Demand email: Please hand-deliver so-and-so as attached immediately! Reply to email: To… ? (Two days lapse before demander reads and replies email. So much for urgent and timely communication via email!) As quick as some are to demand stuff done by email, the same folks might be slow to reply by email. Electronic communication is [...]

The map is not the territory. – Alfred Korzybski Some employees are too free, and so have ample time to write reports of their work. Some employers are superficial, to assume many timely reports mean much good work done. The report is not the work. Some employees are too busy, and so have little time [...]

Perfect goodness (universal compassion) based upon perfect truth (universal wisdom) leads to perfect beauty (universal magnificence) – in the form of Buddhahood. – Stonepeace A popular author on comparative faiths espouses this idea – ‘It doesn’t matter what you believe, but how you behave.’ (This might not be a verbatim quote.) At first, it seems [...]

Want the latest handphone? Want the newest car? Want the limited edition? Want the special model? Less you want, and more contentment you’ll get. Upgrade your craving, and you’ll downgrade your happiness. Less is more. So lessen your craving. Upgrade is downgrade. So upgrade your contentment.

There’re some major changes going on along one of our busiest streets in town. Strange-looking supposedly avant-garde buildings are replacing the old ones. Out of curiosity, we took a walk from the new Orchard Central to Orchard Ion, to witness part of the whopping 40 million dollar revamp of the stuff on Orchard Road. Old [...]

Karma can mutate, along with viruses. Disease pervades Samsara as long as it is not a Pureland. To end plagues of sicknesses, we need to end their true causes. How about ending violence towards birds, cows, pigs… which cause bird flu, mad cow disease, swine flu… Surely, this would end violence towards ourselves too. Related [...]

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Just because a chain is old, doesn’t mean it is weaker than a new one. Just because a chain looks snapped, doesn’t mean it is really so. A lock is only as strong as its weakest link. Just because a lock is new, doesn’t mean [...]

Layers upon layers of shops at the new Ion Orchard mall. Even the American guy behind exclaimed – ‘Look at this shi*t!’ Quite an overwhelming sight indeed, though this is not the only mega mall I’ve seen. Maybe it’s particularly mind-blowing precisely because it’s yet another one – of many! The sight of this many [...]

Yet another example of the countless commercial abuses of the word ‘Zen’.  In fact, a case of double abuse – ‘Zen Zen’. To add salt to the wound, the logo is that of a monk. The slogan says ‘The healthy way to power your day.’ The truth is, the ideal Zen meal to power every [...]

< Dust of the X-Men An SMS conversation with a friend: Sophie: Monday… Arghhh… Shi’an: How about this… Monday might be the last day of your life. Might as well make the best of it. Sophie: Then I wish I didn’t spend my last moments sitting at this dusty bus-stop waiting, while getting covered in [...]

Here are some lyrics in part from Moby’s bittersweet song ‘Slipping Away’ from his album ‘Hotel’: Open to everything happy and sad Seeing the good when it’s all going bad Seeing the sun when I can’t really see Hoping the sun will at least look at me Focus on everything better today All that I [...]

In the movie ‘Murderer’, the protagonist model detective suffers from lapses in memory (due to an injury and another reason I won’t reveal in case it’s an unforgivable spoiler for you). This is while he investigates for clues on the identity of a serial killer at large. To his aghast, all the clues he uncovers [...]

I read in a Buddhist mailing list that Karen Armstrong’s new book ‘The Case for God’, which is somewhat apologetics for the ‘invisible ruler’, surprisingly ended with a paragraph on the Buddha. I checked it out at a bookstore. Here it is: Excerpt: One day a Brahmin priest came across the Buddha sitting in contemplation [...]

The haunting song ‘I Believe’ from ‘Tears for Fears’… I was ‘bristling’ somewhat when I first heard it years ago. Why the sudden spate of nostalgia, you might wonder. Well, am trying to analyse songs which have struck a nerve over time. At least something meaningful ought to be made out of them – these [...]