The zaangha yesterday was small but cozy, a beautiful day too, clear sky, sunny hot with windless stillness. These members showed up! Scotty , Ryan, Dharma girl and Free energy . From vicious circle to Bottlescrew Bills and as in a slight detour became the place for the zaangha gathering in Calgary. There were Wiber fans to environmentalists to followers of Dharma where ideas were shared, expanded and mingled with fries, beer, ice tea and ginger-ale cranberry drink. Everyone had their preference as to selection as according to their own palette. We can be the same and different at the same time which brings me to this article I would like to share. It's very cute and reminds me of the compassion in all of us. Enjoy!

13/09/07 - World news section

The abandoned monkey who has found love with a pigeon

They're an odd couple in every sense but a monkey and a pigeon have become inseparable at an animal sanctuary in China.

The 12-week-old macaque - who was abandoned by his mother - was close to death when it was rescued on Neilingding Island, in Goangdong Province.

After being taken to an animal hospital his health began to improve but he seemed spiritless - until he developed a friendship with a white pigeon.

Scroll down for more...

The blossoming relationship helped to revive the macaque who has developed a new lease of life, say staff at the sanctuary.

Now the unlikely duo are never far from each other's side, but they aren't the only ones to strike up an unusual friendship.

Earlier this year a pig adopted a tiger cub and raised him along with her piglets because his mother couldn't feed him.

And in 2005 a baby dear named Mi-Lu befriended lurcher Geoffrey at the Knowsley Animal Park in Merseyside after she was rejected by her mother.

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Find this story at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=481601&in_page_id=1811
©2007 Associated New Media

Humm..Asian do not really have obituary. Maybe they do but not in my family, I have not encountered anyone with one in my childhood and now. Perhaps the best obituary is none at all because we can be like nature and the universe. We flow with no mark, no intentions, no force...no memories, no footprint, nothing for people to cry, to fear, to cling, to feel sad. Is it natural for waves of sadness to arise in people in times of death or do we cry because we fear the unknown, the journey? A master once said that "we should cry when there is birth and smile when there is death". I like that. So if I had a obituary, it might just say this:

Smile, smile to life, smile to love ones, friends, strangers, animals, the world, the sufferings, the pain, the sadness, the laughters, the bless, and the impermanence.
Heres looking at you babe ^_*

Thanks for the new tech tools..zaadz
here, it has arrived
inspirating
sweet!

image embedding
sleek

very nice
excited
race u to it.
yeah

curiosity
oooooooohhhhhhhhh
ooooshhhhhh
let's have fun!

"We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year? Somewhere out there in the world, the song will be sung in Christmas encouraging happiness, hope and joy to all. Well, the days are near and the malls are packed, emotions are high and stress is here. What to buy? How much to spend? Buy Buy Buy The time is near.

I come from an Asian family so Christmas is not celebrated much..the most is that our family get together and go out for dinner. There is no boxed gifts, there is no decorations inside. It is nice that way, no fuss, no spending over budget, no stress. Xmas doesn't have to be perfect with the best clothes, the best of food, the best of experience. The world makes Christmas a higher pestral each year where all we focus on is that special day where everyday of every present moment should be Christmas.

Christmas is a blessing. If we are able to celebrate it, it means that you are fortunate to have the finance, the gifts of friends, families, the riches of food and a shelter to share it with. Imagine if we did not have any of those fortunate.

The recipe for riches lies not with how much money we have, how we are dress, not how many cool gagnets, or pretty house or faster car but in our humanitarian efforts to see all people as one: the same being with same wishes for love, joy, peace and harmony.

"LIFE is 10% what happens to you 90% what you do with what happens to You."

ZAADZ IS ABOUT CHANGING THE WORLD!

SHARE OUR WEALTH - Shoebox Style (Nov 13 - 18, 2006)

SAMARITAN'S PURSE (CANADA)            SMARITAN'S PURSE (USA)

Samaritan's Purse is an international relief organization that distributes Christmas gifts to the Children all over the world.

The shoebox can be fill with school supplies, hygience items, toys, clothes accessories etc.

Giving is getting: smiles, happy thoughts, sweet dreams, joy, warm wishes, generousity, life, open hearts, open spaces, friendship, peace and harmony.

