Sean arrives!

Susan and I were on standby today, which meant we didn't have to be at the booth for a whole shift. So we went to Orchard Road - how can we visit Singapore without a pilgrimage to Orchard Road!

I took Susan for lunch at Lawry's - my favourite place for Roast beef in all of Asia, so far anyway. After that, we walked across to Takashimaya and then to Borders at Wheelock Place, where we bought a couple of Dharma magazines. We then found ourselves gravitating towards Suntec to see what was going on. Also, Shirley was dropping Sean off at Suntec on her way to the Fullerton. I was so excited that he was coming! Their flight was delayed though and only arrived at around 6.30pm.

He came upstairs to our booth and immediately changed into a 'Dharma that bites' T-shirt and swung into action. He was remarkably successful, I think because most adults find it amusing that a kid is telling them about Dharma! Anyway, I was very proud of him.

Green Tara appears for Vesak!

KMP had a wonderful opportunity to celebrate Vesak Day twice this year – once in Malaysia and again today in Singapore! In the morning, as it was a public holiday, there were more visitors to our booth than over the past few days.

To celebrate Vesak, KMP super writer Jamie “Paris” Khoo decided attract more attention to KMP’s booth as well as fulfil a long time fantasy of hers to dress up as her favourite Buddha, Green Tara – and wow, look at how fabulous she looks!

Not only did she look great, she also drew quite a crowd to our booth. People actually came to ask for bookmarks and postcards. She walked around outside the Book Fair hall too, going up and down the escalators, from the ground floor to the top floor, accompanied by her wannabe dakinis - Shin, Susan and I. We imagined ourselves going up to the heavens and down to the three lower realms (as we were on the 4th floor)!

Some youngsters asked for postcards and then threw them in the dustbin, which they found very amusing and we didn’t. We simply thought that maybe even holding the postcards may give them an affinity for Dharma in the future.

We even met a Tibetan thangka seller who marvelled at our own Tara and asked to take a photo with her! Here on the left is a picture of our Tara and a Tara Thangka!

While sales weren’t that many, there were lots of visitors and we even closed late today because there were still browsers in the booth at 10pm! Our book sales were a bit better than the previous couple of days, and total sales came to SGD650.

Yek Yee and JJ shared that a lot of visitors were intrigued by the ‘Greedy’ title of the Chinese book. Some were actually challenged why we used the title, saying that we shouldn’t use ‘greed’ with Dharma. However, once, Yek Yee had explained to a mother about the rationale behind the Be Greedy title, and the mother understood and explained it to her child. It is fantastic that KMP has the opportunity to share with people about changing mindsets.

The KMP volunteers and staff received a wonderful sms message from Rinpoche which was very touching : “I am excited and happy for all of you. All of you are like in a retreat during this period like a 10-day retreat. Your body moving, packing, unpacking, showing, sleeping, eating, travelling for dharma. Your speech, nearly all words direct and indirect is increasing dharma. And your mind single-pointedly focused on talented, skilful ways to bring dharma to others! I am truly happy from my heart. Beautiful.”

To end the day, HE Tsem Tulku Rinpoche’s Chinese book, Be Greedy was found by Shin and Joseph to be displayed in the New Book section in Kinokuniya. Let’s hope it’s a best seller!

No Signboard and BS

PG took us to have crab again last night at No Signboard - we had pepper and chilli crab but I preferred Jumbo's pepper crab while Susan preferred No Signboard. PG's friend, Aline, came along for awhile too. She's quite good fun - but had to go off to BS (bible studies). We kept telling her - don't call it BS... it sounds too much like you've go to go for BullSh*t... no offence meant at all!!!

Susan got to share with them about her missionary experiences and how she made the connection between Christianity and Buddhism. She said she is still very much a Christian but now a Buddhist too! I think this aspect of Susan's will be key to many people who are confused or divided over the different theologies. Just earlier that day, she had spent a lot of time talking to a retired gentleman who was a staunch Christian but who's son was a Tibetan Buddhist. From her chat with the gentleman, she said that he was actually very Buddhist in thinking - especially his openmindedness in letting his son pursue his own path.

If only people could stop putting labels - on religions, thoughts, there'd be less divisions..

On an even happier note, Shirley is coming to Sg tomorrow and she's bringing Sean.. yayyyy

Jumbo Seafood

On a happier note, later this evening, Ruby invited Susan and I to join her and Mr Poh for dinner - at his restaurant Jumbo in Kallang Stadium. We had originally planned to meet with PG, but Ruby asked us to invite her to join too, so we did. Boy, was I glad we did. The food was F A B U L O U S! We had geoduck sashimi (one of my faaavourites), Sri Lankan crabs in two styles - black pepper and chilli. I preferred the pepper but chilli was good too. We also had these amazingly yummy drinks - like green slush. Apparently it's a vegetable drink with no sugar added. I loved it. I could drink my veges everyday! Heck, I have to get back to Jumbo before we go home..

I am so attached to food. Damn, this is slowing down my progress to Enlightenment. I'll work on it.. in the meantime... where's that crab!

Missing Sean

I had been away from my little rascal for almost a week and I missed him terribly. I called him to see how he was and had a quick chat. I don't think he missed me at all but nevermind! After my phone call, Webby said - now I'm going to call my baby. I was thinking.. yea yea.. she's going to call the bl**dy vet.. (one of our cats, Metta, is pregnant and boarding at the vet while we're in Sg) but to my most fantastic, pleasant surprise, she had called home and was talking to Sean.

I was so incredibly touched. For a whole 10 seconds. Then I realized that she had called home by mistake. And she confirmed it was a mistake.. she HAD intended to call the vet (so it wasn't just MY assumptions!)

I was then incredibly crushed. Talk about the transience of emotions. The illusory nature of assumptions, expectations and hope. This is my biggest battle on a personal level - to wish that my partner would treat my son according to what I think my partner should. We have discussed this issue to death and I am (still) trying to let go of my judgemental behaviour and just let things be. Whether she loves Sean or not, I should just take her word for it and not read into her behaviour. That's my logical, trying desperately to be Dharmic mind thinking. But it's not easy. Usually I just go with the flow and try not to have expectations, but today, when that phonecall happened, it was like a knife in my guts.

Oh well. Life is for learning. Isn't life fun? Where's that equanimity when I need it?