The Inspirations of My Life

1. My parents

Being not highly educated as they are, they managed to bring up my siblings and I in a home that stresses on the importance of education (my sis already finish her degree, working now. I'm 75% through mine. My bro taking diploma now). 

Despite not coming from rich families, they somehow are able to managed their financial situations so well and provided us with all that we need. 

Most importantly, they also provided us kids with lots of love and care so that we will grow up into useful and virtuous human beings. (=

2. My sister

Her determination to achieve the best in life brought her far in life. Further than I can ever imagine myself to be in. Although we have different interest in life, but the determination in in achieving what she wanted in life always inspires me to try and strive for what I wanted too.

She also showed me the love that a sister can have for her siblings. She is where I look for help when I needed some, and she'll always find a way to help me through.

3. My grandfather

He doesn't have much of what we would call education, but his wisdom of the truth of life is truly something that I admire and inspires me. I guess I needn't say anymore.

4. My little brother

Naughty one here. But that taught me that patience and love of a family should know no boundaries.

5. The Buddha

For lighting up the path to the end of suffering for us.

6. Ajahn Brahm

For showing me that life need not be suffering. There are happy ways to go about life, if we would only try to learn. And for the wonderful Buddhist or even non-Buddhist tales of happiness.

7. Bro Casper and Sis Abby

For showing me that in suffering, we learn. By learning, we grow wiser. By growing wiser, we become happier.

Thank you all for the inspirations that make a life of suffering so much better and more bearable. (=

A Reflection of Life

I had started to write this article many weeks ago, but I put it aside after only writing two paragraphs. But today, a very close friend asked me the question "What does life mean to you now?" got me thinking again. What do I really see in life? Actually, life has already given me practically everything that I could ever ask from it.

I have reached the twenty-second year of my life. And yet, I have not really stopped and think back of what I have been through my life before until recently. My twenty-two years old journey through life has been a very colourful one. There were many downs, but there were definitely way more ups compared to the downs.

Fate has been very kind to me for giving me a very good family to begin with. I have a wonderful set of parents who really love me and would always ensure that I get the very best in life. Greatest love in the world, wonderful upbringing (very good moral values to begin life with), a harmonious home, good education, very beautiful house to live in, and even some siblings to play with and fight with. There's a lot more that I can be thankful about with my parents, but too much to write here.

Moving on to my siblings. My sister, there's really nothing more that I could want from an elder sister. She loves me more than any person could love her sister. I can always count on her for help in practically everything under the sky, from fashion to all the way to studies. As for my brother, well, he's the usual kind of little brother that we all seem to already know, as naughty as a monkey. But, he's my little brother all the same. There are many times when he actually showed that he cared. It's just that a guy being a guy, he won't show much.

Next is my late grandfather. A great man he was. He was actually the very strong Elephant glue that keeps our extended family together because he was the eldest brother in his family. So during the festive seasons, the rest of the big family would come to our house, mainly just to visit him, and our home became the centre meeting point for everyone. He loves all of us dearly. When my siblings and I were young, he would always cook for us because my parents would be out working. So grandfather took care of all three of us practically all the time. He would make sure that we have everything that we want. He would make sure we have our pocket money when we go to school. Everything, he would take care of to ensure that we'll be alright. So when he passed away, I wrote him a poem. I've posted the poem in this blog also, search for the title "Memory".

The rest of my extended family is just too much to talk about. Some that deserve at least a mention here would be my youngest granduncle and his whole family, and the late fifth granduncle and his whole family too. The rest, I'm not as close to them as I would like. Except perhaps one of the son's family of the fourth granduncle and one daughter's family of the second granduncle. I think I better stop here as it is getting real messy.

Now, coming to the biggest group of people in my life. My friends. I think here I better only give mention to the very very closest of close friends. I'll start with my hometown friends. The most important that I still keep contact with would be my primary school friends. Ng, Stef, and Sofia. We have been friends since primary school. Everything that I forget about my childhood, they'll help to remind me, especially of the fond memories we had together in school, both primary and secondary. In secondary school, I guess I didn't mix as much with people of my secondary school as much. Yi Won, Ju Anne, Terri, Liak Shern, Ben...these are among some that comes into mind when I think of my secondary school, and these are people whom I still have contact with. For those that I may miss out, they wouldn't know anyway for this blog is not really followed by my hometown friends.

Moving on to my matriculation friends. Those that I grew very close to in matrics is Chen Giap, Mei Kian and Candy. I think I can stop my list here for the others I did not even contact already nowadays. Chen Giap is my practicum leader and I'm his helper. We're still in contact now, mainly because we got in to the same university. Oh ya, forgot to mention, Wei De and Wai Fun are also friends from matrics. These two was once my emotional support, because Wai Fun understand me more than I sometimes understand myself while Wei De understands how the universe works.

