30th September 2009 - another day of bloodshed? Let's pray not

I first learned the word tsunami on the 26th December 2009. Yes! It was the Boxing Day. Supposedly a joyful and auspicious day, but as fate had it, 230,000 people from 11 countries perished on that day. Even more people lost their family members and friends just within that split second on that fateful day. Thousands if not millions of kid, overnight became orphan.

Ever since then, I had never pay much attention to tsunami as it mushroomed around the region. Maybe it is a case of being lack of compassion. Nevertheless I felt safe and sound in Malaysia then. But today I felt the tremor myself. Even though it was just a mild shake that I felt, compare to what the victims must had felt, it had already sent a part of me to Padang, Indonesia. For that spilt second, vision of damage houses, cries of the fearful filled up my senses as the tragic unfold. My heart went out to the victims.

As I skimmed through the internet news, there was no report on the number of casualties yet. Let's pray together while death is out for hunting, let him be merciful and spare the good souls.

Om Namo Bhagavate Bhaisajayaguru Vaiduraya Phrabarajaya Tatagathaya Ahate Samyaksambuddhaya Tadyatha Om Bhaisajye Bhaisajye Maha Bhaisajye Bhaisajye Sammugate Soha

A simple Buddha Medicine prayers to keep the hope alive.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

It is truly a shame for me to only lay my hands on this book after it has been published for thus long. It just doesn't do enough justice to Mr. Paulo Coelho if I were to describe this book as merely inspiring as some of the critics do. This book is much more than just inspiring. In fact it is empowering.

It is rare indeed, for me to have the opportunity to read such a masterpiece, as I have not come across a single book, that manage to articulate so clearly its intended message by telling a fiction story. Mr. Paulo Coelho had done that beautifully. He managed to convey his view and message about life by camouflaging under the pretext of a fiction story, which is full of fantasies and magic.

As I flipped through the pages and my eyes taking in the alphabets, I felt my heart was gradually swelling with regret. If only I have read this book in my younger days, maybe my life will be very much different now. Well, regret is a word that the overly thick dictionary can do without with. But I just want to accentuate how impactful this book is.

I shall not steal the fun by telling the storyline here. I urge if anyone read this, do give this beautiful book a chance to empower you.

Why am I a Buddhist?

Someone in the Dharma class today asked me, why do I become a Buddhist? Hmmm...I have written about this somewhere but I couldn't seem to locate it.

Anyway, I vaguely remembered ever since I was a kid, I always pestered my parents to bring me to temple. There is a cave in Ipoh, which houses a Buddhist temple called Perak Cave. It is located near my father's office. So he always brought me to the cave before I started schooling. I couldn't recall whether it was due to the cooling atmosphere in the cave or the awesome yet serene Buddha statute that made me feel very much at home and at ease there.

I was only that close to Buddhism back then. I knew nothing about Dharma moreover meditation. However, something happened in recent years that made me turn to Buddhism for solace. It was then that I took up meditation and gradually be serious in Buddhism. I started off as a Theravadin but somehow I ended up more like a Vajrayana practitioner. Yet I am not really into initiations or empowerments like most Vajrayana practioners do. So it is kind of a mix and match thing as to certain extend I am still practicing Theravada teaching.

I would never forget that during my first few Dharma classes, there was this lady who claimed that by practicing certain Vajrayana purification practices, she managed to save her business from going down under. She was so gung-ho about Vajrayana purification practices that she mentioned her life was totally changed, to the better of course! I do not deny the truth in what she said. In fact I practice full length prostration as well as mantra recitation. I am convinced that purification practices work and there is a logical explanation to that.

A lot of people turn to Buddhism due to such reasons. They thronged to temples asking for mantra to recite so that they can accumulate wealth or health, if not both. They invite deities and conscerate in their altar so that these deities can do their jobs and protect their families. These are not wrong. Albeit some literature that claim Buddhist do not believe in God, we actually do. Out of the 6 realms (or 5 realms as believed by Theravadins), Buddha has mentioned one of it, is a God realm. It is just that Buddhist shall not rely on deities, as liberation is very much individual effort. However Buddhist can seek deities assistance, who are Dharma protectors to guide us to the enlightment path. So it seems there is a condratiction, indeed there is only a fine line drawn between the two. The question is how much guidance is deemed sufficient?

