I remember the smiling face and consider myself so lucky to actually have seen it. I took this photo last year and am reposting it again. This year there was only one eye. Hope you like it.
I remember Ernesto who told me one of the other eye is Venus (or was it Jupiter he said). Silly me argued that they were satellites cos they don’t blink.

Ernesto was right. One of them is a planet. My son says it is Jupiter. Looking at the night sky the other night with Ronald when there were no rain clouds, I am quite certain one of the eyes of the smiling face is indeed Jupiter.

I now have the urge to buy a refractor telescope. Purpose? To see if I can see the four moons of Jupiter. Why? Just for the heck of it.

I mirrored this in www.mixedjar.com too.

Passing on of a Friend

It is with sadness that I write this.

A week or two ago, I learnt that a friend Mr. Wong has passed on. He must be near 70 and I've not seen him for quite some time, like nears. Our lives crossed. He was a good man.

We found this out only because a friend whom he gave some Sivali relics to called his home to tel him the relics he gave has multipled. ( Relics do multiply and this is not the first time it had done so. Such multiplication is seen as a manifestation of the Buddha presence)

Death so often forgets us or rather we forget our own immortality and the brevity of our presence here. We touch the lives of others but more our lives are touched by those who share this same sphere with us.

Life is about finding happiness. May all find that.

I have with me a rare talisman of Luang Por Thot which he gave to me and that will always remind me of him.

To you, Mr. Wong may you move on and swiftly find the truth you seek.

This Blog Has Moved

This blog has found a new home and moved to www.mixedjar.com....

Blessings, Curses and I love you

It is said that the most powerful form of blessings and curses are those that are delivered telepathically followed by visually. The least powerful are those done orally. The tongue burns everything.
This would provide some food for thought for those who complain that their spouses never say enough of ‘I love you’. Maybe the force of love is more powerful if it remains in the heart. Once uttered that force is burnt to ashes. Is not the love that flows from the eyes of your lover much more sweeter than plain cursory words?

H1N1

As all news, the H1N1 scare is now stale news. Interest has died down but on astro star movies 'The Legend" starring Will Smith brought out the scary part of virus attacks. In this movie, virus killed everyone, well almost. With WHO announcing that H1N1 virus is attacking the lungs direct making it more deadly, isn't that scary?

There are things we can do I suppose and that would include keeping a healthy lifestye, washing hands often, avoid touching our nose and faces too much, avoiding public places with many people. One thing I question. Is the wearing of mask helpful? Wearing them can be more harmful as it can be easily contaminated meaning we will be breathing in more germs and virus. I thought masks were meant for those who are sick to avoid spreading the bugs.

Wing Chun Kung Fu

Recently there was a hong kong movie featuring Donny Yen and Simon Yam. The title of the movie is “Ip Man”.

This movie is interesting to me for many reasons.

The first is that it is about the Chinese kung fu or self defense art of Wing Chun. Wing Chun is an effective, efficient and scientific self defense method. I know this as I have trained in it for many years. It is quite thrilling to see a movie about Ip Man or Yip Man the founding father of contemporary wing chun. Although there are many scenes in the movie which is not wing chun but nonetheless, wing chun is the theme. With the release of this wing chun movie, I hope that wing chun will become more popular or at the very least, many will know that it exists.

Secondly, not many kung fu movies are made these days. Many of us will remember the heyday of kung fu movies of the 70s and 80s. Those were the days of shaolin kung fu and no less Bruce Lee. Pardon me but somehow it is unavoidable to mention Bruce Lee whenever kung fu is mentioned. Looks like this occasion is no exception. Good kung fu movies are rare and this one has Simon Yam and Donny Yen, veteran stars in their own right. I will not say much about the moves for kung fu is not about flowery or fancy moves but this one is at least nice to watch. My sifu told me that there has been an increased interest and enquiry for training in his wing chun center which he attributes to the release of this movie. That is good.

From my experience with the martial arts students, many have taken the wrong approach. Many think it is a macho thing. Chauvinism and egoism play big roles and this reflects ignorance of the purpose of training (at least for contemporary society). They do not understand the essence of kung fu or martial art.

