Oxbridge English Language Event

10ish on Saturday morning, i toddled off to Sunway University College to help out at the annual Oxbridge English Language Event. This is organised in the name of The Oxford & Cambridge Society of Malaysia, where society members who are alumni of the respective universities give talks to around 1000 Form 4 and Form 5 students from top Malaysian schools, from Melaka, Seremban and as far as Johore (though not this year).

This was my third year participating. The first year, i had foolishly agreed to give a talk on 'Effective Writing Skills'. As a writer and not a speaker, i should have declined, but fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Anyway, needless to say, the following year and this year, i opted NOT to give a talk but to simply contribute as a judge in the essay competition.

i was a little perturbed when i heard that one of my fellow alumni had declined to participate as judge because he felt that there was a conflict of interest, i.e. because it was held at Sunway University College, and our current President is also the Executive Director of Sunway UC.

The reason why i was perturbed was because i felt that while the Society enjoyed various great events, such as the Boat Race Ball and lectures and talks by prominent and prestigious experts in their fields, the English Language event was one event where the Society actually gave back to society. Fair enough that community work is NOT in our charter. But this event costs the O&C Society less than RM1000 (for prizes for the winners of the essay competition), and the only other cost is the time from those members who volunteer to participate.

On the other hand, the event costs Sunway some RM15-18,000 as they provide all the logistics for the event, from bussing the students and teachers in from their various schools, lunch for all of them, a team to meet the Oxbridge speakers and judges and make sure we know where to go, a Sunway teaching team to shortlist the essays for the Oxbridge judges, our tea and lunch too etc. In addition, they provide the venue - even our parking is paid for! They also organised the trophies for the winners of the essay competition which have the Oxford & Cambridge crests engraved onto them.

In my humble opinion, Oxbridge and Sunway together did a great job. When i heard the kids cheering in the hall as the various Oxbridge speakers went up to get their token of appreciation (also thoughtfully organised by Sunway), i really felt so glad i could be part of it.

Conflict of interest? Who loses? As i see it, the Society wins - Oxbridge gets kudos (and those great speakers do deserve it too), Sunway wins - yes, it benefits from being linked to Oxbridge, and raises its profile with the schools but best of all, the kids win.

Yes, the winners of the essay competition received some cash prizes and trophies. But the real benefit for the students was from having the opportunity to listen to good speakers talk about writing and speaking skills - and i trust that each of those students would have gone home with at least some iota of knowledge which was generously shared by our speakers.

So maybe it's not of direct benefit to the Society members, and maybe that's why some may see it as 'controversial' and a 'conflict of interest'. Or maybe it's the fact that Sunway gets some benefit from it and that can be considered a conflict of interest.

There was a suggestion that Oxbridge hold the event at a 'neutral' venue. Which is a constructive suggestion, but unfortunately, the Society does not have the manpower to organise this huge event and i am not sure that the members would think it worthwhile to spend RM15-18000 to sponsor this event.

i am sure that if the majority of members decided that the event should NOT proceed - for the simple reason that a minority number of members may think it beneath the Society to lend it's name to an event such as this - i would personally feel a most compelling need to resign from the Society. I'm sure it wouldn't be a great loss to the Society.

They probably won't even notice.

Master Cheng Yen

TR had told us a while back to watch a programme on Discovery Channel on Dharma Master, Cheng Yen. I had tried to catch it a few times but never seemed to be able to. I woke up late today and remembered it was on at 10a.m. so I quickly snapped on the TV.

I was enthralled.

Master Cheng Yen is a Buddhist nun based in Taiwan. She started the Tzu Chi movement in 1966, together with a core team of 30, consisting of mainly housewives, who supported the movement by saving NT0.50 (USD0.13) of their grocery money per day. From such humble beginings, Master Cheng Yen has built hospitals in remote areas of Taiwan and whole communities around them. Tzu Chi literally means "compassion relief" - it's a multi million dollar organisation today which is purely dedicated to give practical aid to the poor and provide spiritual encouragement to the rich. I was particularly moved by how she is so hands on in her approach - everyday, she only sleeps five hours and takes her meals in five minutes. The rest of the time is spent walking through her hospitals and talking to patients and doctors to see how to improve things.

