Happy Vesak Day - May 19 2019

Today is Vesak Day, May 19, 2019.

Happy Vesak Day!

Ancient site, Mes Aynak, needs saving not destroying

Just like the Bamiyan Buddha statues that were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban in Afghanistan, another Buddhist site in Afghanistan, is slated for destruction end of this year. The site is Mes Aynak, a 2,600-year-old Buddhist site in Logar province, Afghanistan. All of the temples, monasteries, statues as well as the Bronze age material will be destroyed.

What would take 30-35 years to salvage, archaeologists have been given just three months to salvage whatever Buddhist artefacts they can find before the site is converted to a massive open-pit style copper mine by a Chinese government-owned company called China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC). Six villages and the mountain range will also be destroyed in the process.

Brent Huffman, filmmaker and professor, is doing whatever he can to save the destruction of this historical site he believes is the missing link showing Afghanistan's historic role in Asia. He says destroying Mes Aynak is equivalent to wiping Machu Picchu off the map.

More on CNN - Ancient site needs saving not destroying

CNN Editor's note on the writer, Brent Huffman, of the above article:
Brent Huffman is a documentary filmmaker and assistant professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He started making a film about the Mes Aynak site in the summer of 2011 thinking he would be documenting the site before it was demolished and recording the process of rescue archeology. Now he hopes he can use his film to raise awareness to actually save Mes Aynak.

Watch a video on YouTube..

Happy Wesak Day!

Happy Wesak Day!

A few Buddha quotes below to share:

- If you light a lamp for someone else it will also brighten your path.

- To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.

- If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way.

- If it is not truthful and not helpful, don't say it.
If it is truthful and not helpful, don't say it.
If it is not truthful and helpful, don't say it.
If it is truthful and helpful, wait for the right time.

- You can only lose what you cling to.


Image source: Wikipedia

I had a dream..

This morning, I woke up with an unusual dream. I dreamt that I was invited to Japan (no city indicated) on a week-long vacation to see a motorsport (again no indication of whether it was Formula One or what).

The strange part is, or rather what's bizarre is that when I arrived in Japan, I realised I forgot to pack anything - no clothes, no toothbrush, nothing. Zilch!! And, even stranger is that one of the suitcases was empty - probably mine - and the suitcase is in such a vivid color. It's bright shocking green! Bizarre, don't you think? Dreams... they are so weird..

Another time, I literally woke up laughing. I dreamt that we were playing mahjong and we cracked a really funny joke. It had something to do with pigs. It was so hilarious that in my dream, I told myself I simply had to remember the joke so that I could relate it to friends at work. When I woke up, the dream was still fresh in my mind but in the end, I never did get to tell it because I couldn't recall the details enough to tell it. Perhaps, I should have quickly noted it down.

You're familiar with the sixth sense, right? In Buddhism, it is believed dreams sometimes take us back to incidents in our previous life/lives. This is referred to as beyond the sixth sense. It's eighth, if I recall correctly. The seventh is something else, which escapes me right now. Let me find out and get back.

Have you ever had any bizarre or funny dream(s)? Care to share them?

The New Landmark in Penang - The Goddess of Mercy Pavilion

In George Town, Penang, more than 13,000 people attended the consecration and opening of the 20-storey pavilion over the Goddess of Mercy (Kuan Yin) statue at the Kek Lok Si Temple in Air Itam here yesterday.

The pavilion, measuring 82.7m from the base to the tip, features a three-tiered pagoda-style roof and is supported by 16 granite pillars.

Each pillar consists of 40 circular blocks of 45cm-thick granite and has a circumference of 2.1m.

Among them were some 3,000 venerable religious leaders of the Mahayana, Theravada and Vajrayana traditions from Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Cambodia, Thailand and Bhutan.

More from The Star..13,000 attend consecration of pavilion





Source: The Star

Related article:
20-storey Pavilion over the Goddess of Mercy (Kuan Yin) Statue - Penang

Themed Photography: Wonder

If only we would stop to smell the roses, fascination and pleasure can be derived from the simplest of things around us. Below are pictures submitted by readers of bbc.com whose subject is based on the theme, Wonder. What gives you a sense of wonder? Here are more pictures of what BBC readers find wonderful.

Girl timidly turning a Tibetan prayer wheel

Beauty of a spider web

A local park transformed by the sun

A reading spot in Fiji



And still on the element of Wonder, out in the sands of the Gobi desert, Buddhist relics have been recently uncovered. More pictures available on BBC.

Romance in the afterlife

This is the seventh month of the Lunar calendar, so tales are aplenty in the Chinese community, pertaining to the afterlife, and some could be quite bizarre, believe me.

As a child, I have heard of my grandmother telling about a couple getting married. What is unusual about it is that the two getting married were actually deceased. You might be interested to note that this is not an isolated case as this kind of event does happen in the Taoist/Buddhist society.

Recently, a family up north went through such a ritual.