My perception of spiritual practice

In the past few years, Internet has become very popular and advanced enormously, e-mail users often send interesting or useful information to share with each other. I noticed that this trend began increasing sharply in 2000, sometimes I receive this kind of forwarding from friends whom I haven't got a chance to meet them in person, and the number of this kind of forwarding can be over 20 or more in one day. Among these articles, over 50% of them are topics relevant to the maintenance of our physical health.

I wonder if there is anyone censoring and ranking the most popular topics being shared on the Web, if there is one, I believe the results will show that most of the Internet users are careful about their health of the physical aspect, as to the mental health part, it is very seldom mentioned.

As far as I can remember, people living in the small town where I was born in Taiwan, "mental health" was rarely heard of before 1960 in spite of the fact that there were insane people wandering on the streets in those days. As humans civilization progress, people began to acknowledge the importance of mental health; began to address the need of both physical and mental health. So we saw and noticed a rapid growth of the mental health service and heard of the terms such as depression, anxiety, anorexia, counsellor, psychologist. and so on.

I personally agree that if people are healthy in both mental and physical aspects, then they are really healthy people. But Buddha, Jesus, and everyone of the awakened or enlightened beings who had once lived on this planet with us, the ordinary beings, told us that we are the ignorant, sinners, wanders, strayed lambs, the unawakened. All these labels point out a fact that to the standard of the awakened sages, we are just like a patient, a sick fellow, a pitiable one, so we are not healthy at all to their viewpoint. And I believe the qualities we lack of are in the spiritual area within us. So the spiritual part of our life has been neglected or is denied of its importance.

To my understanding of Buddha's teaching, the motivation that made him spend 49 years of his life was that he wanted to share the ultimate bliss he achieved and experienced through his practice. Although he had tried his best to explain and describe what we should look for, only a few of his students understood and attained the fruition of their practice. He knew that only through diligent practice can anyone achieve that goal and realize what he had tried to teach, yet he still tried to depict what the final goal was all about, and left innumerable volumes of his teaching in a great deal of diversified methods after his demise.

What is that unspeakable goal he pursued before his enlightenment?

"The self." The self is the ultimate center wrapped by layer and layer of contamination in our mind such as: ignorance, desire, selfish, anger, and etc. Sometimes Buddha refers "the self" to "the other shore" or "the pure land" or "the Western blissful world" or "Nivana".

Although the nature of "the self" is unexplainable and unimaginable using our language, some attempts were still made to describe it. The most popular one is that the nature of the self is emptiness, albeit this one may easily mislead to a mind picture like the vast outer space looking very bleak, lonely, cold and all sort of unwelcoming qualities. I personally like the one presented by the sixth patriarch Huineng upon his enlightenment, he said, "何期自性本自清净，何期自性本不生灭，何期自性本自具足，何期自性本无动摇，何期自性能生万法"( never had I expected that the self is purely clean; never had I expected that the self is beyond birth and demise; never had I expected that the self is completely sustained; never had I expected that the self is unshakable; never had I expected that the self produces limitless beings).

The reason that we should start our spiritual practice as early and diligently as possible is that life reincarnates. After we die, we don't know and we cannot control where will we be born; who will be our parents; and this reincarnation has no end, it just repeats and repeats till one day when we finally awaken and achieve Nivana.

Now, we realize the necessity and importance of doing spiritual practice so as to achieve that wonderful goal Buddha has pointed out for us, how should we start with?

My advice is to look for recommendation from your networking a genuine and non-cult Buddhism learning group, or browsing through the webpages created by Buddhist group, and find one that you prefer the most, and then visit them and join their regular activities. You will gain the basic knowledge about Buddhism from there. And the next step is to study the basic scripts recommended by your group. And lastly and the most important step is to observe what Buddha taught.

What benefit will you attain from your diligent practice? You will feel more peaceful because the layers of contamination wrapping up "the self" are gradually peeled off, and eventually you will be enlightened and permanently stay away from the hopeless reincarnation.

So let us learn and practice the spiritual before it is too late.

My 60th birthday - part 2

The day of 25th of February came and went quietly and swiftly. That was the one marking the birthday of mine and my wife's.

