August 24, 2007 at 4:08 pm (Buddhism, Gaia, belief, civilisation, climate change, conservation, earth, earthquake, environment, general, global warming, global warming fears, love, nature, philosophy, religion, science, spirituality, thoughts)
In Buddha teaching, human body are made of mind and matter. The matter are make up of four elements, ie soil, water, fire and air. Our Earth, is also make up of this four elements.
Thus, soil is our Earth’s skin, the water on earth is just like our bloodstream, and air our breath. The fire is our sun, evaporating water and regulating the weather.
Our earth regulates its own temperature, oxygen levels, CO2 level, etc, much like our own human body controls temperature and rebuilds its parts constantly. If our body regulation is inbalance, we will have fever. Similary if the earth temperature was not properly regulated, our earth will have fever. Human body are operate exactly like our earth. When human die, our physical body will return to our mother earth as soil, water, fire and earth. So, we are part of the earth. Human species are the only special with moral intelligence, therefore our mind, human being mind are the mind of Gaia (The Greek earth Godness). So, without love, morality and ethics from the individual person, it is difficult to devise a sustainable environmental.
Accordingly, if we take the notion that “The world is our body”, then Gaia is our mind and conscience. Without our love of our body – planet, How can we maintain our health ?
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August 18, 2007 at 9:51 am (Buddhism, Lord of Miracle, Mahayana, Sri Langka tsunami, Tzu Chi, TzuChi, belief, climate change, earth, earthquake, environment, general, global warming, global warming fears, inspiration, love, love other, nature, philosophy, religion, science, spirituality, thoughts, tsunami, 慈济)
After writing about the Lord of Miracle of Christ that happen in Peru 350 years ago, I recalled those email that I received about the miracles that happen in 2004 Dec 26 Tsunami in Sri Langka. It is true that many Buddha statues was escaped from the destruction by the wave of Tsunami. The point I wish to bring up is not about the Miracle of Buddha. The interesting story begin with this…
When the Tsunami hit Sri Lanka, there was a statue of the Buddha in the town of Galle, which didn’t topple when the waves rushed over it near the bus terminal. A Buddhist monk considered it as a sign. He said, ‘The people are not living according to religious virtues. Nature has given them some punishment because they’re not following the path of the Lord Buddha. The people have to learn their lesson.’
And a Roman Catholic priest cast the blame even wider. ‘This is a punishment from God, because everybody’s leading a wretched life’, he said. ‘All of us are to be blamed for the tsunami, there’s no sense of modesty or religiosity any more. People have gone so far away from God, it’s the message to say “.
A fishman from the fishing village said, ‘The mother has butchered her own children’, ’Either there is no God, or God must be cruel to do this.’
Many of the victims are asking, “Why us? Why me? Why my childrens ? Why my parents ? Other interesting features was the Christians and Hindus in India started co-operating with each other when a year ago they were fighting each other. And when Buddhists and Tamils in Sri Lanka started doing the same.
Is it true that altruism only trumps selfishness when we have to face a common adversity and drastic tragedy like this ?
Is it true that ’Pain and suffering are ‘God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’ a quote from C.S.Lewis. Can’t we human work on the same goal on our climate change issues rather than fighting each others concept and argue about data ? Do we need a God’s Megaphone ?
Ref :
1. http://in.news.yahoo.com/050110/137/2ix3h.html
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August 14, 2007 at 2:33 pm (Buddhism, Mahayana, Tzu Chi, TzuChi, belief, earth, environment, ghost month, global warming, religion, science, spirituality, supertitious, thoughts, 慈济)
In Buddhism, the seventh lunar month is a month of joy, delight and auspicious. This is because the fifteen day of the seventh month is the Buddha’s joyful day and the day of rejoice for monks.
When the Buddha was alive at India 2500 years ago, the seventh month is the rainy season like what is happening in India now too. Buddha ask his disciples not to go out for alms instead stay in the monastery for meditation and Dhamma discussion. Upon completion of the three months retreat, on the fifteen day of the seventh month, the number of monks who attained enlightenment and improved in Dhamma was high, the Buddha was very joyful. Thus this is the month of joy, delight and auspicious.
At the same day, one of the Buddha chief disciple, Mahāmaudgalyāyana. (Chinese. 目連, Mulian, Pāli Mahāmoggallāna) eased his mother’s suffering from the hell through offering of foods to the Sangha. Through the merits created, Mahāmaudgalyāyana’s mother gained a human birth.
Due to Chinese cultural influence, the offering of foods became directed towards ancestors rather than the Sangha but now the ancestor worship has now transform to burning of paper money, paper houses, paper TV, paper DVD, paper handphone, paper camera and etc to their ancestors who they believed still reside in hell.
Those who are educated, please stop this kind of supertitious belief and practise to your next generation. Do explain the origin of the story to your parents about this supertitious belief . Burning paper money openly will only increase damages to our environment and increase global warming and burning your real money. Non of our ancestor will received your money and relief from the hell.
Ref. http://tzuchig42.multiply.com/journal/item/5
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August 11, 2007 at 4:48 pm (Buddhism, civilisation, climate change, conservation, earth, environment, global warming, global warming fears, science, spirituality, thoughts, vegetarian, water scarcity)
Many know that the other most important non-CO2 greenhouse gas is methane, and the number one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture.