Then in my university years, three years into a four-year course now, I would call this the most challenging times of my life so far. I wonder how much worse it would be when I go to work after I graduate in a year's time. I acquired a few more precious friends such as Mian Yi, Ashley, the choir gang, and most recently, Casper (from a Buddhist camp).

I'm not sure why, but Mian Yi and I didn't really get to know each other in matrics, but only found our friendship during university years. I guess it started from the orientation choir practices. We both worked out a song for the choir team to sing for orientation choir competition together. And from then onwards we were rather close friends.

As for Ash, I think I should have known her during CC interaction week, but I can't remember anything from there. My memory of her only starts in choir practices. (Sorry, girl, for that lack of memory capacity of my brain). We shared many happy memories in and out of choir together. Roommates for almost one year. And we sometimes still sing together when we have the time to do so.

Lately, Casper, who has now become my adopted twin brother for the many similar traits we found in each other. He's also one of my current emotional support together with Ash.

I guess from here, anyone would have been able to see how blessed my life truly is. So where does all these brings me to? Back to the question posted by Ash. What does life mean to me now? Well, my dear friend and adopted sister, the answer is, I already feel very blessed and there is nothing more I could ever ask from life. There may be some unhappy times and upsetting times in my life, when things don't seem to go my way. But we will never know what life has to offer next. Perhaps the things may not go our now, but it could be that life is arranging something good for us after that. So for me, I would just have to learn to bear with the problems life gives us and at the same time remember to appreciate what life has already given me. Things may change, people may change. But then again, better things and people may come. Life goes on no matter what. Just bear with it, come what may and enjoy while we still can.

Quote from an article I've once read:
Yesterday is history,
Tomorrow is mystery,
Today is a gift,
That is why it is called the present!

"Mara and the Buddha – Embracing our Suffering"

By Thich Nhat Hanh

...If you were very mindful, you would have had the feeling that Buddha and Mara were a couple of friends who need each other—like day and night, like flowers and garbage. This is a very deep teaching of Buddhism, and I trust that the children will understand—very deep. You may compare Buddha with the flowers, very fresh, very beautiful. And you may compare Mara with the garbage. It doesn't smell good. There are a lot of flies who like to come to the garbage. It's not pleasant to touch, to hold in your hand, to smell the garbage.

Yet all flowers become garbage. That is the meaning of impermanence: all flowers have to become garbage. If you practice Buddhist meditation, you find out about very interesting things—like about the garbage. Although garbage stinks, although garbage is not pleasant to hold in your hand, if you know how to take care of the garbage, you will transform it back into flowers. You know gardeners don't throw away garbage. They preserve the garbage and take care of the garbage, and in just a few months the garbage becomes compost. They can use that compost to grow lettuce, tomatoes, and flowers. We have to say that organic gardeners are capable of seeing flowers in garbage, seeing cucumbers in garbage. That is what the Buddha described as the non-dualistic way of looking at things.

If you see things like that, you will understand that the garbage is capable of becoming a flower, and the flower can become garbage. Thanks to the flowers there is garbage, because if you keep flowers for three weeks they become garbage, and thanks to the garbage there will be flowers. You now have an idea of the relationship between Buddha and Mara. Mara is not very pleasant, but if you know how to help Mara, to transform Mara, Mara will become Buddha. If you don't know how to take care of the Buddha, Buddha will become Mara.

You see there are people who, in the beginning, love each other very much. They believe that without each other they cannot survive. Their love is so important. They cling to each other because they think that love between them is the only element that can help them survive. But because they don't know how to preserve the love and take care of their love, they get angry at each other, they misunderstand each other, and later on love is transformed slowly into hatred. There are those who say, "I hate you, I don't want to see you anymore, I wish you would die." Those people in the past had proclaimed that they needed each other, they could not survive without each other, they loved each other, so love transforms into hatred. It's like a kind of flower transformed into garbage.

So what you learn today is very deep. Flowers and garbage are of an organic nature because both flowers and garbage are living realities. Buddha and Mara are also organic, and they need each other. It is thanks to the difficulties, thanks to the temptations, that the Buddha has overcome his suffering and his ignorance and become a fully enlightened being. The day before yesterday, I gave a Dharma talk on suffering, and I said that if you look deeply into the nature of your suffering, you will find a way out of it. So if you want a flower, you have to use the garbage. That is why the people who suffer a lot now should not be discouraged. Suffering is their garbage. If they know how to take good care of their garbage they will be able to make the flower come back to them, the flower of peace, of joy. The Buddha shows us the way to do so.

