on the Merlin Principle

Exorcising my thoughts,

So much had transpired that I do not know where to begin. Should I begin from the past: an unfurling of lazy memories nitpicked from the shores of my mind? Should I begin from the future: a rewinding of Time, as if all that could be, has been; or from this Presentness, an entropy of consciousness that permeates all your livings and your dyings.

I see the elegance of the work of transformation, and I see in it the calling of a Project that aligns itself to the conversation of humanity. I see the clear blue sky, adorned with infinitesimal antiquity, its nature unchangingly, as such, blotted by the passing of rainy dreams.

And I speculate: What kind of conversations would humanity have, should Suchness come to pass into our collective Being.

We grumble, gossip, gripe and groan against the weight of a livingness that extends beyond our interpretations of our experiences. We generate suffering that seeks to infect others by demanding the consensus of total Agreement. Some seek to spread lies and stories, some seekto sow suffering and pain, some for the right to make others wrong, whilst some to erect a canopy of illusionary worship over the free minds of Man.

Having distinguished the suchness of Language, I see that I am not beyond or below, neither with nor without, the experience of my Being. My freedom is in my experience, is in my choice, is in my flow and ebb and pointed dancing toes.

I create you in my creating, and I am created in your creating. The Universe stretches to the boundaries of my experience. A playground of an Infinite Universe, and all of space and time is Centered.

Puppy Mill

The Truth About Puppies:

When you purchase your cute, adorable, fluffy little puppy from the sterile, and sparkly clean front-desk of a pet store, this is what goes on behind in producing those puppies (these are images of breeding dogs kept in a puppy mill):

Note: All images remain the copyright of their owners and the Dog Mill Rehomers project. Unauthorized usage of these images will be pursued through legal channels.

These images are taken courtesy of our friend, Davis.

Permission has been obtained to use these images in this blog.

Three beautiful babies, yearning for attention.

Overused, underloved.

Yearning to get out..the world outside the cages is alien..

Before we came, this cage was their universe.

Imagine, if someone treated *YOU* like this..

Imagine: the suffering, the pain, the hopeless loneliness..

His imploring eyes say, "Food?"

Sad, lost eyes..

Yearning for company in his cold, lonely cell

Will I ever be loved?

A life of misery...suffering...endlessly...a life now controlled by fear

A life of suffering. No one loved her, or cared about her pain until we found her..

Sad, lost eyes : A tortured life spent in service to greed and avarice.

A world of dark, dank, hopelessness.

Elongated nipples from over-feeding without respite

Plagued by a battery of maladies, our volunteers work hard to bring comfort to them.

Nowhere to go, this was their living and their dying place

Their innocence betrays the immeasurable sadness of their stories.

A life of captivity..

Ticks and hunger were their constant companions..

Females start breeding at the tender age of 6 months or less.

The lack of care and concern is appalling.

Sleeping it off..

Pain and suffering...and they don't even know why.

Squalor

Emptiness

Resignation is her reality.

Filled with questions and wonderment: this baby follows our every move.

A once-beautiful dog, reduced to a shadow of it's former self

"Why are you doing this to us?"

So please, adopt your dog. Break the chain of supply and demand and alleviate some suffering from this world. Educate your friends. Be part of something bigger.

Love,

Jun

Doggies need help!

The truth about Puppy Mills:

Please visit :

The Dog Mill Rehomers to find out how you can contribute!

Thank you!

Out of the Ashes

the entry about Reality.

What I Got.

Creation is Form and Relations. The vastness of the Universe - stretching beyond the edges of the known and seen, returns to the oneness that spawned our mortal and spiritual coils. The circumference of time knows no direction; bounding this eternal moment in a self-referential frame of timelessness. The relative passage of this Time entity dulls the majesty of Being, in response, the Observers (that would be us) concoct of stories: magnificent and belligerent, noble and delinquent; stitching together a reality built upon the cornerstone of superstitions and arbitration.

