It’s at times like this that I felt obliged to respond in kind when asked about my religion: Buddhism. But explaining about one’s religion can be a real challenge. At first glance, all religions are about doing good. But when we look further, our reasoning could not be more different. Dharmic and Tao religions come from very different perspectives, and therefore can be confusing at times to if you are from an Abrahamic religion.

I can’t say for other religions, but Buddhism can be quite confusing, even for me in my earlier years. Depending on the cultural background, you’ll come upon very different Buddhist practices, all centered around a similar statue (if there is one. Some schools do not have statues, as were the earlier schools which favours aniconism.)

Hence, I write this post to outline what Buddhism means to me, for the benefit of my non-Buddhist friends to understand. This is not about whose religion is better; I intend to only focus on the fundamental difference in the religious concepts. And I’ll base my article largely on the earlier Buddhist schools, and a bit of Zen and Tibetan. Oh, and I’m no expert on religions so please do point out to me if I’ve made any factual errors.

So let’s start with the question of worship. Who do we worship? Elvis Presley. No, just kidding. The truth is that we do not worship, not in the religious sense, anyway. What about the historical Sakyamuni Buddha? Actually, the Buddha was the founder of the Buddhist practice, and he taught for the rest of his life to others. Hence, he is revered as the teacher. In a way, the Buddha is also considered a historical proof that humans can transcend suffering through effort. Therefore, when a Buddhist bow/hold their hands together/prostrate, they do this to remind themselves of their potential of awakening.

(Extra bit: “Buddha” has no mystical meaning to it – it plainly means “awaken”. Nothing to do with psychic powers, no fire-breathing, no floating in the air, etc.)

This can differ quite a bit to Abrahamic religions, where the purpose of life is to believe/submit to God. You may then wonder, what does a Buddhist do? We strive to understand the nature of suffering, or in a broader sense the nature of existence. The point that we are coming from is that by understanding the nature of suffering, we can then strive to free ourselves from it. By definition, the one who is capable of transcending suffering is “awakened”, and can be called a “Buddha”.

If you’re wondering whether if there’s anyone who is “awakened”, you’re on the right track: the truth is, many have “awakened” throughout history. We call them “Savaka-Buddha”, meaning awakened disciples. The word “Savaka” means “listener” or “disciple”. Through arguably, awakening seems to be something that happens much more often in the past (where it’s common to read about monks rejoicing that their fellow monk who has just attained enlightenment.)

That’s all fine and good – but what about God? Does God exist in the Buddhist mythology? There’s really no easy answer to this: most Buddhists may come across to you as being somewhat agnostic, but the Buddhist mythology does speak of  31 planes of existence where 26 realms of existence belong to what could be the equivalent counterpart to heaven. But I really do not know much about them. The truth is, very little emphasis is put on the heavens – ironically, the human realm is considered the most conducive for spiritual growth as “the beings are not overwhelmed with suffering (compared to hell), and not overwhelmed with pleasure (compared to heavenly realms.”

I hope I’ve gotten you interested. It certainly got me interested when I first came across this. All through my childhood I’ve been fed with the idea that heaven is awesome, but here’s a man who says that the human realm is way better.

(To be continued.)

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Today marks the celebration of the birth, the awakening, and the passing of the Buddha. I had the opportunity to escort mum and her friends to a Vesak celebration at her Buddhist center.
There’s a lot of vegetarian food. I don’t usually get much vegetarian food outside. What’s not to like?
There’s a little surprise though- they were singing oldies karaoke. In the Buddhist center.
Probably the most unusual Vesak celebration that I’ve ever had. While some complained that this is unbecoming of Buddhist society, the president made an interesting note: that it’s ok for his members to sing karaoke- they are after all, lay people.

I was spending my weeks handling a number of mini work tasks, and there was this one customer that I was so sure about selling to cancelled the deal. Days of preparation for that customer went down the drain, leaving me to face my primary project review which I did not prepare for this Friday. Now, I did manage to brainstorm concepts to put into my project throughout the weeks, so I spent my time scrambling and stitching up all the ideas together just days before the review. I must say that I’m quite impressed with the results; the ideas have the potential. Nevertheless, they were unrefined, being the last minute work that they were.

So I blew it.

