A childhood memory

I got a flashback during the afternoon today. I was looking around at my father's collection, and something flashed in my mind.

It was at Palelai Temple. That was when I am in Primary School, somewhere between Pri1 - Pri2 I guess. If I am not wrong, that was during 1st January where our family will always visit Palelai to do Dana and accumualte merits for the family and my mum, as that was my mum's birthday as well.

I saw 2 golden statue standing infront of the main Buddha statue: Phra Buddha Jinaraj, and I ask my dad, who are they? Are they monks?

My dad answered me: "They are "Luo Han" (arahants)."

I replied, "I want to be an Arahant too! How to become an Arahant? I become a monk can le is it?"

I guess my dad don't know how to answer me, that why he said,"Ya, ya. If you can be a monk, that is a good thing."

So from that day onwards, I thought Monks are Arahants, and arahants is another name for monks. Sounds illogical, but it is totally logical to me during tat time.

Thinking back now... Why did I said that? Or have I been making this aspiration for many lifetimes? The robes is so familiar to me, I've been wrapping myself with the blanket since young.

Maybe someday... I'll really go beyond birth and death, putting all stress and pain to a stop.

I chanted since young. K1 I chanted Araham Samma-Sambuddho.... Iti pi so and so forth till today. It is very wrong for me to expect others to be like me, well verse in Chanting, right tune right pitch. I forgotten that, everyone is different. Different in their actions(Kamma) done, different results of becoming, from different grounds, built by their own actions and merits.

To hope that anyone to be like me, to understand me is a irrational act. I don't even understand myself completely. = )

Signs of habitual actions

Recently at a outing with my LTC friends, I discovered a very bad habitual Kamma in me.

It was a very enjoyable trip, we went to a KBox after everything. You know, when we select our songs in queue, we tend to pick all the songs we wanted at one shot. So it will turn out that, your song will keep coming after 1 another.

So there was one friend of mine, who was complaining, can someone cut his songs into my singing list! It's very tiring to keep singing...LOL... when the next song came, I said something, "Whose song is this? Your song again ah?" Den he immediately passed the mic to me, politely saying, "You want to sing?" Somehow I discovered I said something wrong. But I really don't mean like, " Huh? your song again ah..." It was a habitual speech I had, very impolite. Hai~
I only meant "Your song ah?" Just a question, I didn't mean that he is singing too much or what, totally not.

Another part was the girls ah, the sing every little, seldom complete the song most prob they are unfamiliar or Paiseh lo. I intened to encourage them and give support when they finally finished a song! something like "yeah! You did it!" But How I phrase my words make it sound so negative: "Yeah! Finally you have finished a song!"...sounded so....

Throughout the session I was quite remorseful about that, but we still sung happily. = )
I was thinking... Did I hurt someone? Its habitual, it just comes like that. I really hope I didn't hurt anyone...

so later I try not to say too much things...LOL... Just sing lor。。。 浪花一朵朵~！

Now I recall... Pheo's bday invitation, a joke became an insult, kanna scold by Jon, but I didn't mean tat way. But later I apologised la... cos it really sounded very bad. A warm hearted invitation turned into a sarcastic intent. But i didn't realise something call "habitual kamma".

These traces of past existence gives me clues why am born in this way, why do I have this and that. Why I do but the other's don't. Why am I so lucky to have such, Why am I so misfortunate to recieve such. It all lies in action. Past action, Present action. = )

Contemplating on this Life

Life is unpredictable and uncertain in this world.
Life here is difficult, short and bound up with suffering.

A being, once born, is going to die, and there is no way out of this.
When old age arrives, or some other cause, then there is death.
This is the way it is with living beings.

When fruits become ripe, they may fall in the early morning.
In just the same way a being, once born, may die at any moment.

Just as the clay pots made by the potter tend to end up being shattered,
so is it with the life of mortals.

Both the young and the old, whether they are foolish or wise,
are going to be trapped by death.
All beings move towards death.

They are overcome by death.
They go to the other world.
And then not even a father can save his son or a family their relatives.

Look: while relatives are watching, tearful and groaning,
men are carried off one by one, like cattle being led to the slaughter.

So death and ageing are endemic to the world.
Therefore the wise do not grieve seeing the nature of the world.

You cannot know his path as to where he has come from, or where he is going.
So it makes no sense to grieve for him.

