Jottings straight from the heart
about life, blogging, travel, career, money, happiness, entrepreneurship, choices, and life's fundamentals.
Starting from now or even last week, the Chinese have started visiting cemetries to honor the department- buy burning paper items, hell money and serving the department with food. First, there would be a gotong royong, followed by the entire family having a picnic on the grave area. Now, for convenience, families sometimes buy fast food like Kentucky Fried Chicken and eat later after prayers.
Some items being burned bought for burning are:
Paper House
Today, I am saddened to hear the news of the Japanese earthquake- as the after effect of a tsunami. The news was reported in Aljazerra. Here are some snapshots taken from the news:
My little contribution for Hallowen- is there any similarities between The Final Destination and freak accidents?
Let’s imagine this situation …
Supposedly someone had done something very bad to you, like took the life that you value. Everyday, the hatred just burns in you as you watch that person enjoying his life.
He shouldn’t. He does not deserve it- it’s not fair. He had what should rightfully be yours. It increases your anger even more.
So you regain your strength and plot your revenge. Day and night, your hatred increases, your energy increases. It’s the law- your chance to do it will happen on a certain time at a certain date. Now, your entire existence, your only aim is to live right till that moment to get your chance… to take your revenge.
Another life begins…
The chap that you hated so much also eventually pass away of old age. He took on a new existance, in a different family with a different name. He had forgotten that previous life … and the debt that he owe you.
But you have not, you will never ever ever forget. You will never forgive- of that you’re sure. Day and night, you tail that person waiting for the time… you know the time, you know the place.
It is very sad that a recently, a published report of how a tiger was cruelly killed in the forest reserve in Malaysia. A snare was laid out in the forest on 25 January. On 2 Feb, a tiger’s left forelimb was caught in the snare.
Cruel death- The tiger lying death with gunshot and blow pipe wounds. Its detached left forelimb was still caught in the snare.
Then on 3rd February, the group of orang asli (forest natives) went into the forest to kill the tiger. The person who set up the trap with another 4 persons went into the jungle and shot the tiger on its eye, leg and body, and then left it to die.
On the next day, 4 Feb 10, the few orang asli went back in to retrieve the carcass- probably to have it sold to middemen. They thought the tiger had died because of the shots- it should have bled to death. But the tiger was not dead and it attacked one of the orang asli. In its attempt to break free from the snare, the tiger had freed itself from the snare by detaching its own left limb from its body.
Nowadays, stories of old ladies who were cheated out of their life savings appeared in the local newspapers quite often. Two Sundays ago, The Star ran a detailed article on stories of these people who got cheated which is a good read- The Bomoh Strikes Again and again, and again.
There are many things we can do to improve the life vitality energy within us to avoid falling into victim of shaman scams- from character change, outlook in life, exercise and nutrition. In my Health Blog, I’ve written a number of articles on eating and exercising to increase our energy levels. Here, I will mention points from the character strength, emotional and spiritual point of view:
Learn to systematically deal with the fear- there are books, seminars and mentors who can teach you how to deal with fear. You can also look up in the internet on real life stories of how others had overcome their fears. Life and its uncertainties causes a lot of fear to us- making us vulnerable to fall victims to all types of syndicates and con artists. When a person had a life threatening illness, he/she becomes so afraid- that’s why every year so much of money is spent on healthcare alone and buying all types of direct selling products.
Recently, local villages were perplexed as to why a cow would chose to bite a man (source: Village astir after cow bites man, The Star, 16 Nov 09). An odd job worker was clearing the jungle when a cow came from behind the bush and viciously bit his hand- causing him to be hospitalized. At first, he thought the attacker was a tiger but realized it was a cow.
When the villagers rounded a suspect- a cow, the man insisted it was not the cow in question. He remembered the cow had a huge stomach and was pregnant. But the mystery surrounds the fact- why would a known herbivore chose to attack a man who obviously is not a threat to it.
This reminds me of a movie, “Failure to Launch” staring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey. In that movie, Tripp (Matthew McConaughey) is a single man still living with his parents. He travelled into jungles, played sports and go surfing alongside with two of his best friends. On 3 instances, he had strange encounters- he was bitten by a lizard that was known to be a herbivore and attacked by a dolphin (I cannot remember what was the third incident). His friends told him that these animals are known to never attack human beings and these attacks must be signs that he was going against nature.
