SAMPAH MASYARAKAT

Sampah Masyarakat is an all volunteer Non Profit Organization, founded in 2008 and is a movement to bring about attitudinal change in Malaysia's littering habits.

Run by the volunteers, they segregate the waste generated on the clean up days, sell the recyclables and pump the money back into environmental initiatives.

Real awesome job done by Malaysians. It's great to be back in my country and I am seeing a lot of things changed. Positive mantra will certainly develop a better society. Instead of  teens wasting their time in FB and internet stuff , it's a better choice to get them moving , meet like minded people and teaching them to love nature! I truly wish that I could be part of this group!

I still have my chance once I'm back to Bay Area, we have lots of  community services around  Alviso / Santa Clara. Cant wait!!

Gauthama Buddha

Dharma transmission :
"there are causes for all human suffering, and there is a way by which they may be ended, because everything in the world is the result of a vast concurrence of causes and conditions, and everything disappears as these causes and conditions change and pass away. rain falls, winds blow, plants bloom, leaves mature and are blown away. these phenomena are all interrelated with causes and conditions, and are brought about by them, and disappear as the causes and conditions change."
( pic of Buddhist Maha Vihara Temple in Brickfields , Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia.)

Swami Vivekananda's Laws of Life

Here're 15 chosen gems gleaned from the immortal writings of  Swami Vivekananda that can well be termed as the laws of life :

1. Love Is The Law Of Life : All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love's sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.


2. It's Your Outlook That Matters : It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.

3. Life is Beautiful : First, believe in this world - that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!

4. It's The Way You Feel : Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.

5. Set Yourself Free : The moment I have realised God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

6. Don't Play The Blame Game : Condemn none ,  if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.

7. Help Others : If money helps a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

8. Uphold Your Ideals : Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

9. Listen To Your Soul : You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

10. Be Yourself : The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!

11. Nothing Is Impossible : Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin - to say that you are weak, or others are weak.

12. You Have The Power : All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

13. Learn Everyday : The goal of mankind is knowledge... now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows', should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers' or 'unveils'; what man 'learns' is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.

14. Be Truthful : Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

15. Think Different : All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

As he said: "It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light..."
 

Gandhi's Talisman

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?


Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."

- One of the last notes left behind by Gandhi in 1948, expressing his deepest social thought.

Source: Mahatma Gandhi [Last Phase, Vol. II (1958), P. 65].

Mind & Happiness

The power of forgiveness is HUGE when clearing the mind. We spend so much time holding on too much and not letting it go. It only hurts you.



Taking the time to truly forgive allows you to free your mind and move forward.


The example I always use is your hands are full of marbles. Past, regrets, anger, etc and when I bring you happiness you have to let some of those marbles go to accept more.

Jealousy kills - A Panchatantra Tale

Once upon a time there lived Bharunda, a bird with two heads. One day it found a strange fruit on the seashore. It picked it up and started eating it. The head that was feeding, exclaimed, “Many a sweet fruit tossed by the sea have I eaten, but this beats them all! Is it the fruit of a sandalwood tree or that of the divine parijata?”


Hearing this, the other head asked to taste the fruit, but the first head refused, saying, “We have a common stomach, so there’s no need for you to eat it too. I’ll give it to our sweetheart, the Bharundi,” and with that, it tossed the half-eaten fruit to the female.

From that day on, the second head carried a grudge against the first and waited for an opportunity to take revenge. One day it found a poison fruit. Picking up the fruit, it said to the first head, “You selfish wretch! See, here’s a poison fruit and I’m going to eat it!”

“Don’t do that, you fool!” shrieked the first head, “you’ll kill us both!”

But the second head would not listen. It consumed the poison and soon the two-headed bird was dead.

Moral of the story.......Jealousy kills !!