Being Buddhist

 Happy vesak!

Hello everyone, it's Vesak Day here in Indonesia so... Wishing all of you a very happy Vesak Day! :D Sabbe sata bhavantu sukithata, may all living things be happy! I know Vesak falls on Tuesday in Singapore but here it falls today. I guess there are different days for different countries so yup. I've always thought Vesak falls on the full-moon of the 4th lunar calendar (and that's Tuesday). Oh well new discoveries everyday! New lessons learned.

And also today I am a raw-vegan for a day! Shall blog about it tomorrow night.

Because... Tonight I wanna discuss here something about my religion. About being a Buddhist.

I have always regarded myself as a Buddhist since young. That's because, I tell myself that. That's because my family is a Buddhist and that I went to a temple for my Sunday school. When I was young I have never understood Buddhism. I see it as a religion and a practice that I ought to follow because I am born a Buddhist. It's true.

It was only in the recent years (like 5 years back) that I began to learn more about this religion of mine. And only recently that I begin to understand the beauty of it. Ever since 2012, when I went to the temple (Mangala Vihara) for their Sunday service, I truly begin to understand about Buddhism. The parita (chantings) that I read, and with a little bit of diligence and curiosity I went to search more about it from the internet and the books.

So I began in my conquest of finding out what does being a Buddhist mean. Is it being someone who goes to the temple everyday and chant everyday? Or someone who's a devoted vegetarian throughout his life? Or someone who shaves his head and stay in a cave to meditate for years to attain enlightenment? To me none of these are definitions of a Buddhist. In fact, I think one definition is not enough to define a Buddhist. It's not. Besides, I always remember the words of the Buddha. That no matter how many holy words you read, if you don't practise them, it's equivalent to nothing.

Of course, I would want to be like the Buddha, to reach enlightenment. And be free from the cycle of births and attain Nirvana. But does that mean that I have to "wait till I die" to see if I am free from this cycle of births?

After reading a lot of online materials and books, I realised that one does not need to sort of "live a life" to attain enlightenment. Yes, I think all (or most) goals of Buddhists is to attain enlightenment. So now, let me ask you, how do you define being enlightened?

Does being enlightened mean you become a person with a golden halo on top as you walk. Or maybe you feel like a supreme being walking on earth, somehow.

To me, being enlightened means to have short and simple revelations in life, that adds up to form your own meaning of life. It's like getting an epiphany to yourself and then this small thing can change the rest of your life, forever. For example, I've learned that I won't live forever, so I've decided to live my life to the fullest. Another example is that life is a suffering but it's something I feel worth suffering for. So I'll just bear with it. I've learned that nothing is permanent, not even your good days. So laugh the bad days off, because they'll be over one day.

I revolve around the 3 basic principles of existence of Buddhism. One is anicca which means impermanence Second is anatta which means non-self and the last is dukkha which means suffering.Anicca is simple and straight forward, that nothing is permanent. I've been grappling with the other two for years. To realise how those two relate to principles of existence. Now I kinda find out what they mean. In my own definition of course.

Anatta means non-self, and to me it means you need to accept the fact that there's no "I" in "me" (literally!). Meaning to get rid of your ego and selfish desires to be happy. This is a really difficult thing to do in my opinion. And because of its difficulty, we will grapple with this problem all of our lives. And thus results in the last principle, dukkha or suffering.

So yeah, if you can revolve around the three basic principles of existence, I'm sure one day you will get these small "revelations" about life. These will then help you to create your own meaning in life. And you'll be able to lead a happy and mindful life. And I think, to me, that's really equivalent of being enlightened. Because it feels like you have your own life to walk on. It feels like you have nothing else missing in life. You're wholesome. You're enlightened.

So yep. I think that's my definition of being a Buddhist. Someone who puts the words of the Buddha into practice, and revolves their lives around the 3 basic principles of existence. If done well, you'll be a Buddha - an enlightened person.

Before I end off this post I want to add a quote I come across with.

"Yankinci samudaya-dhammam sabban-tam nirodha-dhammanti" 
Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation

Remember that your life will cease one day. Make the best out it. Be the best out of it.

