What's the connection?

I must write this down before I forget. Today I woke up at about 5am, as is the case these days. So I chanted the High King Avalokiteshvara Sutra (Guan Yin) - 高王觀世音真經（高王經）. I had just learnt of this sutra from the internet and read of its immense benefits. Anyway I will talk about this sutra in another posting. In my dreamy sleepy state, I chanted the relatively long sutra 3 times ( I had recorded it in my handphone). Then I fell asleep again.

I dreamt that my family and myself were in this huge building, we were all very happy, my parents, my sis and husband, their 2 kids, and myself we were exploring the place. I bumped into a friend and his wife (whom I dont know). His wife told me excitedly about some investment which has yielded her S$70,000. Even in the dream I was wondering I dont even know this lady, why was she telling me this.

Then some stranger shouted to me and my family, that there was a great lama/master who was coming to the hall later on. In the dream, we were overjoyed upon hearing this, saying "let's go and pray as well!". My niece was happily holding my hand, urging me to hurry to the hall. When I entered the hall, there was a yellow stupa and around it there were many many many food offerings. I specifically remember seeing some sort of small round cakes, biscuits and chocolate wafers and bowls and bowls of water. As we walked round the stupa, I saw a small Buddha statue in red. It seemed to be made of clay-like material. I remember I was trying to recall which Buddha was that. The Buddha looks more like a female Budhha.

I jumped up at 7.45am, thats why I could remember the dream quite clearly, maybe 70% of the dream I could recall. The rest I forgot the details. But I am happy of this dream. Something must be potent about this sutra, the Buddha's teaching. I went online to search for "buddha in red". Was it Vajrayogini or Red Tara? Was it because Tibetan monk's robe is red? Then I found it. And it made sense.

Avalokiteshvara (Guan Yin) is the Spiritual Emanation of Amitabha Buddha. Amitabha's color is red. He is known as the Buddha of discriminating wisdom as well as the Buddha of infinite light. His bodhisattva or spiritual emanation is Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion or he who looks on the universe with the eyes of compassion.

And I was chanting the High King Avalokiteshvara Sutra.

Mom's cooking some more!

More Mom's cooking! The soup is almost the same as the previous one except this one has corn instead of winter melon. The rest of the ingredients include lean pork, carrots, red dates and dang-gui. Very colourful dish. I like the crunchy stir-fried long beans with minced meat and thinly sliced bean curd. Also the minced meat is simply cooked with light soya sauce. Although it doesn't look nice in colour but it goes very well with plain rice or porridge. This is a dish Mom often cooked when we were young. I remembered my Granny used to cook this minced meat sauce in porridge when we stayed over at her place during school hols. The dark brown broth tasted so nice so fragrant. And the steam fish. Garnished simply with slices of ginger and plum, and put to steam for 15 minutes.

Some more Mom's cooking

Since I'm at it, here are some more home cooked dishes. Ketchup prawns stir-fried with big onion slices. Very child-friendly dish. The sweet and sour taste is very appetising. Another mixed veggie dish; carrots, young corn, broccoli, prawns, abalone-imitation. And we always have this winter melon soup boiled for hours with lean pork, carrot, red dates, winter melon cubes and dang-gui (chinese herb). The only difference between this soup and that of those selling outside is that Mom never put ajino-moto or any sauce. We just put many of the above mentioned ingredients, and the sweetness of the soup comes entirely from these.

Mom's cooking

I've decided to feature Mom's cooking on blog space. Because these home cooked dishes by Mom are what I grow up eating. It's comfort food. One dish is the braised bittergourd with slight fatty pork with mushrooms. The gravy goes well with say, a bowl of porridge or rice. Another dish is the stir fried towgay (bean sprouts) with veggies. The crunchy taste is superb. Another common dish is fish coated with salt and then fried till golden brown. Dip it with assam chilli is heaven. Actually anything with assam chilli and lime is shiok. Another of my home-cooked childhood favourite is simple thin cucumber slices stir fried with egg.

Happy sweet 83!

Last night we celebrated Granny's 83rd birthday. Not the whole platoon was there, some overseas, but still there were many of us. And the special thing was our long lost Aunt who was given away to a Malay family when she was a baby, made it to Granny's birthday bash too. Despite the stoooopid caterer who screwed up our dinner, nevertheless it was a sweet reunion. Birthday bagus lah!

Mom's angel-wings-of-love

My mom is into beads. She made this little beautiful angel handphone sling for all of us, me and my sis, cousins, aunties. The wings are of different colours; violet, blue, pink, red, yellow, silver. The wings are heart-shape beads. There is even a crown on the angel's head, and the angel is depicted as carrying a pot of gold? My angel has pink wings, upon request. Heh!

Outings don't always cost a bomb

Mouth-Metal-Money

In one of MLY's weekly tips, she said that our mouth is metal element and if it also represent our career, then its best to fill up the holes in between our teeth for better career luck. And if our money element happens to be metal, it is more crucial to fill-up the holes in between our teeth to improve our wealth luck.

It was mentioned that the metal element may mean different things to different people. For some, metal is their career while for some, metal is their money. One has to check one's individual bazi chart to understand what metal means to you.

