Buddhafied

Multi-task

*I saw a lady walking on the side of the street while reading a book*

me: "Bubba, I can never understand how people can read while walking."

Scott: "why?"

me: "Well, I can see how people can text message while walking because at least you conduct what you type in your head and you just type it out afterward, but for reading you don't know what you're about to read, so you have to concentrate on that, it just doesn't seem to be enjoyable to walk and read at the same time."

Scott: *pat on my head* "Some people can multi-task... but it's okay."

me: "......"

Exposing myself: the Underwear Affair

I have created a team to run on the street in just underwear!

As some of you might already know from my blog, I do fundraisers for the BC Cancer Foundation once in a while. It's a fun thing to do although it could be stressful especially when it comes to selling tickets and trying to make sure everything goes right. This year, I decided not to host a huge event in the summer but instead I'll join other people's event for a change (yeah, let them deal with the pain of cleaning up after!). So, to keep me and my friends healthy and active, I registered to do a 10k run to "uncover cures for cancers below the waist (prostate, colon, and ovarian cancer, among others.)" The event name is called the Underwear Affair.

My grandfather died of colorectal/prostate cancer about 5 years ago. He was a very healthy man who was still working at the age of 80 years old, but died within a few months after he got diagnosised with the disease. Although his death made a very strong impact to how I view the world which ultimately helped my decision of becoming a Buddhist monk, it was still not a very pleasant memory afterall. So the subject of cancer below the waist is close to my heart since then. Besides, who doesn't want to run around on the street in their underwear! (I know we don't have to and I probably chicken out at the end, but I like to keep my options open, thank you.)

I have created an online pledge form for my team and myself, please let me know if you want to support and I'll send you the link. I have to raise at least $300 in order to participate, or else I'll just be a guy wearing his underwear standing on the street. O_o

Suffering

One thing I find myself doing more and more often lately is to re-examine a lot of the Buddhist concepts in my head, finding out whether they are really valid and most of all, whether the are logical.

The past few days, I've been thinking about the concept of reincarnation.

The basic concept of reincarnation is simple, there are six paths (or six realms) that made the wheel of life: hell realm (torture and aggression), hungry ghost realm (eternal starvation, unsatisfaction), animal realm (lack of wisdom or foolish), Asura realm (jealousy and wrath), human realm (desires) and deva (heaven-like but pride). After death, you will reincarnate according to how you live your life (karma) and might go into a different realm. The only way to end this cycle of suffering (samsara) is to break away through enlightenment.

The problem I have right now is the word "suffering".

Since I was very little, I have always been told that coming back as an animal is suffering because animals are lack of wisdom and are a lower form. However, if animals don't have wisdom, who is to judge whether they are suffering or not? Some might suggest that their suffering is having to go through the cycle of life and death (along with the pain we deal with in between); however, the universe is full of (if not just about) birth, death and reborn - That is the true cycle of life. In this case, why is this cycle such a bad thing? Whose perspective is that life and death is suffering when it is part of nature? I find this contradicting to Buddhist concept of the universe, especially when we are talking about a religion which promotes reuniting with the universe itself.

As Buddhism is full of symbolic metaphor, I start to doubt that the six realms listed above are actual "destinations" of reincarnation.

Could it be that the six realms of suffering is really referring to the six types of emotions that we all have? Then reincarnation itself will simply be the cycle of unsettling feelings in us that we never seem to be able to get away from: one day we are angry about one thing, then the next day it manifest into jealousy. According to Buddha, the only way to break through the reincarnation cycle is through enlightenment and understand the true meaning of life; isn't it also true that the only way to stop internal "suffering" is through acceptance of who we are and appreciating life?

Am I trying too hard to find an answer that I lost my focus on the importance, or this is already the answer?

Note: I always find that the six realm is very close to the seven deadly sins in Christianity. As a matter of fact, I found many concepts between the two religions are the same... which is why I never have a strong feeling against the core teachings of Christianity.

