Novitiation – Becoming a novice monk (Samanera)

Since I was a small kid, I have a dream; I aspire to become a monk.  After being a Buddhist for 10 years, I can finally get away from being ‘labelled’ as a joss stick Buddhist. This is my first time attending programmes by Mangala Vihara, thus making me both excited and anxious at the same time. The first thought that came in my mind was how am I going to spend my time here for the next 14 nights. Finally come the long awaiting ordination ceremony at 2 pm. We shaved our hair and recite the ten precepts. I was given a Pali Buddhist name – NANDA. The most interesting part was the wearing of the monks’ robes. The monk s’ robe consist of the upper robe and lower robe. As most of the novices are first timers, we do not know how to wear the robes hence we were like small children queuing up to wait for help from both Bhante Raja and Bhante Acara.

The second we’ve got a rare chance to give a service at a funeral. The most important lesson I learnt was that most Chinese got the wrong idea that after a person’s death, the monks chant for the dead so as to allow the dead to be reborn in a better state. The chants is for the living so as to meditate on the dead body, remembering that this will occur to the living themselves too.

The following 12 days was ‘robotic’ in the sense that we were repeating the days itself, having lessons with the 3 Bhantes, Bhante Raja’s taught chanting in the morning at 9, After lunch at 1 pm was Bhante Cittara’s lesson on meditation and some Dhamma while after the evening Puja was Bhante Acara’s lesson on Monks rules and also some Dhamma talk. To end off the novitiation programme, on the last night, we chant the Buddha Vadana ( Iti pi so…) for 108. The whole chanting lasted for about an hour. The chanting was great giving us a sense of accomplishment.

In conclusion, the novitiation programme is a very rare chance, a good learning journey for Buddhist. However, there is something that I felt very upset which is that there seems to be no few youths willing to participate in this programme most of the novice were of middle aged group and above. This shows that there is an aging population in Buddhist too. I really hope to see more youth actively participating in these activities so as to understand and familiarise with true Buddhism.

Devastating News

A bad news came on sunday morning…

While i was still in my dreams, my mum woke me up telling me that my enlistment letter was here.

Damn! Finally received. 26 Feb 2010 . Haizzzzzzzzzz there goes my Yoyo Ma concert.

Religion…Religions? Think Twice

Well well well…

Suddenly got the mood to post.

Sorry to the Christians and Muslims if I mention anything inappropriate in this post. They are just my thoughts and are inoffensive..

During the month of ramadan this year, in one of the nights i turn to TV1 , they are showing the prayers for the Muslims. I got interested and continue watching the prayers. There are subtitles for the prayers and i read…

God reward those who do good and God punishes the bad. God will lead his people to the path.

I believe this is what the Christians believe too.

I view this similar to Buddhism. Karma is the law of cause and effect. We reap what we sow, hence those who do bad will have bad karma and thus be punished. Those who do good will reap good karma and will be rewarded.The Buddha teaches an only way, to go by the middle path and towards Nirvana.

In my interpretation, this is why there is no image for God, because there is no need for one as God is not to be personified. God is a  guidance. God serves as a disciplinary model for human.

This proves the existence of God and God is almighty.

Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, the four religion is preaching the similar idea hence All religion are the same

Sadhu!

Levels in LIFE

This is the first post after i completed my A levels. This shall be the start of all my religious thinking and personal philosophies.

I shall talk about the purpose of life in this post.

After Soooooooo many exams taken in my 19 years of life, i finally understand what are exams for.

The people in the working life always yearn about their life during their study days, they tell the students that studying life is much better. But the students are always grumbling bout their life too, studying , assignments and stuff…

Human never realise that life is just like a role play game. There are  challenges in order to get to the next stage, similarly as we grow older, we get to higher level, the challenges are getting harder too. There cannot be circumstances that we reach level 100 but we still have challenges of level 1

Hence when we think back, we naturally thought that those challenges we went through are easy and the ones we are facing at the moment are difficult.

This post is to tell the working adults and parents that never tell your children that studying is EASY!

HAHAHAHA!!!!

Sadhu!

First Post for the Year

Maybe a bit too late for this now but this is the only ‘free’ time i can find and its in the middle of the night.

During the holidays, quite a few incidents made me learn a lot. In Dec 2008, my grandma passed away,peacefully. However this incident gave me alot of information on human’s  life.