Prior to its arrival, Chenny asked us whether if we would like to have a lunch as our 60th birthday celebration in the restaurant or at home. I knew he cared about making a good one for us, I was very pleased to feel his caring thoughts. I said "I prefer to have a simple one at home rather than a big one at a restaurant." "just buy a pack of chips, one stir-fried Rice, one sweet-sour pork from the take-away", added mom.

Young people tend to look birthday party as a very important event. They celebrate their birthdays for each other, so if one has a group of close friends more than 12 then he will be very likely to be invited to a birthday party almost every month through out a year, and they take it as a must-attend occassion. So I appreciate how Chenny felt and cared about our birthday celebration, particularly this 60th one.

As was discussed by us, Chenny called the take-away shop and placed the order. At 6:45 pm that evening, Chenny set out the three dishes on the table plus four glasses of beer.

Jean and I were so happy. Birthday song was sung; wishes were made; photos were shot; the party foods were entirely consumed, and finally had our profound 60th birthday party completed.

I am aware of the truth that I belong to the 60 age group from now on.

My 60th birthday - part 1

I am turning to 60 years old when the calendar comes to the 25th of February. It is approaching soon. I should be excitedly looking forward to it; I must have worked out a plan of travelling with Jean in a cruise tour visiting popular destinations in the world. But I know it will just be another ordinary day filling up with routine activities--morning practice, check e-mails, shift dog to do his watch duty on the deck, reading, medication and meditation etc..

But, it is a 60th birthday, as the majority of the 60 year old fellows do, I should be entitled to do something special and joyful to spoil myself and celebrate it. After all, it only comes once in our life...!@#$%%.... What a good and justified excuse!

In my parents' days, a few particular birthdays of the family members' or their close relations' are just can not be omitted. The 6th birthday, the 16th, the 30th, and the 60th, and even the 80th if you live long enough. On these particular birthdays, to some well off family, a feast will be held, and close family friends and relatives will be invited to attend. As to ordinary families, a rather special food such as glutenous cake made in the shape of turtle and dyed in red symbolizing longevity will be offered to the ancestors and Buddha with a simple worship service held in front of the family shrine altar.

So far I did not skip any of the above mentioned peculiar birthdays of mine except the 60th and the 80th ones because they aren't due yet.

I remember my parents undertook a very costly celebration on my 6th birthday--dedicated to the heavenly deities by offering a whole male pig. I still vividly remember I was awaken from sound sleep by my mother before dawn. It was still dark in a cold but clear morning. The twinkling stars were still in the clear sky. Mother took me to the make-shift altar setup by the road side in front of our home. Before me was the corpse of a poor pig, supposed to be male as tradition required. The pig was displayed on a specially constructed wooden frame; its mouth was pulled open and an orange inserted in its mouth; its eyes shut but looked like smiling, the whole body on the frame with head up and tail end down in a 30 degrees elevation.

Mother held my two palms together with a burning incense held in between my palms. She stooped down, holding my hands together with the incense and said the prayer on behalf of me. As I can remember, the prayer went like this, "ah! the heavenly deities and the most revered heavenly emperor, we are so grateful to your constant protecting over Ah-sium (this was how I was called in Taiwanese dialect) that he has turned 6 years old today. Your continuing protecting and blessing him through the rest of his life is sincerely implored." Then, I think, I went straight back to bed after that ritual.

Then my 16th birthday. 1967 was the year, and I was in my first school term of senior high school. A same service was held; a poor male pig was slaughtered for the sake of my 16th birthday. I ever asked my mother why this kind of costly event had to be held? She said, "we do this to thank the heavenly deities." As I grew older, I understood the reasons: a son is important to a family as he is supposed to carry the linage of this family on; I was the only son survived after my two preceding brothers died in their infanthood, my parents were just too scared of the loss of me and therefore seek for blessing through the folk belief such as this; 16th birthday marks the critically important stage of life in terms of reproductivity, a stage of being able to fulfill the mission soon.

Time flied by. I married at age 26. I remember once before I was turning 30, my mother mentioned about who is supposed to be responsible for the celebration of my 30th birthday. She told me that according the customary, a son-in-law's 30th birthday celebration was at the cost of the wife's maiden home. I cannot remember now whether I had mentioned about the 30th birthday celebration to my wife and she passed the words on to her maiden home, or my father-in-law just knew about the etiquette, anyway, we were asked to travel to my wife's maiden home in Tainan on my birthday one day. I was not aware of the arrangement that my father-in-law had planned prior to our arrival.