In my case, metal is money to me and hence it is even more important to fill up all the holes in the mouth in order for money to come. And it will be good for me to go singing too. I find this quite true.

Few years ago, when I was without a job, I was having constant toothache, problem with my wisdom tooth. And being jobless, I cant possibly prioritise a trip to the dentist to resolve the problem. But when I finally did made up my mind to go (because I can't tahan the pain anymore), the moment I fixed the problem (by removing my wisdom tooth by surgery), I found a job almost immediately.

Hmm, recently the filling of one of my tooth came off, and it seems some teeth need filling too. Could this also signal the start of financial problem??? I better make appointment with the dentist fast.

When is your payback time?

I attend pujas at least once a week and whenever there are major pujas, I will try to participate. Some people wonder why we being Buddhists need to attend so many pujas. Why don't we just meditate, offer light, go temple offer incense and pray ourselves, as anyway, we can only become Buddha (achieve enlightenment) through the training of our own mind?? Well, each puja is different. And it's wonderful to have a group of lamas (monks) to pray for you, to supplicate to the different Buddhas and deities on your behalf, for different types of obstacles and problems. And attending just one puja is normally not sufficient, as through beginningless time, we do not know how many bad deeds we have commmitted. So one puja may not clear all your problems overnight.

It all boils down to the law of karma. Each of us has committed so many bad deeds and created much bad karma in this life and past lifetimes, sometimes even unknowingly offended and harmed others. What if one day these debtors turn up at our doorstep? For me, I just want to repay the debts as much as possible and as fast as possible. Imagine if we do not repay the debts accumulated since many lifetimes, it will be horrible when one day the bad karma ripens. That's when we encounter many obstacles, problems, mysterious and uncurable illnesses, and even possibly abrupt death.

It is such a pity that many people still do not know about karma, and worse, there are those who know yet they do not do anything about it. Wouldn't it be too late to react only when trouble strikes us?

MS Paint smartie

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My little niece was fiddling with my laptop last night, and so I introduced her to Microsoft Paint. And within a few minutes she came up with 3 paintings all by herself, using the basic features of the software; drawing straight lines, picking colors and mixing colors, using the airbrush, Filling colours, Erasing the colors etc..... And she even knows how to Save and Name a File and Undo strokes she didnt like. Wow I am impressed!

Le Petit Provence buns

My sis bought me my fav-of-the-moment cheese ball bread from Le Petit Provence Bakery in Central Mall. This petit-French-Japanese bread shop sells mini bread. They are famous for their chocolate wassant and cream wassant (looks like shape of mini croissant) but with a very chewy texture. Its not too sweet and its good by itself eaten plain. But my fav is still the cheese ball bread which is even more chewy and soft. Just last week I purposely went to the shop but was crestfallen when told they were not selling the cheese buns for that week. So finally had my fix of these balls today and I am as happy as a lark!

The final journey

For the past few nights, there was a funeral wake in the neighbourhood. The ruckus they made was unbelievable, it was right through the middle of the night till the wee hours of morning. No, its not noise of people wailing or anything morbid. Rather, it was the laughter and the noise of mahjong. From the sound of it, they were having a great time with the game. I almost wanted to call the police.

I don't know why I was a little bothered about it. Maybe I was deprived of my beauty sleep, at the expense of their enjoyment. Someone just passed away, and those (I presume) who were holding the wake for the deceased must have been close family or friends and they must have been saddened by the passing. There were the funeral rites conducted yes, the chanting and so on, which was normal. And in Chinese tradition, I know people do play mahjong to "entertain" the guests. But couldn't they have played the darn game more solemnly? I mean, for heavens sake, someone is dead and the people around are laughing and having a hell of a time? Or at least, couldn't they have "acted" a little sad and shown some respect for the person who was lying in the coffin nearby, who was in his/her final journey somewhere else?

Dad's gift

While packing my stuff, I found an old and tattered dictionary in my "childhood box" where I store all my childhood treasures and memories. This dictionary was given to me by my dad in one of my birthdays when I was young. And I kept it all these years because he wrote a short note on the front page of the dictionary.  

My Dear .......,

This book, though small, will be precious to you.

Use it to widen your knowledge and improve your vocabulary.

Treasure it well.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY

From Dad With Love,
6 July 83
 
Although this little dictionary was just an average gift. But maybe that was why my English has always been above average. I guess I will always keep and cherish this gift. There were not many material stuff my dad could afford to give us in those days. So I do find the few stuff he did give very precious indeed. Another was a red Charles Jourdan handbag he gave me when I started work. Although its spoilt now, I know I will never throw it away.

Happy Fathers' Day, Dad! May you always be happy!

Pig dreamin' and Buddha's relics

Last night I had an unusual dream again - as usual. I remember this dream vividly because I think I dreamt it when it was almost dawn, just before I woke up. I dreamt that I saw many pig objects, for example, pig's drawings, cartoon pig stickers, clay pigs, piggy bank pigs, toy pigs etc... And the thing is, whenever I touch each pig, it turned into GOLD! When my finger touch a pig's painting, the entire painting became shiny golden colour. As I went walking around a place, everywhere I seemed to find pigs-whatever.

