诚哉 庆幸

todae is vesak day, the only public holidae, apart from cny, tat my family officially observes.  we dun really do much, basically we jus go to where the buddhist association has set up (or a temple, whichever is more convenient) and we pour 'holy water' over a statue of the baby buddha, then we're done and we go for lunch in a vegetarian restaurant :p

the 'bathing' of the baby buddha symbolises a cleansing - not of my sins, i think - but of the harmful/unhelpful emotions/desires tat reside within me: of envy (when i already have so much) which breeds resentment; of frustration , impatience and its ensuing anger; of an aimlessness tat manifests in reluctance and procrastination.  it's symbolic, but incredibly, it seems to have an effect, tho tat could also be due to other factors, like getting to be with my family after a long while, catching up with my sis, ventilating with my mom on the ridiculously long car ride back across the causeway (we were stuck for 3 hours!).

( drop tat shit like... )

raising heaven

sometimes i think, if i were not born into the culture and place where i was, i'd be something cooler, like an astronomist (?) or an archaelogist...

Raising Heaven
Timothy Ferris
National Geographic

( Nearly two decades after its launch, the Hubble Space Telescope beams home new revelations about the life and death of stars and the nature of our expanding universe. )