Aloka foundation's 24hr metta event

1-Day Buddhist Youth Workshop

Dear all,

Bro. Jeff Oliver is coming to Malaysia and he'll be conducting a 1 Day Buddhist Youth Workshop at Brickfields on 26th Nov. He is a very experienced speaker. His workshops are always fun, informative and an eye-opener. Please inform us if you are interested, as places are limited. Here are the details:

Date: 26th Nov 2011 (Saturday)
Venue: BMSM Youth Section - Buddhist Mahavihara (BMV)
Time: 830am – 500pm
Topic: "1-Day Buddhist Youth Workshop"

# Open to all Buddhist Society members of Public & Private Universities and Colleges (limited pax)

** For IMU students who are interested, please leave your names in IMU Buddhist Society's facebook group http://www.facebook.com/groups/5644474093/

Hope you will join us in this meaningful event. =)

IMU Buddhist Society

Sabbatical

This blog will be on a sabbatical till mid-November
due to End-of-Semester Exam.

Happy studying! :)

Less Pain, More Love

There are some people we feel we’ll never understand. They make choices we’d never make, they don’t understand why we do what we do, and they don’t give us what we need in our relationships with them.

Vegetarian author and advocate John Robbins had a man like that in his life. That man was his father, and the thing he didn’t know to give was love.

I saw John speak this weekend at Bonfire Heights, the retreat I mentioned yesterday. His father, Irv Robbins, co-founded the ice cream company Baskin Robbins, and lived a life dominated by the pursuit of more.

Irv believed children should be seen but not heard, and fathered with an authoritarian coldness. In fact, years later, after Irv held his autistic grandson—the first time he ever held a child—he asked John, “Do you think all children need love, or just those kind?”

John could have unleashed a lifetime of bitterness for a childhood without warmth and affection. But instead he saw his father for who he was in that moment—an old man from a different time, who was open to learning a different way.

Years later, when Irv was on his death bed, John repeatedly kissed his forehead as morphine dulled his final pain. Irv asked John why he did that, and he responded, “Because I’m showing my love.”

Irv responded, “That’s been important to you, huh?” Followed by, “Less pain!”

To which John responded, “More love.”

Then Irv said, “Less pain!”

To which John responded, “More love.”

When John kissed his forehead one more time, Irv released and fully accepted it, even saying, “That felt good.”

John said, “Less pain?” The last words he ever heard his father say were “More love.”

Sometimes the people who need our love the most are the ones we may feel deserve it the least. We can make that judgment and stay bitter—or we can actively contribute to making the world a more loving place.

Less pain, more love.

Tiny Buddha

Self-Love

If you want everyone to like you, you don't like yourself enough.

- Steve Pavlina -

Without self-love, no other kind of love is possible.

- Mastin Kipp -

Your Gift

The greatest gift you can ever give another person is your own happiness.


- Esther Hicks -

Galenism

Nature acts with perfect wisdom, and the body is
but an instrument for the soul.


-Galen, Greek physician (129-199 AD)-

Exams

HOW TO GET THROUGH EXAMS

Here are 10 top tips by educational psychologists:

1. Get help: ask a teacher or tutor about how to revise, and exam skills - how to work when you are in an exam.
2. Take short rests during your time of work and revision. If your mind is tired, it will not remember well.
3. Plan your work: revise at times when you know you will work at your best.
4. Stay healthy: get enough sleep, eat sensibly.
5. Exercise: you need exercise to work well. Walk, run, play sport - whatever you enjoy.
6. Be positive: stop thinking about the future and failing.
7. Do your best: no-one can do more than this.
8. Be alert: if you feel ill, talk to someone about your worries.
9. But don't be too relaxed! Some stress over exams makes you work hard for them.
10. Be sensible: if it upsets you to talk to your friends about an exam when it is finished, don't do it! In fact, don't even think about the exam you have finished. What is done is done. You cannot change what you have written!

from: http://www.soon.org.uk/problems/exams.htm

Good Luck in your exams =)

Dear all,

Good luck in your upcoming exams!!!! Study hard, study smart and do your very best!!!

May luck be on your side always.

Smile!!!! =)

Best wishes from

IMU Buddhist Society

Spiritual Friends

Everyone of us comes into Dhamma through some friends. Isn't that true? We tend to forget that especially when we are reminded so often on being self reliant... paccattam veditabbo vinnuhi ti… to be attained by the wise, each by himself.

On many occasions, the Buddha emphasised the importance of having spiritual friends supporting one another in our journey out of samsara. Some notable examples were his own and Yasodhara, Venerable Sariputta and Venerable Moggallana and many more. The Buddha corrected Venerable Ananda that spiritual friendship is the whole, not half, of the spiritual life.

In many suttas (Raga-vinaya sutta, Sikkha Sutta, Chavalata Sutta, Hita Sutta, Sedaka Sutta) the Buddha explained the different kinds of practitioners and why when one practises for the benefit of oneself AND for the benefit of others is the foremost, the chief, the principal, the best and the supreme.

So, we encourage everyone not only to practice for oneself but do his part to share and help others in their spiritual journey too. We can recall how the Buddha exhorted the first 60 Arahants to go forth for the good of the many, for the happiness of many.

"There is so much misery all around. If we can wipe the tears of even a few people who are suffering, we have paid back a little of our debt of gratitude to the Buddha and to the Sangha, the chain of teachers who have maintained the tradition from ancient times. May all of you develop Dhamma strength. May you all keep growing in Dhamma, and help others to grow in Dhamma. May more and more people benefit from your service. May the wheel of Dhamma keep rotating. May the light of Dhamma spread throughout the world. May the darkness of ignorance be dispelled. May more and more people come out of their misery. May all beings be happy, be peaceful, be liberated!"

- S.N. Goenka


One Paged Dhamma

The Right Way

“If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.”



-Buddhist Proverb-

Attachment

How do you let go of attachment to things?

Don't even try. It's impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself

when you no longer seek to find yourself in them. In the meantime,

just be aware of your attachment to things. Sometimes you may not

know that you are attached to something, which is to say, identified, until

you lose it or there is the threat of loss. If you then become upset, anxious,

and so on, it means you are attached. If you are aware that you are

identified with a thing, the identification is no longer total.

"I am the awareness that is aware that there is attachment."

That's the beginning of the transformation of consciousness.

(Excerpt from A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle)

Love is Natural

Your task is not to seek for love.

Your task is to seek and find all the barriers you have

built against it.

-Rumi-

Steve's Quote

Apple of Wisdom

Reminder from Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

[...]

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Mindfulness Meditation 6.10.2011 (Last class)

Perhaps the most important component of our practice,

is the very Reason and Purpose of it.

When the reason and purpose of it is questioned,

that is how, our practice thrives.

Also,

to remember and not forget,

To cultivate love and gentleness with ourselves,

on the journey to Truth and Freedom.

So let's meet, if Wisdom and Understanding is what you seek :)

Heart of a Buddha

Peace comes from

within.

Do not seek it

without.

Heart of a Buddha

To be

honourable in thoughts,

sincere in words,

good in deeds

is to have

the heart of a Buddha.