Vesak Day Special
i went to thread eyebrows again.
clinging on to the hope that first time would be most painful and subsequently it would hurt less,
the hope dissipated into a cloud of nothingness once the threader started on my lower brows.
it hurt like sh*t.
------------------------------------
met up with poot at orchard and headed to tea chapter to have tea with shepherd.
we got our way to the buddha tooth relic temple and got lost somewhere there.
"it's along neil road. where is neil road?"
"let's ask someone. Excuse me, where is...."
"I see the shop! cross the road cross the road" Poot excitedly grabbed my arm and pulled me across the road, abruptly breaking my conversation with this elderly couple looking strangely at us.
"Poot you just broke off my eye contact and nice conversation with the old man"
"hmm," Poot's eyes scanned across the road, "now how do we get to the islet over there?"
"erm, we should cross from over there lor. cross back cross back!"
We hurriedly ran back across the road as motorists waiting at the red light watched us run back and forth.
"OMG, this is neil road!", as i turned and saw the green road sign abt a metre from where we were.
"we're on neil road asking pple where is neil road"
"we're dumb and dumber lor," poot said, and added with a smug smile "but dumber was the one who found the place"
"dumber was also the one who pulled me across the road and then asked how we get to the islet over there", i pointed out.
"yea that's why we need each other."
------------------------------------------
this is an interesting video i came across.
someone emailed it in and it's timing is uncanny given that i'm in this stage of mulling over certain concepts and i just had a debate with shepherd over this issue.
it is a video on the charter for compassion and it's aim is to bring compassion (of all religions) to the forefront of pple's attention.
http://dotsub.com/view/767c68bb-db0f-4bf3-87bb-dfce18217f68
A little bit more digging brought me to TED talks again.
And this talk by Karen Armstrong, the founder of the charter, summarised so coherently and succinctly what i've been trying to express.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJMm4RAwVLo
Her view was this, that the Golden Rule of all religions, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" should always be on the forefront.
And she quoted a Jewish story, "Everything else, is commentary (to the Golden Rule)."
With the recent Aware saga and its focus on christian views on homosexuality, the fact that Christianity is a religion of compassion and a religion of love not just for God but also for people, regardless of who they are, got lost and buried.
which is a great pity because i think between "love your neighbour" and "Man were not meant to be homosexuals", I would think God would rather Man remember and practice the first teaching. (As He has mentioned that loving God and pple are the two greatest commandments)
"It's time to move beyond toleration, and to move towards appreciation, of the other"
-Karen Armstrong
Tolerance. Appreciation. Acceptance.
Different levels of approaching opposing views.
While acceptance is not possible as most religions are quite fundamentally mutually exclusive (if one is right, the other cannot be),
appreciation allows us go beyond tolerance.
Appreciation is compassion with both the heart and mind,
of understanding where the other party is coming from,
of acknowledging the validity of his argument given the limitations of what we know for sure.
i've found that using this approach actually deepens, instead of dilutes, my faith.
As I see with equal weighting on both arguments and I understand why i still hold on to one.
it is also beneficial to the other party because appreciating his point of view opens up the gates to discussion.
if at the very first instance your stance is "your view is invalid", then you put the other on the defensive and it becomes a pointless discussion as the focus is now on defence and not progress.
My mistake in my pre-christian, buddhist-enthusiast days was that I never ventured out to really understand christianity.
Ironically, it was because of the ferventness of Christians to pull pple in that prevented me from going in.
If i got too close, i got sucked into the tornado. So i stayed away.
We must allow pple to have a safe place where they can understand and judge for themselves the greatness of God without them feeling compelled, persuaded and harassed.
One place to start will be from True Compassion.
To have no other motives but to help and befriend others.
"Love God with all your heart, mind, strength and soul. Love thy neighbours like yourself. These are the 2 greatest commandments."
i went to thread eyebrows again.
clinging on to the hope that first time would be most painful and subsequently it would hurt less,
the hope dissipated into a cloud of nothingness once the threader started on my lower brows.
it hurt like sh*t.
------------------------------------
met up with poot at orchard and headed to tea chapter to have tea with shepherd.
we got our way to the buddha tooth relic temple and got lost somewhere there.
"it's along neil road. where is neil road?"
"let's ask someone. Excuse me, where is...."
"I see the shop! cross the road cross the road" Poot excitedly grabbed my arm and pulled me across the road, abruptly breaking my conversation with this elderly couple looking strangely at us.
"Poot you just broke off my eye contact and nice conversation with the old man"
"hmm," Poot's eyes scanned across the road, "now how do we get to the islet over there?"
"erm, we should cross from over there lor. cross back cross back!"
We hurriedly ran back across the road as motorists waiting at the red light watched us run back and forth.
"OMG, this is neil road!", as i turned and saw the green road sign abt a metre from where we were.
"we're on neil road asking pple where is neil road"
"we're dumb and dumber lor," poot said, and added with a smug smile "but dumber was the one who found the place"
"dumber was also the one who pulled me across the road and then asked how we get to the islet over there", i pointed out.
"yea that's why we need each other."
------------------------------------------
this is an interesting video i came across.
someone emailed it in and it's timing is uncanny given that i'm in this stage of mulling over certain concepts and i just had a debate with shepherd over this issue.
it is a video on the charter for compassion and it's aim is to bring compassion (of all religions) to the forefront of pple's attention.
http://dotsub.com/view/767c68bb-db0f-4bf3-87bb-dfce18217f68
A little bit more digging brought me to TED talks again.
And this talk by Karen Armstrong, the founder of the charter, summarised so coherently and succinctly what i've been trying to express.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJMm4RAwVLo
Her view was this, that the Golden Rule of all religions, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" should always be on the forefront.
And she quoted a Jewish story, "Everything else, is commentary (to the Golden Rule)."
With the recent Aware saga and its focus on christian views on homosexuality, the fact that Christianity is a religion of compassion and a religion of love not just for God but also for people, regardless of who they are, got lost and buried.
which is a great pity because i think between "love your neighbour" and "Man were not meant to be homosexuals", I would think God would rather Man remember and practice the first teaching. (As He has mentioned that loving God and pple are the two greatest commandments)
"It's time to move beyond toleration, and to move towards appreciation, of the other"
-Karen Armstrong
Tolerance. Appreciation. Acceptance.
Different levels of approaching opposing views.
While acceptance is not possible as most religions are quite fundamentally mutually exclusive (if one is right, the other cannot be),
appreciation allows us go beyond tolerance.
Appreciation is compassion with both the heart and mind,
of understanding where the other party is coming from,
of acknowledging the validity of his argument given the limitations of what we know for sure.
i've found that using this approach actually deepens, instead of dilutes, my faith.
As I see with equal weighting on both arguments and I understand why i still hold on to one.
it is also beneficial to the other party because appreciating his point of view opens up the gates to discussion.
if at the very first instance your stance is "your view is invalid", then you put the other on the defensive and it becomes a pointless discussion as the focus is now on defence and not progress.
My mistake in my pre-christian, buddhist-enthusiast days was that I never ventured out to really understand christianity.
Ironically, it was because of the ferventness of Christians to pull pple in that prevented me from going in.
If i got too close, i got sucked into the tornado. So i stayed away.
We must allow pple to have a safe place where they can understand and judge for themselves the greatness of God without them feeling compelled, persuaded and harassed.
One place to start will be from True Compassion.
To have no other motives but to help and befriend others.
"Love God with all your heart, mind, strength and soul. Love thy neighbours like yourself. These are the 2 greatest commandments."
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