Rice Of Love

On August 21, 2011, volunteers from Tzu Chi Foundation, Taiwan, held a rice sharing event in Tambora , Jakarta Barat, the capital city of Indonesia.

In her letter dedicated to Indonesians, Master Cheng Yen, the founder of Tzu Chi said that sharing of rice will end at one point ( when all rice have been distributed ) but the blessings and love in them shall remain forever.

The Governor of DKI Jakarta, Fauzi Bowo thanked Tzu Chi for it's noble act of sharing the "rice of love" with people of Jakarta. Fauzi had participated in events organized by Tzu Chi Indonesia in the past.
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Distribution of rice started at 8am. The scorching morning sun did not dampen the spirits of the 178 volunteers on duty that morning but instead they continued to distribute a total of 3027 bags of rice and cooking oil with smiles on their faces. Recipients were given coupons to be exchanged with rice prior to that, on August 14, 2011. Besides rice and cooking oil, volunteers also handed essential items to families nearby whose 9 houses were burnt down on August 13, 2011.

One of the recipients was a 83 years old woman, Liem Lit Nio who lives in a house repaired by Tzu Chi in 2003 with 36 of her family members. Back then while going round surveying the area, Tzu Chi volunteers discovered the dilapidated house of Liem and found that it was not in a good state and decided to help her repair her house. Madam Liem thanked Tzu Chi continously for not only rebuilt her house but also shared the "rice of love" with her family.

In the spirit of sharing, in return Madam Liem gave away her fully filled money saving container made from bamboo to Tzu Chi. She said that even though the amount was not big but she shared it with the others a big heart referring to the quote by Master Cheng Yen that " sharing with the others allows us to feel blessed and satisfy with what we already have "





Madam Liem's making her own contribution

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Buddhist Personality : Bhutia Baichung

Name : Bhutia Baichung
Country : India
Date Of Birth : December 5, 1976
Height : 173cm
Profession : Footballer

Retired Bhutia, was a captain for Indian national football team. He has been in the indian football team since over a decade. He is the first and only Indian to play for an English club and is hailed as one of the best players India has ever produced.
Baichung announced his international retirement on August 24, 2011 after failing to recover from a recurrent calf muscle injury, drawing curtains on an illustrious 16-year-long career.

Bhaichung started playing football in St.Xavier's school in sikkim. Obvious talent saw him get offers from various school clubs. When bhaichung was sixteen he joined the East bengal club in kolkata. Bhaichung then went on to become the team captain in the 1998-99 season. Finally bhutia got a dream call from overseas. He was called for training sessions with english clubs like Fulham and Aston Villa. After unsucessful attempts with both, Bhutia joined Bury FC in the UK. After a three year stint, Bhutia returned to india to play for Mohum Bagan FC. Bhutia returned to his former club the next year to help them win the ASEAN cup. Bhutia's achievements have gone to that extent that he also got the chance to play alongside one of the sports best player;Clarence Seedorf in a match in Munich. Bhutia scored twice in that game.

Inspite of the prowess of such an able national captain bhutia has failed to deliver on the international circuit. Football pundits argue that the game is a team game and so bhutia is always excused. But this buddhist's contribution to the sport cannot be ignored. He once said that it would be his dream if he could help india qualify for the world cup finals

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Nature Threat To Buddhism In Nepal

An ethnic community in Nepal's remotest Himalayan district bordering Tibet says it has been struggling to save its unique Buddhism culture from being uprooted by floods from a glacial lake.

The locals of Halji village in Humla district of western Nepal practise the Drikung Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism which has an 11th century monastery at its heart.



They are very worried that the Rinchenling monastery - one of the oldest in Nepal and highly revered in Tibet - could be swept away or damaged by floods and mudslides caused by the outburst of a glacial lake on the mountain overlooking their village.

For the past five years, Halji has been hit by glacial lake floods almost every summer and the last one nearly two months ago damaged two

Several crop fields were washed away and many remain covered with sands, rendering them barren for many years to come.

Villagers say the historic monastery now stands only around 15m away from the river bank that has been eroded by flood waters.

They fear the next time the Tak Tsho lake bursts out like it did this year, it may hit the 1,000 year-old sacred site.



"It is our identity," says Kojuk Objang Tamang, the head of Halji village. "We cannot even imagine about our community without the monastery which is the base of our religious culture," he told the BBC.

So strong is the community's creed on the monastery that they are convinced that it has saved them from the floods and mudslides so far.