Happy Waisak once again!

Mother's Day

 A mother's love, is a language

often misunderstood and misinterpreted

by her children.

It's pretty annoying that my internet is cheating my feeling for the past two days. It was working fine last night but well it died in the morning, and now it's still deciding whether it wants to live or die. So no I gotta see that internet bar if the signal is dead or alive. So I won't be able to publish this, and gotta wait for it to be alive again (if it dies halfway, hopefully not).

So yes it's the 2nd Sunday of May and Mother's Day is celebrated around the world. Except here because we're hipsters and celebrate it on the 22nd of December instead haha. Just kidding, yes we celebrate it in December. And as for me personally, we don't celebrate it. Like we don't buy cakes and make cards for my mother. We do it on her birthday more.

Every year without fail, my social media feed is filled with people wishing a happy Mother's day to their mothers and to all mothers around the world. And it's pretty heartening to see photos of themselves with their mothers in the present or in the past. So sweet! Sadly my mum doesn't like her photo to be taken so we rarely take pictures together except for special events like weddings or CNY etc haha. But it's alright, I don't like the take photos of myself either.

Anyway, and without fail also, there are those people who'll post "Today is not mother's day, everyday should be a mother's day!" which I totally agree. But wouldn't it be so creepy to tell the world how much you love your mother everyday hahaha. Well I take it that this day is really a day dedicated to all mothers out there, but especially your mother.

And I take this day as a day where we sit down and contemplate to ourselves about our mother. The strong lady who brought us up till today. Who had to carry us in her womb for 9 torturous months and then bring us into this world and raise us till today. Please, that's like the toughest job you can ever ask for haha. So salute to our mothers!

So take today as a day where we think about how we can pay back our mum's hard work to make us who we are today. That's why we use this day to give her cards, cakes and cook for them etc, to tell her specially how much we love them. Because we are so busy everyday that we forget this fact, to be thankful for them. So there is today, a day where we do that because we might forget to do it every other days because we're really busy with work.

Well I'm pretty sure my mum won't see this but well I am really thankful for my mum too. She's caring, wise and definitely a strong lady. She's a great cook, and I will never forget the things she did for me when I was in Singapore and up till today. Living away from your mum for a long time has really made me appreciate her more and more. Although we're back together now, I miss those phonecalls she made when I was still in Singapore.

And without fail she will ask me: "Have I eaten?"

That, to me, are the three most powerfully lovable and caring words a mum can utter.

For Asians HAHAHA.

Yes my mum nags a lot at times, but she nags because she loves me haha, that's what I always believe in since young. As we grow older, we grow smarter. And our ego made its way and we feel we're more "righteous" than our mothers. We rebel against what she told us to do simply because we feel we're "smarter" than her. And yes I'm guilty of doing such things too. But most of the time, mum is always right! Seriously hahaha.

So well I feel that a mother's love is a language often misunderstood and misinterpreted by her children. It is only until her children have children, that they will understand why. It is important that we respect our parents. Because we can't deny it but our parents have more experiences than us. Instead of rebutting with them, talk to them. That's all we need actually.

To my mum, I'm sorry if I have offended you in any way, and if I ever did something bad to you. Just wanna let you know how much I love you and how thankful I am to you for raising me since I'm a kid! :) It's time for me to pay back my debts to you. So yes, this is one major reason why I decided to return back here. I want to pay the debts I owe to my parents.

Alright I guess that's all for now. Praying that the internet will start working ASAP. Gonna call the technician tomorrow I suppose. Have an awesome week ahead everyone!

No Internet, No worries (?)

So right, I'm currently blogging without the house's internet being on. But thanks to the wonder of technology I'm using my phone's Wi-fi hotspot tethering so yay! I've been wanting to blog but the past few days the internet hasn't been a great friend of mine but anyway I decided to blog now. I hope my phone's bills won't explode because of this.