When I was in Moscow several years ago, we offered a retreat to Muscovites, and a few Christians from Korea held a kind of a retreat very close to ours. Some of them came to our friends and asked why they should follow the Buddha. The reason we should not follow the Buddha, according to them, is that Buddha is a mortal. "Mortal" means someone who has to die. In their mind what we need is someone who will not die. Since the Buddha is someone who has to be born and who has to die, he cannot help us—that is the meaning of the declaration made by those friends.

I think it's a wonderful thing to die, because if you are born and you die, it means you are a living reality, like the flower and the garbage: they are living things. We are for life. Anything that is not born, not dying, not growing, is not alive. To be alive means to be born, to grow, to get old, to die, to be born again, to grow, to get old, to die and to continue like that. How do you expect life to be possible without change? But there is one thing that the children may like to know. There is a difference between "flower" and "flower-ness."

The flower may die, but not the flower-ness. Even if a flower has become garbage, you know you can bring the flower back. If you are a good gardener, if you know how to use compost, seeds, water, you will be able to bring the flower back. This means a flower may die, but flower-ness is something that is there all the time: because flower-ness is not a thing, flower-ness is the nature of a thing. So it is with Buddha and Buddha nature. Buddha nature is called in Sanskrit buddhata. We all have buddhata inside of us, this Buddha nature. If we want, we can make the Buddha be born every moment in our hearts. That is a very wonderful thing. You can make the Buddha be born in your heart every moment, because you have Buddhahood in you, you have the nature of the Buddha in you. Buddha is a living thing: Buddha is born, Buddha grows up, Buddha hides himself away, Buddha dies. But Buddhahood is there in us.

We might think that terms like "Buddha nature" are difficult because we don’t know that this is something very simple, very simple. Children can understand very well. We have flower-ness in us; we have "garbage-ness" in us also. Don’t think that they are two enemies—no. They look like enemies—Ánanda was not very skillful in seeing that—but they can support each other. In Buddhism, there is no fight between good and evil—that is the most wonderful thing in the Buddhist practice! There is no fight between good and evil. Good and evil are both organic matters. If you have understanding and wisdom, you will know how to handle both the flower and the garbage in you, you can make the Buddha be born every moment of your life, and peace and happiness will be possible.

6th of August, 1996, Upper Hamlet.

Source: http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/2001/making-tea-for-mara/p1

:: Ash Greig's 10 Steps to Understanding the True Value of Friendship ::

What is friendship? Is it a relationship that you have with a person that you've known since you were 5? Or someone you met only a few months ago? Must it only be with the same sex, or is it possible for a boy and a girl to be friends? This is something only you would know. It all depends on what friendship means to you.


Telling him that his car is awesome or that her shoes are the nicest you've seen all the time doesn't count in building friendship. It isn't about constant partying and getting drunk with them either. It's about how you aren't afraid to criticize their choice of diet, or holding their hands when they've no one to turn to. Friendship is all about being there for one another come what may, for life. For one to build that, one must first understand the value of it.

So here it is, my 10 Steps to Understanding the True Value of Friendship.



Step 1: Have faith in them. If you want him/her to trust you, you've got to trust him/her too. Open up, and tell him/her what you really feel deep inside - share your life with them. Maybe, just maybe, he/she might be able to get you through it. :)


Step 2: Do not rush into it. Friendship needs time to grow, so let it run its course and blossom at its own pace. Spending hours together 7 days a week isn't going to make you BFFs instantly. :)


Step 3: Show them that you care. So her car broke down in the middle of nowhere and she's panicking. This is the time she needs you the most. If you really care about her, you wouldn't want her to go through it alone and you'd drop everything to go to her rescue. :)


Step 4: Never forget to say "Thank you". It doesn't mean that because you're friends, there isn't a need to appreciate the person. I don't believe in the phrase "No thank yous among friends", because it leads to taking the friendship for granted. :)


Step 5: Allow them to be honest with you. If they're really your friends, they would dare tell you that the miniskirt you're wearing doesn't complement you, or that hairgel makes your head look like a durian gone wrong - because they know that you'll not hate them for telling you the truth. :)


Step 6: Listen, and listen more. Talking about yourself all the time isn't cool at all. Ask about his day at work, or about that new movie she watched yesterday. If you want yourself to be heard, you must also hear. :)


Step 7: Do not be afraid to lend a shoulder to cry on. He may be a 35 year-old man with a career and family, but he feels pain just like any other human being when he finds out his father had passed away. Be there for him, with him. :)



Step 8: Stop being judgemental. So he has screwed around with a few women, or she's got a horrible sense of fashion. Don't make assumptions about them - there might be a reason why they are like that. If you call yourself a true friend, you'd help him/her with the problem, and not snigger or laugh behind his/her back. :)


Step 9: Invest in the friendship. Make time to see each other and have fun in each other's company - teh tarik at a mamak shop, jogging in the park, shopping at the mall, anything! Show them that they're worth the extra effort. :)