After we arrived home, settled and were ready to dinner, my father-in-law summoned everyone to be in the living room, and seated me in the center of the couch and presented a short speech. I could not remember the speech he presented, but it was generally like this: "today is your 30th birthday", he continued "mom and dad wish you healthy, happy and lucky throughout the rest of your life. Offered to you is a bowl of wheat flour noodle with egg and a pan of homemade birthday cake that symbolize long life and everlasting descendants. Here you go."

Then I started my devouring of the whole bowl of the food under the surveillance of the whole family and got my 30th birthday celebration done without having to slaughter a pig.

Now, the 60th birthday is coming toward me. Time flies even faster than I imagine. I am here in New Zealand; have become a Buddhist of the Pure Land path.. What the birthday celebration of this important one will be like? I don't know. But I am definitely sure for one thing, that no pig will be sacrificed for the sake of my 60th birthday. Who will be responsible for this important event? I think it will be my wife, and she will make a bowl of wheat flour noodle with boiled egg for me, and presents a short speech which will be "Amituofo!"

An even more important one that follows the 60th one will be of the 80th birthday which I don't think will be held for me on the planet but in the pure land hopefully.

Delivering Happiness

A few days ago, a friend forwarded to me a story titled "the shoe king. "Shoe King"? never heard of that, but I was curious about this very special title, so I read on.

It was a story about a computer genius Tony Hsie, a Taiwanese-American, aged 36, CEO of Zappos, the biggest shoe retailer on the Internet. I read on. His parents were from Taiwan, both graduated from Taiwan University, the top university in Taiwan. He was born in America. He was very smart especially on computer programming that when he was still at the primary school at the age of 9, he was already creating advanced programs.

At age 19, he won the championship in the world programming competition when he just graduated from Howard University, consequently, his outstanding ability attracted Microsoft's attention that the top figures of Microsoft flew to Boston from Seattle trying to invite him to be working for Bill Gates but he declined. He was more interested in building his own business that was full of the culture of his taste.

He started his business of worm farm at the age of 9 when he was still in primary school; did post shopping on stamps trade at age 12, both earned him approximately $6000 per month. During his high school days, he ran campus magazine and the revenue from advertisement earned US$200 per month for him. During his time in Howard, he rented a discarded dormitory and turned it into a Pizza restaurant.

As I read on the quite lengthy article, I extolled his achievements, particularly his spiritual aspects. The article reported that Tony's approach to money was very unusual comparing to the majority of entrepreneurs. Once he was interviewed by a program conductor. At a stage, their conversion came up to business and money issues, the program host threw a few questions related to profit, money and etc.. Tony began to become bored with the interview; he responded to the questions with short sentences and was lacking enthusiastic tone. The interviewer noticed this unique trait of his, rapidly changed the topics to his philosophy applied to his investment in business,

While almost all the businesses in the world pursue profit by reducing company spending, cutting off idling positions, Tony seems to be doing opposite way. He set many policies, such as free freight to the orders; three pairs of shoe were sent for you to choose the most preferred one and return the unwanted; No restriction on his call center staff with the time spent in conversation over the phone. The canteen of his company provides free food and drinks to the employees. He said he believed when a company had its culture that made both his customers and employees happy, then the culture will naturally develop toward prosperity.

He published a book titled "Delivering Happiness" during the end part of last year.I haven't got a chance to read it yet. But from the book reviews posted on the web, I know it covers his almost legendary business activities and what each of them had taught or inspired him.

I also watched the video which he lectured recently. It is a 85 minute long video from which I saw a matured young man. in a casual clothes, crew cut hair, serious facial expression, eloquently presenting his view, his thoughts of business, philosophy. What a decent, superior, humble and successful young man. As he is related to Taiwan-- a small country but has directly or indirectly produced eminent people like Tony, and this makes me proud of being from Taiwan too.

After I have listened Tony's speech the other day. I was impressed by the part about his call center in Zappos. He said that he asked his staff to be the caller's friend and make them happy, thus he did not set limit on time spent on any single case. I was skeptical about this instruction he gave to his call center staff. My personal experience in calling to any customer service of company impresses me that all the customer service teams are asked or are trained to minimize the talking time in their daily work. They try to get rid of you from the line when they think your question is answered; their tones are normally cold or even harsh. But Tony said the longest duration of talking with a customer recorded was over six hours, I could not believe, though I trust him. So I made a call to Zappos on the same day after I watched that video.