Skillup

Hmm... where should I start... I can make up some lame excuses saying I was busy and I can't type, but no one is that busy who can't type a blog post for a month. I can also be bluntly honest and say I was lazy, but that was not entirely the truth either. The thing is, I just haven't been too enthusiastic to do anything lately. I haven't been doing any running training which I was supposed to do; I didn't take photos of my new place, like I said I would; I haven't even call my grandmother, for goodness sake, a few months now. I would like to blame it all on my video game addicted personality, but let's just be simple and blame it on the weather, shall we? And now, since the clouds are no longer covering up the sky and I have no more excuses for sitting infront of the couch staring at my TV, I can now walk two feet, grab my laptop, sit back down and type again. You gotta love Spring!

Seriousness aside (like I always am), I'm doing a little bit of thinking lately, specifically where I should go with my life. I think it's just time for me to make some moves in my career path again.

It has been a while since I had some deep thoughts about this, but lately, after looking at a lot of portfolios and meeting up with some talented graphic people on twitter, I am considering to narrow down my career to graphic design. When I left school, I got an economic degree minor in publishing. Back then, I showed quite interests to graphic designs and was (and have been) doing some freelance job for people here and there. The problem was I wasn't sure whether I wanted to do that as my full-time job. So, given I needed a job desperately back then, I went for a more "broader" choice and stay with marketing, which served the purpose and I had much fun since then. What got me thinking was when I start to ask myself the question "if there's one skill set I want to be the best and to be known as, what would it be?" and there's only one answer to that question: "graphic design". Not surprisingly, this whole conversation in my head generated from playing video game. See, my Dark Knight has been focusing on his accuracy gear instead of strength because I think hitting the mob should take priority than how hard I hit it. I knew Mom bought that Nintendo for me when I was 5 for a reason: I have made her proud.

I am currently working as a half graphic designer at work anyway, but everything I know about the graphic world is self-taught. I think if I want to persue something more, I should consider taking at least some formal trainings, then the question is: where and what?

I think I have a few options here. I can take part-time courses at a community college and get some skillup (or what I like to call it Graphic Skill +1), take full-time courses at an art institue like Emily Carr (Graphic Upgrade: new amours and weapons avaiable upon finish), or I can look into the Master of publishing program at where I graudated (End Game Battle: fame and reputation +10). What I'm afraid of the most is finding out that I am not creative or good enough, but without seeing what's out there I will never know.

There are much to research for and maybe none of these options are viable with my current financial situation, but something I am thinking about more and more the past month. I guess it's still not too late to make a change like this, I just wish there's a quick answer. Maybe my Dark Knight will encounter someone tonight and send me off to a quest to find a treasure chest and if I find the right tools to open it it will tell me where I should apply for...

Anaheim trip: Disneyland

As the one month anniversary of my vacation, I decide to send this post out... no seriously, it's been crazily busy at work lately and when I get home all I want to do is to clean my dog's messes then hide under the cover. Since Scott is coming home today and he can deal with her messes, I have time to type again, YAAAAY (I was going to summarize everything into one post... but half way through typing I realized our "adventure" were way too entertaining... for my readers at least, so I'm breaking this down to a few posts.)

So, the Anaheim trip was very eventful to say the least. For those who doesn't know, I was there mainly for work. I was in charge of my company's biggest helicopter trade show booth each year. The show travels from city to city and this year it was at Anaheim. Since Scott and I were long due for a vacation, we decided to go a few days before the show and visit the Disneyland area. Of course, having not planned this ahead of time, I basically had to rush three weeks of work into one so I can leave for my vacation; hence the lack of updates from me lately.

We arrived at Anaheim on the 13th of February and stayed at this Best Western that was about 10 minutes walk from Downtown Disney. Although it was more like a motel and our room was awfully close to the elevator (which really made us the conversation tracker of people staying in our block. At one point I felt like it was my responsibility to tell a little girl that she didn't deserve to go to Disneyland because she whined too much, but her dad was not cute enough so I didn't bother) but the convenience of it did come in handy at a few situations.