The true student of kung fu eventually develops humility. A student who goes into the punching bag with his or her full ego has missed the point. Of course, the skill grows and with that confidence and respect for life too. Well…I know a good wing chun teacher in Kuala Lumpur so if anyone is interested, drop me an email

1Malaysia Fund Investment

Malaysia has launched the 1Malaysia fund. Can anyone advise whether this is a good investment?

heart attack and aspirin

I heard that it si good practice to keep two aspirins by one's bedside. Should it happen that one should wake up with chest pains and suspect that a heart attack is imminent, then swallow these two aspirins, call the neighbour, say heart attack and request for emergency help. Say you have taken two aspirins. And not to lie down.

This is important information but is there anyone out there who can verify this as the right thing to do in a suspected heart attack situation...taking aspirins i mean.

Surgeons, Butchers and Karma

Ever wondered what butchers and surgeons have in common?

I read this from a book and am in no position to judge but it is good food for thought. Both butchers and surgeons are said to be meat cleavers and in some way love to feel the cutting of flesh. It quotes that some surgeons get a thrill when they cut. It further goes to say that this is a carry over of karma from a past existence. Hmmm..

Real or not, it makes one wonder about all our actions and the karma that is in constant play. All the ever present human emotions that surface with every action we make. Are they colored by lust, anger or greed? The butcher cuts for a livelihood so does the surgeon. How thick can we draw the line between what is a means of survival and what is an exorbitant fee?

light of the lamps

The lamps may be different but the light is the same...Humphrey *** from Gubra

Perception : Judge not that I not be judged

I had two encounters with perception, rather how I can jump to a conclusion which is totally wrong.

The first incident happened in Lumbini during the Drikung 2003 monkey year teachings. We were in the common mess ground with many local kids who came to revel in the atmosphere of the teachings as well as for some free food. I saw a fellow Malaysian lady travel companion fished into her handbag, took out a couple of coffeemate sticks and offered them to some of the local kids. She proceeded to ask the kids to rip open the packet and eat them.


I was a little shocked as the coffemate came with the airline food handout. Shocked because I could not imagine anyone eating coffeemate by pouring them into their mouths, let alone anyone thinking of offering coffeemate to kids. I believed them to be unhealthy. In fact, I was so taken aback that I remarked that it was not a good thing to do.


Know what? Later I saw this same lady opening another stick of coffemate and eating it herself. This gave me a thorough lesson in perception and unfairly judging others. If I had thought that this lady was not being very kind in giving away coffemate to kids, I was wrong in judging her. She had in all kindness offered the kids, because to her, coffemate is a treat.

Another incident happened recently. I was in Yushu, a remote town in Qinghai, where I saw four monks sitting in a street corner chanting and drumming along with a hat for offerings in front of them.


I thought this to be unbecoming of monks to ‘beg’ this way. I did not make an offering but strangely gave some to another group a short distance away.

I was left somewhat ashamed when I later learnt that recently many monks who were studying or abiding in monasteries were turned out when the Chinese government changed the rules limiting the number of monks in monasteries. Most refused to disrobe as they preferred to be monks. Some had relatives to support them while others had to look for other ways of continuing their monkhood. Thus the seeking of alms in the fashion I saw.

Once again I was too quick to pass judgment based on narrow views and ignorance.

fengshui healing, my other blog

Pretty blue flowers.....I have been blogging for quite a while on fengshui on my other blog. Visit www.fengshuihealing.blogspot.com for another piece.

Respect and your Child

A friend sent me an excerpt from Patrick Teoh's blog which spoke about how kids of the 50's,60's and 70's did all the wrong things which would have parents today shaking their heads. Those kids, albeit older today, are still fine.

This brought to my mind something about how children learn. Often, I meet friends show me their kids, sometimes their grandkids and what struck me most is that these kids do not say hello or call "uncle" as we were taught to. They would often act bored or just refuse to sall even when coaxed.

It is not that I want to feel good to be called "uncle" as it matters nothing to me. What I feel sad for them is that their elders did not provide them with a good foundation. They are left to learn the finer points and qualities on their own when they go out into the world. These qualities are the foundation for loving , caring, respect and humility.
Kids learn from their elders. If the parents do not stand up and greet visitors, then it is uniklely that the child will do so later in life. The child will not see that to take time to greet a visitor (or a family member returning home), even though one is busy, for example eating, is an act of courtesy and respect. Who would blame the child, if in later life, he would not as much as glance at the father when he comes home from work?

