THE DAY I DIE IS THE DAY I'M BACK TO LIFE

Yoo Hoo!!! I'm back. Been in the temple for the past week. I wan joining this novitiate programme and became a novice monk for like 8 days. (9 if you consider the day i went for preperation) Now it's time for the new noob to update noobs-4-noobs.
At the same time, this is my diary for my acariya (teacher) Rev. Dhammapala.
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Right, this is not the first time I had joint this kinda programme. In fact my acariya had seen my face for the third time already. So went in there well prepare with my friends, all veteran except wooi kean. So everyone was quite used to how things are done there. Hair shaving, precepts observing, meditation and filling up our tummy. However this time is something quite interesting.

Accomodation
Given an aircon room as usual, so I brought along my sleeping bag as a blanket. That's not the main point. Main thing is I get to share the same room as my fellow school mates and my senior and my gang. Sadhu to the person allocating us to that room. We did quite some thing in the room. Talk as usual, and introduced a new way to chant the parittas. Well since we are not allowed to sing (one of the precepts ma) so i used the parritas we are suppose to chant and mixed it with the song and it turn out to be quite good. (promote lee hom for a while) Try using his new song 落叶归根 chorus and chant NAMO TASSA BHAGAVATO ARAHATO SAMMASAMBUDDHASA. It turns out to be quite nice. However, got people complain me lo. Well we sort it out because I double checked with my acariya as well as the chief abbort of the temple, both say ok. Hee... Next time can chant in that way d!!!

FOOD
Haizz... Something people likes to quarrel about. Many people fight for food but we are suppose to comtemplate on whatever food we are given and choose what we don't like - avoid attachment. So I tasted the worst bittergout in my life. The damn thing really makes my eyes almost popped out! However, "this food I use it only to destroy the feeling of hunger and not producing new feeling of over eating; this lump of food is not yet loathsome but having touch this putrid body, it became exceedingly loathsome" So no complain on the food, in fact i put on some weight even we are only fed twice a day before noon. NO MEALS AFTERLUNCH!!! But still got gilanapacaya - medicine time. We took some chocolate and cheese as medicine to cure our "sick" tummy.

Activities
The most "interesting" part of the whole programme. This is a copy of our daily routine.
o500hours - rise and shine
0530hours - meditation
0630hours - morning puja (chanting)
0700hours - makan time (1st meal)
0730hours - temple cleaning (the temple is damn clean before we evan touch the broom)
0800hours - rest
0900hours - meditation and dhamma talk
1100hours - ready for lunch (2nd meal)
1200hours - rest time (at last)
1400hours - YOGA, meditation and lectures
1700hours - rest a bit
1730hours - gilanapacaya (i wonder did i got the spelling right)
1800hours - rest a bit
1830hours - metta bhavana (loving kindness meditation)
1930hours - ready for evening puja (chanting again... not lee hom style har)
2030hours - Dhamma talk
2130hours - closing to sleeping time
2200hours - SLEEP...
so basically this is what we did everyday except the last day which we had pindapatta and visiting old folks' home. Tight programme, tiring but enjoyable la. Especially the yoga. I did something that I don't even believed that I can do!!! TEACHER!! I LOVE THE CORPSE POSTURE!!! Next time we have more of the same posture ya. Then meditation was fun, when we talk about what we "saw" and many of us just fell asleep and one of them "saw" himself fighting a monster... As for me, nah, still can't concentrate well. Five minutes, 10 minutes, POP! my mind flew to somewhere else. So I will try to bring it back. No worries.

Dhamma Talks
This is the part where I don't really paid much attention to. Reason? It's too deep for me to understand it and I don't really think that at my level of meditation, I need to understand that. Wait till I progress to some higher level then I will see things clearer and I'll get to know what that is all about. However I can't be stopping the experts from learning ma, so let them learn and i guarenteed myself a few teachers in the future la. Hee... Well, the surprise sessions with Ven. Mahinda from Australia and my acariya's student was fun. We discussed a lot of things. Asked a lot of "unanswerable" questions. But we enjoyed the jokes la.

Avusos (fellow brothers)
Many misunderstanding between the Seniors and the juniors, don't wanna talk much about what they misunderstood but i don't think what they did was a right thing. But what can I do? I was treated like an illiterated people there. They always liked to pin point at people. "there are people who joined this programme for many times.... bla bla bla...." and the started complaining. Haizz... Nevermind bout the oldies, this is what we called the Generation gap. They just can't accept the modern things. BUT!!! As for my fellow friends, perfectly mixed together, it's like a small gathering for us. We shared our time together, did a lot of things together and shared a lot of things together. If you ask me what have I learnt there, HELPING EACH OTHER will definitely came first other than the spiritual gains. So I'm just quite enjoy it with them around.