Hey, Calgary is booming and growing in numbers. We just got a new theater in town renovated called the GRAND. Lovely antique feel to it, simple decor, a small size place that holds about 100? Ryan and I went to clap for Malcolm who was performing in it as the musical background. (the drums). He is a zaadz too so cheers to him! We saw the musical play called URINETOWN. It was a blast..the cast was so talented, dancing and singing and many interactions to make the audiences laugh their hearts out. The music was upbeat and fun with kicks. The topic was interestingly catching..about a town in the future..a time when there is water shortage and drought where everyone could not afford to have private toilets in their homes and it became a need to pay to pee hence, the song, "it's a privilege to pee"..very comical to see the first scene where people are in line waiting and holding their liquids in line as they pay to go pee. The drumming was excellent of course :) The band was certainly fabulous, the whole crowd stood up to applauses for them during the ending performances. I hope some of zaadsters got to see it. I should have posted my reviews earlier..heheh..well, there is always the next showing when it comes :P

A heads up, the Calgary film festival is happening now so do go if zaadsters are in Calgary..it is quite big.. September 22, 2006 to October 1. There is still a week left. And of course..do go see and support zaadz's family..zaadzster KP . Check out "Sand for Now " , a documentary about the artists of the sands...in different part of the world from Quebec Canada to Europe places..it touches both the spiritual and physical aspects of artists working with the material. It is great to see such passion glow and shine out through the creator. The beautiful details of each piece.

Tonight, Ryan and I are heading out to catch the flim "Immigrant" which is produced by a Calgarian too which is showing at the film festival. Okay, got to go and catch it.. Ryan is nagging me to hurry..see ya..

Yuri

 

Humm..I haven't been blogging for awhile..not even close to catching up with all other friend's blog on this community. The so called life seem to spin by so fast that I can hardly keep up..the week seems to pass from monday to friday and to monday again and sometimes I wonder if I have truly use my time wisely? Reflection is needed most definately! I guess what I mean is to live day to day with more meaning and spread meaning as best as I can to others in my life or even beyond my circle of connections.

As like being here knowing that it is now at this moment that I am writing this blog and with this blog, communication, connection, sharing, understanding comes together and bridges our sense of oneness, our experience with each other and be the buddha within. It was hard of me to understand what that means..but after many dharma talks, and reflection.. I see how peace, happiness, joy are truly within us but we have to do our part. We have to make effort, take risk, and be not afraid to fall down and experience the sufferings which in a hidden way is our helper to arriving at the pureland of our vision. Even if we half finish the race, we still was in it and that counts no matter where we are at.

am I saying that I have peace and happiness? I believe that as long as we are human, there is no total peace and happiness..things are balance with the negative and positive, the yang and ying, moon and sun. We still are bind to the suffering that exist in the so called life. When I attended those dharma talks..when the people talks of suffering, the master would say, that is good, you are burning bad karma. Acceptance can help. That's a great way to see it but hard to swallow if each of us is so different, our views, our pain tolerance, our experience but we all know sufferings in one form or another. We all get it. So we got to bridge the gap between knowledge, understanding then true wisdom self comes. ..Perhaps comes in the most ordinary everyday common gestures or things through our mind, our eyes, our body, our actions or non actions.

When someone is suffering...

1. Be a friend, just be there..an act of listening is of great relief.

2. Be understanding because we are all in that boat in time or another.

3. Be patience, the person may tend to repeat words, phrase or speech a number of times, worse even bite, hit, scratch but that is not him/her..it is the reaction from pain.

4. Be not judgemental, we are not that person or being so do not assume.

5. Be not afraid to smile and give them a big hard hug and encouragement.

6. Be not afraid to ask questions. Ask if they are okay.

Okei, I wanted to talk about reflection too but I guess that will be the next topic...notice how our brain works..I honestly did not know my end blog would be..this..doesn't this parellel life the way life works?

I finally got back into it and got myself going to the temple again. Today was a "Liberation ceremony". The Avatamsaka temple brought 3 big cages of pigeons, and they are planning to set them free!!! What a great deed..me so happy. I thought I would be actually be helping with moving the crates and freeing the birds but that didn't happen. The assembly and I chanted a liberation sutra or mantra and afterwards, volunteer male helpers escorted the birds to the van for the trip to freedom.

Does it make a difference to do such actions when others are constantly capturing back the birds to be sell again? Well, The master talkes about this story. I have heard of this story before but perhaps you have not. It is along a beach in a city of a country, a girl would pick starfish off the shores of the ocean. In automatic motion, when she saw one on the ground, her hands would pick it up and toss it out back into the ocean. She did this the whole day until a curious by-passer stopped her and ask:

"What are you doing?"

"I am throwing starfish into the ocean".

"Does that make any difference, they are going to come back to shore, dry and die anyhow."

She saw another starfish nearby, gallop towards it, picked it up with her tiny hands in full momentum and said,  "It does to that one."

The master said it was after reading this English story that she understood the meaning behind the actions. Even though it is impossible to save all the starfishes, all the pigeons or  the animals or all beings..the most important is making such great thought or wishes so we can plant in ourselves for the future. When we have such deep seeds of wishes then later when the time is ripe, we will be able to fulfill them. 

