into space or having to wait until after we die this makes much better
sense!

Chapter ten

Final perspective
I will use this final chapter to connect the main body of this book to issues of our everyday lives
so you can use this book to reduce your mental pain and build peace. In summary, there are four
major subjects that I want to emphasise:
1. There is the ultimate element/truth in nature.
2. Our thinking faculty (Jerry) is the main obstacle deterring us from access to the ultimate
truth or the innocent perception.
3. The four foundations of mindfulness (bringing the mental self back home/BMSBH) is the
most direct and specific practice leading practitioners to the ultimate truth.
4. Every person on this planet can do it as long as they are willing to engage in the nondogmatic BMSBH practice.
The headings below may seem disjointed but they all, one way or another, connect to these four
major subjects.
Are you sure your loved ones are still alive now?
What kind of question is that?, one may ask. We tend to believe that our loved ones are safe
wherever they are; it could be because we just saw them yesterday, talked to them an hour ago or
even minutes ago. The truth is that time moves constantly and things change. We have no way of
knowing what is waiting for us at the end of any corridor. Absolutely anything can happen
within minutes, if not seconds, that could change our whole life: for example a heart attack, an
accident, a tornado, an earthquake, a pandemic, cancer and so on. This story below is to enhance
the nature of the truth sights, sounds, smells, tastes and texture that we can perceive here and
now. What we think (Jerry talk), and what we truly perceive right now and right here, are totally
different matters. This perception can make us more aware of our assumptions about everything
in our daily life. It is also important to prepare and protect ourselves from unexpected news that
could be deadly, shocking or merely disappointing. BMSBH can help wonderfully during events
like this.
I heard this true story from a relative of mine involving people I know. A father took his son to
the airport; he was on his way to further his studies in the US. After dropping his son off, the
father drove home but decided to stop for a bowl of noodles in a noodle bar just round the corner
from his house. As he returned to his car, the father was knocked over by a motor bike, which
caused a severe brain injury. The father died two hours later in a Bangkok hospital. Now all of
this happened within four hours after saying goodbye to his son at the airport, and by then the
son had already boarded the plane and had to switch off all electronic equipment. During this 24
hour journey to JFK airport in New York, the son automatically assumed that his father was
safely home after having seen him off at the airport. You can clearly see that this assumption,
based on using illusive Jerry, was everything but the truth! It wasnt until the son arrived in JFK

airport, turned on his mobile phone and received a call, that he heard the shocking news about
his, by then deceased, father!
Fact today, mistake tomorrow
You may think these words such as: red, flower, tree, ball, sky and so forth are neutral, neither
past nor future, and hence objective or scientific, but dont be so sure. It could be yet another
false assumption. Those words are actually collections of knowledge of the past which have been
stored within our memory box the hard drive in our life form. As a matter of fact, the whole of
our global academia belongs to the non-existing past and future. Our education is based on a
massive collection of facts and information stretching back for hundreds of years if not a couple
millennia. It is a matter of one stepping stone leading to another and yet another, endlessly. Even
scientific knowledge that has been proved right and has full credibility at this very moment is
still subjected to challenge. Its only a matter of time and with the advent of more advanced
science and technology, that the facts of today could become myths or mistakes tomorrow.
Todays glory could be tomorrows downfall. Its not difficult to see such examples these days.
Even Einsteins renowned e=mc2 has already been turned into e mc2 following the experiments
with neutrinos at CERN in September 2011 (chapter two). Thats why I said our entire
intellectual knowledge based on using Jerry is the domain of knowledge that permeates our
prison of life. It hasnt helped people to find true freedom yet.
Morality is dying in our economic paradigm
Our global education system is primarily for preparing people for the job market in our
globalized economy, or, if not, is used for brain-washing people in totalitarian countries like
China and North Korea. Even in the so called democratic countries, the brain-washing has been
accomplished, yet more discretely, in the form of advertising and political propaganda. People
are tricked into buying goods that they dont need and wasting and abusing our precious and
finite natural resources without adequate consideration for future generations. All mental
defilements greed, anger and delusion come with Jerry. Capitalism and consumerism are
good nutrients for Jerry. The stronger Jerry is, the weaker Tom (mental self) will be. Bad-doers
seemingly have no fear of sin, hell or other consequences anymore due to the strength of Jerry.
I am more convinced now than ever before that the preaching of morality among religious
officers, like many in Thailand, and elsewhere is outdated and ineffective. Morality alone will
not and cannot work without knowing the supreme goal of living attaining the ultimate truth.
Morality is more or less dead in the capitalist society where a handful of people own more than
half of the entire worlds resources and leave one billion people on earth living in poverty. It
isnt difficult to work out that Mother Nature allocates resources for every single man and
woman on earth. How can morality ever work under such economic corruption and mayhem as
exists today?
We havent yet educated people to be anywhere near the ultimate truth or to know our true self.
Hence, the more knowledge we have, the more troublesome the world becomes. The ideal
education is supposed to help and facilitate people to know their true self and to be in full control
of their minds by means of BMSBH. This foundation would naturally make the world society in

