Divine Forgiveness In The Eyes of Karma

Becoming a non-perfect human being, performing mistake after mistake, and presenting vulnerable traits, we are seemingly bound to commit sins and various crimes. We may not be red-handed for doing so, but the guilt and the imprint of the deeds remain, carved in our memories that regulate conscience. When the destined time comes upon us, we fall into the abyss of regret and impossible wish to turn back time.

This is where exactly religion plays its role. Beside begging for material possession, there is another form of prayer that people usually do: asking for forgiveness. By gaining the thought of being forgiven by the Supreme Being, people possess the sense of security and thus peace. Not to mention what is the purpose of prayer if it's not for self-salvation?

We Come Alone, We Leave Alone

The time we were created after the fertilization, we were one single cell. Trying to survive from the loneliness, the tiny little cell then multiplied into many, hoping it would have a company. Unfortunately, things never work the way we wish them to be, so instead of having friends, the myriad cells formed one single being called human, in our case. Once again, the single entity feels lonely.

The human cries right after the birth. They biologists say, it's physiologically because the baby is shocked to be exposed to the cold temperature outside the womb; anyhow, the cry is a good sign because it means the initially collapsed lung can work properly after the birth. But maybe, the cry is also a sign of the sorrow that a human will start: the cold lonely path in life.

A Farewell

          FAREWELL, thou little Nook of mountain-ground,
          Thou rocky corner in the lowest stair
          Of that magnificent temple which doth bound
          One side of our whole vale with grandeur rare;
          Sweet garden-orchard, eminently fair,
          The loveliest spot that man hath ever found,
          Farewell!--we leave thee to Heaven's peaceful care,
          Thee, and the Cottage which thou dost surround.

          Our boat is safely anchored by the shore,
          And there will safely ride when we are gone;                10
          The flowering shrubs that deck our humble door
          Will prosper, though untended and alone:
          Fields, goods, and far-off chattels we have none:
          These narrow bounds contain our private store
          Of things earth makes, and sun doth shine upon;
          Here are they in our sight--we have no more.

They Ask "How To Be a Buddhist?"

There are questions in life that may never be fated to meet their own answers, like "What is God?" or "What is Love?" or "What is Self?", and many more of them. No matter how we try to label some definitions upon those matters, it feels like we're fooling ourselves, pretending that we understand despite the honest fact within our mind. Dewi Lestari (Dee) in her book "Madre" said that God and Love are experience instead of explanation, journey instead of destination, expressing she didn't know the real answer when being asked about.

And as I've been learning Buddhism for some couple of years, it turns out there are "Buddhist-curious" out there who happen to be questioning some phenomenons in their lives and they've found it within Buddhism instead of the religion marked on their ID Card. My action has been inviting them to come and see me, and they ask me why I choose to learn Buddhism, and in the end they want to be "more Buddhist".

Mahabharata & Other Vedic-Based TV Series Phenomenon

Mahabharata, Mahadeva, and Ramayana are Indian TV series that have been so popular lately in Indonesia. Men & women, adults & children, rich & poor, almost every layer of society are enchanted by the series. Not sure what people actually look for, whether the stories or the hunky studs, but they are oblivious to the passage of time when it comes to hours of the series being played.

I find it somewhat baffling that many Indonesians are fine watching the series, especially knowing that most of Indonesians are much attached to their religious views. Specifically speaking, the hard-liners of Muslims and Christians usually voice out that their Semitic belief are the only righteous one, hence they reckon other teachings as occultism; this time, however, they don't.

The Fool and The Wise; I Don't Want To Be The Wise

I don’t want to be the wise man.

I don’t want to be the oldest child.

I want to be like my little brother and sister who can blame on me for the mistakes they make in family. I want to be like them who get defended by parents when I point out at their wrongness, and I am the one becoming responsible to bear the scold instead. I want to be like my little brother who asks for opinion because of being carefree about his own life. I want to be like my little sister who complains and gets upset when she has to face hardship and demands me to help her out anyhow. I want to be them who don’t have to learn every single thing because they know I will be the one who makes sure to know (almost) everything so they can just come and ask me in times of unknowingness.

I don’t want to be the big brother.

I want to be like my little brother and sister who can be afraid of anything in whatever situation and can be clueless about life because they know it’s going to be my role to lend hands and bend my backs for them to leap, and hug them telling it’s going to be okay to stop their cry of fear. I want to be like them who can be selfishly indecisive and to make mistakes because they know I will appear giving advices to them and lectures so that they can have guidance for next time. I want to be like them who can always feel secure and thus ask me to be always by their sides because they know I will be the fence of strength for them.