The first day, which was Valentine's Day (we totally didn't plan this, we didn't even have gifts for each others for crying out loud), we decided to go to Disneyland... which reminded me that this was actually the first Valentine's Day that we spend with each others (the first Valentine's Scott was on a work trip and my car went out of gas and I had to call @billiam1975 for help; our second Valentine's Scott was at Ohio spending time with people he doesn't like; the third I was gone getting my hair shaved off), so we were destined to make this the best Valentine's ever.

As much as I tried not to be a geek, just hearing the music while going into Disneyland was enough to get me jumping up and down. We didn't want to rush our day, so we just casually walking around in the park. It was surprisingly quiet so we didn't need to line-up for most of our rides. Everything was very magical of course, and after we were ditched by Indiana Jones, whom clearly had way too much plastic surgeries, a few times at the Temple of Forbidden Eye and were assigned to this stupid robot where he sent us off to the middle of the galaxy and almost got us killed by aliens at Star Tours we decided to go to Space Mountain and spin our heads off, which might be literally the case for me.  

See, normally when you're on a ride, you can anticipate what's going on and you can kind of be prepared of what's coming, right? Well, not on Space Mountain. It's so dark in there you won't know if the person in front of you is puking until you feel liquid splat onto your face. And for some strange reasons, half way through the ride, I have this feeling that maybe something is going to hit my head (because that's very likely being the shortest person in the ride), so I was having this "turtle neck" syndrome while screaming into my boyfriend's ears. I noticed something wasn't feeling right immediately after the ride, but nothing major so we continued going for other rides that are really meant for kids than adults (I seriously still have the "Small World" song going on in my head while I'm typing.) and took pictures with some mascots.

Around 3 pm, we decided to have a late lunch, and that's when everything went downhill. The moment that I took a bite into my burger, my left shoulder and my neck immediately tensed up and created this sharp pain that was so severe that I had to drop the burger on my right hand. I guess I somehow twisted my neck while on Space Mountain and when I ate, the muscle on my neck just tensed up and triggered the pain. I thought it was only going to be a temporary thing but it elevated. By the time I finished my lunch, a simple burp caused pain that felt like my head was about to fall off.

I thought walking and keeping my back straight might help the situation, which proved, again, I'm not the smartest cookie in the jar. Apparently, there is almost no way for someone not to use their shoulder/neck muscles while you walk. So every few steps you'll see me pause with a face only a person with constipation would have trying to relax my neck. Despite the pain, however, we managed to walk back to the hotel (I have to say, walking pass a 6 lane cross-walk intersection with a flashing red light reminding you how many seconds you have left, while you have extreme neck pain was way more fun than any rides in Disneyland. Score!)

I spent the rest of the afternoon and night in our hotel room ordering Scott to get things for me. Valentine's Day suddenly become very romantic when you can say the phrase "baby, can you please slowly lay me on the bed?" and "please be gentle when you come to bed" 

I was very careful of how I sleep that night and make sure I won't hurt it again. With a combination of pills, hot towels and meditations (to keep my focus off the pain), I woke up next day with just small tensed on my shoulder, and it remained like that for a few more days but nothing major.

Though it wasn't the best Valentine's Day incident we were hoping for, the time we spent at Disneyland was very fun. We weren't too worry about missing some of the park and shopping anyway, as we got a 3-day pass which we planned to visit again on the last day... or at least that's what we though we would be doing...

...stay tuned for more adventures from my Anaheim trip. Next post: Knott's Berry Farm, California Adventure and Universal Studio.

A month?

Okay, February was an insane month for me.

The biggest trade show of the year for the company I worked for happened last week, and because Scott and I decided to go to Disneyland before that, I had so much to do at work before we leave that at one point I was telling people to do their own work. Now that I'm finally back onto my normal schedule, I am ready to type about my trip and stuff, and I noticed it's been a month since I typed my last post...

