The Bright Hill Temple (as it is commonly known) or Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Temple is the largest temple in Singapore and covers 12 hectares. It features fine examples of Chinese decorations, statues and shrines, a large turtle pool and some peaceful gardens. The main function though is as a crematorium; funerals, complete with paper effigies are frequent.

The Monastery is a very peaceful place and since they offered a lot of books dealing with buddhism, I sat down inside the monastery smelling the nice odour of joss sticks and read some interesting things about kamma and the buddhism FAQ.

Buddhism

Buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development leading to Insight into the true nature of life. Buddhist practices such as meditation are means of changing oneself in order to develop the qualities of awareness, kindness, and wisdom. The experience developed within the Buddhist tradition over thousands of years has created an incomparable resource for all those who wish to follow a path - a path which ultimately culminates in Enlightenment or Buddhahood.

Buddha

There are many ways to describe who the Buddha is, according to different ways of understanding. These various interpretations have their sources in the Buddha's teachings. One way is to see the historical Buddha who lived 2,500 years ago as a human being who cleansed his mind of all defilements and developed all his potential. Any being who does likewise is also considered a Buddha, for there are many Buddhas, not just one. Another way is to understand a particular Buddha or Buddhist deity as the omniscient mind manifesting in a certain physical aspect in order to communicate with us. Yet another way is to see the Buddha - or any of the enlightened Buddhist deities - as the appearance of the future Buddha that we will become once we properly and completely have engaged in the path to cleanse our mind of defilements and develop all of our potential

The historical Buddha was born Prince Gautama Siddhartha, the son of Suddhodana, king of the Shakya tribe. His birthplace was the forest grove of Lumbini in the hilly regions of what is today northeastern India and Nepal. His parents gave him the name Siddhartha and there were many wonderful predicitions about his future. In his early years he lived as a prince in his royal palace but when he was 29 years old he retired to the forest where he followed a spiritual life of meditation. After six years he attained enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya, India.

The Buddhas as Manifestations (Sambhogakaya). The Sambhogakaya is the vehicle for the power of the Dharmakaya. Buddhas operating or dwelling in Sambhogakaya are sometimes called meditation Buddhas, depicted in seated meditation. They're also usually depicted in their own particular paradise (pure land, buddha field, buddhaverse). They are in a state of perpetual bliss, enjoying the truth they embody. These super-human figures can be seen not as separate gods but representing abstract aspects of Buddha.

The Buddhas we will become is the third way to understand the Buddha. All sentient beings have the potential to become Buddhas, for we all have the clear nature of the mind. At the present our mind is clouded by afflictive emotions (klesa) and actions (karma). Through constant practice, we can remove these defilements from our mind stream and nourish the seeds of all the beautiful potentials we have. Thus, each of us can become a Buddha when this process of purification and growth is completed. This is a feature unique to Buddhism, for in most other religions there is an irreparable gap between the divine being and the human being. However, the Buddha said that each sentient being has the potential for perfection. It is only a matter of engaging in the practice and creating the causes to reach perfection

We spend the afternoon lying at the swimming lagoon having a German-like picnic (cheese and white bread) and drunk some strange tasting coconut milk.

Moon Cakes

During the Yuan dynasty (A.D. 1280-1368) China was ruled by the Mongolian people. Leaders from the preceding Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1280) were unhappy at submitting to the foreign rule, and set how to coordinate the rebellion without being discovered. The leaders of the rebellion, knowing that the Moon Festival was drawing near, ordered the making of special cakes. Backed into each moon caked was a message with the outline of the attack. On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attached and overthrew the government. Today, moon cakes are eaten to commemorate this legend and was called the Moon Cake.

I put a picture of the really delicious moon cake I tasted this afternoon at pics

Lanterns

On the 15th and 16th days of the 8th lunar month, families will go out after dinner with their lanterns to do moon gazing. Traditional ones are made of paper. Round fan fold ones are the basic ones while fruit and animal shaped lanterns like rabbit, fish, butterfly and star fruit shaped ones are for children. Candles are used to light up the lanterns traditionally but modern safety concern has brought battery powered plastic cartoon characters like Hello Kitty and Ultraman.

During the last days I saw a lot of families walking around with those lanterns. One funny thing about this is that all electric lanterns I saw were playing the same melody - maybe it is the official Lantern Festival Melody ;)

Unfortunately I was not able to find the melody on the net. Anyway I am sure it is some kind of commercial version. If you are interested in meldodies which are played at the several festival places click here.

Here in Singapore it is very common to talk a walk on the sport field, so usually when I go running, I meet many families with children going around the sport field even at 10 p.m. and especially in the last weeks the children often had lanterns with them.

Moon

There are a lot of different stories about the Moon Lady which have similar plots but vary in details. The nicest I found is this one:

According to a famous Chinese legend, there were ten suns hanging on the sky. The suns scorched the earth so much that people could not farm. There was nothing to eat. A young man named "Hou Yi" was strong and powerful. He was a very good shooter. He wanted to help people and save their lives. So he shot down nine of the suns with his magic bow and arrow.

