Havenangh House, Singapore. Wed 6 Jun 2007

Quoted from Patipada by Ven. Acharn Maha Boowa: Ajaan Mun taught the Bhikkhus to be sharp in hearing and seeing, to be nimble and dextrous in movement, to do things quickly and not in a tardy, clumsy manner. He taught them to be resourceful and to use their ingenuity both in external things and internally. In moving here and there they should have mindfulness present and he taught them to be careful and prcise in all circumstances.

Just finished Sayalay's retreat today. Went to Dr. Ang's house for another one of Sayalay's talk. And come back home to be greeted by J's warm welcome message. She always make me feel so welcomed and so at home, always very kind and very generous. I think of her as my mom.

Today G asked me if I could continue to stay in Singapore if I don't work, cause I'm a PR. Very kind and thoughtful of him too. He is like a father to me. So I am very rich, and in good hands: my blood mother and fatehr who love and take very good care of my, my god-father and mother who shower me with their kind love and attention, and my spiritual mother (Sayalay Dipankara) and father (Hui Guang shifu) who take very good care of my spiritual well-being. Wherever I go, I always meet with good people: people who are very kind, people who are extremely generous, people who are all out to help others.

Birthday Celebration: Just recalled what Ven. Hui Guang shared with us regarding how to best celebrate birthday. Normally we celebrate our birthday by throwing a party and happily enjoying ourselves. There's a better way of celebrating it: reflecting by our birth day is the day of our mother's suffering. She went through tremendous pain to bring us to this world. Birth-giving is a life-and-death matter, for it is not always the case that both mother and child would survive. Our mothers carry us in their wombs for 10 months, nurturing us with physical and mental food, caring for us even before we were born. Our birthday is an apt occation to remember with gratitude the kindness our parents have showered upon us. And the best gift we can give them is the gift of Dhamma (Dhammadana): on our part, we can do dana, keep the precepts, practice meditaiton, and dedicate the merits to our parents. We can also share the Dhamma with them: encourage them to do dana, keep the precepts and practice meditation, listen to Dhamma talks, incline their mind towards goodness. In this way, rather than the usual party celebration, we can make our bithday very meaningful to both ourselves and our parents.

Circle of friends: The friends we associate with are very important, for they would be a deciding facor for our accumulating more merits or demeirts. My fist contact when I got back to Signapore is the CMC group, and it doesn't take long to fully book my one-week-stay in Singapore with activities such as dana-offering, listening to Dhamma talks, group sitting, temple visiting -- things that are very wholesome, fortunately, and I easily get hooked. Imagine what would happen if the opposite is the case: If my circle of firends had been bad people. I would have easily fallen back to the bad old ways. Reflecting on this, I feel so fortunate to have very good friends.