Shortly before the screening of ‘Handsome Suit’ this year was ‘Penelope’ last year – another real gem of a movie with an alternative but equally brilliant take on the ugly duckling theme. What’s the moral of the ugly duckling story? Sometimes, one is not a mere ugly duckling, because one can grow to be beautiful [...]

Pic: Which is scarier – a grinning Cheshire Cat or a scowling one? I saw two stationary stray cats gazing silently but intently at each other, at about five metres apart. As I wondered what was going on in their minds, it struck me that they might also be wondering what the other was wondering [...]

A friend sent me the above with this question: Bwahaha… i wonder what’s the teacher’s religion? I replied: Oh, haven’t u heard? It’s an ancient ‘universal’ religion called ‘egoism’, which most of us subscribe to, albeit to different extents! (Buddhism teaches the truth of the ego being an illusion. Any religion that involves egoism is [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

In ‘Superman: Camelot Falls’ by Kurt Busiek, Superman resists a spell by repeating a ‘mantra’ (taught by J’onn Jones) that tries to overpower his will – ‘I know who I am. I know where I am. I think for myself.’ To that, illusory avalanche rocks become more solid and resistible, as he pushes them aside, [...]

The TV series ‘Samantha Who’ is about Samantha Newly, who sort of gets ‘newly reborn’ when she recovers from coma after a traffic accident, thereafter developing retrograde amnesia – which is a condition where she retains general knowledge, but becomes clueless as to who she is/was and what she had done in life so far. [...]

A Tit for a Tat (1) Tit: But I don’t like to be interviewed! Tat: Take it that you are interviewing the company. Give it a chance! See if it’s suitable! Tit: I think they don’t like to be interviewed too! Tat: But that’s how it goes! You can also put the company on probation [...]

A Zenny white Buddha image On a Zenny white iMac Makes me think of ‘iBuddha’ Of the Buddha I can be A selfless one with no capital ‘i’ Related Article: The Front View of ‘iBuddha’ http://moonpointer.com/new/2009/02/buddha-gentle-reminder

From the story ‘The Maggies’ in ‘American Splendor’ by Harvey Pekar – Harvey: (Detecting untruthfulness) When you talk about dishonest men, do you have to be dishonest? Interviewee: (Shrugging) Why not? Even Socrates was dishonest… Harvey: (Confronting) Socrates?? What does he have to do with it? Interviewee: (As-a-matter-of-factly) Socrates said all men are dishonest, so [...]

The Ponyo Paradox of Change & Acceptance (Review of ‘Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea’) http://buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=12,7664,0,0,1,0 The Japanese animation feature ‘Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea’ is a creative ‘retelling’ of ‘The Little Mermaid’ minus the tragedy of loss. It is largely an uplifting story on the universal themes of love, sacrifice, acceptance [...]

If you learn to love one properly, you will learn to love all equally. – Stonepeace [Notes: The notion of love in this article is love in general, as in loving-kindness (Metta: the wish for all to be well and happy), that excludes lust as a complicating worldly factor. The following are some of the [...]

After reading ‘Wolverine: Origins and Endings’ by Daniel Way, it struck me that Wolverine (of the X-Men) needn’t be such an infamously grouchy and angsty guy. The main source of his suffering lies in his constant existential puzzlement about his painful past, of the half forgotten and mostly fragmented ‘former’ life that he led before [...]

Gee: It’s so unlike ‘you’ to buy and give a present! Wee: But there’s no one ‘me’ you see…         I just ‘bought’ my way to another version of ‘me’,         I just ‘gave’ the old ‘me’ away.

Some sayings on emptiness in the Buddhist sense, from Stonepeace – Emptiness is the nature of being empty of permanence. Emptiness is the nature of being full of change. ~ Sunyata [emptiness] is Anicca [impermanence] and Anatta [insubstantiality]; Dukkha [suffering] due to Sunyata is optional. ~ If you cling to emptiness, it becomes a form. [...]