But anyway can't believe it's May already! If March went by pretty slowly to me, I truly feel that April went by pretty quickly somehow. I don't know why. I hope the next three months will zoom by too :P May's been good so far so I'm thankful for that. I hope the rest of the month will turn out as lovely. May is kind of the month I've been waiting for because Coldplay's new album is coming out HAHAHA. But yes been waiting for it so 19th May come faster!

Although the internet has been pretty wonky the past two days, I'm kind of enjoying it? So as usual I try to find ways to occupy myself. Last night I was tidying up my computer haha. And looking through old photos which made me feel really sentimental :( And tonight I was doing up some "report". I suppose life without internet is kinda inconvenient because well I can't do my favourite things. But it has its wonders and beauty too I suppose.

Alright just gonna make it a short post but I'm going to do the Great Music of April here!

Great Music of April:
- Going Home by Asgeir
- Torrent by Asgeir
- Human by Christina Perri
- Beautiful Times by Owl City featuring Lindsey Stirling

I really fell in love with Asgeir's whole album, In The Silence! So the two above are my favourite tracks from him. But the whole album is just so good. It's pretty funny actually how I actually liked Asgeir's video on Youtube of him singing dýrð í dauðaþögn, which is the Icelandic version of "In The Silence". When I listened to In The Silence I'm like why is he singing in English? Hahaha. But I'm thankful of the English version because that means I get to understand the lyrics and the song more.

Beautiful Times is a lovely new song from Owl City. I love the lyrics because they kinda speak about how I'm feeling right now. And Lindsey's violin playing is just as lovely too. I hope he's making a new album! :P

Alright that's all from me! Internet, I hope you get well soon. 

Incidence

I am not a superstitious person. Okay maybe I am but I'm definitely not a hundred percent superstitious. I do believe in traditions, religious or regional or racial. For example I believe in not washing my head during Chinese New Year cause I don't want to wash my luck away. I don't like to walk alone during Maghrib (evening, around 6 PM), and I believe in ghosts and supernatural things, because I've experienced them somehow somewhat.

Okay the thing is, I still believe in some superstitions haha.

Okay something interesting happened to me today. The Chinese believes that there are good days, and bad days for everything. For marriage, setting up your business, opening a shop, funerals, and etc. Every Chinese New Year there is a book for such dates for the rest of the year. And yes I read them and sometimes I take it as a guide. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not but well, I'm just taking it as a guide. Besides it's very interesting to know about this.

Today something got stuck in my eyes. I think it's a hair or a fine dust but anyway, I was trying to get it out. I tried folding my eyelid up but it failed. I use eye drops and failed too. So I decided to leave it alone. Just now in the night, I was just flipping that book to see what today brings me. And in the "things to avoid doing" section, it is written: "treating your eyes". I gasped and lots of things went inside my head. But one thing pops out the most: is that how co-incidental it is.

I was already thinking what will happen next. What bad things will happen to me next. Because well it is something I shouldn't be doing today. But well it has happened so I couldn't do anything either. I can't turn back time and not-treat my eyes right. So I sit down and ponder. Well maybe... I don't know. But I'm still very surprised about how co-incidental this whole situation is. And all these made me to where I am now, writing all these thoughts.

There are a lot of life lessons I've learned the past 21 years but one of the most powerful lesson I've learned is that everything happens for a reason. I saw a photo on Tumblr/Facebook once about the recounts (not sure if it's true or not) of some people during the 9/11 incident. How someone missed his bus to work, someone lost her wallet or something like that, and all these made them not-be at the world trade centre on that day. And the post ended that well where you are and what you are doing is happening for a reason, and that you are where you're supposed to be now.

I couldn't agree less to this. I've always believed that the littlest things we do in life happen for a reason. Why we walk on a certain road, not the other. Why we ordered this food and not that food. Why we ate this first, and not that. Why we do this second and not first. All of the small things in life, they all lead up to something that we don't know. And it's pretty scary and wonderful to know this fact at the same time. Isn't it quite cool eh? All these mysteries.

So yes going back to the Chinese calendars. Well after getting all these thoughts I kinda think that why some dates are good dates and bad dates to do certain things, is because we don't really know the answer to what lies ahead. I choose to think of it as this way. If we choose the good dates, there is something behind that date that will make everything smooth. AKA, nothing will crop out during that day. And if we choose a bad date, something will screw up.