moral order without having to preach morality. Of course, it will have to go against the grain of
our present economic paradigm. Do you know where to start for the betterment of humanity? My
entire work is how I, as an individual, begin to make better changes for humanity by helping
one person at a time.
Jerry is the real culprit

Something is extremely wrong in our culture. I see no reason to blame people by pointing fingers
at their shells (physical self) with labels such as: Carlos, Bill, Warren, Bernard, Lawrence,
Lakshmi, Amancio, Mukesh, Christy, Rockey and so on. After all, it is the mind that does all the
thinking and decision makings that subsequently materialise into actions. It means that thinking
Jerry is the one who actually does all the controlling and manipulating behind those shells and
turns this world into mayhem. People dont realise that the real enemy is much closer to us. Jerry
is the only enemy all of us must deal with and it is so close to us that we totally overlook this due
to its illusive nature.
The ideal structure of life
The Buddha said that humanity cannot survive without the help of his teachings. Upon his
enlightenment, the Buddha gave us this very simple structure for life with the ultimate
element/truth as the supreme goal.

Once the goal of life is clear, people will have a reason to be morally good. Morality and
meditation (BMSBH) are merely a means to gain access to the absolute element, which has the
quality of wiping out mental turmoil and building eternal peace. Ideally, these two factors must
be applied together simultaneously. As a matter of fact, once the BMSBH is engaged, the
practitioners will be naturally morally good without having to bend over backward to be a good
person.
When the top of the triangle is replaced by money and self-interest, the means to the end has to
be changed accordingly another example of relativity for you.

M one y, s elf- inte res t,

Pow er

unwho les om e
c ons cious nes
s

c orruption

Wrong view
A corrupted mind with wrong view can also have full concentration when thinking about how to
create more wealth or power for oneself, i.e. planning to rob a bank or even to kill people for
money. Having a war requires a great deal of fully concentrated thinking and planning from
many people. All these focused uses of energy are unwholesome and this
awareness/consciousness is the result from having a wrong view towards the ultimate goal of
life.
No perfection
No one, no idea, no concept, no theory, no solution can be called perfect; things can only be as
perfect as they can be in relation to time and space. It is much healthier if we can accept the
possibility that we could be wrong due to our illusive Jerry. Even the absolute truth is within the
realm of constant movement. So, even an Arahat (fully enlightened person) is not perfect; the
perfection of an Arahat is still strictly in the relative sense. They are perfect and worthy in the
sense that they can live beyond mental pain due to the disconnection between Tom and Jerry
(refer to chapter three). The worthy ones can still make mistakes in their thoughts, ideas and
decision makings because they relate to matters and events that are in constant change especially
in this materialistic world. We merely learn how to live in harmony with change if we know the
ultimate truth, thats all.
So, the most we can do is to first of all locate this ultimate element/truth, engage in the BMSBH
practice and do our very best to reduce mental pain, which is our most immediate and urgent
need. This is the first domino that will collapse other problems down the line. Above all,
humanity must not lose track of the ultimate goal of life to uncover the ultimate truth.
The birth of Buddhism is scientifically based
Following my elaboration in chapter nine, you can see that the birth of Buddhism actually has a
very scientifically based foundation a discovery of a natural element! There must be colossal
natural elements and entities in the universe that have different qualities and characteristics:

