English Tit-bits

Success and Failure

Failures are the lessons to success; when we fall down, just stand up, and learn from mistakes.

Success is the result of the gradual accumulation of failure experiences as well as hard work.

That is life!

Every minute is a sunrise.

Every challenge is an opportunity.

Every bad situation or failure is an experience.

Every good-deed is a good-beginning.

Three Hearts (From Diamond Sutra)

Three Hearts are referred to: -

"Past heart, Present heart and Future heart".

"Heart" means thinking or moment.

Past Heart - How to define "Past"? Say a minute ago you walked into the house and made a cup of tea, when the tea is ready, the making tea moment is considered a "Past Moment"!

Present Heart - What is present? The moment you make tea is considered "Present", but once tea is ready, and then the making tea moment is past. Where is the "Present"?

Future Heart - Things change all the time, how could one foresee the future?

All things are merely temporary, why cling on to such moments?

Ultimate Point (from the Diamond Sutra)

The learning path is like a piece of rope with the two ends joined together forming a loop; anybody who jumps into the loop at any point can join in the cultivation process, for the loop has no beginning nor ending, hence there is no ultimate point and even a Buddha has to continue to progress.

84,000 ways to cultivate

There are 84,000 different ways to cultivate Buddha's nature, and the teachings are about helping others, doing good-deeds, to love & respect all sentient beings, perfecting ourselves, understanding, abstaining from "greed, hatred, and ignorance" etc. Other religions in this world also teach people similar caring and loving nature, ultimately will lead an individual to perfection.

Those who do not adopt any religion or teaching can also cultivate in their own WAY by not harming others and managing to abstain from negative activities in their daily lifestyle, which constitutes one of the 84,000 Ways.

Think of others feeling

Do not ever belittle others, we must think of their feelings. We will feel great in heart when we are humble; this is the beginning of understanding.

Young at heart

An old man said: "I cannot control my appearance, but I can refuse to grow up!"

Experiences can only be increased, as time goes by, regardless of success or failure, both are considered as experiences, which is precious to oneself and society. We all have our own specialty and are extraordinary regardless of age.

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder; hence one should not be bothered by what others might say about an individual's appearance as long as one is feeling comfortable and happy with the way things are.

One of the most important things in life is to be your own natural self and be happy to live life the way you choose to be rather than trying to be like others. It is more important to have a healthy body and positive soul rather than suffering at the consequences of others' opinions.

Appearance is nothing, why worry? Inside, we are all the same; well, to be young at heart is the best medicine of all. Be happy!

As human beings

Being reborn as human beings is rare and difficult; as Buddha picked up a handful of sand and said to Anada (Buddha's follower); this is the total amount of humans living in this world. Only human beings can easily gain merits by being doing good deeds ..etc to progress further.

That means, we better treasure whatever we have, no comparison with others, try our best to plough through our lifetime. Just like planting tomato from seed, water it, look after it, and one day we will have a fruitful reward. We all would like to have better credit book, surely, behind every success is a life-time full of tears, sweat, hard work, worry, failure(s), parents' guidance, support…etc. No pain no gain.

Achieve our Goal

Waking up to real society requires an individual to make and take personal responsibility in order to fulfil one's ambitions or dreams. It is a tough society out there and not many people are fortunate to be born with a silver spoon in his/her mouth. One can certainly help to make a difference to society through industrious effort and participating with society. No doubt one may encounter obstacles along the way, treat it as part of survival and finding ways to overcome it. Take destiny into our own hands and change it for the better for those whom have not been trying hard enough in the past. Get up and try and try again until one is finally able to reach the finishing line. If one decides to give up trying, then one will not be able to reach the final goal.

Control our heart

Don't let one's heart be influenced by the outside environment. Say, you just want to go out to buy 6 apples, but due to the price of other items being so attractive that the "Come and get me" temptation could not be resisted. SO, the heart changed by the environment

Do let your heart control the environment. That means no matter how good the environment outside is, just follow your heart at all time.

"Chanting"

Chanting "Namo Ah May Tall Fa" (Amitabha - Buddha's name) as an example. These few words have a very strong frequency that will help one as well as others.

Imagine, if a radio is not tuned to the right frequency, then the reception will be very poor, sounds like; sa la, sa la….., one cannot hear what it is all about.

Chanting is similar to refining the radio frequency, when you chant any of Buddha's name with a dedicated heart (not just chanting once, but keep repeating on a daily basis), and eventually one day, when your radio frequency is tuned to coincide with that of the Buddha(s), then they can hear you clearly.

If a person deserves to be connected to them, then they will help the person to open their "Wisdom Safe" that was carried from previous lives concerning knowledge and also help the individual to acquire more knowledge during this life.

On the other hand, "Chanting or not Chanting", one should try his/her utmost best to help others from the bottom of their heart without any intentions, doing good-deeds….etc. So that, at the end of our life, we will have quite a good credit book to carryover, which will help us to progress further to higher levels. Why not!

Good or Bad time

Use an ordinary heart to welcome either bad or good time, then what is a bad or good time?

In other words, don't be so happy when you are having a good time, that good moment won't last forever, just well prepare when the bad time arrives.

During the bad time, we have to adopt the fighting spirit to overcome the bad situation in order to sail through the rough time. No bad time will last forever either.

Just adopt medium attitude to every situation, then everyday will be a good day.

Half a bed

Regardless of poverty or riches, one can only sleep on half a bed. Why be greedy, for sure, we cannot carry our wealth to the next life, no such transaction of T.T. to your next life bank account via Bank. Why not utilize our wealth to help the poor, the old, the needy..etc.

Life cycle

Birth, growing old, sickness and ultimately death is a life cycle applying to every living being, regardless of status of health or wealth.

One has to go through such a path without doubt, but it is better to try achieving a better self, helping others without intend, do more good-deeds, learn the good things from others, acquire more knowledge..etc. By the time when we cross-over, we will carry a good book to continue our journey.

So, if we all understand, death is not a sad subject at all. We are only temporarily dwelling in this world, when our lease has expired, we all have to leave and all enter via the same entrance to our next destiny regardless of race or religion. Why not make peace with everyone, let bygones be bygones, be kind to the environment, try to work together to help each other, respect each other..etc..

For sure, this world will become a better place to live in and our life cycle this time is worthwhile and much more meaningful.

Good day

There is a saying: "every day is a good day, every year is a good year!"

One should understand that problems, obstacles and ups & downs are all just part of the human life cycle everyone must experience. Whenever problems and obstacles arise, we should try our very best to sort out any difficulties, accept this is part of the path in our life and all our worries should disappear without trace.

Then why worry! Certainly, not all the roads are dead-ends.

If we could treat each day as a good day and each year as a good year, then our life will be become more meaningful and happier no matter what happens.

Remember "Rainbow and blue sky are always come after heavy rain"!