And in the end, we choose that day ourselves. It's not like we are pre-destined to choose that day, but we chose it. So yes, I feel that in the end, we are the ones that choose our actions, which will lead up to something else. So perhaps, there's no such things as "superstitions" because at the end of the day we are the ones that choose our actions and do them.

I suppose the good and bad days are there for a reason too. And like what I believe in, I think they are there to guide us along. And as a Buddhist, I believe whatever good and bad things that come between us are the result of the good and bad karma we plant on ourselves. So I'll just keep on doing good deeds in hoping to repay my bad karma of my previous life. And hopefully, not so many not so nice things will come in my way. If you know what I mean.

So yes. Life is wonderful indeed to tell us that everything happened for a reason indeed. Because eventually, all of these superstitions are the result of our actions because we choose to believe in it. And because we choose to believe in it, we let life, fate and destiny decide what will happen next. We don't know the future. No one knows.

Alright I guess that's all for now. It's a pretty quiet Saturday night somehow.

Hooked

Whew it's been a week since I blogged. Kinda feel guilty about it but well I've been busy for the past week... Because I spent the night watching Games of Thrones!! Hahaha. Well so what happened was two weeks ago I went to watch the second episode of GoT season 4 because Sigur Ros played there as a special appearance. So they were a group of musicians for the stupid king jeoffrey in his wedding and he threw coins at them. How dare he :O

I didn't know what was going on because I didn't watch since the first season. I know Vithya watched GoT so I was talking to her about it and she told me I need to watch it from the first season (oh cause I told her I'll just watch from season 4 onwards). But when I heard that each season only has 10 episodes, I decided to give it a go. And boy oh my, I actually got so hooked that I watched 2 episodes on the first night (Sunday night) hahaha.

So yes I kept on watching every night. No I'm done with season 1 so I'm giving it a break.

And another reason is because Vithya and I actually joined an online class! Well it's like an online course about music by Novoed which I believe is (somehow somewhere) associated with Stanford university. It is free, which to me makes it such an amazing and meaningful course to attend, and I really love the lecturer of this course, Ms Tina Seelig because she's really inspirational and her weekly lectures are really interesting! I've been doing assignments too which is fun.

So this week's assignment was a team assignment so Vithya and I had to think of 100 ideas how music can be used to solve a problem. It was pretty exciting and interesting how we managed to come up with 100 ideas when well to be honest I was feeling really skeptical about coming up with so many! But well thanks to the lectures in the previous weeks and also Vithya's interesting ideas and creativity I managed to think quite a lot of ideas so yay kudos to that!

Pretty excited to know the rest of the course. It's pretty interesting! And I truly enjoy it as well because it makes me feel like I'm going back to school again with all these lectures and assignments. Although umm it's only once a week. I wish I can be in Singapore so that Vithya and I can discuss things more easily cause now we communicate with emails and Whatsapp haha. But no worries, it's still manageable thankfully. So yup looking forward to more lessons!

Anyway before I left poly, someone very special to me told me to not stop learning. To join whatever online courses I want to join. And to seek him if I ever need help. I'm living up to his words so thank you for the gentle reminder you told me :)

Alright I will try to blog more okay! GoT is really hooking though. Love the story!

Generation

 Don't stop searching

It's been quite long since I blogged well as usual, didn't have the time to. Besides I was busy for the past couples of night cause of some other stuff. Nevertheless I'm here. Today was a lovely Thursday indeed I suppose. The weather was fine, and for the first time in weeks we don't have heavy rains. Just a lovely drizzle with blue skies above. No rainbow though sadly.

Today my grandmother's sister (that makes her my great-aunt eh) came to my home. Well she was walking to my house actually, under the drizzle oh dear! I approached her and sadly she forgets my name hahaha. Well she knows I'm my dad's son, just that she forgot my name. So I re-introduced myself and turned out she came to visit my aunt who was at that moment not present at home. So she just passed some food for her and me, and she made her way back home.