tangible, intangible, visible, invisible, hard, lucid, hot, cold, and so forth. Nirvana happens to be
the element that has the absolute and ultimate attribute! Being the absolute nature, this final
element is the missing link that forms a perfect picture of the universe with our relatively tiny
planet dotted with insignificant human life-forms as a staggeringly tiny part of the whole. The
Buddha compared his discovery and his teaching to lifting up a bowl to let light shine into it. As
a matter of fact, the concept of rebirth and the law of karma also closely relates to this ultimate
element too. These two concepts wont make any scientific sense without putting into place the
last piece of the jigsaw puzzle the ultimate element! However, upon this scientific finding, the
Buddha had to work out how to describe it so he could help his followers gain access to this
ultimate element. This is the sole reason for the accumulation of 84,000 different dharma
teachings by the time of his death.1
For the above reasons, the Buddhas teaching is not a fixed belief or a dogma that aims to control
people by offering heaven as reward and hell as punishment. It is not the result of thinking
(Jerry) like the creation of philosophical concepts. The Buddhas teaching is very different from
the Creator-God-based religions and philosophies. The Four Noble Truths and the Noble
Eightfold Path are more like a very careful and specific detailed plan (strategy) or a path from
someone who already knew the final destination of life and was asked to lead people to that
ultimate truth. It is a life map that the Buddha knew would be a shortcut to Nirvana. Just as
Christopher Columbus found the route from Europe to the Americas before others who had never
travelled there,2 so did the Buddha find the way to the absolute element. For this reason, the
enlightened teachers (a local guide) have a better chance to lead people to Nirvana than those
having no practice experience and just a life map (dharma books) in their hands.
Time moved on for 2555 years up till now, when the concept of attaining Nirvana, which was
rich in the past, has now been challenged by the law of change just like everything else in the
universe. The Buddhist establishment has also evolved to what it is today. The Buddhas
teaching is now wrongly viewed by some as being dogmatic, outdated, far-fetched and
crumbling. My role is trying to remove all the clutter and parasitic additions to the Buddhas
teachings. The only way to do it is to uncover and describe the Buddhas scientific discovery on
the night of his awesome enlightenment!
A test of Mother Nature
My current wisdom tells me that this whole setting the universe, earth, humans, realms, Jerry
causing both greatness and mayhem, the ultimate element and the rest of all the unsolved
mysteries in the cosmos and so on is nothing more than a test, a challenge, if not a game, put
upon us by the mysterious Mother Nature.
Please dont get mixed up between the why and the how. We can never understand why the
universe is put here in the first place and why it is designed as it is. Science describes and
explains the how, but not the why. Science explains how rainbows, water, clouds, the human
body, childbirth, the brain and so on function but science hasnt yet explained more like cannot
1

Dharma has many different meanings. I refer to the teaching of the Buddha in this context.
Christopher Columbus might not have been the first person to find America as the native residents were there first.
However, Columbus was the first person who travelled from Europe to the Americas.
2