The tests of Reality fails. All senses lie. All reckoning fails at some point in time. Nothing is ultimately accurate when juxtaposed against the unknowable true physicality of the Physical World beyond our Self - past the boundaries of our Body.

A reality wrought of Agreements; a canvas of yes and nos, dos and do nots, right and wrong. Reality itself, remains untouched by observed agreements. True Physicality remains unchanged, yet context reshapes the Universe into brimestones and cherubs, domestic and foreign, us and them - eternally shifting : mercury-like.

The Agreement of Physicality creates Measure and Form. The colour of plants is agreed upon to be called Green. The greenish object is agreed upon to be called, a Plant. The person observing the green plant is agreed upon to be called a Biologist. The Biologist is agreed upon to be considered to be part of a race called the Homosapiens. Yellow is agreed upon to mean characteristics of its designation. A centimetre is demarcated by the agreement of metrics. Form and substance revolves tirelessly around the agreement of Relativity and is given measure, distance, physicality and identity by the agreement of Objectivity.

The Agreement of Law creates Order. A green light is agreed upon to mean move, a red light is agreed upon to mean stop. A white line on the black tarred road is agreed upon to mean : stay within this demarcation. A large moving object with four wheels and many seats (called the bus by many) is agreed upon to stop at its designated stop. A citizen is agreed upon by Law to not spit or urinate in public. A marriage is agreed upon to mean the merging of two distinctly separate persons.

The Agreement of Beliefs creates Religions of organised behavior.

The Agreement of Self creates Identity.

The Agreement of Physics gave birth to the Universe.

Consider then, that Language thusly is a function and causative element of our Fabric of Reality. Through Language, we are able to formulate Agreements, shaping our fundamental reality as we drape our understanding of it over True Reality. The context of a culture with no word for a coke bottle differs from a culture that produces it - the quicksilver-esque Fabric of Reality contours to fit the mind that perceives it. True Reality, however, remains unchanged. It is our Agreements that changes the preferred assumptions of our Reality.

What then, is Reality?

Heart Sutra

I recite this to focus my mind, and dispel mindlessness. For you.


觀自在菩薩。行深般若波羅蜜多時。照見五蘊皆空。度一切苦厄。

舍利子，色不異空。空不 異色。色即是空。空即是色。

受、想、行、識，亦復如是。

舍利子，是諸法空相。不生，不 滅。不垢，不淨，不增，不減。

是故空中。無色。無受、想、行、識。

無眼、耳、鼻、舌、 身、意。

無色、聲、香、味、觸、法。

無眼界。乃至無意識界。

無無明。亦無無明盡。

乃至 無老死。亦無老死盡。

無苦、集、滅、道。無智，亦無得。

以無所得故。菩提薩埵。依般若 波羅蜜多故。

心無罣礙。無罣礙故。無有恐怖。

遠離顛倒夢想。究竟涅槃。三世諸佛。

依般 若波羅蜜多故。得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。

故知般若波羅蜜多。是大神咒。是大明咒是無上咒 。是無等等咒。能除一切苦。真實不虛故。

說般若波羅蜜多咒即說咒曰：

揭帝，揭帝，般羅 揭帝，般羅僧揭帝，菩提僧莎訶。

Translation:

When Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara was practicing the profound Perfection of the Wisdom (prajna paramita), he illuminated the Five Appearances (skandha) and saw that they are all empty (shunya), and he crossed beyond all suffering and difficulty.
Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness; emptiness does not differ from form. Form itself is emptiness; emptiness itself is form. So too are feeling, cognition, formation, and consciousness.

Shariputra, all teachings (dharma) are empty of characteristics. They are not produced, not destroyed, not defiled, not pure; and they neither increase nor diminish. Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, feeling, cognition, formation, or consciousness; no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no sights, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of touch, or dharmas; no field of the eyes up to and including no field of mind consciousness; and no ignorance or ending of ignorance, up to and including no old age and death or ending of old age and death. There is no suffering, no accumulating, no extinction, and no Way, and no understanding and no attaining.

