The Art of Giving

Prayer for Generosity (St. Ignatius of Loyola)
Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

This prayer is from my children’s school who teaches them generosity. When my daughter was a little girl, she used to give out all her best things to others. I used to teach her: “Every man for himself and the devil takes the hindmost. (人不為己，天誅地滅)” In 1998, I attended my girl’s first mass at Northwood St Ignatius church. Father Bowler said: “We are born for others.” This statement stroke right into my head which made me realized I was wrong all the way. I told my girl when I picked her up from school. I said: “Mummy is wrong in teaching you this world is only for our-selves. Today what father Bowler said is correct and we should give our hands to others.” From then on we have tried to live by this prayer.

I remember when I was young, there was an occasion that I saw someone approaching my father outside my school. He cried for help. He told my father someone in his family passed away and had no money for the funeral. My father took his money from his wallet, without counting and gave all of it to that man. I asked my father: “Do you know that man?” my father replied: “Vaguely… Why?” I said if he didn’t know that man well, why did he give all his money to him. My father said: “Who would make a joke about their relative’s death to get money?” This image of giving has imprinted in my memory until today. Today I asked my father whether he remembered what he has done. He said: “No, why bother to remember all these things. Life has many important things for us to do and remember.” To him, helping someone is a way of life, nothing really special. My parents used to take us to do charity when we were little. He gave out his time, talent, money, goods and many more to whoever who needed it the most.

We can give not only money but our recommendation, our good advice, our time, our smile, our laughter, our skills, our encouragement, our affection, our blood and even our body part. The main thing for giving is not to count the cost as the prayer teaches us. Once you give then please don’t think how other people use your gift.

The Art of Dancing in the rain

Dancing in the rain

Bucket full of rain

Pouring down

Soaking wet

You and I are dancing in the rain

Rain drips from our hairs

It gets everywhere

The sky is grey

But our smile are shinning bright

Holding your little hands

My two little wet angels

Just dancing

Kicking

Singing out loud

Open our heart

Welcoming this rainfall

Like welcome our downfall

With a smile

Let it wash away

Follow rhythm of the rain

We are swaying and swishing

Through our life

We are dancing in the rain

In the rain

Have you ever danced in the rain?

My children (14 years old and 9 years old) and I danced in a heavy rainfall during a visit in Vietnam. It was unbelievably fun. We danced under the cool raindrops. The area was flooded up to our knees. The local people thought we were crazy. After the dance we went to a vegetarian café to have lunch. We sat down and ordered 3 serves of pho, 1 serve of combination rice and 1 serve of stir-fried noodles. The café owner looked at us, wondering where did these 3 soaking wet, hungry people come from? We gobbled down all these food, wiped our mouth, paid and went back into the heavy rainfall. The owner had this disbelief look on her face. People thought we were wild.

I can tell you dancing in the rain will give you a great experience. Try it one day and you will truly know how wonderful this is.

The Art of Dying

Although I have not experienced death but I can imagine it. I vividly remember back in 2010 before my operation for my bowel cancer. I visited a Buddhist monk a week before the operation. He asked me as followed:

Do I have a will? Do I owe any debt from anyone? Do I have special things (example: say sorry) to say to anyone? Do I have anything that worry/bother me?

I told him I did not have a will but I will write one. I don’t owe anyone money. I could not record I have done anything to make someone upset. Only one thing that I could not let go is my parents which the monk told me to make a vow for them. For my children, I have a good husband who will look after them. Really I have nothing to be attached to and could not let go.

All of the above questions help my mind go calm when facing my own death.  If we are well prepared then we would not be afraid of dying. We must face it, accept it and deal with it. Dying is part of our life and if we know this is a normal process, we can accept it.

Now that I am ready but are my family members ready? We need to let them know our decisions. For example I told my children if I am unconscious or my heart is not responding, I don’t want any electric shock CPR. I have nominated who is my power of attorney and guardianship.

When we are born, death is at the other end waiting for us. So if we know this, we can live our life fully instead of wasting it. Once we have prepared for it to come, we can enjoy every moment of our life. We see each day or each moment is a gift to us so please fill it with glory.

Kalyana Mitra (Thiện tri thức)

A beautiful affinity connected us here

Một duyên lành cho chúng ta gặp nhau đây

I am grateful for your 10 days Dharma teachings
Cảm ơn bạ̣n đã dạ̣y tôi mười ngày Phật Pháp

This is long enough for me to learn
Thời gian đủ dài cho tôi tìm hiểu

Buddha’s teachings are one, not two or three
Phật Pháp là một chẳng phải hai ba.

Neither Mahayana, nor Theravada, nor Vajrayana, nor Thien, nor Pureland
Không phải Đại thừa,chẳng phải Tiểu thừa, không phải Kim Cương thừa , không phải Thiền, cũng chẵng là Tịnh độ.

Bodhi or mango leaf is form. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form
Lá Bồ Đề hay lá xoài chỉ là hình thức. Hình thức là không, không cũng là hình thức.

Five precepts are the basic rules to practise
Năm giới là điều cơ bản để thực hành

The Threefold Training (Sila, Samadhi, Panna) is the way to go
Tam vô lậu học ( Giới, Ðịnh, Tuệ) là con đường tu học

The Four Noble Truths, The Eightfold Paths and the twelve conditions of dependent origination that I should understand and practise
Tứ diệu đế,Bát chánh đạo cùng Thập nḥị nhân duyên là những pháp ta nên hiểu để thực hành

Watch my speech, action and mind base on the law of Karma
Thân khẩu ý theo nhân quả tôi nên gìn giữ.