explain why all these phenomena or the entire universe is here in the first place. They are
totally different questions which require different answers. God-based religions tend to believe
God, as a creator, created everything on earth. But that still doesnt answer why unless God
tells us himself. Einstein asked the right question when he wanted to locate the absolute ruling
point in nature. He wanted to know the ultimate truth or the mind of God as to why he created
the universe as it is. He didnt want to know the details such as how all phenomena work. Mother
Nature is always one step ahead of us. If we were able to answer the why, we wouldnt be here
right in the middle of this colossal pile of why, why, why? In the end, we must succumb to this
ultimate defeat. It is the secret of Heaven (Mother Nature), always has and always will be.
The Buddha doesnt bother with the why question at all; in fact, he told us not to ask because
there is no answer and searching for it doesnt help us to find the ultimate truth any quicker
anyway. Instead, the Buddha emphasizes the how question just like scientists describing the
material world, but his cause and effect paradigm specifically focuses on the subject of mental
suffering. What is so ingenious about the Buddha Gautama is that he managed to grasp a sizable
handful of knowledge (such as The Four Noble Truths and the five constituents which constitute
the human life form), just enough for us to survive mentally while passing very briefly through
this world. This is what we need to understand. The rest of those mysteries; we can easily
bypass them. As a matter of fact, once the ultimate truth/element is realised, all the doubts and
curiosities about the universe will disappear too as this human life form has already returned to
the big home of Mother Nature two trains running at the same speed. There is no need to find
the answer to the why anymore, because we become one of the tiny parts of Mother Nature
ourselves. We just live in peace and die in peace. What there is beyond death, scientifically
speaking, we all have to find out for ourselves. I think no one can give us a satisfying answer on
this issue.
So, knowing the ultimate truth doesnt mean that one can answer every question posited and
uncover all the mysteries in the universe; nothing like that at all. There are always more
questions than answers. In fact, some of those mysteries have already been revealed by the
advent of cutting-edge science and nanotechnology. There will be many more mysteries revealed
in the future as time moves on until the end of human civilisation which will certainly come at
some point. Time always moves on and new civilisations will emerge and will repeat exactly the
same process we have been through. The cycle goes on like this for eons. Once in a long long
while, there will be A Buddha who comes along and reveals to humans all these facts. This will
go on for eons too.
A Buddha and the perfections3
In the same way that we needed Isaac Newton to uncover and reveal the existing law of gravity,
we also need A Buddha to reveal the existing ultimate element in nature. To acquire A
Buddhahood, one starts from an ordinary person, like you and me, who sets out upon a super
epic journey to accumulate perfections (parami), which takes a staggeringly long time. Once the
perfections are mature, a Buddha is born and the ultimate enlightenment (uncovering the
3

The accumulation of perfections of A Buddha has been described in chapter three of my book titled: The User
Guide to Life: The Law of Karma. It can be freely download from my website and is also available in paper book
and e-book.

existing ultimate truth) will happen. A Buddha, along with his enlightened followers, will tell
humans about the existing ultimate element in nature just like the Buddha Gautama and his
followers have done in the past 2555 years. All Buddhas and the enlightened people will repeat
the same message about urging people to find the ultimate truth by using the shortcut of the four
foundations of mindfulness (BMSBH). This is the best thing, ever, that one can achieve in this
lifetime. My duty is to facilitate your understanding of the ultimate truth and hopefully motivate
you to take your first step on this epic journey. 4
Perfections (parami)
I have come across many awesome stories about how people stumbled onto the good news (the
ultimate truth). One minute they were totally in the dark and next minute they were, out of the
blue, exposed to the good news either due to meeting someone or unexpectedly finding a book or
experiencing an event that urged them to search for something better in life. Whatever the
reasons are, most of them were gobsmacked and could not believe their luck that they had found
someone who could lead them to know the ultimate truth! Some of these people admitted that
they had actually read one of my books before but it hadnt made any sense to them whatsoever.
It wasnt until something happened, or simply time passed, when they read the same book again
that every word was as clear as crystal and hit the right note on their hearts. One cant help but
asking why. When something like this happens, we usually put it down to destiny, which
once again hasnt really explained anything rationally.
To rationally explain this, it is imperative to have some understanding and belief in the cycle of
rebirth (samsara) and the concept of the perfections (parami). It is unfortunate that I cannot
scientifically explain the rebirth paradigm and ask you to have faith and simply believe in the
Buddha on this one. As a matter of fact, the cycle of rebirth or samsara is the same as the prison
of life, which relates closely to the ultimate truth or life outside prison. The ultimate truth
(freedom) would mean absolutely nothing without the existence of samsara or the prison of life.
This imprisoned predicament of humankind can explain why the world is in such a mess
especially with all the big scale deceptions that have been going on. Quite often, people just
dont know whether they are coming or going. The enlightenment of the Buddha is nothing more
than he walked out of the prison of life on that awesome night. Only then did he know the mental
self (consciousness, true self) of humanity had been trapped in this epic prison of life for eons.
To leave samsara requires one to accumulate abundant parami (perfections). I hope the image
below may give you better perspective.