Because nothing is attained, the Bodhisattva through reliance on prajna paramita is unimpeded in his mind. Because there is no impediment, he is not afraid, and he leaves distorted dream-thinking far behind. Ultimately Nirvana! All Buddhas of the three periods of time attain anuttara-samyak-sambodhi through reliance on prajna paramita. Therefore know that prajna paramita is a Great Spiritual Mantra, a Great Bright Mantra, a Supreme Mantra, an Unequalled Mantra. It can remove all suffering; it is genuine and not false. That is why the Mantra of Prajna Paramita was spoken. Recite it like this: Gaté Gaté Paragaté Parasamgaté. Bodhi Svaha!

Fuck You! Love, Us

Lily Allen made a song : and it has become the anthem for Anti-Homophobia across the world. Cool shit.

Take a gander - a message from across the world :

Fuck You, Fuck You Very Very Much!

I love the lyrics. Very liberating to sing along. Fuck all you fundies and bashers! =D


Look inside,
Look inside your tiny mind
Now look a bit harder
Cause we're so uninspired,
so sick and tired of all the
hatred you harbor

So you say
It's not okay to be gay
Well I think you're just evil
You're just some racist who
can't tie my laces
Your point of view is medieval

Fuck you (Fuck you)
Fuck you very, very much
Cause we hate what you do
And we hate your whole crew
So please don't stay in touch

Fuck you (Fuck You)
Fuck you very, very much
Cause your words don't translate
And it's getting quite late
So please don't stay in touch

Do you get,
Do you get a little kick out of
being small-minded?
You want to be like your father
It's approval your after
Well that's not how you find it

Do you,
Do you really enjoy living a
life that's so hateful?
Cause there's a hole where
your soul should be
Your losing control of it and
it's really distasteful

Fuck you (Fuck You)
Fuck you very, very much
Cause we hate what you do
And we hate your whole crew
So please don't stay in touch

Fuck you (Fuck You)
Fuck you very, very much
Cause your words don't
translate and it's getting
quite late
So please don't stay in touch

Fuck you, Fuck you, Fuck you,
Fuck you, Fuck you, Fuck you,
Fuck yooooou

You say
You think we need to go to war
well you're already in one
Cause it's people like you
who need to get slew
No one wants your opinion

Fuck you (Fuck You)
Fuck you very, very much
Cause we hate what you do
And we hate your whole crew
So please don't stay in touch

Fuck you (Fuck You)
Fuck you very, very much
Cause your words don't
translate and it's getting
quite late
So please don't stay in touch

Fuck you, Fuck you
Fuck you, Fuck you
Fuck you, Fuck you

smoke and dreams

Smoke and Dreams

William's birthday party forced an obligatory visit to the clubs on me: something which I had feared and avoided doing for years (I have residual gay Demophobia from my youth - where large crowds of gay people scare me), but ended up helpless to deny. The thorough inebriation of the self, made crystalline by such tinkering of the senses: bottles of champagne; imagine! An inept drinker; I lost my senses after but several cups ("you won't get drunk on champagne" - so I was told); rendering myself unable to perceive, nor comprehend the images and sounds around me.

I lost my digital camera, somewhere, sometime in that haze of night. I suppose I should be grieving, and yet here I am stubbornly believing that it will find its way back to me. There are certain people that I had wanted to meet, anticipatory, for the first time; yet the only memory that persists is of white beds and soft pillows.

I hope I didn't do anything silly last night.

I could really use some work on my alcohol tolerance level too.

Day 3 of the rest of my Life =]

Day 3

The first day of going vegetarian was benign enough.

Day two, however, was a challenge. From the moment of waking, I pondered - deeply, no less - the options available for breakfast. Drawing an utter blank, I dragged myself to the nearest convenience store and purchased several boxes of cereal (I finished one box in one sitting) and bread. Barely an hour later, I was hungry and had to drag myself to a mixed-vegetable-rice stall for sustenance.