The presentation of my ideas was impromptu (which in my case is no different from poorly prepared), and the my half-assed selling talk only served to confuse my superiors. But that wasn’t too bad – I’m always one who opts for internal criticism. Despite the confusion, my superiors were being gentlemanly about it. And it’s better to be criticised inside the company when things can still change, than to be criticised when I deliver my seminar in public.

…two days passed.

In retrospection, I think I spent my weekend acting bitter to people I meet. I tried to cheer up; I wrote a fun program as proof of concepts for my project; I demoed it to my mum and cousin. I hoped they enjoyed it. But still, I think I acted and spoke with slight negativity…

It’s my teaching partner’s turn today in class*, and I must admit: somehow I felt left out. There was no confidence in me. What can I offer to my students? Is there something I have that’s worth learning from? Why am I not collaborating with my partner, why are we taking turns to teach? I understand that both of us have busy schedules (like everyone else), but would it kill to write an email? I need to send out an email.

And on the way to a restaurant for a family gathering, I snapped at my mum for constantly dictating which road I should take. I missed one of the turns, and I just went off at her. She’s hurt, and I felt bad about it. We made up later, as I asked her for directions on the way home.

And the weather today sucked. It’s like it’s about to rain, but not raining. Just like constipation.

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There was obviously a lot of guilt involved. I spent my time consoling myself, thinking that it’s okay to be down once in a while. But still there is guilt. And being smoked in a cloud of negativity, I feel down and burnt out. Everything looked bad. Well, almost everything. Feels like I should wait it out until the cloud inside my head disperses away, in case I start scorching people nearby.

“It’s okay lilboy, you are not perfect. No one said you had to be. You are human. It’s okay to slow down and take a break some times. Be kind, be gentle…”

Just then a friend called, asking me out for a movie tonight.

Footnote

* I teach as a volunteer for a class of teenagers. What do I teach? Chinese traditional education (think Confucius.) Perhaps I had the conception that we teachers should be like supermen and superwomen. Ridiculous – but I suspect that that’s exactly what I think, deep down inside.

If memory serves me right, she and our maid would sometimes take me outside where they would sit at the concrete slab on the kerb. They would watch me as I play with the boys in my neighbourhood. Too many times, I would go out before dinner was ready, only return with a hungry stomach when it’s dark. I would then scrape out the remaining rice in the rice cooker; add soy sauce, sesame oil and pepper to my rice and gobble it up.

Something happened along the way, and that habit wasn’t there anymore. I suspect it was the 6-7 pm Hong Kong dramas series. And later it was the computer. I got obese after that; so obese that running from one end of the street to the other would leave me wheezing and blacking out (it wasn’t that long of a street.) I think I got asthma around that time.

I should start walking again.

“Hello?” A female voice spoke up. “I’m calling to inform Mdm Yap that her patient has finally passed away.”

I was dumbfounded, and did not know what to say. My mother’s patient had battled cancer for a long time and by the time the time he appeared before my mother, his condition was already terminal. He went through a lot of pain, and kept it mostly to himself for fear that his parents may not be able to accept his condition when they found out.

It was about a month ago when I learned of his story. That was also the time when he accepted Pure Land teachings and gained a brighter outlook towards death. He stopped struggling from then on, and instead made use of his condition to remind others of life’s transience. Something most of us Chinese tend to forget in the middle of our Chinese New Year celebration.

“I see. I shall relay this news to my mother.” was all I could say.

Now look – we may argue endlessly on the definition of “natural” – but keeping tons (literally) of animals enclosed in cages for the rest of their miserable (but thankfully short lives…) there is nothing natural about it.

These animals experience so much distress (yes, animals do respond to their environment) they engage in a violent or suicidal behaviour.

In the case of chickens, they would peck each other to death. As a precaution, the highly sensitive part of their body – the beak is seared of using a hot blade.

Let’s not even go into the vaccines, and carcasses mixed in the food, soy based feeding for all life, etc.

Talk about natural.

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(Additional: Be like everyone else? That explains why you’re not thinking before saying something…)

Back to Index

Which sort of made me begin a vegetarian diet. After being one for a year, I realised that I get into a handful of situations where I would normally not experience:

Whenever I tell my friends I’m a vegetarian, I get a range of interesting responses. Most of these responses are based on ignorance, but can be insulting nonetheless. Sure, I can come up with some witty responses, but I feel that a lot of my vegetarian friends tend to just accept their fate and go with the flow.

