Laughing Soul Friends

On my 20-something right now, I realize one thing about friendship: You have different kind of friendships towards different kind of groups of friends. (Okay, there were too many ofs there :p)

Yeah but it's true, isn't it? Different group of friends, different style of social activities and topic of conversation you have. Some friends are all about work, work, and work, well in my case because I'm a dentist then some friends can only get along with when we talk about teeth, patients, and all things around that; some are all about guys and relationships; some are so into spiritual and metaphysical stuffs. In the other hand, there is this one group of so-called crazy people who can always push your maximum LOL button. Today, I will only focus on the latest type of friendship, the "crazy one". 

There are still soooo many types of friendship we can have, I will not discuss those at this moment, maybe later, maybe ;) It doesn't mean that I don't enjoy other kinds of friendship, all kinds of those are completing and balancing each other. I enjoy all. But I specially do love people I can be crazy with :D

So, let me introduce my CRAZIEST friends ever: The Thirteens :D

Can you spot which one is me? Ok, let's try again.

Hahahaha ok I guess now you can see me. Yes, we are that crazy, we are that rude :p

I had written about them quite a long time ago when I was in high school here (pardon my old cheezy teen writing style :P). Those pics up there were old photos too, these days become so difficult to gather 13 girls all together because we live in different places, here is the most updated and the best try we could do so far:

Once I ever heard that we have three types of friends in life: friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime. I know that we are friends for a lifetime :)

xx,
Liz

Master Cheng Yen and Lotus Sutra

I have this unique habit that when I'm having my meal in my room, I always watch TV. My favorite TV stations are Metro TV and DAAI TV. Metro TV gives me a lot of update about this whole world, especially this country; and DAAI TV supplies me with peace within my spirit.

Since I watched DAAI TV, I felt in love with this one person "Master Cheng Yen". Falling in love here doesn't mean I love her in a romantic way, but rather than I really really like her as a person! I love all her teaching, her character, her aura, her attitute, and her deeds. Who doen't know her? (Maybe some people :P) She is the founder of Tzu Chi Foundation, the Buddhist philanthropic organization that has done a numerous amount of social movements all over the world. There she is...

She is known as "Mother Theresa of Asia" due to her virtue towards international disaster relief, environmental protection, community volunteering and many other virtuous actions.

Believe it or not, Master Cheng Yen is now 78 years old! Oh... She doesn't look like one. I guess I need to learn from her how to be that ageless.

Actually in DAAI TV, I only look for programs that she appears in, such as "Lentera Kehidupan" or "Master Cheng Yen Bercerita". Somehow, when I listened to her... my peaceful spirit inside emerged abruptly. I could feel her soothing charismatic aura full of compassion and love. Her Dharma teaching touched my soul, and I believe she has touched a lot of people's spirit too. What a gorgeous and honorable capability! When the melancholic side of me is in a very sensitive state (it happens some time, I don't know, maybe hormonal cause), I even cried listening to her teaching. I believe to have this kind of ability to touch other's personal button like this ain't no a tiny skill! She must have reached some kind of high spiritual holy stage.

I am a Buddhist. I was much taught about Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarika / Myoho Renge Kyo), specifically in Nichiren Buddhism. I chant Nammyohorengekyo. I learned this Buddhist teaching since I was little, my parents are the believers of this religion. Shortly, this religion teaching is based on Sakyamuni Buddha's lattest Sutra, called the Lotus Sutra (You may find out more details here) that are developed more by Nichiren Buddha that apparently lived in Japan.

I don't really know Master Cheng Yen's Buddhism basic (since Buddha Dharma itself has a lot of streams and sects). However, when I listened to Master Cheng Yen's teaching, I found out that her teaching is really similar to what I heard in Nichiren Buddhism, such as the term of "emerging earth Bodhisattva", "three poisons", "heaven and hell inside our mind" and "emerge the Buddha soul within you". Then I tried to searched her biography and I read that her primary learned sutra was the Lotus Sutra. It is written that Master Cheng Yen's initial exposure to the Lotus Sutra happened when she abandoned her earthly (and reasonably wealthy) family in Taiwan and stayed away from the world by lodging in a small hut then accidentally found a Japanese version of the Lotus Sutra, and was pleased with what the book said. Later, she had a friend bring back a Japanese copy of the Lotus Sutra (Myoho Renge Kyo) from Japan, and was immensely enlightened by it.

