The best short video so far, from http://www.mercyforanimals.org/dairy
on the dark truth behind the dairy industry.
Please seriously consider giving up any food that has dairy content.

Evidence gathered during the investigation reveals:

~ Cows with bloody open wounds, prolapsed uteruses, pus-filled infections, and swollen joints, apparently left to suffer without veterinary care

~ “Downed” cows – those too sick or injured to even stand – left to suffer for weeks before dying or being killed

~ Workers hitting, kicking, punching, and electric-shocking cows and calves

~ Calves having their horns burned off without painkillers, as a worker shoved his fingers into the calves’ eyes to restrain them

~ Calves having their tails cut off – a painful practice opposed by the American Veterinary Medical Association

~ Newborn calves forcibly dragged away from their mothers by their legs, causing emotional distress to both mother and calf

~ Cows living in overcrowded sheds on manure-coated concrete flooring

~ Workers injecting cows with a controversial bovine growth hormone, used to increase milk production

Thankfully, compassionate consumers can choose to withdraw their support of these abusive industries by adopting a vegan diet. Each time we eat we can choose kindness over cruelty.

From one of the last page of David Small’s autobiographical graphic novel ‘Stitches: A Memoir’:

‘My mother died in 1970, age 58. Maturity, reflection and some family research have unearthed a few facts, which gave a slightly different picture of this taciturn and difficult person. Her physical problems were beyond what I could imagine or understand as a child. Because nothing in our family was ever discussed outright, I only became aware of some of them years after her death.

Born with her heart on the wrong side of her chest, she suffered multiple heart attacks toward the end of her life. She also had only one functioning lung. If this had been her story, not mine, her secret life as a lesbian would certainly have been examined more closely. I keep recalling a line from the novelist and poet Edward Dahlberg:

“Nobody heard her tears.
The heart is a fountain of weeping water
which makes no noise in the world.”‘

Throughout the earlier pages of the book, Small’s Mother was depicted as an idiosyncratic and unpleasant person, someone loveless he struggled to live with when Small was… very small. The true story with its hindsights as above reminded me, that behind every person’s seemingly unkind or difficult nature is great suffering. The more loveless and misunderstood a person seems, the more that person needs love and understanding. If we ought to be compassionate even with the less compassionate, compassion is indeed for all. Together with wisdom, it is what will truly save us all!

We often want too much love, while we give too little love.
When others are loved too little, how can they love us much?

- Stonepeace

In the ‘retelling’ of ‘Beowulf’ by Gareth Hinds, King Hrothgar tells Beowulf the following after they slays Grendal and the monster’s Mother:

‘Take thou, therefore, good heed, O Beowulf,
against pride and arrogance.
Choose the better path: profit eternal.
Now, indeed, thou art in the pride of thy strength and the power of youth;
but there will come of a surety, sooner or later,
either sickness or the sword;
fire shall consume thee or the floods swallow thee up.
Be it bite of blade or brandished spear, or odious age,
or the eyes’ clear beam grown dull and leaden.
Come in what shape it may; death will subdue even thee, thou hero of war.’

Grendal and his Mother too assumed they were invincible, just as Beowulf did. Often, we become great monsters or great heroes when we think we are undefeatable. Yet, unless one is a true conqueror, a Buddha, no one can conquer ageing, sickness and death. The path of spirituality, that quells pride and arrogance is the one that profits eternal. Of course, like all good cautionary tales of old, Hrothgar’s prophesy-like warning did come true in time, according to the legend.

Related Article:

The Dharma of the ‘Beowulf’ Myth (Movie Review)
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=12,5517,0,0,1,0

Read more

From ‘Essex County’ by Jeff Lemire, Annie the nurse says, ‘I lost a patient today… Humph!… I know what you’d say if you could. You’d say, “It’s part of your job, Annie. Won’t be the first, won’t be the last.” But I… well sometimes wonder if I do any good at all. Do I make any difference in these people’s lives?‘

We are all patients of Samsara who lose one another while trying to nurse one another towards Nirvana that is True Happiness. There are two kinds of doing good – good that benefits another for this life and good that benefits another for good – for the next life too, for advancement towards Nirvana – the end of being caught in the cycle of life and death. The latter is the true way to make lasting differences.

