Koi Cafe’s drinks are becoming very popular these days. (I go only for the vegan ones, once a while, free of dairy stuff.) It struck me that the reason why its drinks are so in demand, that long queues form and ticket numbers have to be issued, is really very simple…
Other than having a variety [...]

Upon entering Dharma Drum Mountain’s resource library is an interesting artwork. It’s called 心经影壁 or ‘Wall of Images of the Heart Sutra’. On it are 20 copies of the Heart Sutra inscribed on bronze in various languages. It’s an apt piece of sacred decoration as the library represents a storehouse of [...]

Form is emptiness; (色即是空)
Emptiness is form. (空即是色)
Form is not different from emptiness;（色不异空）
Emptiness is not different from form.  (空不异色）

So says the Heart Sutra, but what do these lines really say?
They speak of that which cannot really be put in words,
that which is hinted by these words.
Read between the lines, to [...]

‘…Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too.
They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.’
- Stephen King
Monsters are empty, and ghosts are unsubstantial too -
when they are realised as so, vanquished within us.
That is how we win them all – inside out,
conquering our inner Mara before  the external one.
When our personal demons are taken care of, outer [...]

Naked we come
Naked we are
Naked we go
We come empty of possessions.
Stripped even of ’self’.
Even our past karma is empty of fixed nature.
We live empty of possessions.
Stripped even of ’self’.
Even our present karma is empty of fixed nature.
We die empty of possessions.
Stripped even of ’self’.
Even our future karma is empty of fixed nature.

In ‘Superman: Camelot Falls’ by Kurt Busiek, Superman resists a spell by repeating a ‘mantra’ (taught by J’onn Jones) that tries to overpower his will – ‘I know who I am. I know where I am. I think for myself.’ To that, illusory avalanche rocks become more solid and resistible, as he pushes them aside, [...]

Just finished teaching the last lesson of a series of four weekly classes on the Heart Sutra. This last lesson began an hour earlier at 6.30pm, and ended at 9.30pm. Last week, I had to request the class to grant me another extra hour for this lesson, so as to better pace it, to give [...]

 
It’s probably not the best combo to attend a Heart Sutra lesson and watch a rom-com movie (Cape No. 7) later. I was unable to relate to the story, which would usually stir up feelings of yearning and forlornness. I found myself sitting in the dark cinema, predicting the ending and waiting for it to come. [...]

Wi: How to love all beings equally?
Yi: Before you can achieve that, you have to rid greed, hatred and ignorance.
Wi: That would mean I have to be enlightened.
Yi: Technically, yes.
Wi: I don’t get it… Why all these talk of loving all if we, the unenlightened can’t do it anyway?
Yi: The idea is to cultivate love till we can. We [...]

Photography as Skilful Means for Those ‘Born into Brothels’
Winner of the Best Documentary Feature (for the 77th Academy Awards), “Born into Brothels”, despite its seemingly depressing tite, is really a rather uplifting film, of how a bunch of poor Indian children, who were otherwise subject to a future of poverty and even prostituition, were presented [...]