As evening approached, I was tempted to have some vegetarian pasta home-delivered from pastamania, but my wise ol' brother suggested that it was unsustainable, and that if I were to persist down this path then I must seek a proper methodology (of finding vegan food). And so, I travelled a good 10minutes to find the NEAREST true vegetarian stall, but as luck would have it, it turned out that that particular Sunday was the 15th of the Lunar month. (Meaning that all lay-Buddhists will go vegan for the day)

After waiting for a good 45 minutes and almost fainting from hunger, I decided to F-it and reneged on my order and just got some vegetables and tofu from the local mixed-stuff rice.

30 minutes later, I met Serena and friends at market 85 for a small gathering...and all I could have were dumplings. Everyone asked why I was doing this. I had no good answer that would not make me sound silly. On retrospect, it does sound alittle silly; but I don't think I will give up just yet.

The entire day 2 was a disaster, jammed-packed with eclectic dietary choices that had no basis in nutritional science. I basically whacked and laid my hands on anything that wasn't meat (as I had no idea where or when my next food source is gonna come from).

I ate a freaking cheesecake at 11pm!! I would never, ever had done that pre-vegan!

And day 3 cometh, I feel lethargic and atad sickish. I do not know if this is because of my sudden no-meat crash diet or that perhaps I caught a bug - but I do feel truly under the weather right now.

Sigh.

Be The Change You Want To See In The World!

Be the change you want to see in the world!

Having been told that (as per subject), I have decided, unequivocally, to become an lacto-ova vegetarian. Meaning that I basically do not eat any meat produce except dairy products and eggs. Being a vociferous carnivore, this is quite a big change in lifestyle for me but I guess it can't be helped. Humanity's Meat Machine churns out more pollution and takes up more energy to produce than I can stand. I believe in the power of collective ripples; perhaps one day, I can convince more friends to join me.

I still need dairy products and eggs to maintain certain substances required for my gymming, and hopefully someday I can turn full vegen..(If I survive this).

I hope I do not crumble. Wish me luck.

of Appreciation

The artful parabola, skims through the air in a pleasing geometry.

A billion-bit of information traverses our neural-synapse links, transposed into a singular tapestry. We do not see the world in numbers, although mathematics govern with an iron-fist the foundations of our universe, our reality. We do not see, hear, touch, taste, smell in the realms of analytical degrees, but where we fail to see the cosmic spreadsheets dictating every law of physics, we make up for, with the ability to discern the sum of it's parts.

I stood, watching the winds sway the trees; languid clouds flowed along the vast channel of pale blue sky, and a single bird danced in the uplifting breeze.

And I believe, that what makes us human, so delicately human: is the appreciation of the beautiful things, wondrously big and infinitesimally small; and the delightful inner joy that comes with sharing it.

天天天天

夜夜夜夜

有很多事情不明白。

轻盈落雨般的忧蓝天色，细细地的搀杂着日出的无奈。

若我所惦记的星空以绝，淡淡地把昨夜的梦境化成无。

让心境沉淀一些，收敛一些，可能城市那片灯火斓珊，

也不再空洞无物。

of a Metaphysical Rut

of strangulating dreamholds and vanishing stars

This is an entry on mine auto-exorcism.

To pace my words in this fashion, unabated; touching wild dreams in the daylight of living -

I pass beyond sentences, unceremoniously forged on the tip of my tongue.

No relics of wisdom, no pearls of incandescent fluidity remain; a quiescent falls upon the cityscape..

Dividing a single Gate -

Sundering effortlessly, the manifold estates

of my mind,

I walk, somnambulistic, ambulatory -

a softly tiptoeing nothingness,

the starlights, congratulatory ;

tipping their tophats as cosmic laws sit unburdened on the throne of gods

but where do starlights go?

to where dreams fall that no man knows.

I am emptied for now.

STTA

Remove LBW as STTA President!

Please sign the online petition here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/lbh/petition-sign.html?

