Category: Buddhism

Happy 53 Birthday Singapore!! 

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Five Stars and a Cresent Moon

Happy 53 Birthday Singapore!! 🍰🎂🍡🍨🎁🎈🎉🎊

… past 50 already, gotta stop thinking just about earning more and more money. Time to think about larger things than money. Think for the citizens, for other countries. Do something for the larger earth village. For humanity.

May Singapore not just be a model for city town planning and financial services. Look forward to the day when Singapore is a place where others come and say

“We’ve heard about you and wanted to see for ourselves. How the country and people care for each other and live in harmony, without rife or fear, without harm or want.

Heard that Killing has stopped for the past 50 years, Stealing too, and Sexual misconduct, No more lies … oh and alcohol business just collapsed without a need for legislation.”

“How did you do that? We want to come visit and see for ourselves.”

Will this ever happen? Or will we ever even dream this way? Or will we spend the next 47 years chasing after yet more GDP?

May Singapore enjoy safety, peace and harmony.
May Singapore be a haven of safety for others, be peaceful and in harmony with others.
May Singapore be free of ill-will, enmity or harm towards others and itself.

May all countries enjoy safety, peace and harmony.
May all countries be haven of safety for others, be peaceful and in harmony with others.
May all countries be free of ill-will, enmity or harm towards others and itself.

Our Attitude towards Volunteering

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Remember why we are volunteering. If we volunteer for words of thanks, a nod of approval, or others’ affirmation, we would be disheartened and give up if we receive no such thing.

Instead, let’s keep our heart and mind focused on the Dharma, on sharing the Dharma, for the welfare and benefit of whoever have the conditions to come in touch with the Dharma, then our efforts will not wane regardless of whether we receive praise or blame.

初心易发恒心难持。

Easy to make the initial aspiration or intent, not easy to sustain with perseverance.

Someone replied to me

I don’t need thanks or affirmation. I need a no nonsense system. Hahaha

Good point!

If we focus on the Dharma, even if people give us nonsense or rubbish or sh*t … we will brush aside the nonsense, recycle the rubbish, and fertilise the plants with the sh*t … … and continue!!! 💪😤

Remember, the Buddha didn’t attain Buddhahood with everyone giving him the best conditions. It is also through the worse conditions, that the Buddha was able to complete the perfections! 🙏

加油，加菜！

Is Buddhism too “chim” (deep)?

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So yesterday, a student commented on a group chat that a sutta that was shared is “too chim”, meaning too deep and profound in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect.

Here are some thoughts.

Better for us to ask question and seek clarifications than to simply label the Dharma as “too chim”.

By doing the latter, it discourages others from learning and can potentially cause others to switch off. While these are not our intended results, it can still happen. Let us apply mindfulness in our speech. Mindfulness is not just in the sitting or in the temple, but in our body, speech and mind.

So, is the Dharma “too chim”?

There was once a Buddhist school that wanted to put up a wall display that shows the Buddha’s teaching of the Noble Eightfold Path. After a few revisions, the school staff commented to us that it may not be easy for the kids to understand by simply reading it.

This is what I told them.

We give children SIX years to learn what they need to learn in primary school. And after that six years, they only know rudimentary English, 2nd language, maths and science. SIX years of full time studies.

Why do we expect the Noble Eightfold Path to be instantly understandable in eight panels on the wall when it is the way to solve suffering altogether?

The Dharma is indeed “chim”, deep and profound, because we human are so so complex, but not too “chim” that we cannot comprehend it through humanly possible effort. 🙂

Reference

How Buddhists View Death

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Death in Buddhism marks the ending of one’s temporal existence and heralds the beginning of the next life, in a potentially infinite cycle of existence as Gods, Ashuras, Humans, Animals, Ghosts or Hell beings.

The rebirth one takes is determined by one’s karma (actions) performed in the past much like how students results are determined by how much was learnt, remembered and understood. Further, the state of mind is said to also determine the rebirth destination. Hence, it is the combination of past karma + present state of mind that triggers the rebirth.

The goal of a Buddhist is not simply to seek a happy rebirth as a God or Human, but to cultivate and improve oneself spiritually towards liberation, Nirvana, where one is free of suffering by putting an end to greed, hatred and delusions.

The highest goal possible for anyone is to seek Buddhahood through the practice of the Perfections and in so doing, not just seek one’s liberation from suffering, but also be able to guide and teach others the way to Nirvana.

In the way of Buddhist funeral, it is partly inspired by the Buddha’s teachings and partly adapted from local culture.

Buddhist Practices

  • As the state of mind is crucial, there is the practice of treating the body of the deceased with care and respect, and minimal contact where possible.
  • Bedside chanting before and after passing to positively remind the deceased of the teachings of the Buddha.
  • Recollection of the deceased’s kindness and good qualities to strengthen the imprint.
  • Counsel and sharing of Dharma with the deceased’s family for them to cope with the loss.
  • Final mutual forgiveness between the family and the deceased.

As Buddhism is inclusive of local cultures, Buddhist funerals often also comprises certain customs and practices such as the ones below.

Chinese Funeral Customs

  • Wakes are usually held for odd numbers of days, e.g. 3 or 5 days. The number of days probably varied in the past to allow for friends and relatives living far away to be notified and travel for the wake.
  • Funeral rites for Chinese adults can be quite elaborate, following a prescribed form, with the casket left open for family and friends to pay their final respects with a bow. This practice serves as a reminder of the transient nature of life.
  • Chinese strong emphasis on filial piety extends even to the final rites where it is considered improper for an elder to be sending off a junior, hence if a child has passed away, a funeral is typically not performed, rather the Buddhist practices above are conducted solemnly in quietude.
  • The tying of red thread may have started off as a way to distinguish between immediate families who would instead be putting on either a robe of course hemp, or a patch of black or blue to indicate their close relations to the deceased, while distant relations and friends would use the red thread as a marker.
    The giving of coins to visitors could have started off as a gift for their travel fare in the past, given how visitors may have had to travel long distances to pay their final respects.
    Overtime, these practices may have evolved to having visitors discarding the red thread, and mandatory usage of the money before reaching home and is considered to be a way of warding off “bad luck” associated with death.
  • It is not customary for a visitor to bid farewell to the family of the deceased as the phrase for “going off” is synonymous to “passing away” in the Chinese language. Often seen as a taboo for fear of unwittingly declaring one’s own ‘depart’, i.e. death, this practice could have started off as a mark of empathy towards the family of the deceased, to not remind them of their departed love one, and rekindle their grief.
  • The family of the deceased may mourn between seven to a hundred days.  — This is the irony of our usual notion of love where it is defined more in terms of the amount of grief one experiences upon loss.
  • A period of mourning is not expected when a child dies, and a husband is not obliged to mourn the passing of his wife.  — This reflects the traditional Chinese view of man and woman and is typically seen as male chauvinism at play.  It can perhaps also be the common notion that ‘real’ man may bleed, but will not cry “男子漢，流血不流淚”.   Talk about suppressed emotions in our culture.  Today, this is not necessarily observed.