It was drizzling so I offered her a car ride but she declines and she told me she just wanna walk (her house is near mine by the way). So I took an umbrella and walked with her but she insists of walking alone oh dear! But so did I insist to walk together with her, home. So yup thankfully it stopped drizzling so we were just walking and chatting. Until I ensured that she reached her house safely. And then I just made my way back home by myself.

It truly frightens and shocks me to know she actually walked to my house alone, and that she had to cross a busy street, and she couldn't walk quickly (I think she's 80 now?). I was so worried! I told her to be careful and maybe next time she should ask someone to accompany her. She even told me she went to Bogor by train alone and back and forth. And she even got lost once where she took a local transport here and she didn't know where to stop.

While walking home with her, she was just holding my hand and we chatted away. It really makes me sad because she reminds me so much of my late grandmother. They look like carbon copies seriously haha. And with the worry that I had about her safety and my memories with my grandma. But then again, I realised that the old people of my hometown are really brave. I know a few of my relatives and also other people who make walking long distances around my hometown something so normal and easy. Something, that many people of our generation don't feel so.

So yes which brings me to the topic I wanna talk about today - generation.

I'm very sure we all have went through those situations where our parents/grandparents/older people criticise our generation. That we are weak, incapable, not concerned about things, this and that. It has become some sort of a familiar song to us? Growing up, listening to all these words come out from people who are much much older than us. From people, who come from a generation way before ours. A generation of great differences from where we are now.

I come across a TedX talk about Generation Y by Eunice Hii (you can watch it here) and it is one of my favourite TedX talks. Because she really speaks about how I feel at times. Well we're generation Y. a generation born in the early 80s to late 90s. And our parents are generation X. A generation before us basically. Two very different generations.

On one hand, we generation Ys live and grow up in a current world where things are far more convenient than the times where our parents grew up. Lets do a comparison. Okay I'm going to term X as the years where our parents grew up and Y, the years where we grow up (AKA now).

During X years, technology isn't advanced yet as compared to Y. In X years times were rather tough too because a lot of countries are in hanging in a period of instability (wars, revolutions etc) but in Y years things are pretty much settled down. During X years, since economic stability isn't there yet, having an economically-stable family is paramount. That's why I think, in my opinion, this is the reason why a lot of Asian parents would love their kids to be doctors/lawyers/businessmen - so that they have a stable income who can support.

Where opposed to Y years now, people have learned that maybe going for your passion is more important than making money. This is why a lot of people from X years feel that no one should go to the Arts industry because you won't be able to support yourself. I suppose we live in what I call the days of dreams. Where we chase our dreams, more importantly, than our economical stability. Which is both good and bad I suppose. Nothing is perfect.

And technology truly supports this days of dreams. Let me give you an example. The internet and Natgeo magazines have helped me to form my dream of traveling around the world with all of their beautiful images of this planet. In the past there's no internet, there's no flight from Singapore to Germany, or Indonesia to Australia. Traveling around the world was so tough, so little people wanted to do it! So yes, in a lot of people's minds - traveling is a waste of time.

And with this, people go for a more secured and straight-forward jobs and they make economical stability their priority. 

I am feeling pretty thankful about where I am today. The world I'm living in today (although yes it's still pretty much a terrifying world). I've heard stories of my parents about how tough life was back then. No technology, there was war and revolutions etc. And life is definitely (not to a whole extent) much better than how it was 50 years ago.

Although people of generation X chose a more straightforward approach to life, and working. Where they choose economical stability than dreams and passions, they have helped to support their future generations. All these careful planning have made us who we are today. They're able to send us to school, till university. Sometimes even help you till you're married, or help for your marriage where they help your housing and loans and etc.

Some of my Indonesian friends call it the "father mother scholarship" hahaha.

And once again, I am very thankful to my parents because they have been supporting me throughout, till where I am now. I wouldn't be here blogging well in English if it weren't for them, who supported my study in Singapore.

But do we also mean that generation Y is wrong? That we should all just ditch our ideas of chasing the dreams and choose something safe instead? Should we just make sure we have enough money for our future generations, over choosing our dreams and passion?

