Last Post of 2011

A Summary:

A Year of Ups and Downs

A Year of Fantasies

A Year of Dreams

A Year of Hope

I have done it, with no doubts, no regrets

Blessing:

May all be free from danger and enmity

May all be free from physical sufferings

May all be free from mental sufferings

Lastly, I still have to say

May all be well and happy =)

Happy New Year!

 

- Claron

 

 

Impermanance

The third week of September

So many things have changed, from something to nothing, from hopeful to hope-less.

A section from Reader’s Digest – Life’s like that, how true would it be for one to gain something to lose something. Take for example a friendship, the day before we were still smiling to each other and the next day we are like stranger to each other. This made one think how vulnerable is one’s friendship, and putting it to another situation, how vulnerable is life?

The Earth is ever spinning round and round non-stop, this is the most important change we see. The Earth never stay put, just as we never stop moving on. For change is inevitable, we should note all the changes and keep in mind that we must be mindful of the change rather be mind full of the things that have changed.

Anicca

Reflection of My Life

Self-A negative one

Practising mindfulness (in everything) allows me to see my real true self.

 

So you may ask, what is a real true self?

The real true self may seem more negative than what we actually see. For myself, I have been trying hard to forsake many things including play, shopping(buying things personal likings) etc. But it is actually hard to do so. The more I try to give(share), the more i see the selfishness in me, it is a feeling i would not want to have.

I want to love, but most of the time i actually do love myself more. I have been telling myself to love the people around me but it is very hard to do so. I was thinking how can love the people i dislike? I think this is something no ordinary man can achieve. I often say I dislike not hate, but how to differentiate both? Even a dislike is something negative though not as deep as hate.

You may think what I have wrote is negative, but then think again…when you see the negative side of yourself, you will want to change for the better, life is never easy, taking things step by step, for Rome wasn’t built in the day. For now i see imperfection, but the defilement will one day be eliminated and i shall reach perfection =)

Being Christians =)

Today a friend of mine was asking me about my religion, then he mentioned he felt uncomfortable when dealing with Christians (Coming in contact with them). So i quote a phrase from Mr Khaw Boon Wan our Minster for National Development. He said, he is a buddhist and he is proud to be one.

So I told this friend of mine, well everyone has their religion and belief, and for Christians, they are proud of being themself, so I don’t see anything inappropriate about them spreading the gospel

I am a Buddhist and I am exceptionally proud to be one !
Sadhu

The MIND

Well its been quite a long time before I took time to write a blog…

Yes the mind, the human mind is works opposite. We often tell ourselves not to think pessimistically but yet our mind will, without consciousness ponder on the negative. What I hated is always the wild guess. we cannot read others mind nor we can control out mind to not guess others’ thoughts.

Our mind is like a movie director, we often like to think of the events that never happened or we try to visualise what will happen. And often it develops into bad thoughts.

Practising meditation on loving kindness have made me conscious of my thoughts and allow me to note the bad arising. Noting all these bad thoughts is easy but getting rid of bad thoughts are difficult. But being conscious of bad thoughts are good enough, rather than being ignorant of the bad thoughts and continue to imagine further.

A buddhist quote：色既是空， 空既是色

It means that the things that we see are false, however we still see the false as real.

There can be many interpretation to this phrase but for this moment this is what I thought.

Rewards

A few weeks ago while i was jogging in the night, i was thinking about my audition to AYO and i remembered the rewards have i received from my parents since i was young every time when i scored well for my test or exams and i realised i seldom request for rewards. Then i thought why should kids request for rewards in order to do well in exams. I think the best rewards would be the good results the get. I was thinking back when i took my grade eight exam last year, i never asked my parents to buy me anything if i pass the exam, i just look forward to getting the results and indeed the result was pleasing and that’s the greatest reward ever. Same idea for the O level students and A level students for the long awaiting results which cause the uneasy anxiety in the mind, on the result day students will receive the best  reward (which is the good grades) they ever receive for their hard work over the years.

So this post is for the kids who always ask their parents for rewards, never ask your parents to buy you anything as reward because the best reward you will receive for your hard work is the end result – The GOOD GRADES.

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!