A slight change of path on the Bodhisattva path

After the meeting on early November, I realized that I have to take on some responsibility in this area. November was definately not a "NO'venmber as there was so much activities going on from different roads. 

1. Community (Study Grant Giving Ceremony)

2. Entrepreneur (One Day Camp)

3. TQ (meetings, tons of them!)

4. Taekwondo meeting in Johor

5. B1 wedding

6. 1KM tag team marathon (Champion~) 

Most eventful month of the year so far...

Anyway, after turning down the offer from community as an environmental protection committee member, and stepping one step away from entrepreneur group, I'm taking on a new responsibility as a PJ area 'Window'.

I have many excuses to reject the offer including I was not a TQ, I don't like youngster, busy, no experience blah blah blah...

But I suddenly remember what master said to us in Jing Si Tang. "你们都很年轻，慈济需要你们，你们也需要慈济。”

In Lotus Sutra, master constantly remind us to take up more responsibility... I should walk the talk. 对的事，做就对。

Thanks for offering me the opportunity and have faith in me. I accept the challenge with my open heart.

Group Leader for the 1st time in a TC camp

In Group 8 I was assigned as the group leader. Didn't expect this day to come so fast as a group leader in a TC camp.

I thought I would be an awesome as a group leader but turned out that I have so much more to learn to be an awesome group leader.

Few challenges I will try to improve next time:

1. Communicate more, find more topic.
2. Lead members and ask more appropriate questions.
3. Eat less, talk more.
4. Be more alert for my group members for their minor changes or requirements.

Alright, for some of the tiny awesomeness which I think I did:

1. Brought the public speaking phobia member on stage to share her awesome stories
2. Nothing epic went wrong...

Attending a camp as a member really is so much easier... feel so great. Big thanks to all those children who helped out.

菩萨化身老阿嫲度人

Story from a friend from a random food court.

Old woman:'Can you buy this medicine balm from me for RM2? Then I will give you free fortune telling.

Friend:'I have no money.'

Old woman:'Please just buy one from me.'

Friend:'I have no money.'

Old woman:'You have a car, a house and you say you have no money?'

Friend:'I have no money.'

Old woman:'You are a talented person and you use your mouth to earn money. You have no wife because you had sexual misconduct with other man's wife in your previous wife.' And...

Friend:'Ok, I will buy one from you, please stop talking!'

(Paid and she kept silent)

The old woman then talk to another man on the table saying about the relationship with his family member which claimed to be very true by the man. She stopped when the man bought one medicine too. But she didnt say anything about the 3rd man on the table and left the scene.

Friend:'Where do you live?

Old woman:'somewhere nearby'

And they never again see the old woman.

My friend then never again want to go for fortune teller because he wants things to go naturally without knowing too much with fear.

Mixed up with 实业组，慈青，社区activities

社区 - 1102 新芽发放（节目组）、熏法香

实业组 - 1116 一日营（接待，动线组）、静思堂福田放弃

慈青 - 巡回，UM环保展（陪伴协调）、集训放弃1/2天

很乱。。。

First vegetarian anniversary

Well done myself for being an ovo-lacto vegetarian for over 1 year! Weight as much as last year, run as fast as last year too.

Some may not like to hear it but I'm glad I don't have to take away other creature's life to continue my own life :p

静思时间

It's now time for me to properly sit down/lay down to do some deep thinking for my direction in Tzu Chi and consolidate my mind to do some reflection.

It has been so compact recently and there was hardly much future planning to do.

Community, Youth, Entrepreneur, English group etc.

菩提大道真的要用心走，每一步，每一秒。

Moving, moving vs 無明，無明

After lunch from cleaning Jing Si Hall, we passed by this shopping mall. The traffic jam was really horrible and we know all holidays people will rush out to shopping mall. Sorry Malaysians, we have only shopping malls and no library, sports centre, community centre beside shopping malls.