Lastly... my last words
Basically, nothing much that I had to say. Throughout the whole programme, I not only learnt from my acariya, I too, learnt many things from my friends. Especially don't say one thing and do another. Like I always keep it as my principle. What noob says noob will do it! As for the spiritual side, I had learnt more about respecting my parents and gaining some knowlegde on dhamma except the Jhana part. Still not quite understand it. Sorry. So till the next programme.

Tata...

ps : my old self was pronuonced dead on the 26th August 2007 1400hours and it marks the time the new noob is being brought to this word.

Hair Cut

Anyone wants to know what is the result of having a non-professional hairstylist cutting your hair? I'll show you.

This is the result! Haizz... MY HAIR!!! Well I asked for it so I got it la. The story is, today I asked the discipline teacher to cut my hair for me. Ridiculus right? Well, many of my seniors did it before so i decided to try it also la. Hahaha...

Actually I am not insane or anything la. Just that tomorrow I am going to this Novitiate Programme which means I am temporary going to become a monk for like 8 days, so I had to shave my head. The temple people asked me to cut my hair shorter so that when the monks shave my head easier and faster. So I decided to save a bit of money and asked my discipline teacher to cut lo.

At first I thought I was the only one thinking of this. God knows my friend came to me and told me he wants to let the discipline teacher cut also. So we went to see this discipline teacher and asked her to cut for us. During the hair cut, many other students came and see and they thought,"what the hack? Last day of school kena cut?" Hahahaha. Let me make it clear, we asked for the haircut! NOT DISCIPLINE CASE OK??

Tomorrow is the day we are going to be bald!! Hahaha. So I'll just enjoy my last momment with my hair on la...

To My ee ee sekalian and laubu!!! I wan everyday got different food har!!! hee...

Money?

Many people always think of making money and getting big buck and powers. To me, FOR WHAT? The more money you have, the more problem you have. Money can buy us a lot of things. However money is not everything. Money can buy us medicine but not health. Money can buy us friends but not true friends. Money can buy you girls/boys but not love. Money can be important at times but it is not that important if we don't do stupid things. If you lead a simple life, you don't need that much money actually. Let me relate a story to you.

There was this fisherman, living in a small island with his happy family. One day, an economist graduated from Harvard came for holiday. He met this fisherman and they talked.

Economist : Hi, are you a local?
Fisherman : Yes.
Economist : What do you do for living?
Fisherman : I am a fisherman.
Economist : How was your daily routine?
Fisherman : I go out to the sea early in the morning, catch a few fish and I come home in the afternoon.
Economist : Then?
Fisherman : In the afternoon I will play with my children and at night I will go out to the small hut there and have some drink with my pals.
Economist : Do you ever thought of improving your life?
Fisherman : Extend?
Economist : Let me show you how. First you have to go out longer and double the amount of fish you catch everyday. Then in 2 years time you will be able to buy a bigger boat and go futher out and catch bigger fish. I believe 5 years from then you will be able to buy a few boats and hire some fishermen to do the fishing for you. In 10 years time, you can bring your business to America and you can start up a factory to process your fish and sell it. In no more then another 5 years you can go global. Then you will be a millionaire. Good isn't it?
Fisherman : Then what do I do after that?
Economist : Then you can retire to a small island, go out to the sea in the morning, catch a few fish and come back in the afternoon. In the afternoon, you can play with your grandchildren and at night you might wanna go out and have some drink with your friends.
Fisherman : That's exactly what I'm doing now?
Economist : ...

So you see, why do we fight so hard for? To earn a lot of money? Become a millionaire and then retire to a small town and lead a life you're living now? Why go one big round and come back to the same point? We ain't no drawing circles. We can just be happy. Live happy, be happy, and you wouldn't mind not being a millionaire.

CSI - Rise Of The Criminals

CSI : Crime Scene Investigation, a popular tv series now showing on the tv. Personaly, I like CSI Miami most. I just love Horation Canes' style. So cool. (shit I'm talking like a cc now) Right, get back to the topic. Well regarding the lastest instalment of CSI, CSI - Rise Of The Criminals, I have a few words to say.

1. CSI - Rise Of The Criminal is not a tv series
This is actually a topic worth debating. Lately many people had been blaming CSI for the rise of crimes happening around our neighbourhood. Perhaps our "friendly neighbourhood" isn't swinging around anymore? Nah!!! They blamed it on CSI. Points given? The tv series tought those criminals how to wipe off evidences. They had no clue who did the thing and they could not press charge on they suspects because they could not provide solid evidence. JOKE OF MY LIFE!!! Let me point out why this reason is so ridiculus.