I agree with her, even if you doubt an action, it doesn't hurt to do good. The 1 to 2 seconds of our time doesn't make much difference to us but for the starfishes, it means another chance to live and not be sizzle and dry out by the hot hot sun. If you would not wish to die that way, neither does all those starfishes and pigeons. The difference is that we have feet to walk or run away from the situation and a mouth that allows us to communicate to the understanding of the majority. If starfishes have feet that allow them to travel back to the ocean, what do you think they would do?

One way to cultivate is to analyze our dislike or doubt of something. For examples, worms, ants, mice, snakes, insects etc. Why do we fear it? By questioning, we find out more about ourselves, perhaps we see a different picture and problem. If we consider the importance of them in the equation of life, we will eventually realized that it is because of them that we are here. Everything has a purpose. There is a choice for each individual to investigate or choose not to know the working of the kosmos but even if we do not value their purpose or agree with it, we must value the importance of life because we are life itself.

Lost: To wander from or become ignorant of: lose one's way. It is a frightful feeling, the sense of disconnection and confusion to the present surroundings and not be able to control what is happening around you. There is a sense of helplessness and the need to find security, familiarity and comfort very very fast. Fear creeps in and we will do anything to protect ourselves. I remembered the first and last time I was lost. It was in elementary school times in the 80's and I got lost at my friend's place near 87 ave and 163rd st. I can't even recall if I went with someone but the area was new to me and the unknown surroundings blurred my sense of direction and I lost my way. What do kids do? I cried and cried but I also saw a "block parent" sign and went to that house for assistance. I wish I could be some assistance to Flo. She had her teeth cleaned yesterday and the night of the day before and yesterday, she did not eat or drink. Yesterday morning, I manage to get her to drink a bit of water from my hand in the morning before I left for work and before her operation. That was the last time I saw my flurry friend. I do not want to confuse you, she is not dead or anything. She is just lost, her old self needs time to recover, that is what I am hoping because I miss her so much. The fear in her eyes was one I do not want any being to have, at the vet was frantic, wild, and instinctive fear and suffering..when I called to calm her, it was like the wind, her eyes looked beyond in a world I could not enter. I didn't think she saw me at all, those glossy round eyes beamed out at me. There was no connection, just fear. She hissed as though she needed to fend off a bear and her life depended on it. We tried putting her bag inside and seeing if she would enter it herself but she remained in the fearful state..hissing and growling as if there is no tomorrow. The doctor finally came in with protective gloves and a blanket. The sound of her howls was the loudest I ever heard her. He wrapped her up and placed her into our carrying bag and I walked her home. It is sad to see her in a new personality..she is calm now, it took awhile but I am worry about her because she hasn't drink much since she got home and I tried feeding a bit to her but all she did was sniff it..her walk is slow, tipsy and careful..her quietness and reserved nature but unlike her old self of confidence and voice, she seems empty of life. She is alive yet she is not in some sense. The experience must have been painfully stressful for her. They had put her to sleep to get the teeth clean. The fasting was crazy. I do not know if any humans can, would allow or endure a fast of food about 15 hrs before surgery. When I think back, I wonder if it was such a good idea in the first place. If clean teeth is more important than losing a friend or unintentionally causing any beings such suffering and pain. I miss her gentle voice of greeting. I miss her galloping run and playful fun and meetings. I miss her appetite for food when she ask for it. I miss turning the tap on and her leading the way to the bathroom sink for water. I miss her variety of meowing to communicate, one for outside, one for food, one for greeting, one for disappointment and sadness. I miss her cuddles at night and deep breathing. I miss her confidence and self purr healing. May we both be able to be one with the changes and be able to become new friends like old ones.

 Sunday June 3, 2006

pun

A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

i·ro·ny

*An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.

*A literary style employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect. See Synonyms at wit¹.

*Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs:

Wow, it has been a long long time since I blog. My holidays with the distractions in the path of life was fully booked, what can I say. Exciting and adventurous things like getting groceries, preparing for dinners, going to yoga, cleaning the house and work got me ocuppied. Well, I tried work on each tasks without feeling overwhelmed by the task. Notice the word "tried too" meaning there is effort involved to try. It is not really a big deal if I delay on them, but some or most daily task urges completeness for them. The list goes on and on sometimes, I get lazy, the task gets boring exception to the yoga one.

Anyhow, looking around now, the place is not as tidy as I intended to be. Our ideals and expectations sure keep us busy in the world. I finally re -potted my plants yesterday since the time I got them. Let's just say I got them shorter than 4 weeks ago. A lavender and some kind of tropical plant from Safeway. I fill my kitchen with plants because their life forces reinforces my own. I believe so anyways and it relaxing to watch them grow and change and fill my kitchen with nature.