Jing Si Hall cleaning - Labour Day

I think it must be the 1st time I celebrated Labour Day with HARD LABOUR this 1st of May. My previous Labour Day was spent in slacking around or holiday... This time was a bit more meaningful.

In the entrepreneur group, we were assigned to one of the toughest job, cleaning the basement car park. The area we covered was about about 5000-6000SQF. We need to get the water and sweep the floor clean.

Water supply was scarce at basement the only pipe became populated by a long queue. It was bright for some of the bro to tie the bucket with a rope and fetch the water from the drainage system below. I then became one of the 3 guys to fetch the water from the drain like good old days pulling up water from a well.

It was one of those very tiring chore to do until the drain was filled up again with dirty back flow water and we stop doing the ancient chore. One of the bro taught me how to fetch the water with the bucket with skill and reminded me how easy people nowadays get water but didn't learn to appreciate it like the old days.

The we cleaned up one of the stairs which was forgotten to assign to clean. It shouldn't be too difficult if we could use some chemical to remove the stain, but we were not allowed to use chemical.

After having a steamed bun and a few sips of soya bean+coffee, we resume our cleaning back in the basement. I thought we have done everything in our designated area until I looked closely again... It was not really clean... Must be due to the dirty water the 3 of us fetch up for them to clean the floor made it dirty again. So we had another round of cleaning with 50% less people because most of them had went back.

Surprisingly, with less people, we managed to finished the cleaning faster and cleaner. I knew all the elites left behind were the main reason of the effectiveness. I came across this auntie who was so talented at sweeping the floor with broom.

We managed to finished the cleaning job as planned, 12pm and we went back. Before that we had a good lunch and I really learn how to do the cleaning more effectively.

I didn't felt any tiredness in my cells but I forced myself for an hour nap. When I woke up form the nap, I was so impressed by my young tough body because my battery was still very full after the futebol the night before which uses so much legs muscles and sweeping and pulling the water that day with arms muscles.

Er... however the next day after I woke up in the morning for XFX............. my body...........................

Double Shots

3 weeks ago we went to this hospital to extract some of our blood for screening. It suppose to be last week where we will donate our blood to the patient for a bypass surgery. Due to the patient was having a flu, the operation delayed until this morning.

I didn't realized the water I drank in the morning was not enough. On the patient chair, the small needle poked into my flesh then followed by the bigger needle into my biggest left arm vein. The blood, however stopped probably before 100cc. After several attempt from the nurse to make the blood flow, she finally gave up and pulled the needle out and showed me a drip of my thick blood. It was so thick... like melted chocolate...

She let me chose to rest and come back or go back home if I felt uncomfortable. Of course I have to continue after sculling a liter of water or so, else I won't be contributing anything to the patient. 

When I went back on the patient chair, the vein which was poked earlier cannot be used because it was already swollen a bit after the nurse did some blood seeking gesture. Right arms vein has to be poked, no choice.

Fortunately it went very smoothly on the 2nd attempt and today donated 450cc after some hiccups. So remember to drink at least 1 litter of water before ya blood donation. 

Bright Stars at Dawn

I did not remember who asked why is there no stars in the sky of KL/Selangor. It should not be true, we share the same sky in Malaysia and we should be able to see stars in the night.

At the dawn in a mid December, I saw clear stars full in the sky. The reason we cant see the stars is because other lights are too bright and over shine the stars far away.

Lamp post on the street guide users on the road back home. However, the light can also be covering the clear light within our heart to cover our Buddha nature. Unless you identify the different 'lights' in this world and focus on this light you want it to guide you way to the right path. For me is the Bodhisattva path.

用‘人生经济学’的书盖着街灯，原来远方闪闪发亮的星儿们如此瑞眼。若想以前那样还在被窝里做梦，就错过了这一刻。
无明火覆盖真如本性。要知道苦从何来，断掉集苦，行在正道中（菩萨道）。