Happy Birthday to All. 初七人日

Today is the seventh day of the first lunar month which is known as 人日 renri (literally translated as human birthday, the day human beings were created based on Chinese customs.

In Teochew tradition, we will eat seven different types of vegetables to celebrate. This year besides seven vegetables, my mum also prepared yusheng and also yummy fried mianxian or vermicelli.

I think I have to start to lose weight. Since the Chinese New Year, I have gained a few kilograms with all those feasting on pineapple tarts, cookies, chocolates and yummy food.

As I reflect on this special day, it reminds me of Buddha's teaching. Buddha said it is rare to attain the human body. I must be mindful of my thoughts and words and do more kind deeds.

“𝙃𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮, 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙙; 𝙃𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘿𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙢𝙖, 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙙;”.

On this special day, I like to recite this Repentance verse and apologise to all whom I had directly or/and indirectly hurt by my speech. Pardon me, as those born in Rooster year tend to be honest and blunt.

REPENTANCE

懺悔偈

All the harm I have ever done, since time immemorial, Are caused by greed, anger, and ignorance,

And produced through my body, speech, and will, Now I confess and amend all.

往昔所造諸惡業 皆由無始貪瞋痴 從身語意之所生 一切罪障皆懺悔

Seven different vegetables

Fried mianxian or vermicelli

Yusheng with abalone

                                           Tossing the yusheng with my family

Heart Sutra:Every Cause is Because of Your Thought

Heart Sutra is based on the translated texts by Venerable Master Xuanzang during the Tang dynasty, 1400 years ago. Heart Sutra is the shortest sutra with 260 Chinese characters. Though it is a short sutra, it is deeply profound.

There are a total of 28 videos for this Heart Sutra lecture by Venerable Guan Cheng 

Every cause is because of your thought. Every thought when you habituated all the time, becomes your character, your personality. Your destiny is determined by your character.

Don't just listen without reasoning. Watch your cause, watch your thought. If you germinates thoughts of diligence, it comes to be good cause. Purify our mind. 

Strong ego causes suffering. Nothing stays. Nothing is impermanent. Not even your body. 

Dhamma Talk by Ajahn Keng

Today I watched the video by Ajahn Keng to remind myself on Buddha's teaching. I must observe the five precepts and be mindful of my actions as it can affect others. 

Ajahn Keng on Meditation

Interesting Dhamma talk by Ajahn Keng, an eminent Forest monk. I always look forward to his dhamma talk as he is humorous and share his meditation experiences.

In this talk, he share about transfer merits after meditation and to be polite. 

Don't be complacent with your life. Use this human body to do good and meditate. 

You can watch from the Facebook link here. It would be good to post in youtube as sometimes the Facebook page might lagged. 

Kuan Im Thong Hood Temple in Singapore

 Last year December, on an even day, I finally went to Kwan Im Thong Hood temple at Bugis to pray. Due to social distancing measures,  you can only go to the temple on even days- Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday if your NRIC number end with even numbers and odd number on odd days. Only 50 people are allowed in the temple at any time.

Now the temple is barricaded with those safety barriers and you need to bring your TraceTogether tokens or apps. They also don't accept any flowers or fruits offering due to covid19 safety measures. But you can donate money. 

I like to go to the temple to get the amulet especially when I travel to overseas. It just makes me feel safe. I also like to go there to pray and thanks Kuan Im bodhisattva for her help. 

You can go their Facebook page at here https://www.facebook.com/kwanimthonghoodchotemple to find out latest update.

Heart Sutra By Venerable Guan Chen

I was perplexed when I read many anecdotes of people who went through Near Death Experience (NDE) sharing that they felt that there was no time, that time did not exist from this Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) website. 

From NDERF, Melinda share, " Although time did not exist, this life review took forever but in reality it was only a blink of a second. " 

Miguel wrote in NDERF," How long did the experience last? There was no time, so talking about duration is meaningless. It could have been there forever, I guess. I might never have returned, but eventually, I came back. 

There are many more people talking about no time from NDERF under Exceptional Experiences here.

Recently, I finally have a better understanding of no time from The Heart Sutra Lecture 5 by Venerable Guan Cheng as shown in the video below. Do watch the video below. The following are from this Lecture 5 Heart Sutra video that I find helpful to me in understanding the Heart Sutra better. Initially I thought that I can't blog much since the Heart Sutra only has 260 Chinese characters translated by Master Xuan Zang. But Heart Sutra is really profound and I always have new insights from listening to the dharma by venerable monks. 

The five skandhas is a Sanskrit word for body and mind. What are we made up of? We are made up of the body and mind. We are the creation of the five skandhas namely form, sensation, perception, mental formation and consciousness. We are created by causality by all these five skandhas. 

The Buddha wants us to get into more details by giving us more details in the 18 realms which include the six organs, six objects and six consciousnesses. 

We have three kinds of sensations- pleasant, unpleasant and neutral.

When we perceive through our senses, some scientists call it empirical evidences. When we use our senses, we attach to what we can torch, ear, see, taste, smell... So empirical evidences sometimes could be illusory. Everybody could be different in empirical senses. 

It is different from experiential thinking. Experiential thinking has to be introspective getting inside your mind to see it. 

Empirical thinking is bounded by the four dimensions which are the space and time. Space has length, breadth and width. You perceive space and time with senses. 

Time contains the past, the present and the future. Time is the product of empirical thinking. If you think about it, does the past exist now? The past does not exist. Time only lives in memory. If you don't have memory, you don't have the past. You forgot about the past. If you don't have memory, do you have the past? 

How about the future? People say we have a future But the future hasn't come yet. How can you say the future exists. The future certainly doesn't exist now. 

If you want to know more, do watch the following video.

From Only Love is Real by Dr Brian L.Weiss

Emptiness in nature in terms of karmic retribution

I highly recommend that you watch this dharma talk by Master Sheng Yen. I find that it's  really helpful in understanding emptiness and karma. 

To create more good karma and cultivate more merit in our daily life, then we won't find retribution so painful. 

Sin is produced by the mind and is empty in nature. If the mind ceases, so will sin, whether pure or impure.

Everything is produced by the mind. Our concepts and mental actions decide our verbal and bodily actions. Our verbal action and bodily action plus our mention actions as a driving force constitute the driving force behind our karma. Then we create karma. Having created karma, you will receive karmic results. 

Causality 因果(cause and effect) definitely exist, so does conditional arising （ 缘起).

Causality 因果(cause and effect) induced by conditional arising （ 缘起）is called results of causes and conditions. As a combination, they do exist. However, causes and conditions themselves converse and disperse and are impermanent and changing.

Causes and conditions as a fact are empty in nature. Things formed by causes and conditions exist, but they are empty in nature. As a result, after it is received, it is also empty. 

Watch the video to find out more.