Our late Venerable Tsek Guang

In memory of our most well respected Venerable Tsek Guang

This is the 64th day after our devoted teacher had passed away. Though he had left this mortal world for a better living in another world, many of his teachings are yet to inspire his followers as well as disciples. He's a diligent student of Buddha's teachings. Throughout his life of hardships, he practised all the Buddha's teachings full-heartedly. Despite of being recognised as an elder or a senior venerable, he bowed humbly in return to people's greetings. A good role model we shall learn from. His famous quotes : " Love all beings,  Forgive and Let go.. " Indeed, people who practise this shall gain the true happiness, I strongly believe. However, to say it aloud is simple and easy, but to do it is another issue for debate. We, as sentient beings, are prone to all sorts of challenges. But, after all these thorny paths are enlightenment, we, Buddhists, our ultimate goals. 

We have lots to learn from this old and yet high value venerable. Though he's no longer with us, in memory of him, he is always in our hearts. I've attended a service in memory of him, one held in Melaka. I was strongly inspired by this old man always with a nice smile hung on his face. All his words during his life had touched me, truly, deeply. His perseverance, his courage gave me strong inspiration. This old man, in his late thirties was so brave enough to take up medicine course in one of the MCA medical schools. His motivation was something one can never deny. Subsequently, he finished his course completely and started giving free medications as well as acupuncture service without expensive charges. His devotions in saving lives gained him a lot of patients at that time.

This is a good role model for us, the Buddhists. Therefore, we, future physicians and pharmacists, please do our parts well, in reference to our well-respected Venerable Tsek Guang. Practise Buddha's teachings well and this is a step into the true happiness.

A token of sharing with all.
Sadhu.
Chiu Xian

Invisible Happiness

Date      : 27 March 2011
Time      : 9.30 am
Venue    : Shah Alam Buddhist Temple
Topic     : Invisible Happiness
Speaker : Dr.Chan Kah Yein

" Peace and happiness are available in crazy moment. Mindfulness is the key." ~ Ven Thich Nhat Hanoh.
As normal sentient beings, we have to practise mindfulness in various useful ways to remove layers of dust, eventually leading us to enlightenment. As buddhists, we have one ultimate goal to achieve which is to attain enlightenment. Though it might sound very difficult to strive the target, it is achievable if we were to put in great effort and try controlling our temper, desire and most importantly our delusion.

It is true that focus helps people to be able to concentrate on whatever works they are doing. However, excessive focus that will neglect the surrounding's happenings will bring disastrous endeavors to people. We might miss out many people in life if we are too focused on certain things. We shall avoid extremes. For instance, a lecturer might not be that experienced in teaching certain topics. It is not for us to blame. Instead, he or she might possess certain special qualities which we might learn from and eventually leading us to another better path. None will ever know. We are supposed to treat every beings with equal respect and be more humble. Everyone has his special character we might learn from. Learning from others helps to mould you into a better one.

Be more understanding and learn to forgive. There's often a saying that getting mad over certain people is merely punishing yourself by taking others' wrongful doings seriously. There are always two sides for every story. We know what we want to do because we're expecting from others. But, the point is people may not know what we expect them to do. Hence, think twice before you blow your top due to people's inability to get their tasks done to your requirements. This is largely applicable especially when you're gotta be a president for a certain organization. President is the prime mover of the organization so it is very important to elect a leader that possess extraordinary leadership skill. The person should be one of ability to show his mindfulness and give precise decision on the organization's future.

Mindfulness comes in different ways. It applies onto people who have time to think of others as well. These people are in general selfless people. They have this caring attitude in which they are thinking of the benefits of others though people are not watching or observing you. All these root from the genuine and purely sincere intention. We have to be more caring and not to get too focused until you neglect the well-beings of others. Knowing is easy but to practise is another matter for discussion.

Mindfulness is to pay attention and be fully aware of what is happening at your surroundings. Understand ourselves, transform ourselves. 

Intention --- >Thoughts ---- > Actions and Speech

When you do good things with your sincere heart, you'll feel very happy. Instead, you will never gain the true happiness if you do something with an ulterior purpose of bad intentions.  What we, sentient beings need is to be honest. Sometimes, we know that it is not correct to perform such behaviors. However, we are too ego to admit it, we refuse to. Again, it is all about our mind, whether we're courageous enough to confess our own undesirable acts.

The Three Evil Roots

Greed

Hatred

Delusion

Dana ( Giving ) as mentioned in early posts, is the true generosity. Only when one person gives for the other people's benefits, that he or she will feel the true happiness. Again, metta (loving kindness) is applicable here. To love others. Basically, in the buddhist context, giving for the others' benefits and to be a harmless people are the two major principles in Buddhism. 

Another important criterion Buddhism always implies onto sentient beings like students especially is to manage stress appropriately. Your reaction is between you and the object. You can choose not to be disturbed. After all, it's again about your choice. Create a "space" between you and the object so that you can have a wider field of vision and thoughts. Feel it with your loving kindness, gratitude, understanding and patience. 

Every cloud has its silver lining. When it comes to adversity, it is again you that have to make choice. Mental strength will generally come to you automatically when you really need to face it. If you are able to, change the situation. If not, change your attitude, choose your reaction. We cannot change the others, we can only change ourselves.

These are basically what I've learnt from today's dharma talk. Just a token of sharing with brothers and sisters. May the glory of metta shines on us. 

Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu. 

Lee Chiu Xian

Sukhihontu.

A Token of Sharing With Brothers And Sisters

Date: 15 January 2011
The Dharma Talk's Topic: Worthy Ways To Happy Days
Speaker: Dr. Chan Kah Yein

Everyone endures to become a happy one. Nobody welcomes gloom, sadness or anything negative. However, be it good or bad, we have to accept them as this is what had been practised by our teacher, Buddha, The Enlightened one.

In fact, there're a few cycles Buddha had gone through before he attained enlightenment in the form of a self known as Siddharta Gautama. It is believed that Buddha could actually achieved the highest level of understanding the world's sufferings the life before as another monk. However, he chose to postpone and remain evoluting in the cycle. To great extent, he did that in order to attain the level of becoming samma sambuddha who is a person that has attained mindfulness and yet be able to help other people in the pursuit of enlightenment.  This had indirectly unveiled how noble Buddha is to save the person in the world selflessly.

There are so many criteria to practise before Buddha, our teacher attained enlightenment finally. One of them is to practise the 10 virtues to perfection which is The Ten Paramis.

THE TEN PARAMIS

ACTION: 

Generosity

Morality

Renunciation

SUPPORT: 

Energy

Patience

Determination

Honesty

MENTAL QUALITIES:

Wisdom

Loving Kindness

Equanimity

True Generosity: Give for the benefit of the recipient, not your own; and that's the kind of giving that is truly beneficial to others.

GREED VS NEED
According to Mahatma Gandhi, the world's resources are enough to satisfy all men's need but will never be sufficient to satisfy even a man's need. Hence, we should learn to value the power of contentment. Learn to say I'm enough. I'm thankful that I've had enough. Never ask for more and this will only lead you becoming frustrated over a lot of unnecessary things.

Energy is something special we can generate. Learn to focus under the environment which is full of distractions. There are too many things within the world that can distract us away and eventually cause us to fail along the way to success. We can never guarantee the 100% peace in all places we travel and we can never say that the place we study is conducive and quiet enough for us to focus. The circumstance might not be able to alter but we, normal humans can change. We must learn to focus even though the environment is not meant for us so that we can survive well in any situation.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Eistein. 

As normal humans, we tend to do mistakes. There is nothing wrong if we make mistakes. What is incorrect is that we never learn from our mistakes. It is vital to know that there should not be failure, mistakes in our mind to be a successful one. Those are only lessons to us in order to become wiser. Genius is 99% perspiration with 1% inspiration. Hence, we should work hard in a smart way when we face failure. Try to figure the root of failure and modify them in a variety ways through positive attitude. Never give up even though you have experienced so many failures. Some entrepreneurs who are so successful said this before, "I don't fear failure but i fear failure doesn't come to me that will then make me strong to strive again."

Loving Kindness (Metta) and Equanimity
We should extend our loving kindness to all sentient beings be they humans or other creatures in the world. All minds are inter-related so we must always care for others. We should treat everything the same way no matter they are of happy or sad endeavors. Learn to be able to hear but not being affected by those wrongful thoughts or false messages. Besides, we should learn to accept sadness but not leading to more sadness because sadness will fade away by itself. We should not be too particulate over that. Since it is not supposed to be resorted, let it be. Time can wash away everything.

A wise person will never get his mind charmed by undesirable things and yet doesn't resist the undesirable things that approach him.

May all gain some benefits listening to the valuable credit we have earned today.
Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.

 

The Succession of Dharma's Fellowship Leading To The Continuation of The Circle

Well, happy new year brothers and sisters. Though it's kinda late but still, we would like to share with brothers and sisters, welcome back to our devoted family. Here we unite as one again, to ensure the continuation of the sharing as well as passing down of the teachings of Buddha, the Enlightened one. 

So, the beginning of something new always brings about the ending of something old. This general theory in fact applies to almost all phenomena taking place in this world, sentient beings like us especially. Hence, our main here today is the announcement of the two new DOC leader for semester January 2011 till Disember 2011. 

The Previous BF representative : Ooi Chia Soon and Tan Sheau Wei

Thanks alot brother Ooi and sister Tan for your delicate service to DOC. We believe tat your kind help and passion towards Buddhism will never die because the way you people pursuit the continuation of the fellowship influences us and eventually bringing up another batch of teenagers who pay full passion towards the religion. Thanks alot again.

The Newly Appointed DOC leader: Wilson Cheong ( ALM-- 11M10) at 016-4396108 and Lee Chiu Xian (ALM-- 11M6) at 012-6546783

The Ausmat Representative: Wei Wen at 017-4128679

The Russian Programme Representative : Liew Chia Chen at 017-9348807

We will be sending out the topics for weekly dharma talk by wednesday every week. Hopefully, brothers and sisters may try to arrange some time out to attend it. It's really worth going for a mindful practice. By the way, please kindly spread the news to other friends so that we can expand our family to a certain extent. Your kind deeds will always be valued. Thanks alot. Not to leave out this that please confirm with us whether you are going to attend the Dharma Talk by Friday every week so that we can arrange transport well.

Besides that, kindly visit our group in Facebook which is Dhamma On Campus - the Bodhi Fellowship from time to time. We will always keep you all informed about the most updated events DOC is planning to orga nise. May all be blessed and attain mindfulness. Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu.

Chiu Xian