The man who grieves gains nothing.
He is doing no more than a foolish man who is trying to hurt himself.
If a wise man does it, it is the same for him.

Peace of mind cannot come from weeping and wailing.
On the contrary, it will lead to more suffering and greater pain.

The mourner will become pale and thin.
He is doing violence to himself, and still he cannot keep the dead alive;
his mourning is pointless.

The man who cannot leave his sorrow behind him only travels further into pain.
His mourning makes him a slave to sorrow.

Look at beings who are facing death, who are living out their previous deeds;
people are terrified when they see that they are trapped by death.

What people expect to happen is always different from what actually happens.
From this comes great disappointment; this is the way the world works.

A man may live for a hundred years, or even more,
but in the end, he is separated from his relatives,
and he too leaves life in this world.

So we can listen and learn from the noble man as he gives up his grief.
When he sees that someone has passed away and lived out their life, he says,
"he will not be seen by me again".

When a house is burning, the fire is put out by water.
In the same way, the wise man, skilful, learned and self reliant,
extinguishes sorrow as soon as it arises in him.
It is like the wind blowing away a tuft of cotton.

The person who is searching for his happiness should pull out the dart that he has stuck in himself, the arrowhead of grieving, of desiring, of despair.

The man who has taken out the dart, who has no clinging, who has obtained peace of mind, passed beyond all grief, this man, free from grief, is still.

Santi Retreat on 2nd Sept till 8th Sept

Another enlightening trip I would say, but how many have the merit to listen, and how many had the merit to be interested after listening?

For this retreat, I aim to improve and develop my meditation practise and reach samadhi if possible. It seems to be a noble goal in the first place, but later it became the root poision for my trip. Later I found out, many Noble goals in fact is very poisionous. Indeed, when the heart is filled with defilements, the Dhamma would not be pure.


It is because I came for a goal, that's why I didn't learn anything from the tedious work, Ajhan mettiko pointed out to me, because I questioned about the workload in the monastery and meditation. The problem lies right at the attitude and "I want". What happened if there is no work, do people meditate? No, they sleep! and that's what happened to me actually. The Dhamma leads inwards, Opanayiko, it is within, it does not lies outside or on anyone else. Who was the one upset, who was tired, who said that? It's still the mind! If you can do it's your merit, it's yours. This is something which I understand what I should do and improve, but I just fail to express what he taught in my own words. No matter how I put it, it just doesn't fit rightly. But, truly, no condition can stop one from developing the mind unless one refuse to contemplate and observe. What I remembered clearly, was his instructions, which is it all lies in the attitude, and just do it, if you want to learn, you have to do what was told and always watch the heart, keeping the mindfulness and develop samadhi.

He gave and example of a monk, which he actually don't want to meditate as he was so tired, but when he sat, he observed, and he tried, and his mind was bright and clear.

Some of the points I've learn is, "The world is in your mind, even the external world." When one examines with the mind, the works of the Sense objects, Contact and Sense consciousness, it is really true to say that, and indeed, "NO SELF". Form is just 4 elements, the body is just an object which knows and aware nothing. The consciousness knows, the feeling feels, the rest we believe and see and judge and know is perception (memory), the mental volitation create actions(Kamma). We take these things as "self", but they are not, in reality. Just the natural works of this things. When one is asleep, he has no awareness of this body, no world. but when he wakes up, the world arises again.

It is hard to ponder and understand fully, Ajhan mettiko keep talk about this and wanted as to see in such a way, contemplate the internal movements and reactions towards external matters as, not self, not me.

He asked Chek beng,"Where is you mother now?" he replied, "In singapore", and Ajhan broke into laughters and he say, "snake and ladders, you've fall right to the starting point again". and he asked again, "What she is wearing and doing NOW?!" Chek beng lost his speech. "It's Peception! Your mother is in your mind!" and he laughted again. The "mother" was seen in terms of memory in fact, She might have went somewhere else without informing you. Who knows?

Does the eye see? NO, the eye is just an object, 4 elements, part of the body. It doesn't know anything. It is through the eye, light brings in, and one see indeed using the mind! so things some in and doesn't comes out. Thus the world is within.

and we carried on many many deep dhamma.

Then I asked a crucial question, about the Buddhist society. I expressed that, when I see members doesn't learn the Dhamma, and benefit like we do here, I felt about sad.