Step 10: Don't just rely on facebook for quality time. Writing on each other's walls and commenting on pictures and status updates isn't enough to make up for face-to-face interaction or heart-to-heart talks. A hug can do far more wonders than a few lines on a computer screen. :)

~Ash Greig~
http://www.facebook.com/notes/ashley-%E7%88%B1%E6%80%9D%E4%B8%BD-%D8%A7%D8%B4%D9%84%DB%8C-greig/-ash-greigs-10-steps-to-understanding-the-true-value-of-friendship-/10150110374823555?ref=notif&notif_t=note_tag

::Ash Greig's 10 Steps to True Success::

Imagine this: You’re sitting on a comfy chair in your home, sipping on a cup of hot mocha with your dog by your side. You’ve got a fat bank account, and go for holidays abroad at least twice a year. Your career is going strong, and it’s only a matter of days before your boss hands you over that promotion you’ve been working so hard for.

To the rest of the world, you’re as far as one goes when it comes to success. But do money and a career truly define real success? As important as they are, there are other aspects to living a meaningful life – all which we so easily forget in the madness of this constantly revolving world.

So here it is, my take on what it truly means to be a successful person:-

Step 1: Treat the ones who brought you up with love. Your parents sacrificed so much for you for years. Isn’t it about time you took over the reins? Try to make their remaining years the best in their life. :)

Step 2: Keep a savings account, and DON’T touch it. Even a small amount each month adds up to a huge sum by the end of the year. Make it a habit to always have a little something tucked away for emergencies – you never know when you’d need an umbrella when the rain comes pouring. :)

Step 3: Be thankful for everything in your life. Whether or not you believe in God, you’ve been blessed to have all that you have. Ever thought about those who die of starvation in Ethiopia each day? Or those who are forced to work 18 hours a day for a measly $1 daily? Learn to be grateful, and it will teach you to be humble. :)

Step 4: Find a job that you’re happy with, not something that simply pays well but drains the life out of you. A career only begins and develops with the right attitude and drive. What’s the point of earning so much but you struggle to drag yourself to work every morning? :)

Step 5: Help out at a local charity organization. Old folks home, the orphanage, SPCA – anything. If you’re not into giving monetary funds, donate your time instead. Listen to the 89 year-old uncle who rambles on about his days in the army. Volunteer as a cleaner at the dog pound. Your little acts of kindness will do wonders for so many others, and the joy it brings to see them smile is indescribable. :)

Step 6: Meditate. Having some “me” time alone is vital to keep you going. Put on Jim Brickman and sit yourself down. Block out everything and relax your mind. Do it daily for about 20 minutes and you’ll find yourself more able to deal with life’s craziness. :)

Step 7: Don’t forget your friends. It’s easy to simply say “I’m too busy to meet up.” Do it often enough and you’ll lose them one by one by the time you do make time to see them. The last thing you want is to grow old alone. Family is important, but so are friends. :)

Step 8: Smile more. When the promoter helps you find your favourite shade of eye shadow, smile at her and say “Thank you”. If she’s had a bad day, you’d be the one who made all the difference. It doesn’t cost much, yet leaves a huge impact on the ones around you. :)

Step 9: Stay true to yourself. Don’t compromise your beliefs and core values just because it doesn’t seem to fit the situation. All your friends drink but you don’t because you know it’s hazardous to health. Now you’re thinking of starting just so you can fit in and look cool? In the end you’re the one who is going to bed with that bad taste in your mouth and an even worse feeling in your gut – because you realize that you’ve forgotten who you are in the whirlwind of events around you. :)

Step 10: Be courteous. Respect can never be bought – it’s always earned. For one to respect you, you must first treat one with respect. Never forget to say“Thank you”, “Please” and “I’m sorry”, and you’ll go far in life. Being successful doesn’t mean that you’ve got all the money and power in the world. It’s about how you’ve lived your life with no regrets. :)

~Ashley Greig~

http://www.facebook.com/notes/ashley-ai-si-li-ashly-greig/-ash-greigs-10-steps-to-true-success-/10150095337953555?ref=notif&notif_t=note_tag

When You Are Down

When you are down,
always look for the good in things,
the silver lining of the thunderstorms,
the lights at the end of the tunnel;
for for every step up the staircase you took in the dark,
you are that much nearer to the door,
and the light!

~Casper Voon See Hua (facebook status, 31 Jan 2011)

Thought of the Day

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

"How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key.
You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

"How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . You become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . . YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed.

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50.

And your dreams are gone.
But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would.

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday.

You get into your 80's and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the 90's, you start going backwards; "I Was JUST 92."

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"

May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

From Will and Guy's Joke of the Day #267