Not to say that my non-vegetarian friends are just being jerks who intentionally say hurtful things. Before being a vegetarian, I for one remember very well that I have been quite a jerk myself before (and possibly remain as one today.) Even though I may thought of it as a harmless joke back then, my friend might not have taken it the same way.

This really bothers me, so I don’t want this sort of things to happen again.

I think there is a need for me to share what I know and express how I feel – heck, I think everyone should – just so that we can all understand each other better.

Therefore, I’m on a crusade to straighten these folks up.

Yea – you heard that right.

What follows this blog will be a collection of responses which I have gathered over time. Along with some remarks and comments. MY remarks and comments.

Of course, there is a whole lot in the big picture that I am not seeing – so please, I may make mistakes here and there. Do correct me as you see necessary. I’ll thank you, and if you live nearby UNSW, I’ll treat you to a cup of coffee.

Oh and – what I say here may reflect on my undiplomatic and rude personality. Note that I’m usually benign and quiet in real life. And I smile like an angel. No, seriously.

Without further ado – I hereby present to you:

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List of responses:

RVG #1

If the test of social skill is the ability to calm distressing emotions in others, then handling someone at the peak of rage is perhaps the ultimate measure of mastery. The data on self-regulation of anger and emotional contagion suggest that one effective strategy might be to distract the angry person, empathize with his feelings and perspective, and then draw him into an alternative focus, one that attunes him with a more positive range of feeling – a kind of emotional judo.

Such a refined skill in the fine art of emotional influence is perhaps best exemplified by a story told by an old friend, the late Terry Dobson, who in the 1950s was one of the first Americans ever to study the martial art aikido in Japan. One afternoon he was riding home on a suburban Tokyo train when a huge, bellicose, and very drunk and begrimed laborer got on. The man, staggering, began terrorizing the passengers: screaming curses, he took a swing at a woman holding a baby, sending her sprawling in the laps on an elderly couple, who then jumped up and joined a stampede to the other end of the car. The drunk, taking a few other swings (and, in his rage, missing), grabbed the metal pole in the middle of the car with a roar and tried to tear it out of its socket.

At that point Terry, who was in peak physical condition from daily eight-hour aikido workouts, felt called upon to intervene, lest someone get seriously hurt. But he recalled the words of his teacher: “Aikido is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people you are already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it.”

Indeed, Terry had agreed upon beginning lessons with his teacher never to pick a fight, and to use his martial arts skills only in defense. Now, at last, he saw his chance to test his aikido abilities in real life, in what was clearly a legitimate opportunity. So, as all the other passengers sat frozen in their seats, Terry stood up, slowly and with deliberation.

Seeing him, the drunk roared, “Aha! A foreigner! You need a lesson in Japanese manners!” and began gathering himself to take on Terry.

But just as the drunk was on the verge of making his move, someone gave an earsplitting, oddly joyous shot: “Hey!”

The shout had the cheery tone of someone who has suddenly come upon a fond friend. The drunk, surprised, spun around to see a tiny Japanese man, probably in his seventies, sitting there in a kimono. the old man beamed with delight at the drunk, and beckoned him over with a light wave of his hand and a lilting “C’mere.”

The drunk strode over with a belligerent, “Why the hell should I talk to you?” Meanwhile, Terry was ready to fell the drunk in a moment if he made the least violent move.

“What’cha been drinking?” the old man asked, his eyes beaming at the drunken laborer.

“I have been drinking sake, and it’s none of your business,” the drunk bellowed.

“Oh, that’s wonderful, absolutely wonderful,”" the old man replied in a warm tone. “You see, I love sake, too. Every night, me and my wife (she’s seventy-six, you know), we warm up a little bottle of sake and take it out into the garden, and we sit on an old wooden bench…” He continued on about the persimmon tree in his backyard, the fortunes of his garden, enjoying the sake in the evening.

The drunk’s face began to soften as he listened to the old man; his fists unclenched. “Yeah … I love persimmons, too …,” he said, his voice trailing off.

“Yes,” the old man replied in a sprightly voice, “and I’m sure you have a wonderful wife.”