Please read The User Guide to Life: The Law of Karma to find out about the future Buddha called Matreya.

The perfections are basically ten types of very good deeds which are the main factors releasing a
person from the prison of life (samsara).5 Individuals must accumulate their own perfections to
secure their ultimate freedom. This perfection paradigm can explain why only certain people
have interest in Buddhism and the practice or why a 12 year-old child is drawn into vipassana
practice while a 50 year-old adult is still obsessed with material needs. The rational answer is
because the 12 year-old person has been walking this noble path or saving his/her perfections
since the previous life and this life time is a continuation of his/her spiritual journey. It is a
matter of an old soul (mental self) in a new body. For those who carry substantial perfections
with them to this life time, the karmic force (dhamma) will arrange for them to stumble onto the
essence of the Buddhas teaching (the good news) somehow, so that they can further their epic
journey until they leave the prison of life. It makes a lot of sense in this respect. In fact, it makes
much more sense than thinking that there is only one life and one death. If that were so, there is
really no need to struggle for the betterment of our lives because at death, everything would
vanish into nothing.
Most people who have accumulated their perfections from the previous lives will be inclined to
be born in Buddhist countries, which is the easiest way for them to further their journey to leave
the prison of life (reach Nirvana). That wholesome quality will also shine through since an early
age, which answers to the question of why some young people would want to take interest in
Buddhist practice instead of taking part in the trendy stuff like their peers do. I had a 5 year-old
boy who came to sit in my class with his mother for three days and he came three years in a row.
I didnt know it until his mother introduced her son to me when he was eight years old and
showed me all his drawing and writings copied from the big screen of my teaching. The boys
mother told me that she didnt coerce her son to come with her; he wanted to come to my
5

The ten parami (perfections) are: 1. Giving, generosity 2. Morality, having good conduct, 3. Renunciation 4.
Wisdom, insight, understanding 5. Effort, perseverance 6. Endurance, tolerance 7. Having truthfulness, honesty,
integrity 8. Resolution, conviction, self-determination 9. Loving-kindness, friendliness, empathy 10. Equanimity

teaching on his own accord and he sat through the whole day teaching without moaning, quite
happy doing the drawings. There is no rational answer to phenomenon like this apart from the
perfections paradigm.
As for non-Buddhists who are not born in a Buddhist culture, they will be very likely to stumble
onto someone, something or some events that will lead them to have interest in the Buddhist
wisdom one way or another. For the non-Buddhists who have accumulated substantial
perfections from their previous lives, even if they havent engaged in the four foundations of
mindfulness in this lifetime, all the wholesome qualities of their minds (Tom and Jerry) havent
disappeared. Their Tom and Jerry still have that loosened up potential within them and it is
very much possible that they can and will experience the disconnection between their mental self
(Tom, consciousness) and their thoughts (Jerry) at some point in this lifetime.
The life story of Eckhart Tolle, who wrote the book called The Power of Now and Dr. Jill Bolte
Taylor who wrote My Stroke of Insight are two very good examples of current non-Buddhists
who have accumulated substantial perfections from the previous lives. They both are nonBuddhists but it doesnt matter, the quality of their loosened up minds is still there, which led
them to experience the ultimate freedom (truth) due to the disconnection between their Tom and
Jerry.
Humility and true wisdom
Humbleness and humility always crown the real Knowers. Wise people are truly grounded and
humble. Their humility is an effect of knowing their tiny place in the cosmos. The Buddhas life
following his enlightenment was a testimony that confirmed the combination of the awesome
greatness in finding the ultimate truth and the humbleness in the way he led his grounded ascetic
life. There was no claim to have a virgin birth, nor to be the son of an almighty God, nor a
miraculous resurrection. Despite his most spectacular achievement being the first of this era to
find the ultimate element in nature the Buddha freely admitted to being mortal and his physical
body was subject to change and he had to die just like everyone else on this planet. His only
legacy was his immortal teaching regarding the nature of the ultimate truth and the path to it.
In whom shall we believe?
This final subject is too important to leave out. We are now living in a culture where people are
exposed to propaganda and manipulation in one way or another due to globalization and
activities of giant corporate firms trying to shape a New World Order and create a big scale of
global deception. It may be media brain-washing in totalitarian countries, or overwhelming
media and advertising coercing people to believe in true lies in democratic countries.
Consequently it is inevitable that people become very cynical towards everything even towards
religions. This subject closely relates to my work. How on earth can I help you to believe my
words in this kind of social landscape full of true lies? Am I wasting my time? In fact,
independent of my work, the Buddha and his teaching have already been ridiculed and mocked
over the Internet and YouTube. Id be under an illusion if I were to think Id be exempt from the
same challenges.