1) The impermanence of life- The nothing called forever, everything is everchanging even when one is dead. The funeral was held for 7 days, everyday I would spend some time staying beside the coffin to chant some prayers for my grandma. I see that her face changes day by day. The skin slowly dries up.

2) We don’t always get what we want- I know my grandma wasn’t granted what she wished for. Few days before her death, she asked to be brought home as she said she didn’t want to die in the hospital. In the end, she passed away in the hospital and for this i felt very bad even thought theres nothing i could before her death.

I love my grandma and i know she loves me too. The only thing i could do for her i just to chant and pray for her. And I finally understand the life of human. People can leave just in a split second. I seriously think that we should treasure everyone around us, give all our love to them.

I would be returning to my orchestra this coming Thursday.  Really don’t whats the orchestra will be doing after quite a long break. Hope that the new year will bring me new excitement and great experience. No more of ’suprises’.

In the middle of the night…continue doing my leftover home works…the story goes on and on…the little boy stayed up through out the night…

…to be continued

That’s All Folks.

Stay tune for the next episode!

FREE!!!

Promos over for quite a period of time already . I have also gotten back my results long ago liao. Guess what? I finally passed my promos. Really finally. Took a hard time this year. Now, i am really looking forward my JC2, guess it would be challenging and wonderful for me. After this promo, i really felt that i have no regrets for coming to JC. Actually since i received my results last yr, after i got the news that i would be retained, i was wondering whether JC was the right route for my tertiary education. My mindset was still not settled even until september this year.  Nevertheless, i still tried, i still work hard. And now my goal is to UNI, no doubts bout that. My ‘OLD FRIEND’ came back to me. He gave me hope. and his name, initial M. Haha!

On thurs, 23 oct, i took out all my instruments. To my horror, my erhu was jus like a jigsaw puzzle, unfixed. The bow was on it own, the strings were broken, the bridge dropped off, and the pegs too. May have neglected it for too long, 2 yrs nv touch it liao. And splendid! I discovered smth, i am a genius (JOKING) i managed to get everything back to orginal and changed a new pair of strings. The sound produced the the silver strings were fabulous.

And thats all folks!

Something Random…

After reading all my posts today finally i discovered something, i read all the so called ‘poems’ i wrote and HAHA!!! I was laughing away. So funny, it was so mediocre, it should not be produced by someone like me. So CHILDISH and amusing. Alamak! Wad was i thinking when i wrote all that stuffs? even a secondary school student can produce something better.

Promos coming, how? hai, still not working very hard for it. But still i am scared, retained 1 year already and this year passed so fast, even before i realised it , now is already september. 20 more days to promos. How am i going to survive it? Hopefully i can make it and i must make it.

Yesterday-Just not my day

It was a bright, beautiful and cool saturday morning. So unusual was that special morning. Went for the concerto audition. It was so freak out i didn’t even know how to react to it. What should i be thinking of ? No tone, no rhythm, no everything. I was so tense. The mindset wasn’t right maybe. Physically prepare but not mentally. Maybe i should not have gone for this audition.

Furthermore, the day didnt just end like that. The rest of the day was worse. I didn’t like the feeling of being so restless. Cannot stand myself phsically in the orchestra but my mind was elsewhere. Wasn’t paying attention throughout the 3 hours. There was so many things that came across my mind. Suddenly i feel so empty, so sad.

Yesterday – Beatles

Suddenly
I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday
Came suddenly

七夕情人节

Today is chinese valentine’s day. Ha…tot would be quite a boring day for me though to me its jus an ordinary Thursday. Dreaded… having a long day in school after that still need to go SYO. Quite a tiring day. However i received a surprise today haha haha haha congrats me man! I ‘ve got back my chem test results. Thinking that i would fail, but never did I accomplished that. I PASSED! GOT a B haha haha haha!

难得糊涂！

Sometimes i really think that there will be something that we dun wan or must not come to noe about. Quoting from 郑板桥’s famous idiom‘难得糊涂’  i seriously think that we must act blur sometimes. So traumatizing. maybe would be better to let me live in a Land Of Delusion.

心情就有如天崩地裂。不知道说什么才好

果真是落花有意流水无情， 像歌曲里唱的一样…无缘到面前与君分杯水

恨也！