Question: There is this organisation headed by a lady who is said to be able to connect to the Jade Emperor (a Taoist god) and Maitreya ‘Buddha (or rather, Bodhisattva), and direct their light of blessings directed into mineral water bottles. What do you think? Answer: Sigh…. such groups usually deviate from true Buddhist teachings. As [...]

A bipolar student wasn’t sure he liked being his more ‘sober’ self. Perhaps he is used to swinging between highs and lows? I advised that there is no need to cling to any self… Since there is no fixed self that stays high or low, especially in mundane way. Good to chant ‘Amituofo’ more, to [...]

A man raised a ruckus at a food stall, claiming that he had waited half an hour, that he patronises the stall every day, yet is still given such poor service. Why didn’t he think the other way round? He patronised the stall every day, and has been given okay service so far, other than [...]

I slipped and fell in the bathroom of the guestroom where we stayed in Dharamshala… and hit my back on the rim of the toilet bowl. Thankfully, the plastic toilet seat was on it, which kind of helped to buffer from the otherwise unforgiving hardness of the ceramic. There was a sharp pain and for [...]

Japanese restaurants are known for their prevalent, wasteful and environmentally-unfriendly use of disposable wooden chopsticks. We visited one recently and came prepared – with our own washable chopsticks. When you throw away chopsticks, you are essentially throwing trees away. I heard that the rationale for using the throwaway chopsticks is that the Japanese are very particular [...]

Last evening was the second time I watched ‘A Full Bright Moon’ (Yilun Mingyue) – as the opening film of T.H.I.S Buddhist Film Festival (www.thisfilmfest.com), which tells the biography of the great Venerable Hongyi. I had already seen the video version of it, but I wanted to see it on the big screen – because [...]