Life is always fill with things to do, but what we classified as importance and priority is really up to us. That would be neat to freeze time, get most of my daily grinds done then with a press of the remote control continue with life again. But in this case, Life has its own voice in a language of its own. Life is fill of surprises like Jack in the box. The not knowing allows the element of surprise,  and in a string of alluring twist and ironic events, it challenges our assumptions as it plays follow the leader with us without actually telling us to play.

Recently, I was pondering about purchasing a laptop because my old one is going bonkers. First, it was my battery but there is no need to get a battery if I can just use the plug in right? If I am using it at home, it is manageable but there is more. Next, the fan system complaints and makes spins sounds way before I got a chance to browse and start to do anything with my programs.

When a program was started, it had a momentum of a slithering snail, perhaps slower but I can't think of anything slower than a snail. A leech? Do they move? A static leech perhaps. And just opening and closing a file was time consuming. Computer problems are no fun. Just ask the Dell guy, every time, he asked me what was happening..my answer is still uploading. Dell was really good in their customer service, I must admit. My warranty had expired for 3 years but with a phone call, the person was willing to stay on the phone with me for a hour to help with the problems. I was impressed.

I was lucky that day. I finally got my BIOS upgraded but when a black screen with errors surprised me a few more times, it got me thinking. Not a good sign. Anyways, perhaps something is telling me to do something but before my decision to do something and purchase another one, an another event happened showing me the urgency to do so.

Out of the blue, Ryan decided to closed my laptop this day and in a downward momentum to close the laptop, the hinges broke. Okay, the decision is so easy now. I had to replace my laptop. It was comical too because on the same day, I stepped on his glasses forcing him to buy a new one too. We found it funny because it was just yesterday that he had said he was not to going to glasses until it was broken. And here we are at the place where we are suppose to be, a time in place where our events are telling us to get glasses and a laptop. Neat hey.

 

Ryan went to visit his folks at Lacombe so Ms.Flo and I got some quiet times together. It felt a bit different knowing that when I came home, only kitty was home. I ended up watching Hitchcock movie "The disappearing lady". An older productions of Hitchcock which was not as suspenseful as his works in the 60s, 70s. It had some comedy in it so a fresh kind of element for me.

Saturday, I had the whole day plan to go out and check out sewing machines but ended up cleaning the bathroom and kitchen and then spending the entire day reading! It has been awhile that I read for a whole day. I continue with my book "The Time Traveller's Wife". A mix of present past moments for the characters involved and at first, it threw me off as the characters were this age and that age or the same person at an age with the same person at a different age but in the same moment of the present. The thought of going back in time and meeting my past self.Wouldn't that be interesting but the thought of being naked and having the hassle to look for clothes, food and locate my bearings would be stressful. I wonder what would happen if people see a naked person in the street in your neighborhood? Scream? Locate the the police nearby? Be scare? Smile? Be amused? Be curious? 

I don't exactly know how I would react but I would like to be curious and imagine good reasons why that person is naked. I imagine there could be many surprises and responds from the viewer but I bet that naked person is more stressful and fearful than his audiences. Perhaps that is one reason why E.T should have remain hidden?

To travel into someone's life and discover the different side of them is a new discovery. All their experiences, their happy moments, their sad, the neural, their pain. I guess seeing their weakness and strengths binds us closer with them because we see ourselves in them. We are human because we understand and can share our same inside with others, our happy, sad, joy, anger or frustrated moments. Sharing releases freedom inside allowing spaces to breath and spaces to imagine spontaneous possibilities of a better individual, better community, better society, better world. We feel less disconnected when we share.

Sharing sometimes does not come easily done in a package with a pretty bow on top. There could be massive of masking tapes layered and wrapped tightly around the box so we have to be productive and creative in our ways of unwrapping the box. If we are too eager, we might damage the package.

In my experience, I found that "the disappearing trick" does bring people together a little if not more. Spaces apart does something to us. After a period of time, we start to appreciate or value our good times with them. Time heals because time allows us to see a more clearer and wider picture of the truth. (Well, if our conditions bring us to that moment). Time gives us longer moments to look into our circumstances instead of reactions. Over time, we learn, we cope, we arrive to a new way of thinking and a new way of living. It would be great to time travel to our success point or our happy moments but without the other moments, we would have lost half the core of our experiences because the understanding validated by all the experiences become half empty of understanding. Perhaps that is one of our reasons for experiencing life and experiencing death? Could it be our journey to understanding?

Next time we pass by a homeless person, perhaps offer some food or exchange a smile or a conversation. If we could time travel to the many experiences in their lives, we would see things different. Bananas, bus tickets, smiles, conversations, understandings, connections are great things to share.

Oops! I did so much sharing that I missed my bus to meet Ryan at the Bus Station. But it is okay, he is safely home now. Thanks for sharing your time with me. Cheerios.