Due to this, Buddhism has very much become a wish fulfilling gems to its followers. Again this may not be wrong. It is just that such followers may not have done full justice to Buddhism. Buddhism is much more than that. Yes! Through purification of negative karma, the quality of your life improves. But it is merely the painkiller to your current problem because every day you live, you are basically engaging new negative karma. By negative karma here I don't mean bad karma that will bring you serious repercussions. No! What I mean by negative karma here is karma that will obstruct you from liberation.

Therefore in short, besides engaging purification practices such as mantra recitation, which is very good by itself, the essence of Buddhism is mind training. Only by transforming our mind, we can neutralize adversities. Only by transforming our mind, we can see the nature of reality and that's the ultimate goal as a Buddhist.

I can continue ranting about Buddhism, but to answer the question why I become a Buddhist, I only have this to say. After years of searching, only in Buddhism I can catch a glimpse of the nature of reality, also known as the fundamental truth. Whatever you call it, it is the only antidote to the cause of suffering.

Heart warming Incidents over the Ramadan month ~ Salam Zahir dan Batin

Incident 1

There is a stray dog who lives under one of the pillar in Kelana Jaya LRT station. Every morning after I have parked my car and walk towards the train station, I will pass by the dog. He then will stand up much like giving you a greeting and trail you to the train station. Thereafter he will walk back to its cozy little corner. Everytime after work, I always remind myself that I need to buy something for this poor little dog to eat. But needless to say, I always forget. With God's grace, last Friday I remembered, so I bought 3 fish balls from 7-eleven. Well I took one as I was too hungry, but I gave the remaining two to him. As I walked closer to his corner, he stood up and if I was not hallucinating, the dog actually bowed to me. Then I noticed two bowls on the floor. One of the bowls had some rice remained, while the other bowl contained fresh water. A sudden joy filled my heart. Despite constant publicity in the newspaper on crimes, wars and violence, here in a city called Kuala Lumpur, I knew at least there is one good-hearted people, who tend to the poor little dog. It was a relieved.

Incident 2

I was feeling a bit feverish and sickly tonight, but I didn't resign to the sickness. Instead of retreating to my cozy bed, I took a walk at the lake below my condo. It was a breezy evening and a quiet one too. While I was enjoying myself at the lakeside, I saw a plump elderly lady carrying few trays of "kuih" for the guards to devour. It was the festive spirit that really warm my heart.

~Postcript~

Day in, day out there are a lot of things happening around us. We subconsciously choose what we want to see. If we are always engulfed in pessimism, we only view life from the negative aspect. But if we were to just open up a bit and let life bask you with joy, you will find that, to live is a blessing.

Sequel of Li Ren translation

Leaving for exile in the wilderness
Is like entering a fifth season
Discord day and night Willfulness constant as the tide
Spring has no meaning for us
Leaving amidst torrents of tears
Avoiding our inevitable parting
You fear to think of tomorrow
I refuse to say goodbye
Some say that with every parting
A star is extinguished in the sky

Bad Day

A bad day but it will pass, just like any other day. All it needs is just a little push with a small laugh :-)

~Translation of a Wonderful Song~

Came across this song called Li Ren by Lin Zhi Xuan. Really a beautiful song with touching lyrics. So I attempted to translate the lyrics to English here. I couldn't translate it word to word as it will lost its eloquence. So I re-write the lyrics but retain the original meaning :

~

A small silver colored boat swaying gently from side to side

Resembling a crescent moon hanging on the velvet dark sky

Your vast sadness and blues filled my little heart

How would the deep love I have for you, not made me lonely

For I am missing you madly

My luggage standing tall and odd by itself reminding me of my battered self

~

To be continued.....