"Hi, there, I am calling from New Zealand" I said with mad tremor on my hands. "yes, what can I help you?" I honestly told him that I called for the reason of experiencing the so called Zappos culture by myself. "I heard from your boss that you don't set limit on the talking time with customer and that your longest single talking time was over 6 hours.". He said. "you are right. my longest record is one hour. but our longest record is not just 6 hours, that one is in the history now, and the longest record is over 8 hours."

I didn't talk with that call center over even 5 minutes, because I am not talkative and I don't mean to waste their time.

Tony is so successful in business. His business managing philosophy is so unique. But I believe whoever buys Zappos might go bankrupt soon if they copy whatever Tony does because there must be other factors involve in the overall business operation that is not possible to analyse by the worldly knowledge.

Learning Google Spreadsheet - Part 1

For some reason I have been fascinated by the amazement of how the spreadsheet can process complicated data since the end of October 2010.

It all began with Chenny's request for my assistance in sorting out a three-page name list which he scribbled notes all over the blank areas about the class time changes, students contact details and etc. the notes were so messy that even Chenny was not sure what some of the notes were about.

It was not a big task. Before long I had it finished by putting those notes in a Google spreadsheet. But by the time I was going to give it back to him, I was curious to know if he had any administration system in place to help him managing his music teaching job. All he showed to me was a timetable which sets the week days on the top row and a time with an increment of 30 minutes ran on the first column starting from 9 AM till 9:30 PM, and about 30 students names were scattering over the grid of the table. This table serves to tell him the class time of his student. Other than this timetable, is the three pages of a computer print which the music Center gives him for the purpose of contact with students. As time goes by these three-page prints became very messy, and Chenny was the only one who could get information out of them, but I believe even him would find it hard. I think that was why he asked me to retype it.

I vaguely know that database is the answer, but I aim at making it possible to access on the Internet so that Chenny can refer to his database through his iPhone when he is on the road. So I searched for the functions on the Web and landed at the webpages of Google docs.

I knew Google docs contains spreadsheet application, but I had only learned how to use the most basic formulas like addition, subsection, modification and division. After some searches, I found that the functions I had in mind had also been asked by many other Google docs users in the help forum, so I knew I was on the right direction of my adventure in the exploration of creating a working system for Chenny.

First of all, I created the main worksheet which I labeled it "Student". This is for Chenny to enter their contact details, class time, class day, fee to charge. Then the challenge came when I created the second worksheet labeled as "Time window".

In the "Time window", my idea was placing a formula in each of the cells that was able to grab the data in the column of class day and class time in the "Student" worksheet and to place the student's name in the corresponding cells in the "Time window" worksheet.

It took me about two weeks in reading many many relevant posts in Google's help forum and playing with the formula which I thought should work but always ended up with a return of "N/A", "ERROR", "REF" or anything but not what I wanted. Gradually my frustration was rising and my patience was running out, suddenly the right data turned up in the cell when I pressed "enter". That feeling was wonderful. It was like you had just won a big prize of Lotto.

For almost one whole month, most of my time day and night were spent in the exploration and
experiment of the formulas. Due to this sudden change in my everyday living style, I spent very little time on the Internet. Some of my friends noticed this change, e-mailed and asked me why I was suddenly so quiet on the Web.

Once I had sorted out the first working formula, it became easier to interpret the strange language used in the formula. Below are some of the formulas which I figured out after innumerable experiments:

=sort(filter('Lesson log'!A2:K,'Lesson log'!J2:J="y",'Lesson log'!I2:I<='Lesson log'!G2:G,'Lesson log'!A2:A>=(today()-14)),2,true,1,true)

=count(iferror(filter(Student!A2:A,Student!F2:F=E4,Student!G2:G<>""),"0"))

=iferror(iferror(filter(Student!A:A,Student!F:F=F1,Student!G:G=A15);filter(Student!A:A,Student!F:F=F1,Student!G:G=A14,Student!H:H=2)),"")

=index(filter(C1:C243,search(H34,B1:B243)),1)

By the end of November, I had accomplished a Google spreadsheet that was able to accommodate Chenny’s need for queries, information check, statistics of his earning. And he finds it helpful, and I feel I am still useful.