The Religious Faith I (Privately) Choose

Having been raised in Indonesia, especially as a son whose parents are believers of one of Abrahamic religions, it's very common to find me having my identity card showing that I am also a believer of one particular religion, the majority one to be precise. Logically as in majority's paradigm, I will necessarily be involved in some, if not all, areas of religious practice according to which religious community I (should) belong to. To certain extents, they say it's automatically my obligation, my natural calling to follow the belief my parents have inherited to me.

I've been taught that I don't have space to criticize and to propose my own opinion upon the religious option, not to mention it's not an option at all people say. I would be labeled as infidel (re: Kafir in Islam, or possibly Lost Lamb in Christian) should I betray the social track. There was once I thought it would have been great if I had been born as a western due to the freedom of choice, but soon I realized East or West they're just the same: Religion is always fundamental for everyone, it's absolute and must not be questioned.

Reblog: Question of Your Life

Reblogged  from: http://markmanson.net/question/
Author: Mark Manson

Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.

Everyone would like that — it’s easy to like that.

If I ask you, “What do you want out of life?” and you say something like, “I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like,” it’s so ubiquitous that it doesn’t even mean anything.

A more interesting question, a question that perhaps you’ve never considered before, is what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.

Adventure of Change

Some readers of this post may be able to recall that years ago there was a series of japanese animation namely Digimon Adventure (and of course all series of Digimon). It was an incredible story. In the series, it was told that a number of children should undergo a journey to save the world. In the process of their attempt bringing salvation upon the world, the children learned many things. They should wash away their fear facing dangers. They grew up from mere kids to the DigiDestined, the chosen saviors despite their age.

As the story went on, the children learned about courage, about trusting friends, about love and sincerity, about knowledge and curiosity, about honesty and purity of heart, and also about hope and kindness. They learned how to believe in the future, in miracle, in their own selves. They learned how to always look up and see the light in every darkness. The children protected and looked after each other. They also became best friends for life with their digimon partners and other digimons as well from digital world.

By The End of Hope

Years each of us spends as a pilgrim, as we see the yard of graves as far as our sight goes in distance, we acknowledge the death in various colors through assorted histories of humankind, across diverse cultures. The nature teaches us that death is part of world's cycle, like how plants that grow from soil must someday wither according to the changes of life.

Life of creatures must be lived as long as it has not yet reached its endpoint. No matter how harsh or cruel can sometimes, or rather most of time, life becomes, we must keep going, we must endure it. Some of us might be saved by delusion we apply on ourselves, pretentious jubilance by mortal possession. Some others, when successfully attain the knowledge of awakening, understand that life is factually full of misery.

Pilgrimage

Traces of lives,
remnants of what once stood and breathed,
but now are gone into the deep soil.

As spoken by impossibility
for anyone to find one single span on earth
that never has become the funerals of the deads.

Thus the footsteps landed on lands
are reminders of the histories and foretime
in solemnity as we muse by prayers.

And every pavement passed,
together with the colored zephyr of memoirs,
is a pilgrim in solitude.

How Do You Pray?

Many of us think that happiness lies on things we wish them to be, and when the wishes are granted, we can be finally happy. We thus pray day and night to whatever entity it is to give what we ask, or maybe some of us would rather wish upon a star believing in the miracle of fairy tales. People believe by having things they want and ask, their lives would be harbored in happy state.

The truth is, they fail to see that even after they are given the things they ask in prayer, and even after so many bestowed upon without even them asking for, by them cannot happiness be found there. You ask for one thing and then it's given to you, and then you'll keep asking for more things that you think would complete you or things you already have, but in the end the only is going to happen is you just crave for other things, and this is cyclic endlessly.

So tell me, how do you pray?

Remnants of Sin from One-Two Options

In 1Q84, one of Haruki Murakami's artwork of writing, there was this character namely Aomame who believed that our body was sacred and thus she revered hers very carefully; she said that human's body was a temple.

By the same logic, I suppose the behaviour performed by these bodies of people's is to be taken not lightly either, especially when the required action is not at all around physical rumble. One or Two, all needed to do was to pick one of either, silently and solemnly.

However, it turns out that hatred has become our pop-culture since the beginning. Believing firmly to be standing on the right side, the other side is judged to be wrong. Believing that One represents unity, Two is blamed on for the disassembly. Our view of world has been so much narrowed and blocked, despite knowing our sight-cells not only rod-cells but also cone-cells.

"What is not white is not always black."

The phenomenon of presidential election 2014 of Indonesia, the way how I see it, is already out of democratic propriety; it is badmouthing and humiliation. It doesn't respect the candidates' dignity as human being. The medias throw irresponsible news, and the people throw flaming statements, both have provoked the state of mind from tranquility to anger.