“No,” said the laborer. “My wife died…” Sobbing, he launched into a sad tale of losing his wife, his home, his job, or being ashamed of himself.

Just then the train came to Terry’s stop, and as he was getting off he turned to hear the old man invite the drunk to join him and tell him all about it, and to see the drunk sprawl along the seat, his head in the old man’s lap.

That is emotional brilliance.

-excerpt from “Emotional Intelligence”,

by Daniel Goleman

So we’ll have a look at it and see what the Buddha actually meant when he talked about love. He talked about it on many occasions, and this emotion underlies all his teaching. He was enlightened at the age of thirty-five, which means there was nothing left that he had to do. Yet he taught every single day of his life until he was on his deathbed at the age of eighty. Why? For the simple reason that he had so much love and compassion for the suffering that everybody experiences that he wanted to share his understanding which can alleviate and eliminate all that suffering. So underlying the teaching is always love as the foundation, whether he talked about it or not. We’ll have a look at what he actually explained it to be.

Instead of "lovingkindness," we can call it "unconditional love," which is probably a more succinct statement of what it is all about. When we have a look at the kind of emotion that we already have discussed — which is always connected with attachment — we can see quite easily that, if this is really love, we are diminished by it. Because what we’re doing is looking at only one, two, three people — and that’s the whole extent of love. There are six billion of us, so why diminish ourselves to one, two, or three? And not only that, the whole problem lies in the fact that because it is attachment, we’ve got to *keep* those one, two, or three in order to experience any kind of love. We are afraid to lose them: to lose them through death, through change of mind, to leaving home, to whatever change happens. And that fear discolors our love to the point where it can no longer be pure, because it is hanging on.

Now fear is always connected to hate. It doesn’t mean that we hate those people, those one, two, or three, or four, or five, or how many there happen to be in the house, it means that we hate the idea that we could be losing them. So there’s never that kind of open-hearted giving, without any demand behind it that a certain person is also there to receive it. Therefore it’s always dependent, and as long as we are dependent, we’re not free. This kind of love is doomed from the beginning and we all know that. We can change that kind of attachment to something else, but most people do not have that ability. Some people do, they manage; but it’s a rare case.

Actually, love is something entirely different. Just like intelligence is a quality of the mind, so love is a quality of the heart. We don’t just have intelligence when we have to solve a difficult mathematical equation; we don’t just have intelligence when we have to make logical connections; the mind remains intelligent whether we do that or not. It’s the same with love. The loving quality of the heart remains with us whether there’s anybody in front of us that we can actually extend that love to or not. That quality of the heart needs to be cultivated.

The intelligence of the mind is cultivated in our society from the time we can understand what our parents are saying. Certainly in all our learning institutions, from kindergarten on upward through university and post-graduate studies, it’s always the quality of the mind that is being cultivated. It’s highly prized, usually gets paid quite well, and also has a certain possibility for fame and acclaim. Very few if any institutions in the world teach the quality of the heart: love. We’ve got to learn it by ourselves. Very few people can even demonstrate it, never mind teach it. We don’t have kindergarten for it, nor do we have high school, graduate or post-graduate studies in love. This type of training is not available at any price. And yet, it has made people very famous — but it doesn’t pay in the coin of the realm. So that’s probably the rub. But once we have seen that materiality and all of the worldly things that we concern ourselves with actually cannot be fulfilling, then it stands to reason that we have to look elsewhere. And this is one of the directions in which we *must* look.

We all have the loving quality within us. There’s no doubt about it. Nobody is exempt. But we’ve done all sorts of things to it. I’ve mentioned a few already. We were disappointed that the one we picked out didn’t love us back, so we decided we’re not going love anybody. Or, somebody that we thought was trustworthy betrayed that trust, so we decide we’re not going to love. That decision is made in the mind; it’s not made in the heart — all decisions are made in the mind. But when that decision is made in the mind, we are able to close up our heart, and when we do that, we’re only half alive. Why do that to ourselves? We’re making ourselves dependent again on the good will and the lovingness of other people. There’s only one thing to depend on: upon our own goodness and our own lovingness. We’ve got enough work to do to get that going, never mind what others do. We’re constantly — through our reactions — buying into the actions and thoughts and deeds of other people. What for? There’s no need for that; we’ve got enough to do with ourselves.