Final lesson used computer terminology to explain re-incarnation
Luân hồi chuyển kiếp dùng máy tính giải thích là bài học cuối

Trip is over and this affinity is gone
Chuyến đi kết thúc và duyên này là qua

We might not see each other again
Chúng ta có thể không bao giờ gặp nữa

But I know that we both walk on the same Dharma path.
Nhưng tôi biết chúng ta cùng đi trên đường Phật đạo

On this cold spring morning,
Trong buổi sáng lạnh mùa xuân,

You have brought a smile on my face.
Bạn đã mang đến nụ cười trên mặt của tôi.

06/09/2014 Adelaide
(Special thanks to Anh Hue Dung who helped me to correct my Vietnamese grammar!)

The Art of Drinking Tea

Early in the morning while people are asleep, I brewed my first cup of tea. I don’t know how to brew tea like the Japanese. For my cup of tea, it is just normal hot boiled water with tea leaves. I like to observe how the dried tea leaves gradually enlarge as they soak up the water. I enjoy watching the tea leaves flow inside the cup. They go up and down like our life. I don’t know how to do tasseography but I can read when each tea leaf has oozed their essence. It expands, and releases its fragrance and colour into the boiling water. It has offered it’s best to me. How often do we live to our life to the fullest like a tea leaf? We need to reflect!

I watch the steam evaporate from my cup. It forms all sort of shapes and sizes. I feel its warmness. From my tongue, I could feel the sun, the moon, the dew, the rain, the earth, the labour work and the fragrance from the tea. I feel the whole universe in my tea cup. You just don’t know how grateful I am to sit here and enjoy my cup of tea. This is my Pure-Land. I gaze out my window and see the crack of dawn.

The Art of Napping

In this hectic 21st century, who has the time to have an afternoon nap? I am one of the lucky people who can enjoy a power nap after lunch. That is why you need to retire early to be able to relish these nectars.

I remember when I was little after morning session from school, my father used to have a 10-20 minutes nap with me. I hated afternoon nap as I was too energetic at that time. My father put his arm around me and said: “Quick go to sleep then we can go back to school for the afternoon session.” It sounds gross to sleep under your father’s armpit. To me it was awesome.

Nowadays life is full on with team meetings, things that we need to deliver, deadlines to meet and so on. Even during the weekend we have so many things to do such as cleaning up the house, shopping for food and catching up with friends. We have a million of things in our little minds, yet there is no time to relax. People at work who fall asleep at their meeting are laughed at. And when we doze off, we feel guilty.

We don’t know how to enjoy life as my dog does. She is having a nap in the morning after breakfast and after lunch. A dog’s life is much better than a human in this case.

The term siesta is the traditional daytime nap, once popular in Spain. A power nap can be a very powerful tool that keeps us from performing at our best and enjoying our life to the fullest. History has showed and you can search on the internet for more information.

It is simple. We just need to have somewhere to lay our body down (on a lawn, couch, bed, inside your car or carpet), relax and fall into sleep.

The Art of looking at the sky

Lately my hubby got into the hobby of watching the stars. He bought an expensive skywatcher reflector telescope. He is like a chook without head, lost in space. He doesn’t know what he is looking for.

Eight years ago we built our pergolas with a special cubby house on top of it. At that time I asked to have a sliding roof so we could watch the stars up high but I got rejected because it costed too much. Now he washed and repainted the cubby house and wants to make the roof slide. He said he will make it happen. What he wants to get out from gazing at the stars, I don’t really know. I am not sure whether he wants to see the beauty of the planets, moon and stars or he wants to find some answers about his mid-life crisis. All he needs is a planisphere to help him get around.

I love staring into the sky whether it is at night or during day time. My mother used to watch the evening sky with me. She pointed to some of the stars and said: “This is the ruler in the heaven. It rules good and bad. That is the star which tells you the direction when you get lost. Those stars are the cow boy and weave girl, so on and so on.” She also told me the beautiful girl with a rabbit who lives on the moon. Every time I gaze at the sky, I will look for all these stars that my mother told me. She also taught me how to tell the weather by watching the moon and clouds. There are so many stories about the stars and the moon from my mother.

I used to fall into sky fantasies with my son when he was little. We read all the books from his school and local libraries about astronomy. My son was only four at that time and he knew all the planets and their characteristics. I remembered at that time there was an article in the Advertiser about a black hole on a flat plane. He had a great debate with us that black holes could not be flat. He had his own theory. He often told me he would build a spaceship to take me to space, visit some galaxies, may be to Mars but never Jupiter or Venus because its intoxicated with poisonous gasses. There was once at Wilpena Pound, my son and I climbed up to a hill before 5am. We sat on top of the hill with a sleeping bag wrapped around us. We could only hear the wind whispering and a symphony of rippling sounds from the inhabitants of the wilderness. Both of us were gazing at the sky. I told him all the stories that my mother told me about the stars. We went back to our tent after we watched the sunrise. It was one of the most enjoyable moments in my life. Another great time that my family and I had was at Arkaroola. We had a bonfire, roasted marshmallows and hot chocolate. The stars were much brighter at Arkaroola and they seemed so close to the earth. I can’t find the same feeling when I watch the stars in suburban Adelaide.

I don’t like to look at the stars with a pack of people especially with the astronomy club. I like to watch it with my love ones, relaxed and let my imagination run wild. The more I watch the stars the more I feel small. Years ago my GP told me I am a universe. It took me years to realise what he meant by ‘I am myself is a universe’. As I grow older, my interest of watching the stars has phased out but if I go into the wild again then this will be a different story.