Planting of seeds

This recent trip to Teochew brought back some old memories of seeds planted during my younger days...

One interesting concept that the Teochew people have is that they believe Oysters are vegetarian food because there is no blood outflow from it. So, we discussed if the shell products are vegetarian, it was then that I recall of my early encounters of reading picture books on advocating vegetarian and avoidance of killing from the library of S'pore Buddhist Lodge. There are several stories advocated of kind people who after rescuing the lives, even yes, shell lives from being killed from cooking and releasing them back to the water, dreamt of the shell lives transforming into human/deity forms and appearing in the kind persons' dreams, thanking them for saving their lives.
 
It led me to recall that I had always thought that I was influenced towards pro-vegetarian because of watching Ven. Hai Tao's DVDs advocating vegetarian a couple of years ago but they are actually intermediate compared to the young days when I visited the corner Picture book section at the library of S'pore Buddhist Lodge.

Those are the days when I will go there to study for exams but getting tired of studying, I will relax by reading the picture books at the corner. Back to the library recently, there had been some changes, but the corner is still there, the familar titles on the stories of Buddha & Bodhisattva and yes, books advocating vegetarian and life releases are also there.

Gratitude to S'pore Buddhist Lodge, for the conducive environment to study & read.
Amituofo...

VESAK@ORCHARD 2010

Some Snapshots of Vesak@Orchard 2010 (http://vesakcelebrations.sg/)

Above are some miniatures of the replicated Famous Buddhist sites around the world.

Concerts for the music lovers...

Lastly, crowd drew by the Delicious Vegetarian Food Fair :-)

Don't wait any more, join the crowd in the Vesak Celebration @ Orchard 2010 , just outside Ngee Ann City , Orchard Rd: 8-9May 2010 ! (Sun to 5pm only!)

And Don't forget to visit the every year popular Free Book Distribution Booth located just beside the Leshan Buddha this year to get new priceless Gems! And Always be prepared to bring your own recycled bags to carry the Gems back!:-)

Cheers! :-)

Gems - Buddhist Dharma Comics n Story books!

After getting some gems! from a recent retreat , I had the opportunity to revisit Ven Hai Tao's Dharma Centre in Singapore, Buddhist Life Mission, located at 19-B Lorong Bachok (Off Geylang Lor 19) Singapore 387788.

It is ironical that a centre advocating life liberation is located just a few shops away from a popular shop selling something that they are discouraging from. But maybe it could be good for the suffering beings who will likely receive prayers & merits from their neighbors.

Nevertheless, it is a good visit to the Dharma centre as I found more gems! Dharma in comics & story-book form for children & also adults! All printed & sent from Taiwan, good quality & mostly colorful. And even found one that they printed in English.

They may be the most pro-children Buddhist centre in Dharma books printing that I had encountered so far. Too bad we couldn't make an order earlier to print & distribute in time for coming Vesak celebration month but

Do Look out for their Cartoon DVDs on Life Protection that will be distributed in the free Distribution Booth in the coming Vesak @ Orchard 2010 (http://vesakcelebrations.sg/ )

As for the books, sorry but there will only be limited copies for those with affinity...

Buddhist Story-books for the Children

While attending a retreat at a temple, I found Gems! at their free distribution book booth.

They had a number of "Storytelling by Ven Hai Tao" which the books are dedicated to tell the stories in simplistic way to the children (and adults too!). They are simple to read to understand the morale behind the stories. However, there is one major setback in that they are printed in the more complex Chinese characters utilised by Taiwanese which may not be readable by children of other countries who are generally being taught the simpler version of Chinese characters. If they could be printed in the simpler Chinese Characters, it would make the reading easier and benefit more. Hopefully, they could reprint in the simpler Chinese character version to benefit more who read Chinese in future.

Comics by a Venerable

I picked up this copy during my last visit to Ci Yan Xuan. They too have a free Dharma books distribution shelve outside their shop. If you do not see them at the shelve, you may be able to find a copy inside their shop near the door or simply ask the owners. ;-)This was drawn by Venerable Guo Yu based on a few Buddhist stories that illustrated/reflected on Compassion, Wisdom and importance of Discipline (that's the essence of the stories that I interpreted from my limited understanding, do let me know your reviews/comments after reading) while the theme of the last story encourages Vegetarian. Do pickup a copy when you are around Chinatown.
Cheers:-)