Turtle

"Imagine that the whole earth was covered with water, and a man was to throw a yoke with a hole in it into the water. Blown by the wind, that yoke would drift north, south, east and west. Now, suppose that once in hundred years a blind turtle would rise to the surface. What do you think? Would that turtle put his head through the hole in the yoke as he rose to the surface once in a hundred years?"

"It is unlikely Lord."

"Well, it is just as unlikely that one will be born as a human being; it is just unlikely that a Tathagata, a Noble One, a fully enlightened Buddha should arise in the world; and it is just as unlikely that the Dhamma and discipline of the Tathagata should be taught. But now you have been born as a human being, a Tathagata has arisen and the Dhamma has been taught. Therefore, strive to realize the Four Noble Truths."

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Aspirations

Earlier (a few weeks ago) - I made an aspiration never to let a day pass by without doing something which is beneficial to me and/or to others, no matter how small the deed may be.

Yesterday was Wesak day - went to a Buddhist temple in Peel Road, then spend the rest of the day organizing my personal files (on my laptop).

By night time, went online to search for something to read on Wesak, well, it's Wesak Day.. And I found this site which started off with meditation in preparation for the auspicious day, then it links to peace initiatives - and finally there is this link to the Peace Every Day Initiative website. Wow, I am inspired by the effort to create peace in the world by being peace. And this is to be achieved by one simple effort - 40 minutes of meditation everyday. Hmm, am not sure how much I can commit but I'll make an effort to do this. Other than this, my other Wesak aspirations as below, ya, seems suddenly very humanistic and probably building castle in the air - but the seed has the be planted in the first place right?
  1. Join Peace Every Day Initiave - We Create Peace By Being Peace - Meditate every day, even if it is only for a few minutes
  2. Set Goodtree as my homepage, since it claims that every search I do using Goodtree will translate into donation to charities.
  3. Be a vegetarian - seriously considering this and wondering how to be a disciplined vegetarian. At least I am half way there, I think I can claim myself a "semi-vegetarian" for the moment, per wikipedia's article on vegetarianism.
  4. Join another initiative on World Peace from this website: World Peace Experiment - 2 things to be done (1) whenever negative things happen, tell myself "Only Love Prevails" and (2) be cautious of the influence of negative news. In short - minimize negative energy.
ttg
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have been recommending a book called "My Stroke of Insight - a Brain Scientist's Personal Journey" by Jill Bolte Taylor and also a TEDTalk Dr. Taylor gave on the TED dot com site. And you don't have to take my word for it - Dr. Taylor was named Time Magazine 100 Most Influential People, the New York Times wrote about her and her book is a NYTimes Bestseller), and Oprah did not 4 interviews with her.

2:35 PM

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