From then on, people could live in peace and happiness. Hou Yi became famous and honorable for what he did. He married a beautiful girl, whose name is Chang O. Hou Yi was a good husband. He loved his wife very much. He wanted to live with his wife forever. So, he hoped to find the herb of immortality.

One day, Hou Yi went to visit the Western Goddess. He told her what he wanted. The Western Goddess was very touched by Hou Yi. She decided to give him the herb of immortality. However, the herb was only good to make one person immortal. Hou Yi never wanted to leave his wife. So he could not decide who should take the herb, his wife or himself. Either way, one of them would have to leave the other one behind.

Therefore, Hou Yi told his wife, Chang O, to put the herb away for the time being. Chang O put this magic herb in a secret place. However, a man called Bu Mo heard and saw everything. He wanted to have the herb of immortality himself. So, three days later, after Hou Yi left for hunting, Bu Mo came to visit Chang O and ask her about the immortal herb. Chang O became suspicious about Bu Mo's intention. She put the herb into her mouth trying to protect it. But she swallowed it by mistake (das kleine Dummerchen).

After a while, she felt her body become lighter and lighter and start to float up higher and higher all the way to the sky. She could not stop herself, because she did not want to leave her husband. However, Chang O landed on the moon and became an immortal godness.

Hou Yi could not believe what had happened; his wife had left him. Late at night, he looked into the sky and saw that the moon was extremely bright. There was a shadow on the moon, which looked like his beloved wife, Change O. this made him miss his wife even more.

According to the legend, Chang O transformed herself into brilliant moonlight. Today, couples would declare their love for each other under the full moon of this mid-autumn day. Separated lovers make wishes for their reunion.

Hinduism

It may be strange but the Sri Mariamman Temple, the oldest and most important Hindu temple in Singapore is in the middle of China Town. This is based on the fact, that the Temple is older than China Town, so more or less by randomness China Town was build around the Temple and of course they didn't want to destroy it.

When I visited the temple I had the chance to see a little child being baptized which was quite interesting. The good thing about my visit there was that my presence seemed not to disturb other visitors like the mother of the child. It was just tolerated without any critical views or something like that. Another difference from the Christian baptism or from the whole church service in general is based on the fact that everything seemed to be very informal. Some Hindus (I think they were Hindus) were just sitting in the Temple in a very relaxed way and speaking to each other and little children were running around playing and laughing.

A nice site at the entrance of the temple gave some basic information about the Hinduism. For example there is not one holy book like the bible or the Koran therefore it is difficult slot into any particular belief system. In fact Hinduism seems to be more than a religion in the Western sense it is said to be a set of beliefs and practices. By research I found some site explaining more about this.

You can see some pictures on my site showing different Gods (for example the pics of the Batu Cave in Melacca). So, even if there are thousands of Gods and Goddesses in Hinduism, they are only representing the many aspects of the Brahman, the supreme Absolute. The most fundamental of Hindu deities, is the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva - creator, preserver and destroyer.

One thing almost everybody knows is the Caste System. An interesting fact about this System which was created to organize the society is that most people in India and other Asian countries were really happy when the Islam was introduced by the Arabs. Ok, you may think "how?". But in fact the Islam is more based on equality than the Caste System - at least for the Muslim and that is why the there are so many Muslim countries here in Asia (like Malaysia, Indonesia, etc).

Ramayana and Mahabharta

Ramayana and Mahabharta are the most important holy scriptures of Hinduism.

The story of Mahabharta is based on a historical war which took place around the 9th Century B.C. in the region which is today known as Kashmir. The central theme of the Mahabharata (maha = great,bhara = voluminous) is the contest between two noble families, the Pandavas and their blood relatives the Kauravas, for possession of a kingdom in northern India. The most important segment of the poem is the Bhagavad-Gita, a dialogue between Krishna, the eighth incarnation of the God Vishnu, and the Pandava hero Arjuna on the meaning of life. It has influenced devout Hindu believers for centuries. It is divided into 18 books containing altogether about 100,000 verses interspersed with short prose passages.

Ramayana is the story of Rama (the ideal of virtuousness ). The story of Rama is full of stories of how an ideal man is supposed to behave, how an ideal king is supposed to perform etc. The whole story can be read here

Journey to the west

We chose this story for the theme for the Game Demo we have to create for the lecture SC443 (computer game programming).

"The flag consists of two equal horizontal sections, red above white. In the upper left section are a white crescent moon, and five white stars forming a circle. Each feature of the the flag has its own distinctive meaning and significance. Red symbolises universal brotherhood and equality of man. White signifies pervading and everlasting purity and virtue. The crescent moon represents a young nation on the ascendant. The five stars stands for the nation's ideals of democracy, peace, progress, justice and quality"

On Sunday Tim and I went to Suntec City to the Comex 2004 . This Fair is comparable to the CeBit in Hannover but of course not as big.

During the weekend Tim and I had several chess contests, which I lost all except one... I have to improve and be more kia su!!!