Last night, my son was away from home, visiting his friends in Palm Spring, a two-hour drive. I went to bed about 11:45 pm. In the middle of night, I was about to awake, and thought it was about 5:00 am, my usual time to meditate. Suddenly I heard a female voice calling my Chinese name in my head. I was startled to get up with an uneasy feeling. The voice was crisp clear, and had a sense of urgency. I could not make out who's voice was that, but clearly it was not my son's voice. I felt a bit relieved. I looked at the alarm, it was only 1:45 am. I felt I have slept all night.
About 4:50 am, I got a real phone call from James that he was on the way home. Somehow I sensed that he will come home during the night, I deliberately did not lock the door to our car garage before going to bed.
I remember several years ago, I had what they call, "the beginner's luck". I was in an intense self discovery and self examination mode. Whenever I had some issue with others that I like to resolve, the situation will present itself so that I have the opportunity to talk it over and clear it in my consciousness.
One time, I had a new neighbor just moved in and she did not know our rule of parking the car. Many times she will park the car in a way that whoever parked inside my garage would have difficult time backing it out. I was very patient for a little while. Then one day, I was driving home from work and decided that it was time to clear the situation. At the time I had not even got the chance meeting my new neighbors. The chance had it that, as soon as I approached my front door, I saw my neighbors, a mother and a daughter standing right there talking. Well, it was a golden opportunity for me to welcome them to our neighborhood and clear the parking situation. After that, we have no more parking problem. The amazing thing is that the day that I decided to clear the parking situation, my neighbors will be right there giving me the opportunity to straighten things out. Before that day, I had never saw them, and did not know how they looked like.
A year ago, I was driving home from work, I had a habit of turning on the classic music station 105.1. merrily listening to my music, completely oblivious of the traffic condition. But for some reason, I did not turn on the music that day and naturally I was more alert of my surrounding. I suddenly saw the engine temperature indicator flared up just a little, but then it started to climb. I was a little apprehensive because the traffic condition was impossible for me to stop on the freeway shoulder. I had to drive back home 8 miles, 35 minutes in heavy traffic. Suddenly a thought kicked in. "Turn the heater on to full power so that the heat in the engine can dissipate, that can prevent engine overheat". Somehow I had remembered this tactic that I learned more than 10 years ago. In the middle of blazing summer afternoon, I had my heater on full power and my car escaped the overheat condition. I was able to drive up to Master Lube garage with the temperature indicator stayed constant in the mid point the whole time. I have my car for 15 years and never have the overheat experience. It is incredible that I remember the advice that I received more than 10 years ago from NPR's radio broadcast of "Car Talk" . In the emergency situation like this, I was able to tap into this piece of knowledge in a nick of time.
