A Tit for a Tat (297) Tit: Sometimes I wish I’m pronounced to have a terminal illness. Tat: Gosh! Why? Tit: So that I’ll be more motivated to immedately fulfil my dreams! Tat: But you already have a terminal illness! Tit: What’s that? Tat: Life! Tit: Yeah… but the problem is I don’t know how [...]

Learnt and expanded from a Dharma talk: 放下不是放弃。 Right ‘letting go’ is not ‘giving up’; it is acceptance of things as they are for now, till they can be bettered later. 放下贪嗔痴；提起菩提心。 Let go of greed, hate and delusion; Embrace Bodhicitta to guide others to do the same. 自寻的苦最痛苦。 Self-created suffering is more painful. E.g. [...]

Not catnip, not eucalyptus, not anything I know, that shoos him away. Nothing seemed to deter the cockroach. Like death, that cannot be repelled. The only way to kill death is to realise the deathless. Am no cockroach-killer though! Related Articles: He is Like Death http://moonpointer.com/new/2011/03/he-is-like-death The Cockroach of Death http://moonpointer.com/new/2011/03/the-cockroach-of-death

There is a stranger in the house. There is an uninvited guest in the house. There is a phantom cockroach in the house. I don’t know where he came from. I don’t know where he’s going. I don’t know if he’s still around. He appeared suddenly one night. He disappeared suddenly the next morning. He [...]

Almost everyday I hear the same busker singing the same few lovelorn love songs in the same few ways. I wonder which is his main theme whose thoughts and emotions he relives the most. I wonder which will replay the loudest in his mind as his last song as his parting haunting melody. I wonder [...]

A Tit for a Tat (226) Tit: Is it safer and more realistic to assume there is a cockroach lurking around, that can spring out at you any time? Tat: Or is it more paranoid to do so? Tit: It’s like death actually – it can strike any time! Related Article: He is Like Death [...]

The endlessly greedy are like one who gathers fallen coins into pockets with holes, walking in circles, getting richer yet poorer at the same time, in a futile cycle of getting and losing, for material wealth is always lost before or upon death, no matter how much one has. It is the opposite of spiritual [...]

A reply to a Pure Land course participant, who decided to attend the next round due to a relative’s passing and the need to attend to prayers on the first lesson of ten: My condolences… Amituofo. May he have a good rebirth, the best of which in Pure Land. Sometimes, these are timely reminders on [...]

A Tit for a Tat (218) Tit: He used to be a muscular weight-lifter. Now he’s so fat. Tat: Well, no matter what we used to be, we will all be skinny one day. Tit: Huh? Tat: Skinny skeletons rotting in coffins, or even skinner as cremated ashes! Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2011/02/isnt-very-helpful Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2011/02/do-the-dishes About aT4aT: [...]

Question: Is it true that ‘good people die young’ and that “good deeds do not beget got endings’? Answer: Not all the good die young. Some live to a ripe old age. And if one is really good and really dies young, it’s simply to be reborn quickly to a better life, as they deserve [...]

A live band played Auld Lang Syne at his ‘Buddhist’ funeral. Way too sentimental a parting gift. Is it supposed to make him (if he’s still around) and the survivors attached and weepy? They should had chanted Amituofo sincerely instead, And asked him to do the same, to  reach the wonderful Pure Land. What better gift [...]

Don’t run out of time to express your appreciation. Not just love for a lover or care for a friend. But love for your parents too, the first ones to love you.

All good things come to an end, in departure and death. All good things come to an end, if they are not yet pure. All good and bad things should thus transform to be more and more pure.

In ‘Aftershock’, a foster mother-to-be asks to ensure that the girl she wants to adopt really has no surviving family. She says she doesn’t wish to lose her after adopting. Made me reflect on how we knowingly form attachment, when we know we have to part with the attached sooner or later, via departure and [...]

She spoke of her fears of how he might not return. I consoled her that we all face the same problem, that our loved ones might not return due to many reasons. Even if they do not walk out on us, they might die suddenly in a mishap, like her, like me, like anyone else. [...]