Methane is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put together. Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. While atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have risen by about 31% since pre-industrial times, methane concentrations have more than doubled.
The number one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture. Animal agriculture produces more than 100 million tons of methane a year.
The root of farming livestock is the demand of human desire. This addiction from the mouth is poisoning and depleting our potable water, land, and clean air. Forests are being bulldozed for factory farms and feed crops to feed farmed animals. Farmed animals consume 70 percent of the corn, wheat, and other grains that we grow.
The conclusion is simple: one of the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of animal products. Simply by going vegetarian (or stop eating beef, pork and chicken). Just a simple determination from the heart, and everyone can do it, why not we all start immediately ?
Ref . 1. saveearth.org
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August 2, 2007 at 3:45 pm (Buddhism, Tzu Chi, TzuChi, civilisation, climate change, conservation, earth, environment, general, global warming, inspiration, nature, philosophy, science, thoughts, water scarcity, 慈济)
Restrain and conserve might not good for the economy, but it makes good economic sense. We always heard about “A dollar saved is a dollar earned”, the same concept apply. “A kilowatt-hour saved is a kilowatt-hour earned.”, “A kilo-liter water saved is a kilo-liter water earned.”
Whenever I was tempted to spend, I will think about the above phrase : Restrain ourself, restrain ourself and this definitely help us to reduce spending, reduce usage, reduce pollution hence reduce CO2.
This is what everyone of us can do to reduce CO2 and also prevent being trap into the debt slavery in this debt based monetory system society.
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July 26, 2007 at 4:49 pm (Sydney, climate change, conservation, earth, environment, general, global warming, ipcc, nature, science, thoughts, water scarcity)
Don’t think that water scarcity is only happen in rural area of India, China and Africa or only happen in under-developed countries. One example of the well developed city is in Sydney. Sydney’s water supply is one of the largest domestic water supply in the world. The capacity is as big as 9 times of London and 4 times of the New York city. The Warragamba dam is the world largest dam. Yet even with this capacious storage, it has proven to be insufficient. The authority still impose water restriction when the dam water reached certain level low.Ref : http://www.sydneywater.com.au/SavingWater/WaterRestrictions/
These include restrictions on watering lawn, using sprinkler system, washing vehicles, hosing in paved areas, refilling swimming pools, etc.
Many people of the industrialised world tend to think that the technology will protect them from water scarcity like rural area. For every degree of warm we create, we are heading toward a city like Sydney is now.
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June 29, 2007 at 8:51 am (Mahayana, Resource Recycling, climate change, disparity, earth, environment, general, global warming, philosophy, poverty, science, spirituality, thoughts, water scarcity, wealth gap)
Imagine, you have a 2 months old baby. Is this water enough to clean your baby nappies using water that arrives once in 3 days for 15 mins ?
This is a real situation happening in India, Peeplee Ka Bas. The residents can only fill their buckets for 15 minutes every 48 hours. A country with millions of brilliant scientist and programmers. Water crisis is no longer a problem that we can continue ignore.
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June 23, 2007 at 3:11 am (climate change, earth, environment, general, global warming, nature, science, spirituality, thoughts, water scarcity)
Unless we stop now, we will really doom the lives of our descendents. If we just go on for another forty or fifty years faffing around, they’ll have no chance at all, it’ll be back to the stone age. There’ll be people around still. But civilisation will go. – James Lovelock
Download the below file of pps file and see where are we heading if the global warming continue to accelerate.
letter_written_in_20701.pps
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April 19, 2007 at 9:57 am (Mahayana, Tzu Chi, TzuChi, disparity, general, global warming, love, love other, philosophy, poverty, powerless, space tourism, spirituality, thoughts, wealth gap, 慈济)
Photo Courtesy from carf.
I read a recent article in magazine about space tourism in which a normal person like us can travel to the space for personal pleasure. But it is only affordable to wealthy individuals. Surprisingly, its has become so popular that, even at $20 million a ticket, the Russsian Space Agency is fully booked until 2009.
On the other site of the world, according to UNICEF 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth. Being week and meek in life makes these dying even more invisible to us.
If the money of the ticket to tour the space is share with the poor hungry children. How many life in earth it could save ?
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March 5, 2007 at 9:32 am (Buddhism, Mahayana, Tzu Chi, TzuChi, philosophy, spirituality, thoughts, 慈济)
Tzu Chi people refer to the candles made by the resident nuns of the Abode of Still Thoughts as “candles without tears.”Master Cheng Yen first thought of this kind of candle when she first began her spiritual cultivation. When she saw traditional candles running and dripping wax on the table, she felt that it was wasteful and messy. So she tried to think of a way to make the wax burn up completely. In 1981, she got a clever idea: she used a small plastic fruit juice container as a mold and incense for the wick, which she fastened with a little washer cut from corrugated sheet metal. When the wax had cooled and set, she removed the plastic mold and wrapped the candle with a piece of clear plastic.
This was the first “candle without tears.” The nuns in the early days at the Abode of Still Thoughts made these candles as gifts for visitors. Master Cheng Yen encourages Tzu Chi people to follow the spirit of the “candle without tears” by facing life courageously. The love in people’s hearts should also be like the candlewick, which must be lit in order to fulfill its function. The candle also a symbolise of a Budhisattva spirit of sacrifying our life for helping others. Without tears means fully utilizing the candle and contribute with joys and happiness.
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