Take This 2 Pills, Three Times A Day After Meal. Repeat.

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This is a fictitious story about a boy who fell ill.  To protect the identity of this non-existent fictitious boy, let’s call him Ah Boy.

So this Ah Boy fell ill.  Did I tell you he caught a flu?  I didn’t?  It’s flu alright, but no, not the swiney type, the usual type.  He is not very into porkchop and all you see.  Anyway, he went to the doctor and after consultation, he collected the medicine and went back home.  $20+ dollars and an MC* later, he is back home. He stayed away from school for the few days covered by the MC, but somehow was not getting better.

After a few days, he went back to the doctor and demanded to know why he was not recovering.  The doctor asked him about the medicine and he said “I went back and did it every day.”

The doctor became curious, “You went back and did it every day?  Did what?”

“I repeated the steps.”

“Repeated the steps?”

“Yes, I repeated the steps daily.  I recited ‘Take this 2 pills, three times a day after meal’ everyday.  Matter of fact, I did that every few hours.”

If you are like the doctor, you would be flabbergasted.  In fact, most people would find this ridiculous and shrug it off as a fictional story.  But on some occasions, I find Buddhists doing just that.  They would religiously recite the suttas (or sutras for that matter) without applying what the sutras expound.  Good Buddhist (*wink*) would know that the recitation of the sutras (as in a puja) forms a devotional practice and when done properly, can be a good development of mindfulness and attentiveness (or even concentration).  They (the latter) would also know to reflect on the meaning of the teachings expounded in the sutra and rightly apply them in their daily lives, benefiting from the practice.

Take for example, Mangala Sutta, a sutta frequently recited in Theravadin temples.  It is a sutta about a deva (god, or heavenly being) who visits the Buddha and ask him a very simple questions that many seeks to know: “What is the highest blessing?”.  Perhaps a more conventional phrasing of this question would be, “How can one be blessed?  How can one be blessed in the highest way?”  Make sense now?  Well, hence the name of the sutta, Mangala sutta, Blessings.  Some translate it as “Protection” … but let’s not split hairs for now.  The point is, the Buddha then replies to the deva in verse, declaring the various ways that one may be blessed (or protected).

Rightly speaking, besides chanting it in a puja, one should frequently reflect over the meaning of the verses and live one’s life accordingly if one wishes to truly receive blessings.  Then would one receive and apply the Buddha’s guidance and blessings.

So this Vesak, go visit the temple, bathe the baby prince Siddhartha, take your refuges and renew your precepts, do your offerings, listen to the Dharma talks, and reflect how you fared this past year.  Are you happier than in the past?  Are you happier because you have more things, or because you change your mindset?  Have you progressed in your practice?  Are you more prone to anger or are you calmer?  Still jealous over the raise and fat bonus someone else get?  Have you talked to your father and mother recently?  How about your siblings?  Have you cared for someone else besides yourself?  Do you care more?

You owe it to yourself to reflect over your life.   And do something about it.  Happy Vesak! 🙂

References:

Khuddaka Nikaya: Sutta nipata 2.4 Mangala Sutta

* MC – Medical Certificate.  In Singapore, the acronym MC has taken on a life of its own, to be used as a verb.  eg, he play MC.  or as a noun, eg. he went on MC.  The former usage “he play MC” is usually used to denote that such as person is faking illness and got an MC to justify his absence.  The latter is usually less insinuating, but has similar connotations.

Buddhist Chantings Online

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Some students requested for links to Buddhist Chantings, so here they are:

Remembering and Honouring the Departed During Qing Ming 清明节

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Today is the official day for Qing Ming 清明节, a day (or period) where Chinese would traditionally remember their ancestors by visiting the cemetery and perform religious services for them.

A student from the English Dharma Class at SBF (Singapore Buddhist Federation) asked me what practices Buddhists should be observing during this day or period.  Below are my thoughts on it.

Buddhists rightly speaking should spend Qing Ming recollecting the kindness of our forefathers, and honouring them by remembering how they may have lived a blameless life or have conducted themselves in a manner worth emulating.  One could then
try emulating their good deeds or perform charity in their name!  Further, we can also emulate the holy ones who have come before us by observing the eight or five precepts.  With all the positive merits accrued, one can then make a sincere wish, dedicating merits to them, wishing them well and having good conditions to learn the Dharma!

In addition, we can and should reflect on how, while we depended on our parents and forefathers for helping in bringing us into human rebirth, they, including many others, have also in some ways helped us in our lifes and made it possible.  Just consider how someone in modern society do not make any raw product themselves; we depend on many many faceless strangers to bring us the clothes we wear and food we eat daily.  We also live in houses and apartments that are more often than not built by foreign workers whom we would never get to meet in our life, and whom we depend our lifes on.  We can reflect on how our modern life is possible because of the contribution of hundreds, thousands and millions of people out there, working, ekking out a living.

