Wednesday, December 14, 2005

dharma camp 2005

yay~ finally back after 5 days of stay at foo hai.. really a great N unforgettable experience for me. cos this is my first time going thru such intensive "dharma training". can imagine 8 hrs of "dharma lectures" each day.. it's mentally N physically draining. N on average we only have 4 - 5 hrs of sleep. -__- nevertheless.. i feel that i have learnt alot frm e camp. it's not all e chim chim theories.. but rather, practical stuff which we can relate or apply to our everyday life. one of our fellow OGL suggests that he has learnt abt MAY~ M = mindfulness, A = aspiration, Y = yawning! wahahaha.... =D

one qn raised up during e Q&A session: christians believe that God is e creator of this universe. so wat is e buddhist view on e beginning of time? venerable dhammika replied that this qn is not relevant. he illustrated it by sharing with us a story....... a guy was shot by a poison arrow.. he is suffering N going to die. thus e most thing now is to know how to end his sufferings. by asking irrelevant qns like who shot e arrow.. it doesnt help in e liberation of e guy frm his suffering. this applies to life as well.. we know that life is suffering.. so e most important/ relevant things to ask is how to end e suffering.. N not abt e origin.

another qn is how do we know that e things we do is good or bad? e venerable gives a scenario of a guy sticking a knife into someone's head.. is it good or bad? almost immediately somebody shouted out "bad!". but e venerable followed up by saying that e guy is wearing a mask N in an operating room haa.. it actually illustrates that anything we do whether it is good or bad, depends v much on our intention. if our intention is to kill.. of cos it will be a bad thing.

during e talks, we also learnt abt practical things like how to overcome hatred/ anger. first, by understanding e law of karma (that is everything happens for a cause). second, know that e person who hurts u does so out of ignorant. lastly, we shld forgive N radiate loving kindness to e person that hurts u. "Hatred cannot be ceased by hatred. By love(metta) alone is hatred ceased." :)

ha.. my orientation grp name is karuna! yeah~ karuna = compassion. so how do we practice compassion? by observing e 5 precepts [do not kill, do not steal, no sexual misconduct, do not lie, abstain frm alcohol]. next is to realise that everyone wans happiness, and fear death.

at certain points of times.. we might feel jealous due to some reasons. maybe ur fren did better in a test/ exam.. even though he/ she didnt put as much effort as u did. (ha.. makes me think of my fren cw.. who didnt really study but in e end get full marks for e test) anyway this is again karma (cause N effect thing). wat is yours is yours... so instead of feeling jealous, we shld practice mudita (sympathic joy).. that is rejoicing over someone's happiness. (like in my case.. my fren got full marks, i shld feel happy for him! ^-^)

hmm i think this applies to relationship as well. (tot of bringing this up cos one of my fren is facing this prob) as i have said earlier.. wat is yours is yours. if she's happy staying single.. u shld feel happy for her. :) so dun feel too depressed over it. it's all in e past.. leave all e bad memories behind N move on in life. dun dwell on it.. e more u think abt it, e more upset u will feel. so learn to let go.. if u 2 r not meant to be.. there's no point clinging onto it.. cos it will only make both parties suffer. frm e buddhist point of view.. there is no such thing as a soulmate or "the one". we r only searching for someone who has e "closest karmic affinity" to oneself (this connection can be positive or negative) however nothing is predestined.. thus this so-called "soulmate" will deviate frm time to time.

ha alright back to camp. besides all e talks.. we also had a welfare visit to e IMH [institute of mental health]. another name for our grp.. since I- Isen, MH- Mei Hui. wahahha... =D hmm this is my first time visiting IMH. when we r waiting outside e wards.. we can see patients banging on e door. really freaked me out... =S but after that i realised that they r actually e long-stay patients.. so i think they r juz too excited to see so many pple coming to visit them. N since they r under medication.. most of them r quite calm when we see them.. a few of them even came over to shake our hands n ask for our name haa.. but that's for e ward i went (we r split into 2 grps). e other grp was not as fortunate.. cos e patients there hallucinate alot.. one of e patients even thought that he is GOD. N he keep calling one of our fren kwek JB n ordering him to do things. wahahaha.. =D

another interesting part of e camp will be e finale nite! heehee.. each grp got to come up with a skit that can bring out e meaning of their grp name.. for us will be compassion (since karuna = compassion) we started off by acting out e story of how prince siddhartha became a buddha.. by using e song "all for mankind" (cos e lyrics of this song illustrates e story) haha.. we changed e last sentence of e song "for the mankind that He did" to "for karuna that we did".. which ends up being our grp's slogan. e 2nd part of e skit is to illustrate buddha's compassion for a pregnant lady who has lost everything in her life (her husband, children N parents). haa i acted in 2 scenes.. one is e dead man's wife, e other is "ah huay". e first one was easy.. juz need to cry N say "bu yao si ah" N e dead man will reply "wo ye bu xiang si ah". haha... super lame. -__-'' e other scene was more challenging.. cos need to speak in dialect N act lian (like shaking my leg when i talk) haha. there was also one "harry potter" scene. "name"(ming zhi) got to say "avada kedavra, crucio" to subdue e poison snake.. then e "laughing buddha" (he calls himself that cos he cant stop laughing during our rehearsals) counters it by saying "karuna".
in e end our grp won e best skit award. haha.. really wonders how we did it. anyway it is decided by e audience thru voting (N we cannot vote our own grp) i heard frm my fren that we won metta grp by 1 vote.. so i guess we r juz lucky lolx. e prize was a mini buddha statue for every member in e grp.. glow in e dark somemore.. quite cool~ haa...

ohh ya.. havent commented on e food. it's vegetarian of cos.. but 7 out of 8 meals r noodles that r of e same taste! it's quite oily also.. not v healthy. hmm but i guess we shldnt complain too much.. cos guan yin chai is good enough to provide for our meal. yeap so we shld feel contented with wat we have. :)

alright i shld end here.. guess this will be a super long post. *applause for those who can survive reading until here.. haha. =P

Posted by *Mu| and ChAng* at 11:11 PM