What is Life?

Forest Gump, the 1994 multiple awards winning movie that was nominated for Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, People's Choice Awards and Young Artist Awards, starring Tom Hanks, had this interesting quote: Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. Somewhere I read that according to the teaching of the Buddha, life is like a river. Life is described as a progressive moment, a successive series of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow. It is said to move from cause to cause, effect to effect, one point to another, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression that it is one continuous and unified movement, when in reality it is not. The river of yesterday is never the same as the river of today just as the river of this moment is not the same as the river of the next moment. So life, like the river, changes continuously, from moment to moment. Now, is life a box of chocolate or a river?

World Kindness Day: Learn From the Animals!

Young audiences in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia perhaps will be thrilled to know that New York City-based Jim West Puppets will be in town to present seven Aesop's tales. Aesop tales like Hans Christian Andersen's tales or even the Buddhist Jataka tales which features animals never fail to delight. Animals in these stories often could talk and behave like humans and if you were to think especially of the animals in the Noah's Ark that are featured in the Abrahamic religions, you would perhaps for a moment pause and feel the wonder of these great creatures which could live together without gobbling each other up. The same could not be said of human. There have always been misunderstanding and wars throughout the history of mankind even though they are living oceans apart. Why don't we learn from the animals and learn to be kind to each other?

The Conditioned and the Unconditioned

Talk to any Buddhists about the much-hyped doctrine of impermanence and you'd probably get many of them going ga-ga over the constant flux that embodies human life as in the aging process, the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara), and in any experience of loss. Mention then the Dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha; and ask if the Dhamma is impermanent and you'd be disappointed if you expect them to falter. Rejoice not if they do not reply and judge not if they just give you a non-commital smile. Some probably would not respond even if they are aware of the compounded, constructed, or fabricated phenomena, which is otherwise known as the conditioned phenomena and the uncompounded and unfabricated phenomena like nirvana, the unconditioned which is said to know no change, decay or death. Probably, they see too much dust in your eyes!

Spicing up Your Sex Life

Terengganu, a state in Malaysia, hard hit by a high divorce rate had the state government coming up with innovative ways to improve sexual relations. Couples had attributed their separation to boring routine sex and body odour and that had the state planning on inviting cosmetic firms to introduce exotic and sensuous fragrances that can arouse sexual desire.The Religious and Information Committee deputy chairman Muhammad Ramli Nuh said married couples should bathe together to make their relationship more exciting. He had met a happily married elderly couple in Kelantan who bathe together even though they are grandparents and that gave him the idea to include this method as part of the pre-marital courses conducted in the state. As he was also bewildered with the old-fashioned pyjamas worn by some couples- a turn off and a no-no, I suppose it would be a good idea then to introduce some sexy lingerie and even some exciting sex toys too! On a serious note, the news had drawn a comment from a Buddhist lady I know. She said Buddhism is so different here in that a person is encouraged to be detached from all sexual entanglement. Now, what does the beast in you have to say to that?

Death Angel

Probably it was her hair, but she really reminded me of Cruella de Vil, the villainess in Dodie Smith's novel, The Hundred and One Dalmatians which Glen Close played to the hilt in the Disney movie. Thai forensic patho­logist Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand reknowned for cracking complicated homicide cases had her life and work documented in a 2004 National Georgraphic documentary and she was in town for the inquest into the death of political aide Teoh Beng Hock. Glen Close's Cruella had a big patch of grey hair, I remember and the doctor had a bit too much red and orange! The doctor was also of the opinion that the aide's death was most probably homicide but crime and mystery aside, I was more caught up by the book she authored, Investigation of Corpses. The doctor had led a group of international forensic scientists to identify the remains of the 2004 Asian tsunami victims and that probably made her an authority on corpses. Most probably too, she might have contemplated on corpses for far too many times than could imagine and would she then not come to the point when she understand life fully and even attain Nirvana? In the Anguttara Nikaya, the Buddha has said that there are ten ideas which when contemplated on would bring Nirvana. Besides old age and disease, death would constitute a starting point for this investigation to reality -That means corpses too, I suppose...