"It is because of the blessings of the monastery that the village is hit by floods at day time only and so there is no loss of human lives because we can run to safety during daylight," says Tamang. "Had it happened in the night when we are asleep, god knows how many of us would have been dead by now.

Astrid Hovden of the University of Oslo, who has been conducting her PhD research in Halji, has witnessed how central the monastery is to the community of around 100 households.

"At the night of the flood (last June), after the water level in the river started to get back to normal, the monks performed an elaborate ritual in the monastery to pray for the safety of their village.

"Since the villagers got aware of the problem they have invited important lamas (priests) from outside to perform rituals to protect their village

Prayers apart, the villagers have also done whatever they could to save the monastery and their settlement.

Although almost all of them are uneducated, they have knocked on the doors of the prime minister's office in the capital Kathmandu, the local authority and the national planning commission.

Those efforts had secured some funding which they used to build defences using rocks and gabion wires to tame the flood waters.

"Every family in our village worked free of cost for the constructions of those infrastructures," says Tamang.

But villagers say every year the floods and mudslides hurtling down from the glacial lake at the height of around 5,300m on the Gurla Mandhata mountain become increasingly dangerous.

"Our effort to save the village is proving to be no match for the force of the floods," said Mangal Lama, a social worker from the region

Lama and other locals said they hiked up to the area where the Tak Tsho glacial lake is located and found that it is hidden behind a hanging glacier.

"And we saw huge cracks on the glacier, and that explained why we used to hear big sounds around the same time in June every year before we were hit by floods.

"Apparently, it appears that the huge pieces of ice sheet from the cracked parts of the glacier might have fallen into the glacial lake which then overflowed, causing floods and mudslides downstream."

Some scientists say climate change has accelerated glacial meltdown in the Himalayas, creating many new glacial lakes and filling up existing ones to dangerous levels.

Most of the 4,000 or so glaciers and their lakes in the Nepalese Himalayas are not monitored, like the one above Halji in Humla district.

The National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) Nepal has prepared under the United Nations climate convention has rated the district's vulnerability to glacial lake outburst flood as "very low" - something which has been disputed.

Social worker Lama said some villagers are so frustrated that they are considering going to Tibet across the border to become refugees.

"Because it takes five days walk to reach the nearest local authority of Nepal while Taklakot (the nearest Tibetan market) is only 12 hours away and moreover the villagers speak the Tibetan language and follow all traditions of Tibet."

Locals say they cannot also move the monastery and their settlement to a safe place.

"The moment we move the monastery, its religious and historic value will drop to zero," says Tamang. "And that, in turn, means our century old intact religious and cultural community will break and it will all be over"

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Buddhist Personality : Jimmy Ni

Name : Ni Qi Min ( Jimmy )
Nationality : Taiwan
Date Of Birth : 24th December 1964
Height : 180cm
Profession : Actor ( mostly in Minnan dialect dramas )

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Buddhism & Homosexuality Forum

The Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia (YBAM) and Buddhist Research Society of Malaysia (BRSM) held a seminar titled "Homosexuality: The Controversy in the Midst of Morality and Social Value" on Aug 19 in Kuala Lumpur.

about 200 people attended the open forum which had three panelists: Venerable Miao Jan, the coordinator of Prajna Meditation Association of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor; Datuk Ang Choo Hong, the president of the Buddhist Research Society of Malaysia; and Yap Hock Heng, a registered and licensed counsellor. The forum was emceed by YBAM secretary general See Chan Wing.

The news of the traditional Chinese wedding of Malaysia’s first lesbian couple and the upcoming same-sex marriage of Malaysian Christian Pastor, Rev. Ouyang Wen Feng to be celebrated in Malaysia has caused a stir in Malaysian society, drawing criticisms particularly from Christian groups. However, the coordinator of Prajna Meditation Association of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, the Venerable Miao Jan, encouraged gay people to face their own sexual orientation honestly and openly, urging them to come out bravely and not live in the closet [literally dark corners].

Ven. Miao Jan pointed out that she was not promoting the gay culture. But in her opinion, if gay people did not live honestly with their sexuality, they would fall in love with the wrong person someday, which would lead to pain not only for themselves, but also for their loved one(s).

“Let gay people talk about their love life. We could only respect them and learn how to get along with them.” “I have a lot of gay friends too. Don’t treat them as though they are horrible people. They are also fun to be with and they are such lovable people. Besides, how does this present a problem to non-gay people?”