Ramadhan, a Month of Hedonism?

As one living in a country populated by Muslim majority, which also means surrounded by them in daily life, I experience the influence of Islamic teaching in society. In addition, I've been raised as Muslim by my parents (put aside my personal choice of religious view) and also once went to Islamic Primary School. That makes it not by surprise to find out I am familiar with regular Islamic values in society.

One of most important moments for Muslims around the world, without doubt, is Ramadhan Month. It is time when Muslim people must be fasting since from sun starts to rise until sun has set for the entire month in accordance with the Islamic Lunar Calendar. The dawn is the sign for people to stop their consumption of, at the simplest rule, food & drink, and they are not allowed to engage in any sexual intercourse including masturbation. As the dusk comes, people can break their fast.

Let us not go to the extent on how Muslims are supposed to read Al-Qur'an and perform complete and additional prayers in Ramadhan Month because Ramadhan is said to be the month when all good doings and form of worshiping will be rewarded in a very bigger number than other month outside Ramadhan, but let's just take a look at simple things as the fasting itself is, the food and drink.

When Even Birthday is Complicated

I think we have heard enough how people uphold the spirit of birthday celebration. We have heard enough how they throw many kinds of reasons as to why birthday is supposed to be celebrated, and some of them make it as annual demand. However, I don't think something generic and populist will always be the case for everybody.

To me, I fear it when my birthday should come. It feels somewhat complicated for me to face my own birthday due to some complicated background of mine. I wish I could just fall into amnesia about my own birthday and nobody would ever remind it to me.

I am not talking about how I hate the fact I will be getting older every year the month of June arrives, let alone about how life gets more complicated as years go by, but I just don't get why on earth should we feel special about birthday, and indeed we wish it could be special. We hope birthday is a day of escapism. We hope our significant others would remember and cherish us the way we expect it to be. We hope, after tons of struggle we've been through in regular life, there would be a day special just for us to deny our rough reality and to excuse ourselves from being selfish & full of egoism. It's just, why does it have to be birthday out of 365 days a year? And worst of all, those hopes of birthday happen to be the opposite.

Price Thou Hast Paid for Me

"Father is Son, and Son is Father,
An entity which within lies a Holly Soul of essence, the source of everything.

Through the throne of thorns, Thou hath lifted all darkness once covering the hungry hearts,
Thus be the pain and suffer marked unto Thee, for it would heal the hope of serenity.
Blood shed and Flesh slaughtered, but Thou hath triumphed the delusion of mortality.

But we, we're just disloyal masters for Thee, despite Thy faithful sacrifice serving our greedy thirst;
We forget and look away from the Calvary, the place Thou hath ended all sorrow and mourning.

The stormy skies beneath mock but heaven prevails upon life,
The True Lord shoulders our impurity, hence whom is it we should fear? We fear not.
Because we grip firmly on Thy fidelity, for we're to be the sons who once were lost but now are found."

Token of Serenity

"As we have a look
at those fishes
competing and fighting
over food
in a rage,

That's as much
as our inner-self
by the same token
covered in darkness
losing serenity of itself"

—Gerry Susanto (Paduma)

Short Story: The Other Face of Failure

'Tis just a regular day, nothing awesome happens, and I'm making my way home from school. Going through the same pavements I personally always choose for my way back, with some bushes and few big trees as the decorations of the street, I on my feet take some walks. I never know whether in everyone's head will always there be full of noises, but at least it's exactly kind of silence I have.

There are times when I wonder 'bout my whole life. So many failures I've made, so little I can be proud of. Often times I feel inferior to people I meet; fortunately and unfortunately, too many great people I meet get close to me. So whenever I walk around, looking right and left, I just sigh a breath.

The Beauty of Letting Go

It is never easy to find a place we can belong to. It is never easy to find people we can feel comfortable sharing stories of our joys and tears with. It is never easy to finally open the doors & windows of our hearts then take a seat in relax letting everything coming in & out. When we have found them and finally have opened them, we just don't want to lose them. We strive our best to have the firmest grip ever upon them.

The problem with such factual concept is ideally, life doesn't work that way. We plan and design it like a building, but it has never been within the possession & jurisdiction of ours even though we follow all of the theoretical guidelines. For everything in life is conditional, they all have the limit of time period; just like life ahead is there death. Thus, the place & the people will someday have to be gone. The doors and the windows will have to be shut off again. And we, are alone again.