Another observation. If you want to know how your host rates you, just check how he sends you off. Does he/she let you leave on your own or are you sent to the door? If you are asking for a loan, you will notice that the front door is closed right after you are outside and before you have a chance to put on your shoes. However if you love her, you will walk her all the way to her car and wave as she drives off.

Fengshui, trigrams- the subtle aspect

Evaluation and confirmation based on the stars-this phrase is very important.

In fact it is a rule that should underscore all fengshui evaluations. It is not something new that has been created recently for it is an extension of the eight trigrams. More likely, practitioners through time had relieved too heavily on set formula and pithy instructions so much so that the true nature of fengshui was lost.

Most evaluations of fengshui rely on the natal chart. It is a very useful aid in the understanding of the nature of the fengshui that are present. The only fault is that too heavy a reliance on it could result in conclusions that may be off the mark. Good fengshui requires reading of the chart together with assessing the situation at hand.

One does not have to be a psychic or sensitive or anything of that sort but one does need to differentiate the attributes that the environment presents so that their effect on the fengshui can be evaluated or better still confirmed. If this evaluation and confirmation based on the stars is not practised then the job is not complete. It is just like aligning the wheels of our car. Like the fengshui natal chart, the instrument that were built to take measurements of the wheels of our car do not require much intelligence to use them. The machines, on their own, possess no intelligence. The good mechanic cleverly makes adjustments to the wheels base on what he reads off the instrument. He also observes the wear of the tyres for tell tale signs of what is wrong. This is where his judgment is called for. There is one mechanic in Seremban who is acknowledged as the best in wheel alignments. Where the latest instrument fails to determine the fault, he can do so just by taking the car for a short drive round the block. That skill comes from experience and understanding. Likewise, the luopan, natal chart and trigrams are but instruments. Fengshui requires making use of the information available to achieve the desired result.

New FengShui Book

27April2009 was a day of sorts. Collected the prints of the new book. Hope to hit the stores early.

If you would like to support, the price is RM30 a copy. There will be postage on top of that. At the bookshops, the price is RM35. The email is goodfengshuiadvice@gmail.com

I hope this book is a start for more translations and explanations of old fengshui text from chinese into english. Non-chinese readers are at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing more about fengshui mainly caused by the language and lack of understanding of fengshui principles.

I feel that the value of this book lies at the very least on its translation which I believe is accurate. Happy reading.

Go little Bird

Ants raided your nest
Down you plopped - did it hurt?
Starved of your mother's care
Was the sesames I fed you alright?
Stress, shock or was it the cold
that caused you to leave that morning?
Hopefully the warm sunshine
Will be your last remembrance
Of the short time you spent here
Go, little bird, we shall remember your shallow grave
and may your next birth be a better one!

Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung

They say that the world is seen through the eyes.And what we see depends on how we see.
I remember Ajahm Brahm relating an experience in his book "Who Ordered this Truckload of Dung?". Before he became a monk, he was on one retreat and during one break he noticed that a clump of bamboos was so beautiful. So much so
that he found time there at every opportunity.
However when he returned there some time later, the bamboo clump was nothing special. The Magic was gone. What I think he meant to say was that external things do not change. It is ourself and our perception that determines how things appear to us. Whether we see magic depends on ourself. Happiness begins from inside.

Plastic Bottles Unsafe?

The safety or rather the danger of plastic water bottles has been circulating in cyber space and in print. I saw a printout of this plastered on the notice board at Songtsen library too so I did some research and guess what I discovered.

According to snopes.com, it seems that there is no truth in this at all. Plastic bottles are safe. Some chap did a university thesis on the subject saying that the effect of heat and chill casued the plastic bottles to release a carcinogen, a cancer causing substance. Well, there seems to be no truth to this. It is an urban myth. Check it out at snopes.com

Words can be misunderstood

I met a Buddhist monk in India whom I thought was unusually quiet. There was once that he observed silence for a few years, avoiding all unnecessary speech. The reason for doing so was that he was fed up with all the misunderstanding and problems that arose as a result of too much idle chatter.