When asked whether gay people adopting children would create social problem, she did not answer the question squarely, but turned the question around and asked: “How much happiness can straight families today guarantee their children? The divorce rate is high these days, and this should give us room for thought."

She feels that many people in society create too many assumptions about homosexuals/homosexuality, speculating that if everyone is homosexual, human kind will become extinct. She retorts: Do you think everyone will want to become a monk/nun/ordained ? Once homosexuality becomes recognised/accepted, will everyone become homosexual?

Datuk Ang Choo Hong said he treats gay people as normal. Gay people have long existed since the time of Buddha. He said if people could not bless Rev. Ouyang’s marriage, then they should keep quiet.

Yap Hock Heng was more concerned with the attitude that people have towards a gay person. Are they friendly? Are they willing to be in a gay person’s company? Are they willing to listen to their story and guide them?

He said that the fact that the media reported heavily on same-sex marriage would not encourage the gay culture [turn more people gay]. Rather, it would cause people who are already gay to come out of the closet.

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Activist Monk Banned From Pagodas

Buddhist institutions in western Cambodia are ordered to close their doors to a monk who protested forest development.

A prominent Cambodian environmental activist monk has been barred from entering pagodas in his home province after he participated in protests against rainforest destruction in the country.

Chum Kemleng, the highest-ranked monk in Siem Reap, ordered the ban on August 19, 2011 in an open letter to the monastic community, preventing all Buddhist temples in the province from hosting Loun Sovath, who has also been an ardent campaigner for land rights.

In April, he was banned from entering pagodas in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh for participating in land protests.

Pagodas customarily host traveling monks who are in need of a place to stay.

In the letter, Chum accused Loun Sovath, 30, of violating the laws of Buddhism and his sangha (monastic order) when he joined 100 villagers in a demonstration defending Prey Lang forest from development on August 18, 2011 in Phnom Penh.

The villagers, joined by monks and environmental activists, wore dress and make-up inspired by the blockbuster movie "Avatar," which depicts the destruction of a forest on an alien world and its inhabitants' bloody fight to protect their home from miners.

According to an unnamed official from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia, Loun Sovath is now hiding in an undisclosed location because he fears for his safety.

The same agency had helped Loun Sovath after he was slapped with the ban in April.

The UN official said yesterday that Buddhist authorities in Siem Reap province contacted by the world body had confirmed the ban and that it would only be lifted if the monk agreed to end public support for protesters and “confess his wrongdoings” to the official Buddhist Sangha Council.

Loun Sovath told RFA after he was informed of the ban that he had done nothing wrong.

“I participated with the people to help them seek justice and to share the hardships of those who have suffered human rights violations such as the loss of their homes and land at the hands of private companies,” he said.

“[But], we distributed leaflets that revealed social issues which are relevant to politics.”

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Indian Designer Introduces Buddha Bag

Kolkata-based designer Shagufta Quamar has created a range of unique and colourful bags, depicting Indian god Krishna and the Buddha, to spread the message of inner peace in this fast-paced world.

Quamar, who showcased at the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) Winter/Festive 2011 here, aims to glorify the message of ‘moksha’ (spiritual liberation) through her line.




‘My theme for this collection is inspired by the Buddha and Krishna and it is all about attaining moksha,’ Quamar said in an interview.

‘The main concept of my show is to search your inner peace. In today’s time, everyone is running behind materialistic things. So from my collection I want to convey the message that there is no point in only running behind material things. One should be spiritual so that you can find inner peace,’ said the staunch believer in spirituality.

‘I personally believe in the concept of mukti (freedom) – mukti from all the negative things in your life – because then life becomes worth living. That’s why I decided to design this collection, taking inspirations from the Buddha and Krishna,’ she added.

Quamar’s collection is an eclectic mix of big and small bags, each priced between Rs.2,000 and Rs.9,000.

The quirky and attractive range is made of viscose material and includes different styles like handbags, clutch and sling bags. The colour palette is predominantly in orange and blue for special reasons.

‘Orange is used in abundance because according to me that’s the colour of spirituality. I have also used blue because that’s the colour of Krishna and pink has been utilised since that’s the colour of lotus, a sign of the Buddha,’ said Quamar, who started her line of accessories last year, after training in leather designing.

The designer’s collection has been on display at the exhibition area of the event, and is already attracting a lot of buyers.

‘The collection is hitting out with many, from youngsters to elders. I have already got some orders on consignment basis and also one-to- one orders placed by visitors,’ she expressed.

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