A MONTH?

How can that be? In my head I think about new stuff to type everyday, how can it been a month since I typed something? CRAZINESS!

Anyway, I just want to say that I'm back and Mickey said hello to everyone. I will have my trip report done this week, sorry for the wait. :D

Beauty within

I got a very unexpected email from someone last week.

When I was still back in school, I got my first client as a freelance graphic designer for a company in the gay community. They basically gave me a chance to skill up while getting paid. The general manager there, Norm (not real name) is a little weird and slightly flirtatious, but he respected me and my work a lot, so we always have a very good working relationship. A few years back, when I was still single, he would even invite me over along with a few other guys who don't have family in town for Thanksgiving dinner. I was never too close to him, but we kept in touch.

About four months ago, I got a voice message from Norm one day:

This is Norm. I know I am supposed to forward you some stuff today, but I am in shocked right now... I've had a very emotional week and really can't handle it right now... ooh I'm just not feeling good. I will try to get you information maybe after the weekend.

He sounded very worried and shattered on the message. I thought it might have something to do with his family or personal issue, so I didn't want to call him back to disturb him. I never got a call from him the following week, and a week later, I got an email from a guy letting me know that he will be my point of contact at least for a while because Norm had gone to rehab.

I can't say I was shocked, knowing that Norm was deeply involved in the gay community where drug and alcoholic addiction is a common thing. I used to hear rumors that he was doing drugs, but again, so many people do it in the community that as long as they don't push it on me, I couldn't careless.

A few months have passed. I've been working well with the new management team at the company. They told me that Norm will no longer come back. I didn't ask them why as I don't want to be nosey. I contacted a few people and they don't have more news to tell me what's going on, so I just left it at that. When I was just about to think I'll never hear from Norm again, I got an email from him last Thursday subjected "Connections":

Scott and Cleo

I stole this from my friend, Greg's blog.

So, this little tag cloud summarized all the keywords that I used on my blog. I was totally expecting that the most used words will be something completely inappropriate, but luckily, it only analysis the more recent posts, which I happened to type a lot about Buddhism. I love how the words "just everything Buddhism" all showed in one line.

Going through this, I realized I haven't talked about my boyfriend and my dog enough, so for the remaining of this post, I'm going to start all my paragraphs with Scott and end it with Cleo... starting... now:

• Scott and I are planning to go to Anaheim! Since I have a trade show at Anaheim late February, we decided to go to take a small vacation trip there because my flight will be already paid for by my company. Five years ago, when I went to the same trade show, I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to go to Disneyland with someone that I love. Instead, my virgin Disneyland experiences was taken away by my co-workers which proved that Disneyland is only the happiest place on earth when your boss is not there watching you screaming like a school girl when you're on a ride. We've just booked our flights today and hoping to get a good hotel for free using our Airmiles points. If you have one that can recommend to us please let us know. Now we just need to arrange stay over for the dog, who will probably hate us when we pick her up after 10 days. Poor Cleo.

• Scott and our friends are training for the Sun Run lately. The Sun Run is basically a 10 kilometer run in the Spring. It is the the largest 10 k race in the world. I have been involved with it through work for the past few years and my best year so far was finishing at 58 minutes. It's always a good reason for me to go out and do some outdoors activities (I sometimes try to argue that my FFXI character also do a lot of running, but Scott doesn't find that amusing at all... talking about that, my Dark Knight is at level 58! w00t!). It's great that I don't have to do it alone this year. We are training on a weekly incremental basis. I am looking forward to see the dehydration faces of the guys when they start having to run 15 minutes non-stop. Maybe they'll be so tired to stand that they'll have to sit on the floor with Cleo.

• Scottish actor Gerald Butler is sooooo cute. At times, even more so than Cleo.