During Halloween celebration, many people start to dress in scary customs- and various food, candies, cakes and even the entire office/home are filled with decorations of ghouls, witches, black cats, pumpkins with faces, etc. By doing that, our mind may tend to associate with these things- especially if we engage in time consuming preparation.
Personally, I feel the more we associate with these things, the more negative vibration we get. And also it increases our fears of the unknown. Outwardly it seems fun but the association with these dark forces may not be good for us.
Spiritual Research Foundation (SSRF) (based in India) have written some good articles on this topic:
Through my travels and staying in nature, one thing I’ve learned is not to scare myself too much when it comes nightfall (sometimes I am alone with the night sounds of the forests). I acknowledged the fact that there could be ‘unseen guardians’ taking care of certain territories but that’s about it- I do my best not to dwell and let my imagination run wild. When I asked others who have travel and stayed all over the place, sometimes in seemingly spooky places, I was given similar advice- just don’t think about it.
The human fear of the unknown is great. With stories of vengeful and terrifying looking ghosts who are out to seek revenge, society have gotten a pretty scary picture about these type of unseen beings.
The 9 Emperor Gods festival is celebrated by the Hokkien community. Every year, it falls on the first to the ninth day of the ninth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. And during these nine days, it usually rains- this is something that a lot of celebrants know about and would be careful to carry their umbrellas around.
I do not celebrate the festival but I tend to join in and observe a nine day vegetarian diet. I have been doing this for a few years, except last year when I was on a different observation that supersedes this. Compared to others, I am not that strict in the sense that I still take milk and eggs (in the form of cakes but not directly cooked). This has nothing to do with religious observation since I am not a Taiost but I do consider that any inflicted self-discipline can serve as building blocks of more resilient character.
On Monday night was the final day. Prior to this, I’ve actually mentioned to my family that I want to cut down my intake of meat, specifically on pork (I don’t take beef or mutton or any other mammals). I went to sleep as normal but did not sleep well. I had a strange dream:
KBS Channel have been running a series of Korean ghost storiesevery week that is aired in Astro channel.
Today, I watched a love story of the 9 tailed spirit fox- that is both touching but gave a valuable lesson. So I would narrate out the story here in my own words:
In ancient time, a family of fox spirits known asKitsune stayed in the forests. The family, consist of the father, mother and daughter fox spirits were constantly being hunted by hunters. The fox spirits were hunted because their 9 tails can cure any illness and there is cash reward for it. As the hunters finally got to the father and killed him in cold blood, the mother fox requested for her daughter to turn into a human being. The condition is that she is required to live as a wife of a man for 1000 days- and the man must never abandon her.
Pic source: http://kbsworld.kbs.co.kr/
The fox spirits could disguise themselves in human form without being found out except when viewing them through a special gemstone and using dogs- fox spirits are afraid of dogs. So the hunters would use hunting dogs to trace them down.
One day, the daughter fox spirit got chased by the hunters with their dogs- she was running for her life (in her beautiful human maiden form) when she met a poor young man digging through some soil. The man attempted to protect her from the dogs and got bitten in the process. He then took her back to his home and together with his mom, they nursed her back to health (they did not know that she is the fox spirit).
Today the day of the longest solar eclipse in the 21st century. According to CNN correspondent Emily Chan, who is in Shanghai to catch the eclipse, there were hundreds of dragonflies flying around the area. As the time of the eclipse is drawing to a near, these dragonflies suddenly disappeared. What is the mystical significance of an eclipse?
Earlier, I woke up this morning to the sounds of dogs howling nearby. And this happens before 8am, before the eclipse had started. I do not hear such howls often. The weather looks somber and a bit chilly even though where I live, in Malaysia, is not within the path of the eclipse.
“Another triple eclipse in 3031 BCE coincided with the destruction of the ancient city of Dwarka. More recently, the first half of the 20th century saw the occurrence of a series of triple eclipse between 1910 and 1945, which coincided with World War I and II, the Holocaust, and the nuclear bombings in Japan.
~ D Hari & D Hema Hari, founders of Bharath Gyan
It is mentioned by Emily from CNN that in ancient China, emperors would start doing good deeds like reducing taxes and helping the poor peasants whenever an eclipse happens. This is because in China, such events are linked to natural disasters and the fall of an emperor. The emperors had hoped that such good deeds would be able to avert or at least minimize bad disasters associated with eclipses.
Source: NASA