Take Good Care of Your Heart

The Chinese store is used to be my wife’s favourite, because this is the only store that provides all spices that the standard Indonesian cook needs and most importantly Indomie is available there, the essential food for any Indonesian.

But just recently, there is a new Korean store in town and it is exactly located close to the Chinese store. And this Korean store sells food much cheaper. In fact, my wife can precisely remember all the prices comparison, which so amazed me. So, naturally, my wife will go first to the Korean to look what she needs, then she’ll go to the Chinese only if she could not find what she needs in the Korean.

But, one strange habit that I notice is that she always puts the shopping bags from the Korean in the car first, before she goes to the Chinese. I asked my wife why. She explained that she did not want to hurt the Chinese feelings. Well, as a person who studies economics, I said the Chinese will find out sooner or later, and they should lower the prices. That’s how market works and the monopoly time is over now, proudly speaking as if the non-economist will never know this very basic notion. Well, my wife emphasized, she just did not want to hurt the Chinese, especially as she knows them well. Well, that’s alright, I guess, a compassionate approach can always be reconciled with an economist way of thinking.

But, I suppose, this is what’s missing in our secular approach. A compassionate approach should always be guided by the heart as in many spiritual approach advocated. Al Ghazali says: “Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.”

The practice to purify heart can be learnt by meditation, as usually done by Budhist monks. And I found this very interesting because I always wonder what is actually the monks thinking when they meditate. Do they think about God or about Budha Gautama or what? I find the answer, finally. It turned out that the monks think about someone else whose destiny is very unfortunate. They practice by imagining themselves as if they are the people who are suffering. They can cry and weep, as a result, this practice will soften their hearts and grow the compassion toward others, and most importantly, freedom of their own ego and desires.

This practice is also done by Shiah people, when they cry and weep and beat their own chest regretting their sin because of their inability to help Sayyidina Ali’s family from the massacre, because of their ignorance that led to a calamity, because of the fact that they were ‘good people who did nothing and let the evil to triumph’, as Edmund Burke said. In doing this, they remind themselves to soften their hearts and souls but at the same time strengthening them.

So, I guess, we should take good care of our heart.