Then I saw a container, with a pig's outline inside. When I touched the outline, it again turned gold. Then I saw a hole in the container. I noticed little round tiny white dots inside. When I used my finger to try to dig out the little round dots, I was very excited as these are exactly like Buddha's white relics and the more I dig these precious relics into my palm, more and more manifested from the hole. I was very sure they were Buddha's relics as I have seen them many times before and I also possess one myself. In the dream, I was like going WOW, WOW, WOW....... very excited.

I really don't know the meaning of this dream. Why relics appear? And why pigs turned into gold! Except this year is the year of the pig .... but why???  I sms my master to check. She replied: "This is a very auspicious dream. Hey, very very lucky!" Me: "Phew".

I also found an article about some significance behind pig dreaming. "Dreaming of a pig might not, at least on the surface of it, seem like a pleasurable way to pass the night. But a nocturnal vision of our heavyset cloven-footed friend is considered a good sign in Korea, where it means you'll probably come into some wealth. It's not uncommon for Koreans who have "pig dreams" to play the lottery the next day. A recent survey by Kookmin Bank on the dreams of Lotto winners revealed that 23 percent - the highest total - dreamed of pigs."

WOW, WOW, WOW!!!

Beaching about

Got myself a little tan today (in a looonggggg time) by bringing niece and nephew to the beach. Since its the school hols, thought I had bring them outfor a little sun. Just lazing about, cycling, playing sand castles, pigging out on McDonalds....etc.. By the looks on their faces, it beats shopping anytime!

GSS - Great Singapore Service!

I love huge aviator sunglasses. Because the shape suits my face. My sis gave me one which she bought but found them unsuitable for her. And I really like it alot. Unfortunately during my trip to KL, 2 bolts went loose and the 2 nuts came off and gone missing.

Tonight while walking around Bugis Junction, I approached a stall selling sunglasses in the basement near the food court. I asked the sales girl if she could help me by fixing the sunglasses. She hesitated and said she was busy at the moment attending to other customers. I said I could come back. Before I continued to say I would not mind paying a fee for her to fix it, she said "Sorry, since you did not buy from us, cannot do for you." Even before looking at my glasses! Fine, I thought. So much about Good Service. Typical Singaporean!

Then I passed by the Paris Miki shop on the 3rd level. Again I asked the same to the sales girl. She was extremely friendly and said she could help me, although she was not sure if they have the same bolts and nuts, even BEFORE I said I did not mind paying a small fee. I said perhaps she can replace all the bolts and nuts for me so that all are identical, and I did not mind paying a fee, I added. She said I will have to wait about 30 minutes and that she will call me when it was done. When I went back, she gave me my beloved sunglasses, wiped cleaned and shiny and replaced with all new bolts and nuts. And morever, she told me, that its free of charge. I was so grateful. Eventhough I did not purchase the glasses from them. Eventhough the bolts and nuts were different. Eventhough she has many other customers to serve at the same time! This was what I meant by GOOD SERVICE. Kudos to Paris Miki shop in Bugis! I will be back for purchases next time!

I think even before we launch our GSS (Great Singapore Sale), retailers should also ensure they can give Great Singapore Service too!

Awake?

It is said that soon after his enlightenment the Buddha passes a man on the road who was struck by the Buddha's extraordinary radiance and peaceful presence. The man stopped and asked, "My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?"

"No," said the Buddha.

"Well, then, are you some kind of magician or wizard?" Again the Buddha answered, "No."

"Are you a man?" "No."

"Well, my friend, then what are you?"

The Buddha replied, "I am awake."

Vesak Day

On actual Vesak Day, my family went to ABC yearly celebrations at the field near its new center. We bathed the Buddha, we stayed for Maitreya Buddha Puja (he is the coming Buddha), we circumambulated the Mahabodhi stupa which was identical to the one in Bodhgaya India where Buddha was enlightened. We circumambulated the stupa turning the numerous prayer wheels surrounding the stupa. We wrote on part of a few sutras in gold ink. We got blessings from Khen Lhundrup Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery.

In the evening we went to Drophenling for the Puja in Obeisance to the 16 Arhats. We offered butter lamps, we offered ritual offerings to Buddha, we bathed the Buddha again. We received lights from the Sangha, lamas from Gaden Shartse Monastery. My niece and nephew had a fun time. They have learnt so many mantras each time they went.

We bathed the Buddha to purify our body speech and mind. This enables our negative karma and afflictive mind to be purified. Through the puja we offered obeisance and prostration to the 16 Arhats, of whom Buddha Shakyamuni entrusted His doctrines to. We also requested that all Lamas and Masters and Gurus live long so that the pure Dharma can prevail throughout aeons in the world. In order to do so, we needed to pray and supplicate to the 16 Arhats, to request for their blessings as well as to uphold the Dharma. The teachings of Buddha are seen as a light that dispels the darkness of ignorance, hence it is a traditional practice to offer candles and butter lamps on this special occasion.

Tayata om muni muni maha muna ye soha!!!