The Cage We Choose

"Look at the birds!
Although
we’ve opened the cage
trying to release them
to the open nature,
still they don’t
fly outside
liberating themselves from.

Isn’t it just like us,
that although
we’ve been shown
the pathways of liberation
from this infinite wheel
of suffer,
we anyway choose
not to be freed?”


—Marcelina, Home Affairs of IKMAB UNS 2014, at Qing Ming Festival in UNS Boddhisasana Temple

#11 no title

“或生而知之、或學而知之、或困而知之、及其知之、一也。或安而行之、或利而行之、或勉強而行之、及其成功、一也。”

"Ada orang yang sejak lahir sudah bijaksana, ada yang karena belajar lalu bijaksana, ada yang karena menanggung sengsara lalu bijaksana; tetapi Kebijaksanaan itu Satu juga. Ada orang yang dengan tenang tentram dapat menjalani, ada yang karena melihat faedahnya lalu dapat menjalani, dan ada pula yang dengan susah payah memaksa diri untuk menjalani. Tetapi hasilnya akan Satu juga."

"Some are born with the knowledge of those duties; some know them by study; and some acquire the knowledge after a painful feeling of their ignorance. But the knowledge being possessed, it comes to the same thing. Some practice them with a natural ease; some from a desire for their advantages; and some by strenuous effort. But the achievement being made, it comes to the same thing."

—Confucius, Doctrine of Mean, Chapter XX: 9

#10 no title

"Komunitas yang baik adalah komunitas yang anggotanya saling mendukung satu sama lain, yang membahas hal-hal yang berguna, yang mengupayakan hal-hal yang benar, yang penuh dengan semangat, dan yang bersama-sama berlatih mengembangkan mental"

"A good community is a community of which the members support each other, discuss useful & worthwhile matters (Dhamma), strive in efforts for righteousness, are full of spirit (Viriya), and of which the members practice together for mental development (Meditation)."

—Gerry Susanto (Paduma), Chief of IKMAB UNS 2014, inspired by Sramanera Tenshin Wangel (Steven Basuki Sasongko)

Meet The Inspiring Senior of AMSA-Indonesia: Adhitya Sigit Ramadianto

http://issuu.com/amsaindonesia/docs/arbor_vitae_7th_edition

Link attached is the arbor vitae 7th edition of AMSA-Indonesia. For the "Interview with AMSA Figure" section, I made an interview with Adhitya Sigit Ramadianto, MD., a senior in AMSA-Indonesia. (The interview was done before he got the title "MD" on his name, though). Due to some reasons, I make up my mind to create this post for showing my abundance of thanks to him for all inspiration he has given about being in AMSA.

I believe this will also be inspiring more of juniors in AMSA-Indonesia. Questions about why AMSA, why must become active, etc., you may find in his answers. Speaking of which, Congratulation to Adhitya S Ramadianto to have become a medical doctor and thus you enter AMSA Alumni Club. May your dreams in AMSA be shared more and more.


Here we go the interview:

The Better Version of Ourselves

"you realize how you're never good enough of person for people around you, for people who care for you, and for the one you dear most. and you're ashamed of it, of how you are yourself that way.

Then there is this person you meet, and he is all you wish you were, all you wish you had been, is all you know would be the answer for all of your mistakes & regrets if he were to replace your existence. Thus all you can feel is a big amount of enviousness, high respect to the person, and more hatred towards yourself.

And you wish your existence could be replaced by that person, and you wish you could erase yourself."

As we grow up into a better version of ourselves bit by bit, we sometimes contemplate of what we used to be to make sure we're not the same as what we were. We feel the need of ascertaining that we have changed, and we don't want to see that very person from our past whenever the mirror reflects the human standing before us into our eyes.

The Earth Rotates Anyway

There once was a dream that everybody dreamed of. When these so many people gathered and came to reach and to be inspired by the same dream they shared, wishing one day it would come true, they thought miracle could happen. They firmly believed it. They knew if they worked their asses off hard enough, they could win it.

In the field of hope, many of diverse people seek for different goals for a certain phase of their lives. It may be only few years, but significant years that they don't want to let go to waste. Because we all hope to be great. We hope to become more of persons than just what we are given by the significant others of ours. So we decide to fight. We thrive and struggle more than just what we are asked. We take more of responsibilities. And by the way, we know that we are strong enough for that.

#9 no title

"Actually, there is a word for that. It’s love. I’m in love with her, okay? If you’re looking for the word that means caring about someone beyond all rationality and wanting them to have everything they want no matter how much it destroys you, it’s love. And when you love someone you just, you…you don’t stop, ever. Even when people roll their eyes, and call you crazy. Even then. Especially then. You just– you don’t give up. Because if I could just give up…if I could just, you know, take the whole world’s advice and– and move on and find someone else, that wouldn't be love. That would be… that would be some other disposable thing that is not worth fighting for. But I– that is not what this is." 

