A Tit for a Tat (2) Tit: Are you full now? Tat: Yup… for the time being. Tit: Of course it’s only for now! It’s not permanent. Tat: Oh yes. I forgot! I keep expecting meals to fill me once and for all forever. No wonder I’m never satisfied. Tit: Don’t become a...

Above’s an original design that would look interesting as part of a traditional Chinese door frame? You can read the word ‘Zen’ in four directions. What’s the ‘moral’ of the design? Zen is all around! Below is the one-dimensional version. Tattoo...

Last week, we visited the Peranakan Museum for the ‘Serenity in Stone : The Qingzhou Discovery’ exhibition. Featured are 800 years’ worth of buried treasures only unearthed recently. This great discovery is the missing link that connects the evolutionary leap in Buddhist art...

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven [st]ages [from cradle to the grave]. – Shakespeare (As You Like It) Once a year, during the lunar new year...

Are washing machines by default the cleanest machines in the world, given that they are fed detergents regularly? Turned out that the front load washing machine at home had an unexpected deficiency. There is a ring of rubber tubing that prevents water from seeping out of the latching door...

A Tit for a Tat (1) Tit: But I don’t like to be interviewed! Tat: Take it that you are interviewing the company. Give it a chance! See if it’s suitable! Tit: I think they don’t like to be interviewed too! Tat: But that’s how it goes! You can also put the company on...

Something poignant yet Zennishly detached, about being forced to move office space due to needless reshuffling… Bill: Where is your place? Jill: Don’t know. Don’t care. My heart is not there. Bill: Where is your heart? Jill: Don’t know. Don’t care. My heart is...

It struck me that the Hannya mask (left picture) I bought in Japan resembles Batman’s mask (right picture: DVD box of ‘The Dark Knight’). That said, the Hannya mask is essentially not a mask. It’s supposed to be the terribly anguished (more than horrifying) face of...

Whether the weather be fine Or whether the weather be not Whether the weather be cold Or whether the weather be hot We’ll weather the weather Whatever the weather Whether we like it or not. - Whether the Weather (A rhyme for kids) Last evening, while rushing home for my family reunion...

There was a solar eclipse yesterday. Traditionally, the Chinese (and even Indians) call the phenomenon ‘the heavenly dog eating the sun’. (Hmmm…. why would a humongous dog in the sky devour it so slowly? How does the single bite’s size increase? And if it took bites at...

Three intriguing reads from 2008, which remind me of Jianxie’s reviews: The Atheist Delusion: http://moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=1738 The Beginning of Faith: http://moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=1737 Buddha is Great: http://moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=1803 Related...

(Caution: Lame irreverent humour ahead) On the left is an ‘asso’, the poor result of unmindfully sitting wet on a sofa. On the right is an enso, (by an unknown artist) the better result of mindfully painting wet on paper. What is an Enso? :...

Over the top X’mas-ish CNY festive deco at Plaza Singapura? Why do humans ‘need’ festive days to celebrate? Because it would be too boring to live every day without any spectacular ‘theatrics’? Why do humans not make every day a festive day? Because it would be...

A Zenny white Buddha image On a Zenny white iMac Makes me think of ‘iBuddha’ Of the Buddha I can be A selfless one with no capital ‘i’ Related Article: The Front View of...

This is the first photo I snapped with my iPhone… with the protective film on. It looked nice enough to be set as wallpaper. How ironic, a common accidental effect that turned out good enough. It remind me of the cinematographic style of Wong Kar Wai’s ‘My Blueberry...

While selecting films for a Buddhist film event, we sampled some movies. A friend wondered why many of the shortlisted films seem to end with some form of death. Someone else in the audience remarked that we all have to die anyway. Hmmm…. only half correct… some of us might be...

I was looking through my old phone’s notes… a collection of words, most of which do not form complete sentences, semi-shorthand notes taken in a hurry to remind me of what to write later. But it was a ‘later’ largely to late, because, to my aghast, many of the notes...

Beliefs of a ‘Non-Believer’ http://buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=8,7674,0,0,1,0 I watched the live telecast of Obama’s inaugural presidential speech last night. It was largely a speech on inclusion; not exclusion, though one part seems to accidentally segregate instead of...

As an unconventional Chinese New Year greeting, above is a simple calligraphic piece of ‘Samantabhadra Bodhisattva’s Admonition for the Masses’ (普贤菩萨警众偈) with a new translation below. I hope the strokes highlight a sense of fragility, transience, urgency, focus...

From the story ‘The Maggies’ in ‘American Splendor’ by Harvey Pekar - Harvey: (Detecting untruthfulness) When you talk about dishonest men, do you have to be dishonest? Interviewee: (Shrugging) Why not? Even Socrates was dishonest… Harvey: (Confronting)...