Everyone is entitled to form an opinion but whether his/her opinion is valid or not is entirely
another matter. A western non-Buddhist who has read one article about Buddhism and another
one who has read five books about Buddhism, neither having practised meditation, are bound to
have different opinions on the same subject. Even with a born Buddhist who has read the whole
45 volumes of Buddhist canon, but never engaged in the four foundations of mindfulness, and a
born Buddhist who read a few books but has spent 20 years practising mindfulness, they too
would form very different opinions about Buddhism and the vipassana practice. As for me, my
writing is my opinion about Buddhism, which is based on reading (admittedly not extensively)
plus another 40 years of practising mindfulness. Now, whose opinions do you think are most
valid? Can you see that, in the end, you still have to use rationality to form your own judgement,
dont you? No one can help you on this matter.
Now, because of my 40 years of practice of the four foundations of mindfulness with my Eureka
experience during that period, I can say with conviction that reading Buddhist texts including
the whole Buddhist canon doesnt certify the reader to be an expert in Buddhism, not in the
slightest. To the contrary, one who reads very little but engages in the mindfulness practice until
the inner peace and kindness manifest in ones speech and action, this person knows Buddhism
more than the other one who reads heavily without practicing. Nirvana (the ultimate truth)
cannot be attained through reading alone; it requires practice to disconnect Jerry from our mental
self. Thats why I feel sorry for those western non-Buddhists who have confidently and fiercely
criticised and ridiculed the Buddha and his teaching regarding The Four Noble Truths and The
Noble Eightfold Path. They may have briefly read just one writing about Buddhism and havent
even heard of the four foundations of mindfulness, let alone practiced them, yet they boastfully
spread their malicious opinion all over the Internet and YouTube. What do they know?
I now have enough experiences in both the conventional capitalist world and the spiritual world
of walking in the Buddhas footsteps. I can confidently say that we should not go through life
without believing in something or someone. One can never be free from beliefs; non-religious
people still believe in science. To choose between believing in the Buddha, Socrates, Sigmund
Freud, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Obama and so forth, on the issue of life in relation to
the universe, I will choose to believe in the Buddha every time.
I am fortunate enough to have been brought up in a Buddhist culture where I managed to stumble
onto the core teaching of the Buddha and found and experienced the nature of the ultimate truth
(the innocent perception). It is indeed this loose end of the tangled up ball of cotton thread that
enabled this simple housewife, a mother and a grandmother to have enough courage to voice her
opinion on the true meaning of life. I published a book called, A New Hope for Humankind four
years ago in 2008, with a glimmer of hope that BMSBH might be able to delay disaster in our
global society. I have learnt a great deal since then, especially about our self-destructive
economic and political paradigm. My spiritual wisdom and insight also has become more
profound. I am no longer under the illusion that global disaster can be delayed; I even want to
say that World Peace is a total nonsense within our present world order. Morality has long been
in decline. How on earth can we de-stress ourselves while living in a social and economic
paradigm that creates stress and pressure through inequality and class distinction in the first
place, not to mention the global scale of deception we are in? Humanity is in deep water and