I had often heard that Buddhists, unlike Christians, never go and provide relief in disaster stricken areas. I didn't know anything about it so just kept quiet. This TV documentary highlighted that Tzu Chi actually has 10 million members, of which 1 million members are trained volunteers all over the world. Training takes two years and is not to be taken lightly. At any time, these volunteers can be called into action.

Throughout the years, Tzu Chi has consistently helped the communities in disaster struck areas. First in Taiwan and then also overseas. In the Tsunami stricken Sri Lanka, Tzu Chi was one of the first teams to arrive. Six months later, when most of the relief organisations had gone, Tzu Chi was still there and was involved in the building of 675 houses. Even when the hurricane hit US, Tzu Chi sent its teams there to provide financial aid when it was sorely needed.

Tzu Chi is really Buddhist compassion in action, with the help of western medicine.

If a humble nun and 30 housewives can achieve so much, how can we say "I can't"?

Taking the 8 precepts

At about 10.45pm on Wesak eve, i was happily tired, showered and wrapped snugly in bed. While Webby was showering, i logged on idly to see who was on MSN. Joe popped me and invited Faery in.. saying URGENT... i said what's up? He said can we come to the 8 precepts ceremony at Damekhang. It wasn't compulsory but TR had said it would be good if the writers could come. Without hesitation, I said sure.. what time? He said oh..11 to 11.15!

Webby and I promptly went into hyperdrive, picked up Faery on the way and rushed to DK. In the car, we all said we weren't going to take the precepts and just observe. When we stumbled in breathlessly, TR was already there. With about twenty people sitting reverently on the floor in front of him. Stunned into stupidity by everything (they say moving too fast drains the blood from your brain - well, that's my excuse), we even forgot to prostrate to our Guru! Anyway, we quickly settled down and TR warmly welcomed us, explaining to the audience that we were just there in our capacity as writers and then he began his talk on the eight precepts.

The precepts are basically promises in front of Lord Buddha to do something for the benefit of others. The reason to take vows is to give a positive messsage to our sub-conscious mind that we are good people and that we can be better, and that we are better. That we want to focus our energy and mind on something higher.

The Mahayana vows were specifically for lay people who wanted to have a clearer feeling about Dharma practice. Taking vows mean taking responsibility. Taking vows means that we directly cut off any negative distractions that are negative attachments which we have, and on a higher level, to indirectly cut the roots of negative actions.

I learned something interesting - if you do something without a vow.. eg if you don't drink alcohol, it's neutral. You don't gain any merit. But if you take vows, you collect merits for NOT doing the things you vow not to do. So if you don't do something anyway e.g. you don't drink alcohol, you might as well vow not to, so at least you gain merits for that. In my mind, I was thinking that's not really fair. It's not really giving up something if you don't like it anyway. As usual, TR immediately responded by saying that when we don't do something in this life, it means that we have the imprint from a previous life, so if we don't like alcohol now, we probably abstained from alcohol in a past life and did the sacrificial thing then.

At the end of the evening, Webby, Faery and I all decided to take the 8 precepts. After all, it was only for 24 hours and it was on such an auspicious day - Wesak.

The next 24 hours were interesting. I had never been so mindful of my actions. Webby and myself caught ourselves singing/ humming and once, while walking in the mall, we tried some lotion and inhaled the fragrance appreciatively before catching ourselves!! A bit late, but better late than never!

All in all, it was a great experience and I find myself more aware of what I am doing, even now. So thank Buddha for TR's invitation to us and Joe for conveying the message just in time!

Sean's 100 prostrations

Yesterday evening, Sean wanted to do some prayers, so he did 21 Migtsemas and then he wanted to do prostrations, so i told him to go ahead. He did 10, then 20, then 30.. i stopped what i was doing and helped him count. Amazingly enough (i thought so anyway) he did 100. Non-stop. In about twenty minutes. Usually we do 3 prostrations together or 10 at the most. We said the dedication together and then he went to bed. When he woke up this morning, he said he dreamt that Buddha came to teach him but he was speaking in a language he couldn't understand. Maybe Indian or Tibetan, he said. Then, he wanted to do some more prostrations but he said he didn't think he could do as many as he did last night, so he did 10. I'm so proud of him and hope that he continues to explore his spiritual path.

haiku for hurt

razorsharp words cut
deep into my soul, my heart
wishes it could stop.