12
HUMMING, from page 11
feeling the pain. It’s a way of
looking at my body as an object
that is in pain, separate from the
“me.”
Some people, and even entire societies, can see themselves
as “pained.” They can completely identify with what they have
gone through and adopt trauma, pain and suffering as their
identity. Pain is who they have
become.
They have reframed their
personal and social narratives
as, primarily, stories of pain and
suffering. In the world they inhabit, they are fearful, and see
life as mostly about suffering.
While they may look at themselves as being somewhat heroic
for enduring the pain, sooner or
later, they will go through selfexamination and consciously
decide to shake off what has become a victimhood identity.
I am not belittling other people’s suffering. All I am doing is
putting it in a different perspective.
Ken Wilber, one of my favorite writers, says that man is,
first and foremost, “spirit.” Instead of thinking that we are inhabiting a body, a room, a building, a town, a country, earth and
the universe, we must be aware
that these are not “out there” but
all inside “spirit” which knows
no boundaries. In his view, only
the ego thinks the opposite and
believes it is man who inhabits
them all and so he feels all the
pain of living in the world. But
how can spirit be pain when it
can witness pain happening?
“If I rest as Witness, the
formless I-I, it becomes obvious
that, right now, I am not in my
body, my body is in my awareness. I am aware of my body,
THE MESSAGE. BRINGING INTO FOCUS FILIPINO PRESENCE IN AUSTRALIA
www.kalatas.com.au | Volume 4 Number 8 | May 2014
EDITORIAL & OPINION
therefore I am not my body. I am
the pure Witness in which my
body is now arising. I am not in
my body, my body is in my consciousness…
“The ego adopts the viewpoint of matter, and therefore
is constantly trapped by matter
— trapped and tortured by the
physics of pain. But pain, too,
arises in your consciousness,
and you can either be in pain, or
find pain in you, so that you surround pain, are bigger than pain,
transcend pain, as you rest in the
vast expanse of pure Emptiness
that you deeply and truly are.”
This is no play on words.
There is a lot of truth to what
Wilber has said. He has been
meditating for decades. People
who do a lot of inner work can
process pain much better than
people who do not. Yes, we will
still feel the pain of the world
but will suffer less if we understand this.
LETTER, from page 10
3.
4.
5.
Migrant, from page 10
for it refused to recognise love
even when love stared at them
like the sun at noon. It was this
refusal to accept the outcasts
relationship as real which ultimately took pregnant Kuala’s
and Berto’s life. Ironically it was
Cesar’s teenage son, Junior, disillusioned by his father’s womanizing and low regard for other
people who found time to get to
know Berto, and in the process
became his and Kuala’s friend.
Who are “others”? Are the
differences between us and other people a matter of essence or
passing accident? The rich today may lose their millions, the
flawless skin of the young will
sag and one’s intellectual powers may give way to dementia.
Who are the “we” and “they”
inside the skin colours and covering often conveniently used
as an excuse to judge and segregate people? Husserl regards
the “other” as the “unthought,”
the “implicit.” For Marcuse, the
“other” consists of the “virtual”
or “unfulfilled possibilities.” For
Levinas, “alterity” is a relational
concept, echoing Martin Buber’s
“I and Thou” which addresses
the phenomenon of the “other” as a “potential partner in dialogue.” Much like what Junior
had done, it is through an open
dialogue made without judging
others that we get to know other people beneath their skin and
mind.
6.
sorted relief goods to hospitals, churches, schools and
NGOs, sent a relief mission
of seven volunteer members
who delivered direct basic services, rebuilding and
livelihood assistance worth
$44,149.26 and committed
continuing project assistance
for feeding and nutrition, agriculture, fishing, training
and house rebuilding
It also sent boxes of relief
goods and books to victims
of other calamities in Ilocos,
Metro Manila , Mindanao
and Bohol and other parts of
the Visayas
APCO successfully negotiated with a local government
to include relevant trainings
for community volunteers in
their annual calendar of activities and offer these trainings for free.
APCO helped organise various ethnic groups into the
Auburn Small Community Organisation Network
and many multicultural initiatives including the annual ‘Flavours of Auburn’ food
festival
To promote the good image
of the community and fulfil our social advocacy commitments, APCO members
joined and actively participated in Ethnic Communities Council-NSW Inc -Macquarie University joint activities and projects, Commu-
nity Relations Commission’s
conferences, Sydney Alliance and Western Sydney
Community Fora and campaigned for a better public
transport system
7. APCO actively participated
in various meetings and fora
organised by federal, state
and local government, community organisations and
advocacy groups on various issues like housing, education, employment, social services, human rights
… Recently, we spearheaded the campaign against the
proposed amendments to
the Racial Discrimination
Act
8. In recognition of APCO’s
active involvement in community welfare, some of
our leaders were appointed
leading roles. For example,
the founding president of
APCO, Dr Cen Amores was
appointed People of Australia Ambassador, ZEST Ambassador, Member of the
NSW Filipino Ministerial Consultative Committee,
Member of Ethnic Communities Council-NSW Members’ Forum, NSW Multicultural March Advisory Committee and ZEST Most Outstanding Community Leader on a Voluntary Capacity
for Greater Western Sydney
in 2013 …
9. The current APCO Pres-
ident was founding president of the trailblazing
Kapit-bahayan Cooperative
Ltd, the sole organisational
winner for Southern Hemisphere countries of the ABSCBN’s Global Bayani award
in 2012, founding chair of
Auburn Small Community
Organisation Network (ASCON), highly commended
ZEST Community Volunteer 2012 awardee … Kapitbahayan Coop Ltd, a founding affiliate of APCO organised four more coop properties (Merrylands, Canley
Vale and Sedgwick) while
helping other ethnic groups
get organised. KCL’s Canley
Vale is the first NSW coop
to be built from its savings.
Sedgwick Housing was later
registered as the second Filipino-run coop
In closing, I hope that there
is nothing sinister to Mr Dingle’s inappropriate comparison
of community organisations to
the warring factions in the Philippines. However, he should at
least declare that his sister is a
Director and PRO of PCC and
a brother often acts as its MC so that the readers may know
where his bias goes.
Thank you most sincerely,
Ruben Amores
APCO President
[NOTE: This letter has been
abridged for the print version. A
full version of the letter can be
seen in kalatas.com.au.]