(Picture: A Buddhist making lamp offerings at a Tibetan temple near Mayadevi Temple)
May we always be mindful of Amita Buddha.
May we always aspire to swiftly become Buddhas.
Next India Adventure: Coming Soon
Previous India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-10-a-different-christmas-cheer

From Thich Nhat Hanh’s book ‘The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology’:
The food we eat can reveal the interconnectedness of the universe, the Earth, all living beings, and ourselves. Each bite of vegetable, each drop of soy sauce, each piece of tofu contains the sun and of the Earth. We [...]

Christmas’ Eve with no carols or party to attend.
Immersed in total silence along the pitch dark countryside.
On a five hour bumpy ride to the next destination.
The night was getting a bit too cold.
But he was always on my mind.
Such warm loving-kindness, that he (the Buddha) always radiated, like he never left.
Finally, I am on a [...]

I still remember the crisp air and clear stars.
From that night under the Kent’s wintry sky.
This night, under India’s sky in the same season,
I see mist and dust clouding lives of the poor.
I always thought that we share the same sky.
How could that night be so different from this one?
Tonight, I yearn for a world [...]

Sankasia was where the Buddha descended from Trayastriṃśa (Sanskrit; Pāli: Tāvatiṃsa) heaven after teaching his biological mother (Queen Mahamaya), who passed away on the 7th day after giving birth to him. Legends has it that three stairways – in gold, silver and crystal appeared when Shakra and Brahma, out of gratitude for the Buddha’s teachings [...]

A 72 year old man led us through the pages of history by telling of a majestic empire that once occupied the great Ajgar Fort. A palace that used to house three main queens and thousands of concubines. Now, the fort is bare and naked of looted gems, which used to decorate its walls. A [...]

Taj Mahal tells of a very sad love story. It’s sad not because two who were deeply in love were separated by death, but because of the great attachment it embodies. The Mongol king spent 17 long years, much wealth and labour to build this extravagant monument to fill the voidness of his heart after [...]

Seeing a cleaner dusting a stupa that housed the Buddha’s relics.
I wondered what would happen,
should it be left neglected?

It will become buried,
swallowed by the sands of time,
forgotten and lost in history.

Like a precious relic that is the Buddhadharma,
or our Buddhadhatu (Buddha-nature) too,
it will be obscured by dirt and such.

As stupas stand for the peak of [...]

A Tit for a Tat (91)
Tit: Aren’t you supposed to clean the toilet?
Tat: Aren’t I supposed to be(come) enlightened?
Tit: Aren’t the enlightened supposed to do chores too?
Tat: I guess they do what they have to as well…
Tit: … except that they don’t do them grudgingly!  

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/just-your-perception
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/something-rational

Warning: This is a proper vampire movie, where vampires adhere to the classic rules. E.g. they do not glitter with fairy dust in the sun without bursting into flames during non-twilight hours! (To avoid confusion in monster lore, Twilight’s ‘vampires’ shouldn’t be called so in the first place!) What if the situation is in reverse? [...]