Moonpointer : Shiqin's Window

Sometimes, when something unfortunate or mildly “unlucky” happens, fellow Buddhists shrug their shoulders and remark sheepishly, “Well, bad karma!” Sometimes they even do it when “it” happens to them. It's interesting how we, at times, speak of our personal karma as if it were an unreasonable third-party that we are exaperated with. We ARE our karma when we are expriencing its payback. Not that you should cultivate a strong sense of self and identification with fleeting karma, but let's accept it graciously in the moment.

Culture is the icing on the cake of true substance – it is not essential for making a cake a cake. But most people see the icing as part of cake, thinking a cake would not be complete without it. Likewise, Buddhist culture and rituals do not always constitute pure Buddhism, or the Buddha's teachings per se. The essence of the Buddha's teachings is to be remembered as the icing of culture cakes them more and more, such that empty icing will not be paid attention to at the expense of the cake.

What is stylish?
It is something as abstract as artistic,
only as real as the beauty in the eye of the subjective beholder.
Style is empty of fixed concepts.
Style is form.
Style is emptiness.

I ate a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates given to me without choice. No I don't support dairy products - but I didn't want to waste food or give it to anyone else. (See Milk Sucks ) I squeezed the gold foil wrap into a ball, layer upon layers - till it resembled a whole Ferroro Rocher. It looked like it contained something, but it was just layers covering layers covering nothing substantial - like an onion. What's this? A modern analogy for Anatta – the insubstantiality or corelessness of mind and matter!

The longer you stay single,
the more you get used to it,
then it's no longer a problem –
then you live happily ever after?
Hey... come to think of it – not so bad either.
Our marital status is never the problem –
only our dissatisfactions about it –
being married or single.

The one ring never was the real problem – the beings' craving after it was the real problem. But because it became the symbol of the struggle of the races of Middle Earth, it had to be destroyed. The one ring was created by Sauron out of his craving for absolute power. It's the master ring which controls the races' individual ring-bearers, who in turn held to their racial rings given by Sauron, out of craving for power over their kind.

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“Blankets” is an excellent graphic novel for those with classic god-questioning religious and growing up angst. I highly recommend it. (Click the book cover for details.) Here are some lines from the book, with some thoughts on them:

Craig: Why do you keep flipping the pillows?
Phil: ‘Cuz it’s cooler on the other side.

Shiqin: But the grass is always greener on the other side! At least it seems so - because we crave for better experiences, we don't make peace with here and now. Going everywhere we end up nowhere.

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Free your mind! The Meatrix is just one of our many delusional matrices. Don't delay in breaking free. Click the above!

There are two levels of breaking free from the Meatrix. The first is supporting free range meat instead of factory-farmed meat. This was the message by The Meatrix. The second level of breaking free is giving up animal produce altogether. This is the higher message by PETA. You decide how far you want to break free. You decide how much you want to be trapped, while you support the trapping and killing of animals.

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Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable
that we have to alter it every six months.
– Oscar Wilde

When someone does not follow current fashion norms,
is she unfashionable,
or stuck in retro fashion,
or is she a revolutionary trendsetter,
even if no one appreciates her style?

Is the fashionable simply that which the crowd follows?
Then is she forever with alternative tastes?

Fashion is anything, everything.
Fashion is form, emptiness.
Maybe she sees this truth,
which is always in fashion.
Maybe she's in ultimate fashion.
– Shiqin

Some thoughts after watching “Wishing Stairs” – If everyone can make a wish, I think many will make a selfish wish for their own happiness. Yet if everyone were to reflect deeper, they will realise that a better wish to make is that everyone attain happiness. One just cannot be satisfied with personal happiness alone, whether at the expense of others or not. We just don't work that way, because our Buddha-nature wishes all to be well and happy.