The present

My friend Todd got me a little gift for Christmas called the Buddha Board. It's a neat little pad where you use water, instead of ink, to write or draw whatever you want. After a few minutes, the water with vaporized and it will become an empty pad again. I have been doing my Mantra character practice on it lately and it works perfectly. I find myself spending a lot of time walking back and forth in the apartment to write the best looking Mantra. Sometimes it doesn't look anything I want it to be and I wish I could wipe it off instantly so I can restart, there are other times where I write the perfect looking Mantra and I wish it will stay there for longer. The Buddha Board reminded me of some fundamental philosophies of Buddhism.

No matter how much you like or or dislike something, at some point in time, the phyiscal or the mental element will run to the end of its course, as everything that has a beginning also has an end. Whether it is the sterdiest architecture or the most basic form of microrganism, whether it is a relationship or just an acquaintance, nothing in the universe can escape from the cycle of birth (begin), aging (blossom), sickness (perish) and death (end). Nothing will last forever.

Again, just like many other concepts of Buddhism, this is such a pessimistic thought. Instead of telling you that your love ones will go to heaven, Buddhism suggested that everything just end (actually, more like going into a eternal cycle of birth and death, which is even more depressing, but I will leave that topic for another rainny day), instead of telling you that there will be some form of judgement to your bully, Buddhism suggested the pain will end, eventually. Buddhsim never fail to provide you with more reasons of "why bother to live?" From the surface, this is such a passive and gloomy way of treating life, but the core concept behind all these can be summarized in one word: present.

Since everything will come to an end and everything is ever-changing, the only thing we can be certain is the present. "Now" is the only moment you have in your life that you have control of, not a second ago, not a second later. Instead of cherishing the physical or even mental aspect of something which will not last, let's enjoy what you have at this moment. Don't be caught up with the mistakes you did yesterday (my ugly Mantra characters); don't wish for anything to be there forever (my beautiful Mantra characters); enjoy the moment (the personal time I get to have).

Of course, when things eventually come to an end, it will never be easy. The feeling will still be hurt, the heart will still be broken, but at least there will be no regret, because you have lived the present.

Inappropriate bookmark

Like many people, I love music. As my mentor Whoopi Goldberg said in Sister Act 2, "If you wake up in the mornin' and you can't think of anything but singin' first...then you're supposed to be a singer. Girl." I take my singing career very seriously. In fact, everyday I write songs for Cleo (mostly about her girlish figure and flat face) and perform in front of her. I also answer to people's question using lyrics ("do you know what are some of my favourite things? Raindrop on roses...") I am just like a jukebox on legs that's keep on giving. Sometimes I walk around in the office with my iPhone playing music, people will look at me funny because they hear music coming out from my back pocket. Then I go and tell them the story of Orpheus, the son of the god of music from Greek Mythology, and confuse them thinking I have the power to make music appear out of nowhere.

I also have this thing where I subconciously categorize incidents/time of my life into different songs. I guess I just listen to music so much that I connect different songs with whatever I was doing at that time automatically. Of course, since I don't do this on purpose, I generally won't know which song linked to which memory of mine. It's usually not until a few months (or years) later when I hear the same song then my senses will bring me back to those memories as if I am experiencing them all over again. The connection can be so strong that I sometimes can even "feel" the temperature and "smell" the scent. For the most part, I am quite appreciative when it happens, as whether it's good or bad, those memories were a part of me. Not to mention the songs get associated with my memories are pretty good songs.

Last night, when I was driving home and I heard this song on the radio:

To my shocking, I instantly remember all my fond memories of preparing for my charity event this past summer. OUT OF ALL SONGS OVER THE SUMMER, THIS IS THE SONG MY BRAIN DECIDED TO USE AS A BOOKMARK?!!! The charity that we raised over $10,000 is associated with "I kissed a girl"? Seriously?!

 

What next? My wedding be associated with "The Chicken song"? My first vacation with Scott be associated with "Ichy Breaky Heart"? Or 30 years old birthday be associated with a Jonas Brother song? I need this to stop now!