By buying into other people’s thoughts and speech and actions, we also do not leave enough room for introspection. We’re too busy looking at what others are doing to us which is totally irrelevant. They can only do it to us if we allow them to do it to us. If we don’t allow it, what can they possibly do? If somebody gets angry at us and we feel upset by that, we’ve allowed that person to enter into our own being. If we see that the anger belongs to the other person, all we need is compassion for that person’s anger. That’s all that’s necessary.

If we really want to know what love is all about, we need to recognize that love is not dependent upon another person being lovable. If we want to find somebody who is totally and utterly lovable, we have to find an arahant, an enlightened person. And since we ourselves are not enlightened, we wouldn’t recognize such a person. We can only recognize what we know about ourselves. That’s all. When somebody comes into the room who is quite angry — doesn’t say anything, is just angry — we recognize that immediately because we’ve been angry ourselves. But if somebody comes into the room, doesn’t say anything (or might even say something), and is fully enlightened, we wouldn’t have a clue. How would we know? They don’t wear badges; they don’t have any halos or anything. So a fully and totally lovable person is not really within our realm. Are we ourselves totally and completely lovable? So, to look for that is a lost cause, and also it makes life very difficult because we’re looking for something outside of ourselves before we are willing to extend love.

To look for people who would like to be loved by us is also silly, because love is the kind of emotion which connects people with each other, and there’s no one exempt. Everybody would like to have a loving relationship with another person. But what we’re mostly looking for is somebody who loves us, and that’s the most absurd thing in the world to do, because that love belongs to the other person. The only reason we like it so much is because it proves something. It proves that we are actually lovable, all indications to the contrary. And since that is the best ego-support we can find, that’s what we’re looking for. It’s totally useless on the spiritual path, and if we’re looking for that, we may be disappointed, we may not find anybody. That’s the first thing that may happen. We may actually find somebody, but what good will that do us? The love is in the other person’s heart. We may deign to return it of course, but then again we’re dependent upon the fact that the other person keeps on loving. And then if the other person decides that they don’t want to keep on loving, then all of a sudden that’s a tragedy: we’re no longer lovable.

That’s the whole business of the one-to-one relationship in a nutshell. I mean, we all know that it doesn’t work, but why don’t we change our approach to the whole matter? Well, the reason for that is of course quite simple. We really need a spiritual genius like the Buddha to show us the way. There are very few people in the world who have that kind of ability to find the way by themselves. There are always some, but very very few. Most of us need to be shown the way.

[more]

You know you have a potential Linux convert.

And so convert I did. I popped in my thumb drive (which has a LiveCD installed using UNetBootin), did some clicks here and there; lo and behold – a second OS booting on her system.

Everything was there – browser, players, IM, office – all except the antivirus software.

Like a kid with a new toy, who could resist exploring a new operating system? And so, she played around a bit, tweaked the settings on Simple Compiz settings. Four virtual desktops, Eight virtual desktops, animations, more animations, wobble, etc… definitely cool – until she changed a setting that caused her screen to turn black. All that’s left was a mouse cursor.

Reboots didn’t work. Ctrl + Alt + Backspace gave the login screen, but once you login – the desktop would load the background, icons and taskbar… and then turn black again. With only a mouse cursor. Recovery mode to fix Xorg didn’t work. Reverting the /etc/X11/Xorg.conf file didn’t work either.

In my one last attempt, I decided to reload Compiz. I closed my eyes, brought up the terminal with Alt + F2. I imagined it coming up on the desktop, and I typed “compiz –replace –indirect-rendering” and pressing enter. Some blinks. I tried again a few more times, before typing “metacity –-replace” and pressing enter. I cycled these two commands for a while, and the black screen was gone! All back to normal!

I hope to troubleshoot and narrow down the culprit when I return to Sydney again. Perhaps it was the Intel integrated graphics? Or was it a Linux driver issue? But for now, “Normal” visual effects will do.

She is now happy with her snappier and faster system. No need to worry about getting an antivirus software! How good is that?

All in all, I’d say that this is a close call. I almost lose a Linux convert. To think that the screen would go black just by setting desktop appearances… no, this is unthinkable.