societies are moving toward a point of disintegration. The ending of our present human
civilisation is very much possible: only a matter of time!6
My urgent and immediate goal is to help just one person at a time so that he/she can at least
find peace against all these overwhelming odds. I would be a liar if I told you this noble path is
easy. It isnt easy because we have to fight through double deceptions: 1) the global scale
deception and betrayal thrust upon us by our own governments which affect our whole way of
life, 2) the instinctive not innocent perception (experience X). These double deceptions take us
even further away from the innocent perception (the ultimate truth/experience Y) which gives us
our inner peace. Thats why we really have no choice in our current predicament; it is as if we
are drowning, we must grab hold onto an object to keep us afloat. We must do the priority
saving our soul by means of BMSBH!
I know for a fact that we can still find peace and inner harmony through BMSBH despite all the
external situations we are in. I have done it through my marriage and raising three children still
do it now! All I can offer is my truthful and unfailing intention to continue on this mission which
I carry out with honesty, integrity, dedication and rationality no guessing! Whether you want to
believe in my words and my course of actions, or not, is entirely up to you. This is the very most
I can do for you. In the end, you alone have to make your own judgement in whom you believe.
My helping one person at a time is the reason for this book.
May you practice well, patiently and persistently, and Bring Your Mental Self Back Home
always!7

Should you want to find out more (hard core) information on the global deception and betrayal, please research by
yourself in the Internet because you cannot get all these information from the main stream media due to the global
deception! Here are the names that you can search on Google: The Bilderberg group, One World Order, Daniel
Esturin, Alex Jones, Inforwar.com, Gerald Celente, Dishonest Money: Financing The World To Ruin (book written
by Joseph Plummer) Behind The Green Mask: UN Agenda 21 (book written by Rosa Koire). These names should
give you a start to find out about the global deception if you are new with this concept.
7
My book titled: Bring Your Mental Self Back Home is comprised of two volumes: theory and practice, and is the ideal book to help you to start this epic
spiritual journey. Better still, there are a series of VDO clips on my YouTube channel featuring my teaching in various places on this subject.

Glossary
Aggregates or five aggregates: The five parts or groups or constituents that comprise
human beings; the physical self (material or mass), and the four formless or
mental parts: feelings, memories, thoughts and the consciousness (mental self).
Arahat or Arahant: A fully enlightened person or the one who has left the prison of life
(samsara) following the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness.
BMSBH - Bringing the mental self back home: Homes refer to the four foundations of
mindfulness, i.e. having the mental eye (consciousness, Tom) observing the
breathing, movements and physical sensations and observing Jerry (thoughts,
memories, feelings, emotions, and so forth).
Buddhadasa One of the famous and controversial monks in Thailand and the founder of
Suan Mokkh monastery situated in the south of Thailand.
Defilements: Unwholesome thoughts or mental qualities that harm the mind and cause
harmful thoughts and consequences. (kilesa).
Experience X: the not innocent perception, experienced by most people in the world.
Experience Y: the innocent perception, reached by practitioners of BMSBH only,
practicing the four foundations of mindfulness.
Five constituents or groups or entities: According to the Buddha, the human life form
consists of five different groupings (five aggregates or khandhas) one group is
mass and the other four parts are of a formless nature (energy).
1. Body = physical self = mass = rupa
2. Memories = Jerry = energy = nama
3. Thoughts = Jerry = energy = nama
4. Feelings = Jerry = energy = nama
5. Consciousness = mental self = true self = Tom = energy = nama
Four foundations of mindfulness: Four grounds of awarenesses (satipatthana): 1)
contemplation of the breathing and movements (body), 2) contemplation of
physical sensations, 3) contemplation of thoughts and mental feelings, 4)
contemplation of everything with innocent perception.
Four homes: The four foundations of mindfulness.
Innocent perception: Supawans coinage referring to the fourth foundation of
mindfulness, the ultimate truth, God, Nirvana, Tao and the rest of the 28
terminologies given in this book.
Jail-breaking: Referring to the ultimate mental freedom, Nirvana or God. The
disconnection between consciousness (Tom, subject) and thoughts and feelings
(Jerry, object) by bringing the mental self back home.
Jerry: Supawans coinage for thoughts, memories, imaginations, feelings, emotions. See
Tom and Jerry.
Khandhas: The five parts of human existence, translated as aggregates, constituents,
groups or entities.
Law of action: See Law of karma.
Law of karma: A universal law of actions (deeds) based on cause and effect as in
wholesome actions (physical, verbal or mental) have a corresponding wholesome
effect and unwholesome actions have a corresponding unwholesome effect. Law
of action creates the cycle of rebirth (samsara, the prison of life)
Mental eye: The sixth sense, consciousness, Tom, the subject.
Mental self: The sixth sense, consciousness, Tom, the subject.

