should i kill the ants?

2 days later, don and andrew invited me to another buddhist seminar. it was a sunday. don drove me in his new honda JAZZ with andrew inside.

this was another interesting seminar.

it began with offering to the statue of a seated MAITREYA BUDDHA. first it was a lighted lotus candle, then a plate of sweetly scented michelia/jasmine, then a vase of chyrsanthemums,another nice floral arrangement followed....then a bowl of fruits and finally a tray of 2 cups water with another cup of fruit juice in between.

it was followed by some thanksgiving verbal acknowledgement. then all seated and 'puja' chanting began in pali which i was totally blank and blur!

after that, a sri lankan professor who was well-versed in buddhism preached. finally question time. again, i was sitting right infront - face to face with the professor. he prompted me to ask the first question. oh well, here i went:

as buddhist practitioner, if there are ants in my house , can i kill them?

hahaha...that was the only question i recalled from the last seminar just 2 days ago.

this professor answered it very wisely:

it's not whether we should be killing the ants or not. we should ask ourselves why the ants happened to be there proliferating in the first place. they are like the karma to the action we did.

you see, if we keep our place clean....no food scraps lying everywhere, where would the ants come from? they won't come if there isn't anything like food to attract them, right? and if we have kept the place spick and spank, then we would definitely not getting the ants.

hmmm....make sense isn't it? i thought if he was stumped by it, i would just gave him the MONK AND NUN ANTS by the tibetan rinpoche....hahahaha! it's not about killing of the ants, more importantly it should be the CONTROLLING of our actions. hence if we are mindful of our action, then bad karmic effect like the appearance of the ants wouldn't have appeared and we as buddhist practitioners won't be in a dilemma of whether to kill the ants or not.

anyway, my answer was even simpler and straightforward. if it harms us and causes unhappiness to us, for heaven's sake just spray the ants with baygon. PROBLEM SOLVED! hahahaha.....;9)

am i enlightened or am i not?

i was slammed with a 2000yr old buddha statue!

1st may, labour day which was a public holiday. don, andrew and i attended a buddhist seminar by CHOKYI NYIMA RINPOCHE who was a renowned mdeditation master from eastern tibet. shortly before the chinese invasion of tibet in 1959, rinpoche left with his family for Sikkim. (i think that's in Nepal, not very sure.)

well, it was quite a amusing and fun seminar. it was a bit odd that it seem i was the only who could understand his uncanny wiry jokes. he laughed. i laughed too.

then question time. there was this even weirder question which really was very amusing and memorable which came from a laukuaybu. it went like this:

rinpoche, my house is infested with lots of ants. as buddhist practitioner, i understand i cannot kill....so what am i going to do?

rinpoche lifted his eye brows and was a bit blurred by the question. he answered anyway in a very amusing manner:

ok..ok...u divide the ants into male ants and female ants. the male ants u train to be monk ants; the female, nun ants...then u breed them...

hahahaha....your is a funny question so i give u a funny answer...hahahaha...

it was deriliously hilarious!! the audience laughed wildly!

soon, it was blessing time. don, andrew and i was seated in the front seats hence we were first to go up the stage to receive blessing from the rinpoche. oopss..and oops ooops!!

the lady mc annouced: please present your ang pows offering to rinpoche after he blesses u. however, before she announced, rinpoche had already mentioned something that "no need to pray to me or prostrate to me...later when i bless you, no offering please...."

what was i suppose to do? who care! just queue up behind those monks and lamas who were first to be blessed. they offered their angpows but the rinpoche swiftly put it back onto their palm and asked them to go after blessing them.

andrew was quick. he rushed out to the reception got 3 red packets. before he could give it to me to fill up with offering money, i was already kneeling infront of the rinpoche. he smiled, chanted some mantra and 'slammed' me with a small 2000yr old brass buddha......

well, was i supposed to feel anything? er...to be honest - NO. NOTHING,

but i think i understood what the rinpoche said before he started his preaching:
DO NOT PRAY TO ME OR PROSTRATE TO ME...

and i understood. the blessing was just a gesture to motivate ourselves to practise harder and be more compassionate to our fellow beings.

i understood that he was also only another human being - wiser and more enlightened and hence sharing his thoughts and teaching. that was probably the reason why he stressed 'don't pray or prostrate to me'...

sadhu...sadhu...emptiness is form, form is emptiness .....;9)

there was one very important lesson that i valued learning most from the rinpoche. that is:

WHEN ONE PRACTISES BUDDHISM, HE CAN STILL CONTINUE TO BE WHAT HE BELIEVES IN. HE CAN STILL BE CHRISTIAN OR MUSLIM OR ETC...BUT IF HE'S A CHRISTIAN, THEN IT WOULD BE DIFFEICULT FOR HIM TO PRACTISE BUDDHISM.

footnote: don and i have know each other for about 3yrs. it was weird. we actually know each other through msn while he was studying for his master in adelaide. he was suppose to remain and work in oz but chose to return here to work. according to him, it was higher pay and better privileges here.

i acquainted andrew through don. andrew is one helluva buddhist practitioner. i was astounded by his depth of buddhist knowledge. he was the youngest and i was the oldest ....pai seh ;9)...and the stupidest and blurcock one!!