Ever since the Olympics medal media debacle, I've harbored a simmering discontentment towards the incompetent Lee Bee Wah and her disingenuous public statements. That night, as I watched the interview of her on TV, explaining why coach Liu Guo Dong was not nominated Coach of the Year (resulting in a vacancy for the award this year) by the STTA, I cannot help but feel this pulsating wave of pettiness. Singaporeans are not that dumb to be hoodwinked by your bad PR, Miss LBW: We can read between the insinuation and the lines.

Sony Walkman project

Sony Walkman Project

I almost forgot to share this.

Utterly spellbinding. 

What I would give to be involved in a project of such brilliant audacity! A single note for everyone! Threaded together into an orchestration that requires nothing else, other than your love for the moment and the joy of participation!

It is not over yet.

It is Not Over Yet

On the context of the AWARE issue:

Excerpt taken from Yawningbread(my favourite site! go read!)

John Dorhauer on the steeplejacking of AWARE

I was pleased to be able to get into contact with Rev. Dr. John C Dorhauer very recently and he has voiced his opinion on the AWARE saga and his eagerness to contact and work with the Old Guard directly. The following indented paragraphs are quotes from Dorhauer (reproduced with his permission), interspersed with my own comments from the perspective of an overseas Christian Singaporean who has seen similar takeover attempts in Australia.

Dorhauer is a Conference Minister for the Southwest Conference of the United Church of God. He has co-authored the book ‘Steeplejacking’ which details the war between mainstream religion and right-wing fundamentalists, who use controversial issues such as homosexuality to cause dissent among Christian; with the ultimate aim of taking over churches and secular organizations. He has great expertise in recognizing the signs of such an invasion and recommends methods to successfully counter it. There is an in-depth essay on the takeover of AWARE in this context at here (spenz: Please read). Being overseas, I regretfully cannot attend the May 2 EGM. Instead I have written this essay in support of the Old Guard and would like to present Dorhauer’s and my own knowledge on this matter.

Dorhauer: There is no doubt that AWARE has been targeted by an orchestrated attack. Please know that all of you are in my prayers - that is the first thing I want you to know. I want to be of help, and wish we had more time to go through some important details, and a better means of carrying on this conversation. What is clear is that the takeover group came in with a great deal of stealth, fully aware of their tactics and agendas and without anyone in the AWARE organization knowing what was coming.

In Australia, my partner is a committee member of a church that was one of many that received mass-mailed letters from Family First, a political party that purports to place family values above all else. The letter sought to provoke the church’s leaders over the so-called ‘homosexual agenda’ that sought to silence their right to preach against homosexuality so that gays would be normalized as part of mainstream society. As people here are generally more accepting, they have had to resort to more alarmist methods. Ms. Josie Lau and her cronies have also distorted facts and used the old AWARE’s supposed promotion of homosexuality to stir up support for themselves. Sounds terribly familiar, doesn’t it? At least they haven’t set up a political party yet.

One of the things that I have learned as a basic principle is that when others use strategies that rely on secrecy and stealth, the smartest thing you can do is broadcast openly and publicly what you learn about them, naming the bullies in a very public way, spelling out as clearly as you can and as publicly as you can the tactics that are discovered.

The media, the old Guard and its supporters have definitely exposed the new exco’s dirty tactics. There are plenty of articles detailing them in full and I do not need to reiterate them again here. This has helped raise supporters for their cause. The leaders in my partner’s church acknowledged that people had differing views on homosexuality, but were quick to announce the paranoia and exaggerations in the content of the letter to the congregation. I would encourage church leaders and supporters of the Old Guard in Singapore to continue to clarify the myths and distortions that are the allegations of the new exco, regardless of the outcome of the EGM.

…if someone from aware could take the floor tomorrow and say something like this: "We have been duped. A group hostile to the core values of AWARE has taken over our organization. Because of their dishonesty, covert tactics, and unChristian behaviors, we were taken off guard. It won't happen again. We will do what we can to discover who is funding their operation, who is teaching them to behave this way, and to build our own strategies to once again take charge of this organization which we built and for which we care very deeply. We are growing aware of how this same tactic is being used by others around the globe. Our mission is too important to leave in the hands of those who are this destructive and who behave in this way. But we are not shy, and we will not lay down just because of what they have done here. I call on all who are committed to the ongoing mission of our organization to join me in this struggle."

