As an unconventional Chinese New Year greeting, above is a simple calligraphic piece of ‘Samantabhadra Bodhisattva’s Admonition for the Masses’ (普贤菩萨警众偈) with a new translation below. I hope the strokes highlight a sense of fragility, transience, urgency, focus and determination, which are qualities mentioned in the verse. 是日已过，命亦随减； 如少水鱼，斯有何乐？ 大众！ 当勤精进,  如救头燃； 但念无常，慎勿放逸！ This day [...]

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 ‘Twilight’ or Dawn of Desire? http://buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=12,7673,0,0,1,0 What if you have the power of great strength and speed, and are able to remain ever youthful? Sounds like invincible eternal life? Not really, as the vampires in the movie ‘Twilight’, like others, can die too – especially when slayed by other equally powerful vampires. What literally [...]

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 [...]

While watching the final instalment of ‘Red Cliff (Part 2)’, I was hoping for the story to impart some major lessons to the general audience… other than the cunning ‘art’ of strategising in war. Thankfully, towards the end, there were two obvious lessons. Here’s the first one… Xiao Qiao warns Cao Cao of his over-confidence [...]

What’s the Meaning of Life? Once upon a time, there was a very small boy called Zeph, who wondered much about the very large world he lived in. After his first day at a new school (which he didn’t like), being surrounded by strangers in a strange land, it struck him that life could be [...]

In ‘Eternals’ by Neil Gaiman, Sprite the immortal utters this about becoming human – ‘I can even die - Do you know how cool that is? Every moment can be my last. How amazing is that?’ Some of us want to live forever, while some who live forever want to die forever! A case of the [...]

In ‘Marvel Zombies 2′ by Robert Kirkman, it continues the adventures of key Marvel comics’ ‘deceased’ heroes, who have become ‘insatiable’ flesh-eating zombies. Of course, they do not totally lose their mindfulness. If they did, they would be just another typical bunch of mindless zombie ‘clones’ – there would be no interesting stories to tell [...]

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 [...]

Whether you believe the ‘theory’ of the 100th monkey or not, it is nevertheless true that together, we can cause the tipping point (for the betterment of the world), it is nevertheless true that individually, we can facilitate the tipping too. Collective karma IS made up of individual karma.  The question is… will you be [...]

Met up with a rather old friend last night for dinner and chat. As he’s between jobs and since it’s the holiday season, he’s taking his time to text and call up friends individually to catch up with them. He lamented that when he contacted them, most of them would exclaim that they too had [...]

Q: We’re working on our 2553 Spiritual Journal. Need to check with you the meaning of 2553 on the Buddhist calendar cos we’ll be including the meaning in its intro. A: 2553 is the calculation of Buddhist year beginning from the physical passing of the Buddha. Come 19th May 2009, Vesak Day, the Buddhist calendar will be [...]

Me: I see you are wearing ‘Transitions’ eyeglasses. He: Yes. Me: Seems like a good idea… auto-tinting when it gets ‘too bright’. He: Ya… but when I was in Burma, it got really hot and bright in the sun, but the tinting tricked me into thinking it was neither! Almost got sunburnt! Me: Ha! What’s [...]

Feng: Shi’an, is this change of things what you wanted?  Shi’an: Yes and no… as with many things in life. Feng: Is that good or bad? Shi’an: Dunno… as with many things in life. I’m looking for someone to use the words below as lyrics for a song… The consolation part should sound sad. The [...]