The Moment

It happens when it is the least expected; and when it happens, you cannot believe how dreamlike, reality suddenly becomes. It is a little confusing. A little overwhelming. A little unsettling. Bliss. That one insignificant moment becomes the most momentous minute of your life! Milton thought midnight to be powerful; Lucifer fell from heaven and many a tide was turned; what is this magic about midnight and the hours that follow it? The pre-dawn hours? There is a certain recklessness in these hours-the possibility of potentials: the holding of hands, the meeting of the eyes, the caressing of the lips. Then, the moment is gone;never to come back;lost in the wheel of time, a length of thread that joins the web that weaves yesterday, today and tomorrow. LOST. No Regrets. Just happiness, that a moment was fully lived.

...

I feel I've been wrung out to dry in the wintry sun and been choked by the dust. Therefore, the quietness here

Mark Twain Vs Buddhism

"Don't wake up a woman in love. Let her dream, so that she does not weep when she returns to her bitter reality" Apparently. That's Mark Twain for you. True, that love is important for our existence, but it isn't necessarily the only vital tool for our survival. Well, maybe not tool, how about element? Elemental. Sentimental. Attachment. Both men and women in love experience something transcendental- this is not romanticism...they are uplifted, inspired and hopeful. Happy too. This really is a dream, not the fantastical kind, but the transitory kind. There is nothing to be sad about, just as the "love dream" passes and you move on...the "bitter reality dream" will too. It's all in the mind. And in the mind it shall be. For better or for worse. And better still:)

of the past and the present

You know when you think back to when you were in Junior High School or let's go further back to primary school...and there were these people who you thought you would never like or get along with? Especially the bullies? Well, there was this boy who bullied everyone, and I disliked him immensely. I used to dread going to school because of him...but as the years passed,the memory of him dimmed until it disappeared completely. Then, just a few days ago, I met him. It had been nine years since we last met. He's an engineer now,runs his own consultancy firm, is happily marrried and is a new father...Was I blown away by the encounter! He is who he was, the core remains the same...what he was then, he still is now. I was surprised by his unexpected present. Everyone has the potential to be the best and has goodness within, even the most criminal of men. Buddha and his teachings come alive in these disparate yet connected incidents. Of the past and the present, and of the river and ocean...the same,always the same.

Temper fest! Circus Part III

Welcome to the temper festival! July gets hotter not because the temperature's soaring, well because of that too, but my focus really is on tempers. Have they flared this month! Actually, "flare" deserves a new definition, the physical translation of this word actually demands it! You know the clowns were waiting for their favourite show on tv and suddenly they lost the signal. And guess what they did? They blamed their neighbours [not the ones mentioned in Part II, you see, in their universe...it was either "us" or "them" and these neighbours were those who constituted "them"along with the ones mentioned yesterday] for having deliberately tampered with their signal. Well, I haven't really experienced teleportation, but the clowns seem to believe it happens because they accused their Second neighbours [let me classify now, more for my own convenience than yours] of having travelled to another country and back within the span of two hours just to do that. Do the clowns think their Second neighbours have nothing better to do? Besides, the world does not revolve only around the circus and the clowns. The clowns suffer the malaise of a frog in a well. At least, in some countries, frogs are delicacies.

P.S: Clowns by Jeff Levine

Us and Them [Circus II]

It was funny at the Circus today! The clowns were at it again...but I laughed...and smirked. My tears...forget about them..there are greater things to discuss today. First of all they couldn't make up their minds if they wanted to be friends with the people living next door, and as they were making up their minds, most of them had to leave the arena now and then to empty their water and deposit sticks of air into the nostrils of unsuspecting passers-by, most probably into those of their friendly, intelligent neighbours. And today, they discovered a new found joy in an electronic machine, except that their fingers were larger than their brains, unfortunately for the "buttoms" and the person behind the computer who had to try three times to understand the situation with the "buttoms". And there were spectators...who kept hearing the huge gap between the "us" and "them". If the clowns believe in making decisions based on this separation...then god save us!

*Love*

Thoughts pass through my breath
As I watch the butterfly on the lily
Fingers touch the leaves
As the wind sways the green...

Use Somebody

I've been roaming around, I was looking down at all I see

Painted faces fill the places I can't reach

You know that I could use somebody

You know that I could use somebody

Someone like you and all you know and how you speak

Countless lovers under cover of the street

You know that I could use somebody

You know that I could use somebody

Someonle like you

Off in the night while you live it up I'm off to sleep

Waging wars to shake the poet and the beat

I hope it's gonna make you notice

I hope it's gonna make you notice

Someone like me, someone like me

Someone like me, somebody

I'm ready now, I'm ready now

I'm ready now, I'm ready now

I'm ready now, I'm ready now

I'm ready now

Someone like you, somebody

Someone like you, somebody

Someone like you, somebody

I've been roaming around, I was looking down at all I see

Kings of Leon

So I am a Buddhist Journalist?

At times, in the middle of something, I stop to pause and reconsider what I do for a living. Is it worth the long hours and the endless rearranging of my brain cells? The money is okay. The fame so-so. What am I contributing?How am I helping someone? Am I even helping anyone? Or do I delude myself? I cannot imagine doing anything else.

I do not choose to be stuck, I choose to be happy with what I do. I am yet to get to the point where I know what I am doing. For now, I exist on a hand-to-mouth basis. But I am not complaining. I only hope to avoid pitfalls where if I fall, I could end up breaking my neck. This is my aspiration. One of my many aspirations.

The only problem is that I am running after my dreams: yesterday, today, tomorrow. Can I quell my desire to be successful? I thought I would and could live my life with higher ideals: those of dreams fulfilled and to live today as if it were the last day of my life, to cherish and to be cherished...to be basely human. What's wrong with that? I thought I had a purposeful life...

Until my aunt walked into a bookstore and picked up Osamu Tezuka's "Buddha"- a manga series. Now I think. More than I'd like.

How do I empty myself? Is it even necessary? Actually, am I brave enough to be empty? My life is in so much contradiction to Buddha's philosophy. I want to be a lay disciple. And now another aspiration calmly makes its way towards me, that of a Buddhist journalist. A journalist is what I have always wanted to be, I don't even need to try, it is my "nature" as Buddha would have said. What I need to be is content. Helpful. Moderate. And humble.

the two sides of a coin

Just when I thought I had figured out everyone and my place in July, I see that seeing two sides is something I haven't been doing lately. Guilty? Yes. Sad? Maybe. When the person tells me his story, I wonder if I should empathise...and then I tell myself, maybe this is what he wants. When you are trained to stand on middle ground as much as possible, a situation arises. You wake up one day and find that you are in no man's land. I cannot claim this land because there is no one here.

When the Circus comes to town

There are smiles that are brought forth by the clowns with their red noses. The red noses remain my favourite part of the clown. It is maddeningly saddening when the clowns forget their red noses and yet perform in the circus. Their appearances do not lack, it's just that their performance is incomplete without their red noses. Clowns are displaced without their red noses...could we put their noses on for them, so that we may understand their jokes? What's hilarity without laughter? Could somebody find their red noses and put them where they belong so that I may not shed tears? So that I may comprehend their places in a world that allows my voice to be heard? So that I may not lose my respect for the clowns and their happy humdrum? So that I may be proud of where I am today? Red noses, anyone?