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.