"You just want to make yourself feel better isn't it?"

"You are having another wrong view that there are "self"! Someone saving someone, and you love those who come and learn the Dhamma, and you are upset and angry over people who doesn't come to learn the Dhamma."

"You another mother is in singapore la" (Laughs!!)

"Here you are thinking about helping others, why not you use the Dhamma you've learnt yourself? Vettitabho Vinnuhiti! To be known by the wise himself."

"You must remember, the most compassionate thing you can do, is to gain enlightenment yourself."

"If you try to teach others without enlightening yourself. It just like a paitent trying to cure another paitent!"

"Practise yourself. The outside world is too exciting now, the Dhamma need to be explained in skill to the people."

Then I asked again,"That means, metta is actually practised for our own hearts?"

"Yes. Sometimes the Buddha used poision to treat poision, because the poision is too deep."

At one part of the conversation, he said, "the 4 noble truths can be said in 3 ways.

1) Suffering, Cause of Suffering, Ceassation of suffering and the way to the ceassation of suffering.
2) World, cause of the world, ceassation of the world and the way to the ceassation of the world.
3) Self, cause of the self, ceassation of the self and the way to the ceassation of the self.

Anothering I learnt from Bhikkhu Lee when I stepped on his freshly mopped floor, and my foot prints was all over, he said "If you can't even handle external cleanliness, don't mention about internal cleanliness." because the external things is so obvious and coarse, you can't even take care, you want to take care of the heart which is so subtle?

On the way back today, I asked about Chun kiang's ordination, and I managed to find out that Bhikkhu Lee ordained at the age of 17! So I asked about his parents comments, his own feelings etc. I told him about Ming gen's idea that he wanted to wait for his parents to pass away then he ordain and my idea about earning alot of money and leave if for my parents before I ordained.

Bhikkhu Lee said to Ming gen's idea that, "Is anyone sure that he will not die before his parents? Who say the old one must die before the young ones? Didn't we see young people die before their parents?" Regarding my idea, he said alot, all these must be kept in original language, “等你出来这个社会，想法就会跟着环境而改变，也是无常的。其实是借口来的”。

I asked, "You ordained so young. Is all the hardship in the training worthwhile?"

"你自己看哪一个比较值得咯。奔波了那么辛苦是为了什么？我从来没有看过一个人，死了可以把外面的东西带着一起走。他的家人，爱人，钱财，全部都带不去。有什么可以带去？得来的没有一样可以带走。连身体也带不走。如果你要死了，你的心准备好了吗？你肯定你知道你回去哪里吗？"

I was told tat I should be sure that which path I want to go. Are you determined to seek the way out of suffering?

Another thing to take note was, Bhikkhu Lee had the opportunity to ordained because he came from a Buddhist Society where they are very keen in practising the Dhamma. He was exposed to the chance to short term ordain under K. sri Dhammananda for noviceship..and etc. It was once that his senior wanted to ordain, and he tagged along to try try...and try until now lor. LOLz... Bhikkhu Lee learned under great teachers such as Luang Por Jiak. He said, all who ordained in Santi, will still be sent to Thailand for training because the training there is more complete and there the a master in the temple to train, but santi don't have. People Like ajhan Mettiko came from Ajhan Chah's lineage, Luang Por ?? (At santi when I was there.) trained under Luang Por Maha Boowa Nanasampanno and other monks from great teachers.

What I can record here is only 20%, that's the most I can describe. it was the first time I listen to Dhamma that even myself was confused and find it hard to understand and express. I am always sure that every trip to Santi for me is sure a beneficial one. If wisdom doesn't come during the days, it sure explodes at the last days, which I assured to Chek Beng as well. But again, how many have the merit to listen to the true Dhamma? And how many after listening s interested?

我最深切的体会：
"Having done meritorious deeds in the past, This is the Highest Blessing" - Buddha-

And I keep telling Chek Beng, you are very fortunate. You have the merits. How much you can benefit depends on the size of you "container". I'll make a determination to make reflections on what Bhikkhu Lee said in the car everyday, while I strive to earn a stable sum of money for my parents before I ordain. But It is still unknown, that one day, I may stay as a Lay person, which I am afraid to be. If that's the case, then I don't think I'll have time to prepare for the time of death. What a deep reflection I need to do...