Archives for September 2006

i’m the single and looking blogger

Regulars to this blog would know of the shameless unadulterated self-whoring ‘Date Suanie‘ campaign that didn’t quite make it. It’s been more than a year, success rate is zero and that post serves as a painful lesson why no one should ever pimp themselves like that. Ever.

That is if you are really looking for a boyfriend lah 😉

So when Audrey of FEMALE mag e-mailed and asked if I would like to be part of a feature yadda yadda bloggers yadda yadda, I of course took it up. I am not a blog-ho for nothing.

The feature was published in their October 2006 issue.

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Haha, funny write-up. FYI, I didn’t write it 🙂 Four other bloggers featured are Bunny Wunny, Jenn Tai, Oliviasy and Cynthia Foo.

Scanned pages. Click to enlarge.

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Normally I don’t do this (i.e. scan stuff and what not) but for some reason I am finding the entire affair quite funny. So let me enjoy myself lah.

fare ye well

I’ve been so out of touch with what’s happening around the country (that’s what happens when you are cut off from the Internet — I don’t know how I managed to survive years ago), and didn’t know that the Venerable Dr K. Sri Dhammananda Nayaka Maha Thera had sadly passed away 🙁 🙁 🙁

The first time I met the Chief Reverend was back in 1996. He had stopped by Batu Pahat, probably at the invitation of the Kg. Merdeka temple, and delivered a talk in English which was translated to Mandarin for there were many non-English speaking people present. He was quite funny — cracked several jokes which was unfortunately lost upon those who couldn’t understand English. Luckily I could, and I thoroughly enjoyed his talk and his light-hearted mannerisms. Quite a nice change from some of the other monks we had listened to.

I didn’t know who he was then, until my seniors informed me that he was THE Chief Reverend for both Malaysia and Singapore. He sure didn’t act like it — you would expect someone of such significance to be serious and uptight and all. Well I was young, and thankfully that view of mine was proven wrong, not just by the Chief Reverend but also by a couple other monks I would later meet and get to know.

A few years later, the Chief Reverend’s pictorial autobiography was published. I bought a copy, and had the good fortune to have the Chief Reverend sign my book when we paid him a visit at the Brickfields temple. In the meantime I had read up about the Chief Reverend. From what I learnt, he was instrumental in preaching religious tolerance and harmony, especially in Malaysia when we faced so much troubles before (and still do, but a slightly different set of troubles now, I think).

The Chief Reverend himself wrote many books; I believe the most popular one is What Buddhists Believe‘. There are a couple of others that I also enjoyed, such as “Why Religious Tolerance?”, “The Buddhist Concept of Heaven and Hell” and “Life in Uncertain, Death is Certain”. You can download his free publications here.

I particularly like his logical approach to certain issues that I seek answers to, and his works were very helpful during the ‘finding-myself’ days. He was one of the reasons why I believe that Buddhism is the one religion I could most understand and relate to. I don’t claim to be a very good Buddhist; really I am far far far from it but imagine — if there wasn’t Buddhism, I could turn out worse?

Sad day for Malaysians and all of humanity indeed.

Wesak Day @ Buddhist Maha Vihara, Brickfields 2005 - 16 portrait of Ven Dr K Sri Dhammananda

May the Chief Reverend attain parinirvana. If not this life, then surely the next.