Is it not true that we are so often misunderstood? Sometimes, even the words we utter are often not what we mean. and at other times, we are perceived and judged through just our words with the real picture being lost.

Anything to learn from this? I believe there is. One is to remember the story of the big fish being hooked because he could not keep his mouth shut. Another is to hone the art of articulation which then can lead us to wearing masks and losing our identity.

Is it not better to practise mindfulness and make the maximum use of all our faculties?

Ox

As this Ox year moves on, let my mind be like the Ox.
The Ox is not known for intelligence so let me remember that an Ox am I.
The Ox is gentle so let me overlook the faults of others.
The Ox is slow. Let me be slow in criticizing others, if possible never.
The Ox is not afraid of hard work (at least it appears that way).

Most of all, let me know that each and everyone is an individual and have rights, dislikes, worries, dreams and everything else which may be entirely opposed to mine. It is not their fault but mine to expect others to conform to my expectations.

Kill Time Buy Time

A visit to a dialysis center is quite a hassle especially for those who do that 3 times a week.

I hear of people eating the food they like while they are hooked to the machine for it is one time they can be free of the ills of their body knowing that the machine will clean everything that is stuffed inside. On this, I would think that it is better to eat hours before the actual dialysis rather than while hooked to the machine. The food would then have been digested and entered the bloodstream.

Ah, I digressed. For those who accompany the patient, it is boring time waiting. How nice if there were an internet café or shops to kill those boring hours?

For those hooked to the machine, good money is spent but well spent it is for it buys them time.

What a difference? Some wants to kill time while another buys time.

Who have you healed?

Being involved in complementary modes of healing as well as energy works, the question often arises. Who have you healed?

As an energy healer there may be no visible results. Like Paula Horan, Reiki teacher and writer said, no one is ever healed with Reiki. This of course can and is debated.

I would relate it from another perspective.

I know a family whose father was struck down with stroke resulting from a massive brain haemorrhage. After a month or so in hospital and going under the knife there was no recovery. He remained bed-ridden, unable to move. The hospital discharged him as there was nothing more they could do and bed space was scarce.

We mentioned to the son about the possibility of using acupuncture as we had seen good results.This acupuncturist is a good man and also our acupunture and tuina teacher.

It was a happy ending. Aftera week of treatment, he could move and after the second week, he was, I heard, doing laps in the pool.

That is amazing by any standard. His doctors thought they had the wrong patient card when he returned after 2 weeks for a check-up and said something like he no longer needed any more treatments.

He has fully recovered. Good for him!

Healing sometimes need not necessarily be through our own hands. In our involvement, healing has been effected. So, for all Reikians and other like workers, despair not that you have not seen results.

Value of Human Life

Head Stones and Mile Stones

It has been taught by many trainers and motivational gurus to set aside a special day to contemplate and plan for the coming year ahead. Being a sucker for such stuff, I admit, I faithfully followed.

One who fails to plan, plans to fail, so the mantra goes. Is that really so?

As we travel along the roads, we see milestones. By planning, we set our own milestones along this journey of life. Is that good?

Maybe the truer truth is that all these milestones don't matter.

We spend so much time and effort accumulating the wealth of this world. The most important thing seems forgotten along the way.

As we fade away witht he sunset, what is it that really matters? On reflection, all the milestones that we planted are just gravestones.

Did Yasodhara Sleep?

The Buddha stole away quietly one night with no one any the wiser. That is the popular account.

There is somewhere in the basket of teachings where the Buddha said that when he left, his father was weeping. Would that mean that he left in the presence of the royal court? Or is it a translation glib?

The popular account is that before he mounted his horse with faithful Channa beside him, he stole a look at his sleeping wife, Yasodhara.

Was Yasodhara asleep?

Yasodhara was a most kind woman and from the Buddha’s lips we learn that she in a previous life during the time of Dipankara Buddha, was destined to travel the path to Buddhahood with the Buddha. It seems she knew that the Buddha was leaving that night and had instructed Channa to prepare the prince for the journey.

Would she be able to sleep on a night like this? Or was she only pretending, knowing that to face a parting would make it more difficult for the prince?