Walking past a specialised funeral accessory shop, Zig jokingly asked Zag to choose a paper shirt design for his funeral. (Some Chinese burn paper items of everyday necessities for the deceased, believing they will manifest in the underworld, where all are reborn. This is neither a Buddhist belief or practice!) Zag: Nay, I don’t need [...]

Infinity within finity Infinite layers of sky Infinite shades of blue Related Articles: Limited But Unlimited http://www.moonpointer.com/index1.php?itemid=1784 Everything Finite Tells of the Infinite http://www.moonpointer.com/index1.php?itemid=1502

Words on a Dharma text like fingers pointing at the moon of Truth. Fingers on a Dharma text like fingers pointing at moon pointers. Don’t forget to look beyond the fingers to see the text. Don’t forget to look beyond the text to see the Truth. Related Article: The Moonpointer Metaphor http://moonpointer.com/new/about

Photo: A Sri Lankan-styled Buddha image atop an office cubicle Settled but upright Silent but mindful Still but radiant

In the ‘Watchmen’ graphic novel and movie, is an intriguing vigilante character called Rorschach. Yes, you guessed it – his name was inspired by the Rorschach Test, which is also popularly known as the inkblot test, where black ink is splattered randomly on a piece of white paper and folded into half to create whatever [...]

The 17th Karmapa’s Kagyu office produced an impressive booklet called ‘Guidelines for Mitigating Climate Change’. I received it via email as an attachment file from a Dharma friend, who cc-ed it to a few other friends too. It happened that all of them are vegetarians. I could not resist sending the below to the sender, [...]

Gee: You’re too skinny! Let me transfer some fat to you! (Reverse liposuction!!?) Cee: Nooo! Thank goodness only merits can be transferred (shared)! Mee: That’s why good is more powerful than evil! Actually, there are other things that can be transferred too – like money and viruses… but you get the idea! What you get [...]

Some eat to live, some live to eat, but you can eat towards enlightenment! Disclaimer: The diet described here has not yet been scientifically endorsed. If you have a medical condition, you might wish to seek your doctor’s advice before trying! I ate lunch today at 3pm. Or was it tunch (tea plus lunch) or an early dinner? [...]

Here is an analysis of the poll question ‘Do you believe you have a soulmate?’ As of today, the results are: 53% : Yes 30% : No 17% : Don’t know According to Wikipedia, “‘Soulmate’ is a term sometimes used to designate someone with whom one has a feeling of deep and natural affinity, love, [...]

Fai: My casual observation: both ‘practice’ and ‘studies’ seems to work well as means for ego inflation. I have met both ‘serious meditators/ practitioners’ as well as Buddhist scholars who have very big egos and think the world of themselves.  Me: [Thoughts upon reading the above] When anyone considers oneself a ‘serious scholar’ or a [...]

In the movie ‘Suspect X’, a brilliant mathematician plans an elaborate scheme that involves murder to help his love interest get away with manslaughter. When one is driven so much by love that it involves killing another, is such love still healthy? Is such love ‘lovely’ or lovable? Would it be more touching or disturbing? Is [...]

Understanding Amituofo via the Amitabha Sutra We often hear Buddhists greet each other with ‘Amituofo’ and aspiring to be reborn in the Western Pure Land. We also hear that this practice is a powerful and equalitarian way for most people to advance towards enlightenment, especially in our day and age. So who is Amitabha Buddha [...]

A Dharma friend recounted the first time she stepped into a Chinese Buddhist temple out of interest to learn chanting. The chanting session was probably about to start, and there were rows of prayer cushions for kneeling. While navigating around, she straddled over a cushion with a Sutra chanting text on it, without even being [...]

Above: [Stele with a Buddha & two Bodhisattvas, Eastern Wei (534–50 CE), Limestone, overall height 310 cm, Collection of the Qingzhou Museum, Shandong Province, China] Hmmm… a ‘smuggled’ shot from the exhibition? Who’s the naughty one!? Anyway, the museum’s shop sells a nice coffee table book with much better detailed shots of the images in [...]