We know that Ms. Josie Lau is a vocal supporter of Focus on the Family, a right-wing evangelical organisation based in the US, but registered as a secular one in Singapore. In the US, FOTF supposedly promotes American family values…in Singapore, its website claims to support Asian family values. Yet the conservative anti-gay, anti-feminist stance adopted by both are essentially the same. James Dobson, founder of FOTF in the United States, preaches a doctrine of intolerance towards homosexuality, that women should be submissive, and of harsh parenting techniques, in the name of Christian faith. Due to its claims of being secular, FOTF here has managed to gain itself enough respect in the form of air-time on the radio and a regular column in the Today newspaper, while Lau has managed to run a charity drive benefitting FOTF through DBS. To blend into Singapore society, FOTF gave itself a veneer of secularity that was acceptable in our multi-religious society.

The invasion of Christian fundamentalism in secular Singapore did not start with AWARE, nor will it end with it. Focus on the Family started its work years ago, and organisations such as Action for Aids and other groups that might even remotely deal with homosexual issues had better be alert and brace themselves. Dorhauer and I have seen these continuous attempts at invasion occur overseas, and I doubt that the new exco will stop at taking over AWARE.

Those who have joined AWARE in order to vote against the new exco in the EGM will need to remain alert even if they succeed in ousting them. I predict that the EGM will not be a final showdown, but the start of many such battles to come against infiltration by Christian fundamentalists in the future. I hope we all have the stamina to stand our ground.

I read in the article that the newcomers said it was not important to share their views on homosexuality. That is a clear warning, and a very good way to overcome that is to ask as many questions as you can of newcomers. The organization should be very clear about its own core values, and articulate those to every new member. If they cannot accept the core values, or if they equivocate about them, then they should be approached with caution and suspicion….

What would be more important at this point is having conversation about what strategies can be developed both to take back ownership and leadership of the organization, and to equip leaders to detect the warning signs of potential interlopers…

… it looks as if the leaders of AWARE are on top of this, but it also looks like they may be up against a pretty ominous foe.

Australia and the US have become wise to these stealth tactics, but this is still new for Singapore. Let us continually seek to update ourselves and remain ahead of further underhanded takeover attempts in the future.

They never succeeded in taking over my partner’s church in the end.

The Amazing Thio Su Mien

The Amazing Thio Su Mien

The brilliant transcript of the "feminist mentor's" desperate attempt to repair her shredded reputation after bragging of instigating the take-over.

Thanks to Wayang Party for the transcript.

Thio Su Mien: "Some of us live till 73 to celebrate feminism. We don’t go around shouting and shrieking. I believe I am a ‘feminist mentor’…QUIET please, because you have put me in your book. All of you have been asked to read about women who are first in their fields and I was so charmed to discover that I was in book on page 73. I was the first batch of law graduates and…SHOW SOME RESPECT TO YOUR ELDERS…."

[Somebody from the crowd shouted "You have to earn the RESPECT!"]

Lois Ng: "Ladies and gentlemen, please sit down, I have already mentioned to you about the house rules. We do not interrupt when somebody is speaking. There are many people here who wanted to speak."

[The noise from the crowd continues to drown Thio Su Mien's speech]

Thio Su Mien: "I was very charmed when I discovered I was in this book. Please show humility. I acted a point that I stand to stay something because it’s my desire, because you are women who are descendants of the pioneers of Singapore….I am disturbed, I was the first Law Dean, I was also the first to establish……YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR YOUR ELDERS"

Addendum:

After watching this, I actually felt immense pity for the poor lady. She has descended to a level comparable to a mental condition, and her disingenuous attempts at preaching humility whilst constantly bragging about her limited accreditation in the field, is reminiscent of the discordant mental process that had been plaguing her since her Coming-Out-Party during the April 23rd News Conference.