Something simple happened a couple of days ago, that upon hindsight, seems more significant than not. I was seated at a coffeeshop eating with a friend. Some distance ahead was a table with three or four schoolgirls. I happened to look in their direction when they stood to leave. To my surprise, I saw a [...]

Maybe the occasional smoker
is already addicted
to the occasional smoking.

Q: If a child makes a mistake out of ignorance or delusion, that he is not aware of as wrong in the first place, the child will suffer from negative karma to a lesser degree, right?
A: Whether driven by ignorance/delusion or not, the intensity of (un)wholesome karma created is determined by the intensity of [...]

I seem to be having a strange problem. But really, this problem has been there all along, only aggravated by the expansion in my jobscope, which made me busier. What is this problem? Because I do Dharma work, I’m particular about not spending work hours dwelling on even the littlest of non-work matters. Since I [...]

Who would not like to travel around the world? I would! When we have friends sharing their travel experiences and photos, most of us would be enviously thinking of our next trip. Each year, we would try to go different places, out of the claustrophobic office cubicle into the vast world full of cultural shocks [...]

While chatting with Sophie over dinner at Yes Natural (a healthy vegetarian food restaurant) this evening, she asked if it was okay to dedicate non-vegetarian food to all beings. I replied, ‘Hey, I blogged about this recently. I’ll email my answer to you.’ (The link’s below.) To summarise, I felt that continually dedicating some dead [...]

Leaving Kong Meng San monastery in the evening, I happened to turn around and saw a rainbow arching towards the Bell Tower. (At least, it seemed so.) I felt compelled to whip out my phone to snap it… and so I did. Then as I walked on, I wondered… What now? So what? What do [...]

The Middle Path is…
not to sit on the fence, neutral,
not to be ambivalent, uncertain,
not to be apathetic, indifferent.
The Middle Path is…
to not be extreme in sensual indulgence,*
to not be extreme in asceticism,*
to not be extreme in grasping any views.**

* These are opposite physical extremes away from moderate living.
** These are mental extremes. Even attachment to [...]

Here is an analysis of the poll question ‘What do you wish to attain by the end of this life?’ As of today, the results are:
38% : Go Pureland
20% : Be a Bodhisattva
11% : Don’t know
10% : Return a Human
08% : Be a Buddha
06% : Be a Stream-winner
05% : [...]

‘Scold! Scold! Scold!’
Listen… listen… listen…
Gosh! He’s right!
May I accept the fault-finding graciously.
No need to get mad myself.
‘Scold! Scold! Scold!’
Listen… listen… listen…
Gosh! He’s wrong!
May I clarify the misunderstanding graciously.
No need to get mad myself.