ぐうぜんじゃない、必然です！

guuzen janai, hitsuzen desu! i ninjaed this quote from an anime, xxxholic . it means 'its not coincidences but it is inevitable'.

i always believed that life is governed by the laws of karma, which had always been part of my guidelines in life. in the past few weeks, i had quite an eventful time in uni. one of them was the christian fellowship camp which i attended.

DISCLAIMER: I am not being emo or anything but I promised Edwina to write my personal experience about the camp so I figured I may as well post it here. So please do not read this if you are not into religious opinions. Once again, I will only say that this is all my opinion and not something I took out of the sutras.

I have always been a buddhist since I was born and very much into the religion in my younger days and I still practice buddhism. I studied in a catholic school (St John), where my father and brothers studied there too. So I have quite a good understanding on religious tolerances. So when Jimmy asked if I wanted to go for the imu cf camp, I replied 'sure y not' initially but then I realized that it collides wit the new balance run... so it was like ..camp or run...camp or run... so Finally I decided to go to cf camp. I never been to a cf camp before, although I have been to like 4 or 5 dharma camps in my school days.

I will be honest that I do feel that sometimes, some christian friends do have the tendency to do the 'lettrytoconvertuintoachristian' attitude. However, Jimmy ensured me that it is not a conversion camp, which is fine by me. Because I feel that I am strong with my belief and hence I will accept other religious teaching as other 'options' of opinions instead of just accepting my religious belief as the ultimate truth.

The camp was good in a way that I learned a lot more of christianity. I used to think that christianity is all about mindless, rigid belief to the one God. iIwas wrong and I realized it's more of a personal link between one individual to the all-knowing entity called God. In a way from the camp, I realized the core differences of Buddhism with Christianity and that strengthened my own personal belief to Buddhism.

I like the talk given by Annette and I personally loved the 'accept God for how He is and not make your own God in your own vision'. I mean to put it in a blunt way is 'stop whining n complaining when things go wrong n accept it as part of God's grand plan'. Like seriously, people often missed out on the larger picture. My opinion was that if someone is devoted to God and even though they suffered a lot but in the end of days, they will be awarded in paradise, no? So i personally gave Annette two thumbs up. = ) Really inspiring.

There was time during the camp that the emo level was just a bit too strong. It was during the 'my heart got ___' session. I know its a good way to deliver that message on how we are swayed by the worldly possession and that it act as a poison. But seriously, I felt I was like in a funeral with all gloominess. So I had to do it. I cried it out loud 'my heart is still beating!'. Haha, I was not being disrespectful but I wanted to change the wave of sadness to a sense of hope, which worked but not everyone realized the metaphoric meaning in my statement.

I realized that even though most of my friends know I am a Buddhist and I am participating this event on a personal issue but there were a few people whom questioned me 'why r you doing here?'. Initially, I explained on how I wanted to learn more on Christianity and how to connect with people more. But after a while, I sort of got 'fed up' with this question and I bluntly replied 'because i like la'. I mean like I mentioned earlier, some of my Christian friends do have the auto-tendency to question my faith. I was not entirely irritated by this matter but I think that it would be benefiting to a Christian too if they too learn from other religion. Like I know there is A LOT of Buddhists whom go to churches but personally I do not see many Christians going to temples. Not that I insist that they should go but why always just accepting non-Christians to the belief but not learning from others too?

This matter concerns me personally because of my sister-in-law whom is a Christian and from there, many family issues arise. I was very thrilled when Jimmy told me a part in the bible which stated if one is true to God, going to a temple of another religion will not brand you as a heretic (I may not be 100% accurate but that is what I understood from him). I am happy that I know this as a fact, not to spike it at my sister-in-law but to share it as a common understanding. As a Chinese, we have a lot of customs especially during the Chinese new year which we followed. And far too often I observed that many Christians (relatives) refused to do the rite by saying its a non Christian manner. Sigh. So I hope that people can be a bit more open minded in things and not be so rigid about it. I told my mum on the things I learned and I can tell that my mum thought I was converting.

In conclusion it is all good experience for me. Please keep up the good work.

Ok emo done = )

これはニッシンヌードルです。this is a Nissin noodle which i cooked back in my melb days. as u can see, the egg in the noodle was a double yolk!! = 0 .. n the 4 balls were cuttlefish ball 墨鱼圆。it was soooooo nice... cos the cuttlefish ball has a realllly nice texture ..yumm.. n the soup base was the kyushu ramen base. the nissin in malaysia sux big time. but the ones in melb r realllly good. = 0

yyyyuuuummmmmmmm!