—Ted, HIMYM

Living The Eternity

It is someday you suddenly feel surprised to recognize your surroundings and your daily life, that everything doesn't seem to fit your memory. You feel like everything is strangers to you, and you are a stranger to everything. It's as if you were isolated in a small point of the day and night that keep rotating their shifts, and you can't seem to find your place anywhere within.

It turns out you haven't changed at all from the self of yours from a certain point in your life, somewhere in the past. People say your face doesn't age, and neither does your behaviour. The way you look upon the world might slightly be different, but it doesn't affect the outcome you give to people around. For them, when they meet you, it's as if they saw someone who traveled time from the past to the present, and indeed they recognize you that way. Ironically, for you, they are strangers. You try but cannot at all recognize who they are although your brain has associated their similar faces and voices to the certain people in your memory. You just know these are not them you once knew.

How You Become The Writer You Always Wanted To Be

Reblog from: Thought Catalog
Original Author: Ella Ceron 

You will not begin with greatness. You will begin with putting words down on a page.

You will write because you want to, because you feel like you should. Because something in you was sparked one day in English class. Because you’re bored, because there is nothing else better to do, because somebody gave you a diary one year for your birthday and you figured you might as well try to use it. Because doing so sorts out racing thoughts and messy feelings.

#8 no title

"No amount of guilt can change the past and no amount of worrying can change the future. Go easy on yourself for the outcome of all affairs is determined by God's Decree. If something is meant to go elsewhere, it will never come on your way, but if it is yours by destiny, from it you cannot flee.''

—Umar ibn al-Khattab r.a

5 Things Writing Has Taught Me About Love

Reblog from: Thought Catalog

Original Author: Matthew Begbie

1. Remember The Details

Writers are taught to pay attention to detail.

They remember the big things, the small things, and the things that never happened at all. They remember that yellow shirt from the 80s you wore the first time you met. They remember the first compliment they gave you and the way the four strangers at the table by the window smiled like they knew just how desperately it had been clawing to get out. Writers remember the first and only time you said “I love you” and how you meant it the way a sailor loves the wind, dependent and reliant. They can recall the stories you told to pass the time when you missed your train stop and all the stops they missed themselves. In the end, those are the things that matter the most.

Discriminatory Love

Whoever says love is blind, they must be the ones who are blind. Because in fact, most of times love always involves and requires what the eyes see and brain interprets. That being said, love isn't blind. Love depends on sight. Albeit it's different case for blind people, which there love might require hearing by ears instead of sight by eyes, but at least there love is not deaf either.

Because in the love matter of real world, everything should be first defined by interpretation in accordance with certain parameters; definition comes first, love later. So it's the moment when you've realized by eyes that eye-shape matters, that skin color matters, that face matters, that hair matters, that words in ID Card showing religion affiliation matters, that ethnicity matters, that everything our eyes see then processed in brain then interpreted based on our associated-memories matters. Love is not blind at all that way.

Almost Is Never Enough

Song Title: Almost is Never Enough
Vocal by: Ariana Grande featuring Nathan Skyes

I'd like to say we gave it a try

I'd like to blame it all on life

Maybe we just weren't right, but that's a lie, that's a lie

To The Sea, And Find Out What Your Honest Self Whispers

Taken by my little sister using her new semi-DSLR camera

To the sea, and we'll get surprised of what miracle it gives unto us. We'll be faced to the true self of ours that we've been running away from or we've hidden inside the subconsciousness. The universe will descend itself in the form of touch of nature, of sounds of wind that blows and waves that crash each other. The nature will drag us deeper and deeper, further and further. Before we realize it, we're already stranded in wholly different dimension from we regularly live.

My little sister and I spent new year visiting my little brother who was having his last month of clerkship in an island famous for its nature view of the beach. We didn't really have much of detour for the tourism of the island, though, but the homestay is very near to a beach. This beach, unlike the more well-known beach in that island, was not really crowded and thus we could have more space for ourselves there.

Reblog: This Is How You Almost Date Someone

Reblog from thought catalog
author: Ella Ceron 

We existed in the strange in-between of the possible and the probable. It was in the unsaid, in the expected, in the logical next steps. Our friends accepted it, anticipated it, shook their heads and said, “It’s only a matter of time.” They’d ask sly questions and accuse us outright, and all we ever managed were shy smiles and hopeful maybes. We were almost dating. We almost dated.