Parami
See Perfection
Perfection (parami) the wholesome deeds (very good karma) which are the main factors
releasing a person from the prison of life (samsara). The perfection accumulation
is the long preparation of all Buddhas-to-be, the runner-up to ultimate
enlightenment. Individuals also need to collect perfections (but not as long as the
Buddha-to-be) to secure ones own ultimate freedom.
Prison of life: Samsara, the cycle of rebirth due to the law of karma.
Real self: The consciousness element, the 6th sense, the mental self.
Rupa: Referring to all phenomena in the external world both in mass and energy form.
They are: sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures. Einstein used two words:
mass and energy, the Buddha simply use one word: rupa.
Samsara: The round/cycle of rebirth; the ring road of rebirth or the prison of life
(Supawans coinage), closely relates to the law of action (karma). Samsara has
two major spheres/realms accommodate different human actions good and bad
alike. The favorable realms/the left wing of life prison: human, deva (god) and
brahma, and the unfavorable realms/the right wing of life prison: animal, hungry
ghost and hellish being.
Sixth sense: The Buddha refers to the consciousness element (mental self/eye), which
every human has. It has different meaning from the western concept
which refers to psychic ability.
Tom and Jerry: Cartoon characters used as analogies to illustrate the four mental
components of the mind: consciousness (mental self) is represented as Tom and thoughts,
memories and feelings are represented as Jerry.
Tom: The mental self, the sixth sense, the consciousness element.
Tube of intellect: Supawans words to describe mental activity regarding acquiring
intellectual knowledge; having a nature similar to digging endless rabbit holes.
28 terminologies: Words or phrases representing the ONE ultimate truth or the same
ultimate experience in nature. 1. The ultimate enlightenment, 2. Nirvana, 3. The
Kingdom of God, 4. The Tree of Life, 5. Godhood, 6. Tao, 7. Eternity, 8.
Immortality, 9. The ultimate (absolute) truth, 10. The ultimate reality, 11. The
grand ultimate (the meaning of Tai chi), 12. The absolute ruling point in nature
(Einsteins concept), 13. The absolute simplicity, 14. The absolute ordinariness,
15. The absolute normality, 16. The ultimate certainty, 17. The true self, 18. The
real self, 19. The non-self, 20. The eternal peace, 21. The absolute harmony, 22.
The ultimate freedom, 23. The end of suffering, 24. The true (real) happiness, 25.
Here and Now, 26. The final frontier, 27. Life out of prison, 28. The innocent
perception.
Ultimate truth or ultimate element: Referring to an ultimate experience, an experience
or truth that is beyond all other mental states.
Vipassana: Insight meditation; the four foundations of mindfulness, bringing the mental
self back home. Making direct observation of the inner-sights: breathing,
movements, physical sensations, thoughts and mental feelings.