2. Evidence Wiping
Base on all three CSI's (Florida, NY, Miami), I can conclude that, unless you can make the body disappear or you'll get caught. You just could not wipe off everything! The most classic evidence i ever saw on the series was about this man got killed while imitating SPIDERMAN. His death leads the CSI to another body which was hidden in a cupboard. So no evidence was found. So the murderer might think, " yeah!!! I'm FREE!!!" Not just quite yet. They found a mosquitoe containing the blood sample of the murderer in the crime scene. So they managed to catch the murderer and sentenced him. Isn't this ridiculus also? However the main thing in this serie is, you can run but you can't hide. MOSQUITOE WILL GIVE YOU AWAY!!! So basically it's based on the knowledge of those investigators as well as the forensics doctors to make the dead talk. That's why I say unless they make the whole body disappear, or else YOU DEFINITELY CAN CHARGE THEM SOMEHOW!!! So don't blame the series, BLAME YOURSELVE FOR NOT CAPABLE TO SOLVE THE CASE.

3. Why CSI?
Honestly, if CSI is ruining the society, then they should have banned it. If those criminals really can learn something from the series, then PRISON BREAK should be banned in the first place. Teaching people how to break out from a prison? Hahahaha... Besides that CSI is not the only show of its kind. What about Criminals Mind? What about those showed in Discovery Channel? Real cases shown on tv. How the investigators solved the cases. If from the way investigators solve cases we can learn how to counter them. ALL THOSE DOCUMENTARIES SHOULD BE BANNED!!! How could you take the risk to "teach" rapist how to get away? Ban everything, Don't sell tv la! NO COMPUTERS NO INTERNET! Simple isn't it?

So to those people who thought that CSI is ruining our society, think twice. It is not the series that ruined the society but the kiasu-ism of some parents who ruined it. Making super intelligent babies who later grew up to be too intelligent to figure out that working for a company don't help them make big bucks. Channeling their intelligence to other places like "skim cepat kaya" should be good. For those who don't breed super intelligent babies, your kids are going to be those who got conned. What a sad sad society.

... to be continued
stay tuned for SUPER INTELIGENT BABIES

A Lil Physics... PRESSURE

Right, actually I wasn't in the mood of blogging, but I had too cause I havn't been updating for quite some time. Well, so happen that I saw something funny today when I was on a trip to Taiping, Perak, Malaysia. It's so brainless the design. Damn sad for the designer, he or she should have studied Physics before designing that thing.

Check out the jets of water... I believe by now the physics students will understand what i meant by stupid already. Well, let me explain why it is stupid to those who doesn't understand it. As you can see, the top most jet of water shot furthest and the lowest jet shot nearest. Actually, it should be the other way round. Lowest jet should have shot furthest while the highest jet should have shot nearest. Well I do understand that this is not of the normal jets but electronic pumps. Come on la!!! At least make it look a bit smart la!!!

According to the law of physics, the formula:

pressure, P = pgh

p = density of water

g = gravitational force

h = depth of water in the tank

is used to calculate the pressure exerted on the wall of the tank.

Now you can check out this diagram.

So, this should be the correct way the jets should be shooting at. Reason? Since P is directly proportional to h, then when h is higher, P should be higher and the water should have been shot further. Check out the diagram. Comparing all the three jets, the top most jet (J1) will shoot further because the h is just H1, and the h of the lowest jet (J3) is H1+H2+H3. I know some of you might have confuse already. Why not the top most jet has the h = H1+H2+H3+H4?

Yeah, many students had a rough time to actually realise that the depth is from the top of the tank to the level where the hole was placed. That's why J1 has the h of H1 only where as the h of J3 is H1+H2+H3. So as the h increases, the P also increases.

Besides this, another pressure law also explained why this phenomenon happened. the formula we are discussing this time is:

P = F/A

F = force exerted

A = surface area where the force was acting on

F = ma

in this case, a=g

m = mass of the object (liquid)

a = g = gravitational pull

P = (ma)/A

Therefore, this time the P is direcly proportional to m, while A is constant. Since the m of the volume of water for the part H1 is just a portion while compared to the volume of the water of the part H1+H2+H3. So when the mass is little, the P oso little and vice versa. Due to the P exerted is higer down below, the water will be pushed harder out of the hole and thus making is looked like it's shot further compared to the jet on top.

So by using simple Laws of pressure, we can actually show that how stupid to have this design in the public. Just imagine what would an a Physics teacher say?? I hope this is not one of my students. Hahahaha...

Note: this is just for the fun of reading and not to create any riot or what so ever, and please do correct me if i had explained it wrongly.