I am grateful for Buddha's teaching and I think the two temples namely Palelai Buddhist Temple and Kong Meng San Chor Kar See Monastery are doing a great job reaching and teaching the Buddhists the Dharma. Thus to support the sangha, I like to donate money to support the temples.
If you would like to donate to Buddhist temples in Singapore you can donate to the following temples:
Craving and grasping foster our attachment, and therefore forms the karmic force that will bring us to our next life in the cycle of birth, aging, and death.
The ignorance from life to life brings about volition 行 and consciousness识 lifetime after lifetime and therefore there is consciousness going through rebirths one life after another.
After consciousness enters the womb, "name and form" begin and thus another life is started. After birth, there is contact.
Craving starts from birth with feeling hunger, desiring and pursuing. It doesn't stop until death. And the next is " grasping". Grasping actually follows closely on craving. What do we grasp? We grasp what is good, what we like and what we want. But we also grasp what work against our end. In that case, we reject it. Craving include like and dislike.
Craving and grasping as two elements and two stages actually last a long period from birth until death. It's all within this state of mind. In our heart, we hope to get more and more. This continues with death. With craving and grasping, we create karma, and then existence follows on from that. Existence in what way? Existence of causes for the future. The causes for the future will then lead one to the future life.
The force that forms the cause for the future will then already be in existence. With its existence, consciousness will form. And this consciousness will enter the womb for the next life. In the next life, there willl be birth, aging and death again. So the existence will lead to the next life, life after life.
This is the 12 links of dependent arising throughout three periods of time.
Is it possible that the past life, the present life and the future life , the three lifetimes exist at the same time? Or do they come one after the other?
I find this video explaining the above question when I read Dying to be Me by Anita Moojani when in her near-death experience," she was aware of everything that pertained to her- past, present and future-simultaneously... When we are not expressing through our bodies, everything occurs simultaneously, whether past, present, or future."
Master Sheng Yen explained that their force exists simultaneously, but as phenomena they are definitely separate.
They are real in terms of the single thought in the current life. The infinite virtue, merit and karma of your past lives, whether good or evil are all concentrated in the present life, and are always with you. Your future is developed within the present life. All your merit, up to the moment that you become a Buddha, exists within the single thought in the present life. A soybean for example, we don't know where the soybean originated from.
This soybean has the vital force inherited from that primal ancestor through countless generations. So this soybean is intimately linked with its ancestor
In this video, Master Sheng Yen on what is the meaning of liberation in Thervada Buddhism view and how to achieve it. The real liberation is to liberate sentient beings from samsara or to free sentient beings from the cycle of birth and death.
How can we step out of the realms of birth and death? We have to practise precepts, concentration and wisdom.
Precept is to abstain from evil deed.
Concentration means that our mind is not affected by the external environment.
Wisdom means we can let go of everything at any time, have no attachment.
The ultimate purpose of the Buddhist teachings is to be free of suffering and attain bliss, gaining release from birth and death.
Tomorrow is Vesak Day, a day to commemorate Buddha's birth, enlightenment and parinibbana. It's a public holiday in Singapore. Due to circuit breaker or partial lockdown, all temples will still be closed. I will spend the day at hometomorrow listening to Ajahn Keng dharma talk, watching videos relating to Buddha and chanting meditation. It is also important to observe the 5 precepts. For Mahayana Buddhists, it is the day to eat vegetarian food. There are also 8 precepts for lay Buddhist but I find it tough as one of the precept is to refrain from eating after 12pm, which means you only take one meal a day. Maybe I take 8 precepts when I'm ready to lose weight by taking 1 meal instead of 3 meals a day. Hmm, now I'm wondering how the monks can survive on 1 meal and without gastric.
I enjoy listening to two venerable Buddhist monks namely Singaporean Ajahn Keng and Taiwanese Master Sheng Yen who passed on in 2009.
Sadly there are some people who pretend to be Buddhist monks who beg for money in the street. For your information, real monks don't go to the street to beg for money. However for Theravada monks, they will go for alms round in the morning for food. Based on Buddhist monk precepts, they only eat one meal a day before 12 pm. A real monk will not look for fame and wealth as they know that these material possessions are impermanent and don't bring lasting happiness.
Happy Vesak Day to all my Buddhist friends and Happy holiday to my non-Buddhist readers and friends.
Last year I was delighted to attend Dhamma talk by Ajahn Keng in June.
Due to circuit breaker in Singapore, places of worships like temples are closed. Today is Buddha's birthday and its the day to remember Buddha's teaching. I used to be very bad-tempered. To me, Buddha is like my teacher, teaching me the path to cessation of suffering through the Noble Eight-fold path. If you can't remember, just remember to be kind and not hurt others.
缘起性空 All phenomena originates from emptiness
果从心生 Fruition is created from the heart
欲望因心而起 Desires arise from the heart
烦恼自生 Vexation comes from oneself
你要离苦得乐 If you want to abandon suffering and gain happiness
就要脱离贪,瞋,痴 You’ve to abandon greed, anger and ignorance.