But I paid for it, one may protest.  It is easy to think that once we pay for a service or product, we do not owe others anything.  While money is part of the equation, we often overlook how we owe it to the support and hardwork of the innumerable nameless and frequently faceless workers in order for our money to have any use or value at all.  To these people, we owe them their time, labour and youth making our life possible the way it is.  Our life is convenient as a result of their inconveniences.

Finally, we should also reflect on the Samyutta Nikaya 15.14-19 Mata sutta (Mother), where the Buddha shares his insight on how we have wandered on in samsara since beginningless times, and that it is not easy to find someone whom we have not been related to before.  Everyone is related to us in some way before!

In this way, we can reflect on how we are interdependent on each other so loosely, and yet so intimately.  From there, we can develop deep gratitude towards both people who are close to us, and those who once seemed to be complete strangers.  Within this deep gratitude, then the self-centric tendency may be gradually worn away and our hearts and mind may open up to others, and truly care for them.  In this way, we pay tribute and respect to all our forefathers from this life and the past, and repay their deep kindness meaningfully.

That is how we can all honour the departed during Qing Ming, whether as Buddhists or non-Buddhists.

So how did you spend Qing Ming this year?

Facing Up to Reality

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Of late, I noticed numerous blogs discussing atheism and christianity.  Here are some thoughts about it.

Believing that some divine being will come and save us all from evil is shirking our human moral responsibility to each other.  We keep talking about human rights.  Maybe we should start talking about human responsibilities.  We should be responsible for our actions towards each other, regardless of whether there is a god or not.  Last I check, no being came in to stop hitler, or the japanese, or the a-bomb, or any of the despot regime on genocidal paths.  It is up to us to do the right thing and the last thing to do, is do the right thing and then attribute it to some god that may or may not exist.

Why should we blame our own flaws on some external evil and call it satan?  Convenient?  Yes!  Practical?  No!  We should stop and be answerable to ourselves and stop being whiny kids pointing fingers at some invisible fiend.

I wonder with amazement every time a talented person comes on stage to receive accolade for some good work he has done would begin or end with “Thank god … ” or “it would be impossible without god willing … “.  Why do we think so lowly of ourselves?  That human beings are incapable of doing any good except if god is around?  Is this a twisted evolution of humility?  Or is this a nascent form of humility that has somehow got stuck in social evolution and remain as part of human traits?

We should be confident of the good that we can do with our human effort.  That it is possible to bring about happiness and peace without the presence of some divinity or invisible friend or fiend.  Maybe if we can be honest with ourselves in this way, then we can be at peace with ourselves.  And with others.  With or without god.  Or heaven.

Earth Hour … Why I Kept It Burning

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Earth Hour … the hour for tree-huggers to switch off the lights and

* Take a photo on the night, upload it to flickr and add it to Earth Hour’s flickr group and tag it with your city and country.
* Make a video of your event, upload it to YouTube and add it to our YouTube group.
* Write a live blog post during the event and tag it with earthhour or voteearth, and your location.
* Update your Twitter on the night and write #earthhour or #voteearth and your #location in your update to tag it.

according to their official Earth Hour website anyway. Read More …

應以何身得度者，即現何身而為說法 Teach the Dharma in the Local Language

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Life sized statue of the Buddha from the Tang Dynasty period (618-906 AD)

Life sized statue of the Buddha from the Tang Dynasty period (618-906 AD)

應以何身得度者，即現何身而為說法 does not translate to “Teach the Dharma in the local language”.  The Chinese text would translate loosely to “Depending on the need of the audience, (one) shall manifest in whatever form/appearance to teach the (Buddha) Dharma”.  This is the crux of the teachings in “妙法蓮花經 觀世音菩薩 普門品” Saddharma-puṇḍarīka sūtra, chapter on Samantamukhaparivarto nāmāvalokiteṡvara-vikurvaṇa-nirdeṡa.

Confused yet?  Ya, thought so.  For those of us who are do not read sanskrit or Chinese, the above lines might as well have been written in greek or an alien language, which brings me to the earlier statement, that one shall manifest in whatever form/appearance to teach the Dharma, depending on the need of the audience.  That should include adopting whatever language is appropriate for conveying the message.  The language is but a medium, a tool while style and prose just an expression of that medium.  The intended message is what is important.  And because of that, language, style and prose should be chosen to encourage communication.  The communication of the message, of the idea, rises above previous trio in importance.

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