Your karma makes your world go round. Our karma makes our world go haywire too. [i] We All Create Karma Among the various natural laws of cause and effect, one of them is the law of karma, which is the universal law of moral cause and effect. Whatever we intentionally think, say or do plants [...]

The classic ‘Mad World’ by Tears for Fears seems to be a poignant string of world-weary haikus. In between its stanzas below are some one-liner comments. Above is the more meditative cover version by Gary Jules, in a video directed by the very creative Michel Gondry, who gave us the amazing ‘Eternal Sunshine of the [...]

In ‘Halo: Uprising’ by Brian Michael Bendis, a captured soldier saves the Earth using the key of Osanalian, which is something non-existent, concocted out of fantasy games with his brother when they were kids, that only the duo knew of – as a key to a magical secret. The first brother tells his alien captors [...]

Question: A friend says my caring for stray cats is due to me ‘owing’ them karmically, though I feel that it is out of compassion, more out of empathy than sympathy. What do you think? Answer: Instead of thinking in terms of ‘owing’ or not, what we can say is that you have karmic affinity [...]

Visited St. Patrick’s School again, a couple of days ago, to give a presentation on the Buddhist perspective of life and death. Instead of using the usual lecture theatre, the school hall was used instead – as there were 130 Catholic boys this time. Above is a picture of a powerpoint slide used, featuring a [...]

A friend is getting married. But like many non-vegetarians, she’s offering a feast of many sentient beings. Me being the only vegan in her entourage, has special arrangements prepared for. It was very nice of her to call to go through the vegetarian menu with me (as I don’t take many mock stuff). Not many [...]

Talking about compassion, how can we not mention how Acharya Asanga had carefully licked the maggots out of a dog’s wound with his tongue and moved them safely to his freshly sliced thigh flesh? For many of us, we would have chosen to kill the maggots in order to save the dog’s life. Compared to [...]

I used to be quite a severely unforgiving person. (Fortunately, things have improved greatly since.) The slightest bit of evil that I see others do I would condemn so greatly that I would slap a label of ‘evil-doer’ on the person for life. I would shun this person for indefinite time till that person redeems [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

From ‘Prince of Persia’ by A. B. Sina et al: Guiv: (Injuring a lion that almost killed him in defence; without killing him) No one gave me the power to take life. Peacock: (When lion pounces on Guiv again and is slashed dead) No one gave you power to spare life. Comments: We give ourselves [...]

Good intentions are not good enough if they arise from delusion. This is why Buddhism pays attention to both goodness (compassion; the opposite of evil intentions, speech and actions) and truth (wisdom; the opposite of delusion). – Sisyphusian

This is one of my favourite Batman scenes from the 1966 TV series. Watch and listen carefully. It’s side-splittingly hilarious! It made me think…. this could had been pretty cool in its time, but is now seen as mostly as super camp. Now look at how much darker Batman has become in our times. Even [...]

A Tit for a Tat (96) Tit: Why don’t you help more readily? Tat: Because it’s not so easy to do so readily! Tit: Because it’s too easy to think so readily! Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/its-better-but Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/a-greater-desire

The most urgent matter, upon attaining this precious but brief human rebirth, is to safeguard one’s future rebirth. – Stonepeace From (1) Wikipedia and (2) The Phrase Finder: (1) ‘The Vulcan salute is a hand gesture consisting of a raised hand, palm forward with the fingers parted between the middle and ring finger, and the [...]