An Eventful Adventure ~ 18SX : Please read with parental guide

The light was dimmed but I could still vaguely make out my silhoutte against the sparsely colored wall. Stripped to my birthday suit, I laid down on my abdomen. With a think towel covering my lower part body, I felt a pair of hands massaging my stiff shoulder. Tenderly but not without strength, the pair of hands continue to work downwards towards my spiral chord and finally my pelvic bone.

Then, each hand forming the shape of a cup and both wrist joined together, the pair of hands started to press on my backbone from the spinal chord, all the way up to my shoulder blade. With each press, a comforting pressure is exerted and quite automatically trapped air was released from my lung through my mouth. To say it was relaxing is just lack of adequacy. It was more than just relaxing but stimulating at the same time.

Next, turning on my back, I felt hot air breathing down my neck, electrifying every cell found in my body. It stopped and lingered a while on my chest. It wasn't long before it started working downwards again. Yes ! It was still going downwards....

Just at that very critical moment, I felt a stinging sensation on my face !

"Was it the latest face massage technique?" I wondered.

But then few more blows rained down on my face. With shock and frustration, I opened my eyes. To my horror I saw my housemate staring squarely at me.

"Did you give me a massage?" I murmured.

"Hell! No! I gave you few slaps and you were smiling!" He replied

Amidst the confusion, my senses finally settled down. Jumping out of the bed, I screamed. "What the fuck!! I am late for work again!!"

A Conversation

Just to share a clip of conversation that I had with a close friend over a cuppa of coffee over the weekend.

Friend : I feel very troubled. He is always in my mind 24 hrs a day. I thought of him every moment, during eating, walking, working and even during my sleep I frequently dream of him.

Me : So you love him?

Friend : I think I do. Yeah I do love him.

Me : Why don't you tell him? Tell him how you feel about him.

Friend : I don't even want to go there. It is really complicated. Please don't ask me why. Just take it that telling him is the last option or rather it is not an option at all.

Me : Ok I shall not ask further then. But I just want you know that you do not love him. You merely desire him.

Friend : Is there a difference? All I know is that I want him. I want to be by his side and care for him.

Me : Of course there is a huge difference. When you are in love, you put his priorities over yours. Everything you do, revolve around him. Just like planet Earth revolves around the Sun. And yes, you don't seem to get enough of him. You miss him easily and you always try to be close to him as much as possible.

Friend : That's what I do. Yeah this is exactly how I am feeling right now at this very moment. Have you experienced it before?

Me : Of course I have. I am made of flesh and blood. But the ultimate testament to whether you really love him is that you do the above with goodwill. You do a lot for him but you do not hope for any returns. You do it out of a sincere wish that he will be happy. And you take pleasure that whatever you have done brought him joy.

On the contrary, if you are merely desiring him, then whatever you did, you expect some kind of returns. You feel let down if he never reciprocate your actions. You feel jealous whenever he is with some other people and not you. If you go down this path, you will have to mend your broken heart sooner or later.

Friend : Whatever you have just said are so philosophical. Everyone knows that love is selfish.

Me : My friend, you may not understand it now. But do spend some time to think about it. Whatever I have said is very much pragmatic and practical. Only those who have not loved before would say that love is selfish. It is not. I can testify to that.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying desire is bad. A relationship without desire is a relationship without passion and it won't last either. All I am saying is, just like cooking, desire is only one of the many flavouring that you add to make your dish taste better. You have to use it skillfully or else your dish may just turn out to be disaster. Desire without love is not real. Just like masturbation, you will feel empty after the climax.

Friend : What should I do now?

Me : Learn to cook. Learn how to apply your flavouring skillfully. Control and balance your desire. To do that, ultimately you have to ask yourself, do you really love him?

~Unity in Diversity~

Over the weekend, I was reading a book by an international bestseller, Khaleed Hossein. The book is a fiction entitled A Thousand Splendid Suns. Initially, I bought it as a birthday present to a friend. Anyway that aside, my attention was solidly captured when I flipped through the initial few pages. The story, which set in Afghanistan, is about women discrimination and how they strived under the Taliban rule.

