Pic: Pureland Retreat at Dharma Drum Singapore Sometimes, you don’t really need a meditation cushion. Sometimes, you don’t really need a blanket from the cold. Sometimes, you can just sit, make do and make peace. 需要的不多，想要的太多 Our wants are many; our needs are few. – Ven. Shengyen

In the movie ‘Suspect X’, a brilliant mathematician plans an elaborate scheme that involves murder to help his love interest get away with manslaughter. When one is driven so much by love that it involves killing another, is such love still healthy? Is such love ‘lovely’ or lovable? Would it be more touching or disturbing? Is [...]

Maybe the occasional smoker is already addicted to the occasional smoking.

Leaving Kong Meng San monastery in the evening, I happened to turn around and saw a rainbow arching towards the Bell Tower. (At least, it seemed so.) I felt compelled to whip out my phone to snap it… and so I did. Then as I walked on, I wondered… What now? So what? What do [...]

Wrathful flames of Wisdom burning away raging passions, Acala is the Immovable Wisdom King. (不动明王) The fearsome Destroyer of Delusion.* The compassionate Protector of Dharma.* * The Immovable Dharma is the Truth and path of Wisdom that destroys Delusion.

Jen: Your ‘imaginary funeral parlour notice’ [see below] is well written, seemingly depicting dying. Is it due to the way Buddhists view death, that there are no Buddhist obituaries in the papers? Shi’an: Actually, there are Buddhist obituaries in the papers locally (in Singapore) – but usually only the Chinese ones (because most Buddhists here [...]

It struck me that the Hannya mask (left picture) I bought in Japan resembles Batman’s mask (right picture: DVD box of ‘The Dark Knight’). That said, the Hannya mask is essentially not a mask. It’s supposed to be the terribly anguished (more than horrifying) face of Hannya. Likewise, when Batman wears his cape and cowl, [...]

This is the first photo I snapped with my iPhone… with the protective film on. It looked nice enough to be set as wallpaper. How ironic, a common accidental effect that turned out good enough. It remind me of the cinematographic style of Wong Kar Wai’s ‘My Blueberry Nights’. While watching that film, I was [...]

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 [...]

Do check out three versions of the 2005 song ‘Fix You’, followed by some reflections on them in terms of how they were performed… By Coldplay:

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 [...]

After picking up Buddhism, I found my threshold of being able to withstand seeing others in suffering to have reduced significantly. I can’t sit long in front of the television watching people scheming against each other, even though I know it’s just a show. Well, scriptwriters don’t get their stories out of thin air – many are [...]

La: Did you make “tang yuan” (汤圆: glutinous rice balls) on Sunday? Ya: Nope. La: Why not? It’s winter solstice and a tradition to do so. Ya: Says who? La: My mom… Ya: 

‘Go’ (围棋) is not an ordinary board game, but one that involves much wits and strategising. Unlike it’s counterpart Chinese chess (中国象棋), Go is a very minimal game with simple rules and only two different pieces (black and white). The objective is to conquer a larger portion of the board than the opponent, to capture [...]

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 [...]