Read more

From ‘Essex County’ by Jeff Lemire,
‘You know, there are only two ways
to be completely alone in this world -
lost in a crowd… or in total isolation.’

But there is a better way to be alone, be we in a crowd or isolated.
From the ‘Sutra on the Better Way to Live Alone’:

Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.

Looking deeply at life as it is
is the very here and now,
the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom.
We must be diligent today.

To wait until tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly.
How can we bargain with it?

The sage calls a person who knows
how to dwell in mindfullness
night and day
‘one who knows the better way to live alone’
[in only the here and now; instead of anywhere else].

A Tit for a Tat (104)

Tit: I had better place the vase out of the way.
Tat: Why?
Tit: I don’t wanna accidentally break it!
Tat: Of course you don’t ‘wanna accidentally break it’? You should purposely not wanna break it!
Tit: Which is why I’m placing it out of the way!
Tat: But if you already ‘purposely not wanna break it’, you would never break it accidentally – wherever it’s placed!

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/groundless-fear
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/speak-up-or-hang-up

(pic:http://www.1designperday.com/2009/04/27/onion-vase)

As many of you know, I run a mailing list with over 28,000 readers (TheDailyEnlightenment.com), which helps to disseminate news of Buddhist activities free of charge. Recently, a relatively new organisation asked me to distribute news of an upcoming activity. As I was uncertain about one of the teachers, I asked a Dharma friend about him, who voiced some controversies about his unmonkly behaviour, which I then sent to the centre asking for their views. The reply I got was ‘We are sorry that we are not in the position and capacity to comment on the information…’ This is my reply to that:

I hope you will ask the Master to clarify the issue.
If it is baseless, it’s good to clear his name.
If it is not baseless, it’s good to let him know he should change his ways.
Do let me know his response in writing.

If your organisation is not enthusiastic about such potential problems,
I will more carefully consider posting any of your programs in future.
Thank you for understanding the need to protect the Dharma and its practitioners.

If students do not check their teachers, and if the teachers of these teachers are out of reach, who should do the checking? Surely, the students themselves.

Guru devotion means looking out
for the spiritual welfare of the teacher too.
If not, it is hypocritical and blind devotion.

- Stonepeace

Guru devotion does not forgo devotion to the truth.
Guru devotion arises from devotion to the truth.

- Stonepeace

In ‘The Waiting Place’ by Sean Kelley McKeever, Scott says, ‘Do you know what new year’s day is? It’s just another day. Everyone thinks, like when the clock strikes midnight, you’ve suddenly entered a new chapter in your life, but it’s nothing like that, you know? You still have the same bills to pay, you still go to the same job. You still have to look at the same you in the mirror. Life isn’t made of nice neat little chapters. Not really. It’s like, if you believe in it, new year’s day is the greatest letdown in the history of letdowns.’

Today marks the last day of the Chinese New Year season. Has your new life arrived in this new year yet? What Scott said is right – if we expect new year’s day to bring miraculous changes after a string of hard celebrations – without any relevant effort. Days don’t let us down – we let our days down. What we need is not a change of time or year but a change of mind to change our lives. Time for resolutions again.. with real action this time! Happy new year!

I came up with 20 multiple-choice questions for a quiz given at the end of a course I give for guides from Singapore Tourism Board on Buddhism. Some of these questions have two possible answers – to urge them think deeper. They are all reviewed and explained at the end, even though ample clues were already given during class. In a way, the availability of more than one answer for some questions paradoxically makes them easier and harder at the same time… just as they are also paradoxically more fun while challenging too!

(pic:http://fakeexpressionsoftheunkown.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/paradox)

In ‘Batman: Gotham After Midnight’ by Steve Niles and Kelley Jones, Batman says this to Comissioner Gordon, ‘This is the second time she [a police officer] took credit for my work. I don’t like it. You know how important it is for criminals to know that it’s me taking them down.‘ Sounds like an egoistic statement? It’s really quite the opposite.

There’s no ego involved because no one (okay, few) knows who is behind the cape and cowl. What Batman wanted was to live up to his reputation of being a relentless vigilante whom all criminals should fear and thus think twice before perpetuating lives of crime. It’s great compassion! Reminds me of Bodhisattvas who work selflessly and thanklessly in disguise.