To describe the story as heart wrenching, is perhaps an understatement. Apart from swelling your eyes with tears (to someone perhaps but not me), the story drives you to think deep about discrimination. So in this post, I just want to pen down some haphazard thoughts about this topic.

Even in the 21st century, sad to say discrimination still happens in almost every society. It appears in different forms. It can take the form as gender discrimination, racial discrimination, sexual preference discrimination and many more. Being a smoker, sometimes I am also discriminated by that too!

It is really mind puzzling how discrimination can happen. I have read of accounts that women being gang raped in Middle Eastern countries. If that is not devastating enough, there are also not short of accounts, where women being burnt to death in India. In most society, women are always sidelined. Sometimes I suspect, we can even drown the whole world if we were to collect one drop of tears from each woman who has been discrimated since the last century.

Living in a multi culture society, I do not even want to talk about racial discrimination as it has become an everyday life affairs. If you want to get a feel of what is racial discrimination, nothing speaks louder than a copy of Utusan Malaysia (one of the Malaysia mainstream newspaper in Malay language).

From friends to relatives and even family members, my sexual preference seems to be very much of their interest. Maybe it is due to my level of sensitivity, which surpasses any normal guy, numerous times I had been harassed with the question whether I am gay. The peculiarity is I am not really angered by such a question but more like amused by it. Have you heard of people being asked are you straight? The rule of large numbers applies here. As the majority of world's citizens live a straight normal life i.e. getting married and have a football team of children, any deviation from it, is viewed as abnormal or against the nature. However, nature is not shaped by the majority. Nature is merely what you see, hear, taste or feel from the physical world. In other words, nature is largely defined by the experience when your senses contact with the outer world. Therefore, NATURE, to the contrary of most people believe, is largely a personalized individual experience.

If every human were to spend just a second to think - you and me and everyone else are not really so much in difference. You will find that gender, skin colour or even sexual preference are merely the attributes that shape an individual. Deep down everyone, regardless of gender, race or sexual preference, only has one aspiration and that's to be happy. If that's so why don't we help each other to achieve it together?

A Horizontal Sand Clock

Today is a quiet Saturday. No appointments to rush to and no plans made ahead. It was a good opportunity to spend some time with myself. So I headed to the gym for a quick workout after a simple lunch. Well, the work out part was merely a self-comforting statement, as the time I spent for work out is not even more than 45 mins!

It was really rare indeed, for me to step into the sauna. It seemed that even a mere 15 mins is too much a hassle to sequence out from my time. But today time is a luxury for me, so I seated myself in the sauna and enjoyed the heat. It was so relaxing that I almost dozed off. Just at that moment, something peculiar caught my sight. It was a sand clock. It was just any normal sand clock that you see in a sauna room. But what really caught my attention was that somebody had placed the sand clock horizontally instead of the usual vertical position.

There were only two reasons I could think of for anyone to put the sand clock horizontally. Either that person did it out of mischief or he is trying to stop time, at least metaphorically. It was something I naively tried to do sometime ago. Back then I knew that I was inching towards a bad state of emotion as the time progressed. I knew given a bit of time whatever or whoever that I was enjoying or cherishing would leave due to the natural course of events. I did whatever I could to prevent it from happening. My only prayers and hope was that time could just stood still a bit longer. Of course it never did. Human is just too minute to act againts the course of changes. Whatever that are bound to happen, will happen. In the end, after it happened, I did plunge into the deep dungeon of emotion torment. But I was surprised it was my enemy i.e. TIME was the one who healed me and made me a much stronger person than I was before.

So to the person who had put the sand clock horizontally, I sincerely prayed things will work out fine for you but most of the time it depends very much on ourselves. TIME is neutral. It does not mean to make enemy or friends with anyone. Most of the time, we are the ones who made enemy with it. And there starts the suffering.....