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Di: Let’s have a good hearty meal! Hi: Why? Di: Since we don’t know what might happen next! Hi: We’ll always need big meals then? Di: Not neccessarily! As long we enjoy each meal! (Di and Hi are vegans)

Ed: I read from TDE-Weekly that there is an offer for the pre-conference of “Happiness and its Causes” at $150. I had paid $500 earlier. I feel the pinch. Then I remember Dharma teaching about non-attachment. Knowing is really very different from practising. How do I contemplate on non-attachment? Me: What if you didn’t know [...]

An Open Letter to Monastics Who Eat Meat In the Theravada Buddhist tradition, vegetarianism is relatively less actively encouraged (as compared to the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions), even by monastics, many of whom consume randomly received alms. However, nowadays, alms food which contain meat is often offered deliberately with planning ahead done by devotees. Though [...]

In the movie “Tokyo”, the last story is called “Hikikomori”, which refers to individuals who choose to isolate themselves from society by staying indefinitely indoors. Usually, they are disillusioned by life or the world in general, which led them to disconnect themselves as much as possible from it. This is said to be an increasingly [...]

In the movie “Tokyo!”, the first story is called “Interior Design”, where a girl felt so pressurised of not having found her vocation in life in seemingly purposefully bustling Tokyo, that something bizarre happens… She starts to morph into a an ordinary-looking household chair. Nope – not even an armchair – just a plain wooden [...]

In the film “Tokyo!”, the middle story is called “Merde”. (“Merde” is French for “shit”, which is strangely synonymous with “good luck”, as wished before a performance in show business.) A bizarre crazy-eyed man dressed in green (dubbed a “creature from the sewers”) arises from the sewers. With an equally crazy gait, he roams the [...]

Photography as Skilful Means for Those ‘Born into Brothels’ Winner of the Best Documentary Feature (for the 77th Academy Awards), “Born into Brothels”, despite its seemingly depressing tite, is really a rather uplifting film, of how a bunch of poor Indian children, who were otherwise subject to a future of poverty and even prostituition, were [...]

Her family dentist always paints the worst case scenario of what could happen during surgery. But her family members realised over the years that none of the terrible situations ever occurred when they sat in the dentist’s chair. In fact, they continually experienced swift and effective dental treatment from him. Every visit to the dentist [...]

Ken: Hey, move the doormat over! Ben: Later when it dries, cos it’s wet and stuck to the floor. Ken: What’s wrong with you? Just do it! Ben: What’s wrong with you? There’s no hurry!

Does the house always win? A mega casino company became unsure as to whether it could carry on completing a casino during the current economic downturn. So it seems, even building a place for gambling is a gamble, even if the company saw it as an investment. This brings us to the age-old worldly “koan” [...]

Some sayings on emptiness in the Buddhist sense, from Stonepeace – Emptiness is the nature of being empty of permanence. Emptiness is the nature of being full of change. ~ Sunyata [emptiness] is Anicca [impermanence] and Anatta [insubstantiality]; Dukkha [suffering] due to Sunyata is optional. ~ If you cling to emptiness, it becomes a form. [...]

Now, Life is Living You?  When you walk by Higashi Honganji, you will see a huge billboard with these words on it – “Now, Life is living you.” When you enter the temple’s reception centre and bookshop, you can get a flyer which explains these words. The slogan is the theme for the 750th memorial [...]

The Case of the Acccidental Cloud Meditation Other than the truth that you can realise this truth the clouds have the same nature* as you. – Stonepeace *Same nature of being impermanent and non-self With ample time to kill after finishing his tedious homework, Zeph heaved a deep sigh of relief, as he channel-surfed the [...]

It’s a really a fine fine line that separates investing from gambling – there are more similarities than differences. Investing can be gambling when it taps upon one’s irrational greed for more gains, such that we tend to be quite one-sided, looking only at potential profits. All we gleefully want is to win big, while [...]