Prophets

Abdul Kahar Ahmad (inset), a father of six had been sentenced to 10 years jail, six strokes of the cane and fined RM 16,5000. He had pleaded guilty for proclaiming himself a prophet, conducting deviationist teachings, blasphemy and spreading false beliefs. A prophet is said to be a person who has been contacted by, or has encountered, the supernatural or the divine. Claims of prophets could be found throughout history and in many religions including Chritianity, Judaism and Islam. In Islam, prophets are individuals who were assigned a special mission by God to guide humanity. Besides Moses, David and Jesus, another famous prophet, Muhammad, introduced the Quran to the world. Prophet Muhammad, an orphan under the care of his uncle Abu Talib, worked as a merchant and a shepherd. At 25, he was already married and at 40, being discontented with life in Mecca, he retreated to a cave for meditation and reflection and here, during the month of Ramadan, received his first revelation from God through the angel Gabriel. In Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s, Introduction to Buddhism, there is a colourful story about Prince Siddhartha who while meditating under the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya was disturbed by Devaputra Mara.The chief of all demons had tried to disturb his concentration by manifesting hosts of terrifying demons, some throwing spears, some firing arrows, some trying to burn him with fire, and some hurling boulders and even mountains at him. I suppose there has never been any revelation of any kind and for that, Buddha, I suppose is not a prophet. There, in fact, has never been any prophet in Buddhism.

God and I

Teik Peng sent me a story about children in an elementary Catholic school. Children were lining up for lunch. At one end of the table where the tray of apples was, a nun had left a note : Take only one, God is watching. At the other end of the table where a tray of chocolate chip cookies was, a child had left a note: Take all you want. God is watching the apples. I was reminded instantly of a couple who are teachers in a secondary school. The pair apparently had stepped on some toes. Someone was just not happy with the husband and wife team and had threatened to sue them for something they had purportedly done. That really filled them with fear as that could mean they would lose their job and even pensions. In desperation, the couple, being the pious Christians they were, resorted to praying. That night when they took out the Bible and opened the pages, lo! They landed right on Psalm 64 : Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer, preserve my life from fear of the enemy, Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity. Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words...The couple were amazed; God was talking about their problem! Strange, only now do I have this notion that when God is talking to someone about his or her problem, He couldn't possible be talking to you or me about your or my problem. Buddhists who do not hinge their life on God probably would not know what I am talking about...

Quotes to Ponder: Abraham Lincoln

• Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?


• Avoid popularity if you would have peace.


• Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.


• If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.


• If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States was renowned for successfully leading his country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War and ending slavery in America. His tenure as President ended on April 1865 when he was assasinated by John Wilkes Booth.

Permanently Impermanent

When Yoshihito Usui, the creator of popular Japanese cartoon Crayon Shin-chan was found dead at a cliff of the 1,423m Mount Arafune in Japan, I was but reminded of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Fans of the cartoon have been assured that Crayon Shin-Chan would live on since Usui’s family had agreed to let other cartoonists continue drawing the boy. In Shakespeare's sonnet, the beauty of a beloved is said to be able to live on forever through the words of the poem. In both cases, it doesn't say much for annica, the Buddhist concept of impermanence which declares that in this world there is nothing that is fixed and permanent... or does it? Or would you perhaps, view this as a case of a permanent impermanence?

Take a break with Shin Chan!

Ressurection Stories

Upon death, Ivan Tsang Chee Vui's body was wrapped in blankets and plastic sheets and placed in the living room of a house in Taman Kobusak Villa,Penampang in Sabah, Malaysia. The deceased had earlier told his followers not to bury him as he would be resurrected. A woman who warned police not to touch the body had since been sent to hospital for pychiatric observations. Since the Easter Story on Jesus's resurrection, I have hardly heard of resurrection stories, most certainly not in modern times. The resurrection story of the past bore similarity in that women were involved. Three days after Jesus's death, it was said that a few women found His tomb empty. But of course, these women were sane and got to talk and eat with Jesus after that and forty days later, hundreds of other people got to witness Jesus before He ascended to Heaven. Unlike Jesus, Buddha, I was led to believe, did not resurrect. If I heard right, Budha did not even die. His leaving the world is considered parinibbana and it was said that it was His physical body that was leaving. In a talk by the late Rev. Abhinyanaa, I remember him saying that Buddha could have stayed on in earth if His chief disciple, Venerable Ananda had asked Him to. Perhaps then, we would have a true story on Buddhist resurrection...