So, no wonder that her teaching is not so different from what I learned in Nichiren Buddhism, they have the same basic source, the Lotus Sutra :D

Okay now folks, I have told you a loooongg story about my current thought. I hope you didn't get bored, hehehe. I am not a religious person, not that type of person who go to the temple so often, nor an activist of the Buddhist organization of what. Anyhow, I do respect and love to comprehend Buddha Dharma, that teaches me about this mysterious life we are now dwelling in.

Table Tennis a.k.a. Ping-Pong

Hi there, how have you been? It's been quite long time huh.

I just want to share a bit about my favorite sport, yeah it's table tennis or so called ping-pong.
Yesterday I just played ping-pong again after such a long long time. Since I moved to Jakarta for college, I didn't do much sport anymore. I did went to the gym or swimming quite some time before, but right now..hmmfftt.. no more physical activities at all. (oh, I feel weak) It's just because currently live in Kebayoran Baru, I did walked around the neighborhood on Sunday during the car free day (2 times only so far! :P)

Alright, back to the main topic. So I played ping-pong yesterday with my friend at Regatta Apartment, Pantai Mutiara (It is a very nice place btw). I played there because my friend's grandparents lives there so we could use the facilities all free :D
I love ping-pong a lot, I don't know why. I just feel happy when I play it. There is no burdened feeling like when I exercise at the gym. It's always different right when you do the things you love so much, it flows naturally without effort. I don't play that really well, very far from expert, even too bad to be called an intermediate one. But since yesterday after I finally started to play again, there is a strong intention inside me that pushes myself to start practicing it regularly. I then today searched some tutorial about how the professional players play, I soaked myself into the basic things I need to know about table tennis. Oh geez, nothing in this world is easy. Even the most fun thing for me, such as playing ping pong, is quite difficult if I want to learn it correctly be a master of it.

So I wanted to practice regularly and "correctly" right, then I was looking for a table tennis club near my place, and I found some clubs that practice at Senayan, Kemang, and Gatot Subroto. I contacted the person in charge and delivered my intention to join the club, but then another obstacle was coming. All the members are ALL MALE, unfortunately. Gosh, how could I handle this situation. I think I would be a little awkward to just randomly come there by myself and joined the guys in the club without having any fellas with the same gender with me. It's not that I'm a sexist, I just don't feel comfortable if I have to be alone among those "om-om" with sweaty sport-shirts and must be mostly all experts while I'm only a little girl with almost zero skills in ping pong >.<

Oh why all the girls prefer to go the gym and have an aerobic class rather than play pingpong? *cry under the shower* T_T

Btw, today I have such a terrible muscle-ache because of yesterday's playing, especially around my waist, butt and thigh. It shows how weak my body is... and how rare I trained my physical body so that all my muscle were shocked over a little exercise. Buhuhu.

However, it was all fun and I enjoyed yummy seafood, drink hot mint tea with quite nice view of the sea at Jet Ski Cafe. I call it quite a Sunday :)

Cheers,
Liz

Life is a place to play and having fun

Life life life... if we take a look at the people around us, we could see... there are sooooo many kind of versions of life!
Have you ever imagine living a life as the policeman? Or the grocery aunt? That busy dentist? The CIA agent? The clown? That actress? The street food guy? Or the cosmetic store girl?
That happy family guy? A rich wife? Or a divorced widow with two kids?
A male? Female? A gay? A lesbian? A bisexual? A transgender?
Or have you ever imagine living in a totally different place from your home now? Like in Venice? Canada? Nigeria? India?
A small town? Big city? Cold place? Hot place? Modern country? Poor country?
Or even in a different time like the 80's? 20's? Or before century?

And so on and so on.... You can start imagining now and it's up to you!

We just live our tiny kind of life right now as 'us', our own version of life. And we are just a little part of the human community.

Every person walks through different path, has different education, has different ability and senses... so every person has different point of view. My 'red' is probably totally different from your kind of 'red'. Since even we could see different colors in #thedress at the same time and place.

So, whatever life might bring you into... Whatever others' opinions are... just don't take it too harshly. And don't judge.
Sometimes we're just different and can't get together... just naturally like water and oil. Accept it, and continue the life we each live in.

So why now we live a life like this? I don't know... yet.
Still figuring it out though.
But all i know is that in this current life, we should enjoy each moments with happiness.

"Shujo sho yuraku" means: life is a place to play and having fun. -Nichiren Buddha-