No. Because I (or hopefully we) believe that we generation Y are bringing about a change in the system. I'm very sure we can support our family while doing the things that we love. I'm very sure if we pass down our morals and teachings about loving our families and so on to our children, we can make them support their families whole-heartedly too. That money isn't everything, really, to support our family and our generations to come.

I come to a conclusion, that nothing is perfect. Both generations have their flaws and beauty. And that if we can combine them both like a beautiful tapestry, we'll for a generation that is so well, so beautiful, it beats both generations. Generation X are the hardworkers while generation Y are the people that want to bring a positive change to the way things used to be. That's my opinion about these two generations. At the end of the day it is up to the people of both groups to how they see themselves and the other party. You know.

But ultimately, I also come across something:
We will never be able to go through what our parents went through.
And neither can our parents go through what we go through.
Because we both live in two very different generations, two very different ages.

I'm going to end off this post with a saying by Ali Bin Abi Thalib
"Do not raise your children the way [your] parents raised you. 
They were born for a different time"

100/365

 Happy 100th day!

Right today is the 100th day of the year! Time flies indeed eh. And also at the same time I feel happy because I accomplished 100 of the 365 photos taken so far for Project365! Yay. I did a collage of photos which I took over the past 100 days. Looking back it is quite pretty to look at these photos haha.

It's quite challenging I must say to take 100 different photos everyday. Although sometimes I would "repeat" my photos, like taking photos of skies etc. But hey no sky is the same from any given day right so it is considered different, you know what I mean. And sometimes I take pictures of objects like food and others. I know they may seem not as "wow" as you would expect it to be, but I suppose it's fine. Because I have more than one goal in this project.

The main objective of this project is to ensure that I do what I love doing everyday - and that is taking photos. I'm not a photographer so it's pretty difficult for me to go for a shoot everyday, or even every week or month. So I am using my trusty handphone to take these photos and I'm fine with it. Of course I hope to be a better photographer but that's kinda hard since I'm using a phone camera instead of a proper DSLR like my awesome Sony.

But like the saying goes, it's not the camera but the photographer! Heh :P

And I would also want to make this project like a visual diary for me? It feels pretty amazing to look back on the photos and really rewind to the day where I took that photo. What was happening, why did I take that photo and so on. And also I want to take this opportunity to take pictures of things I love, and also things I'm grateful for. Thus the food. I love food! So I don't mind taking pictures of food and remind myself how lucky I am, actually, to have something to eat.

A lot of my friends are joining that 100 happy days movement thingy. And I truly support it, because it is one step closer to being a happy person. If you find 100 things that can make you happy consecutively everyday I'm sure you'll find it easier to find things that make you happy for the rest of the days. And also you'll realise you don't need a lot of things to be happy. You don't need money and expensive food and so on. Simple things make you happy!

Although I find it really ironic where some of my friends would post something like

"#100happydays. Monday is here tomorrow and I'm dreading it"

That just completely destroy the purpose of this project heh.

Anyho, taking 100 different photos everyday is a challenge for me because number one, I don't travel much here. Unlike in Singapore where I have to take 2 buses to school, walk a lot around school, take 2 buses home or even walk home, go to the supermarket by walking this and that. So I have loads of photography opportunities. Here, is a totally different story. So yeah I find it rather challenging with this aspect of not traveling a lot here (by foot).

Number 2 is the fact that I don't spend much time outdoors. And outdoors is where the magic is. But this adds up to the challenge. Like sometimes I'll capture interesting things that I find indoors. Like for example the tea leaves in a container, or the butter cookies in a can that looks pretty inside. Or I can find interesting patterns and so on.

However with all of these things, I also learn a wonderful lesson that actually everything around us is beautiful. It's really up to us to whether we actually see it (or want to see it). Like what Confucius said, Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it. So Project365 has definitely helped me to think outside the box, and to see the unseen beauties of this world. So yes, I'm eager to know what the next 265 days have in offer for me!

Alright that's all for now. If you wanna jump in the band wagon you can do so! You can start Project265 and it's not so bad eh :P