Our Thai Neighbor

This is the house neighboring to ours where lived a Serbian family. In April of 2008, the Serbian family moved to Australia, and Nede, the owner of this house had to rent his house before he left for his new job in Brisbane. Nede promised me that he would find a good neighbor for us. A couple of days later, he appeared at the door steps with two Asian ladies. I knew instantly they must be his tenant. Nede introduced them to us: Noreen the mother, and Chompoo the eldest daughter of the family from Thailand.

My first impression about Noreen and Chompoo was that they were very friendly and polite. After they moved in, I found that Noreen was always with a hat on whenever she was out in the garden, seen on the driveway; especially when she goes to a formal occasion, then the hat is always one that seemed to be a tailor-made matching her dress. "They must be a family of high social status in Thailand." I thought to myself.

Before long, we have become friend, and we know each other more day by day. She is a retired lecturer of Chingmai university in Thailand. She has three daughters, all are named by fruit-- Passna(passion fruit), the eldest daughter, Pear and Peach, the second and third respectively. She came to live with her daughters from 2007 in order to make them proper meals for their health sake. "Chompoo and the two other girls are always Mama noodle (the instant noodle) when I'm not around", she once said.

She speaks excellent English. Most Asian people of my age group are generally not confident English speakers, but she is different. She speaks confidently and grammatically correct and she is even 11 years older than me. Her language skill and her socialable temperament enables her to befriend with people of all sort of fields wherever she goes.

She embraces the olden day social etiquette. She always tries to give generously to others and humbly take less when she is offered something as a return of her previous favor. Sometimes this give-and-receive between she and us appears to be as if we are fighting for something. And at the end of the giggling fighting, we follow her etiquette -- we receive more from her and she gets less back, and she is happy with that result.

Noreen loves her homeland. When there is any cultural event being celebrate by the Thai community, she always earnestly inviting us to go with her. When we have a shared meal together, she usually gives comment on each dish of her make and explains how Thai people make it. In our daily conversation, she will more or less use some Thai language such as "Ko kun klap", "sawa dika".

Time seems to be passing faster when Noreen is around. Two and half a years has gone by when Noreen came to discuss with us in mid October about their plan of shifting to other place and she herself to go back to live in Thailand permanently.

As the date they return the house to the landlord is only less than a month away, Noreen asked if Jean would be interested in having a sightseeing tour to South Island with her before her departure, Jean agreed and I helped them with the tour and flight bookings.

The time passes even faster than normal after their return from the tour trip on Nov. 11 and we have meals together more offen. In one of the last few meetings, Jean cited a Chinese quote as a conclusion of our being neighbors for the past two and half years and for the eve of the parting: “但願人長久﹐千里共蟬娟”, and I tried my best in the translation-- ”only am I wishing that we all live long, and let’s get in touch through watching this full moon despite that we are being thousand miles away from each other, ”

On 18th November morning at 10:30am, half hour before she left for airport, Noreen came to say goodbye, and Jean captured the best photo of her before we all said goodbye the last time to each other.

My adventure in making sourdough bread

It is hard to believe that somehow I could become fascinated by the craft of making sourdough bread starting from July 2010.

About three months of time has past since the day I started the adventure in the exploration of this ancient art. From the quality of the breakfast rolls that I made yesterday with my own formulated sourdough starter, I think I can now announce my success in taming the sourdough starter with which I make my breakfast buns.

The reason I refer to sourdough bread making as an "art" is because of the unpredictable nature of its most important ingredient, the sourdough starter, which the baker uses to rise the dough. There are so many factors to think about, to stick to, and to experiment with in order to cultivate the healthy yeast for making the best bread that can win your sincere praise and your highest satisfaction. It cannot be just jotted down on paper as a step-by-step instruction for you to follow through, instead, it can only tell you the principles, the ideas, the hypothesis that you must know when you work through the process of making bread using your homemade sourdough starter. And this is how the sourdough bread making captivated my heart.

My first step in the adventure was googling this topic in the website. I'm grateful to the contributors who share their experience and knowledge about the sourdough bread making on the Internet, that just by a flick of the fingers, I got all the relevant information. I learned that some sourdough enthusiasts cultivating yeast by soaking raisins in water, some from boiled potato water, some from apple or other fruits, and various other ideas of all sorts of stuff. I adopted the method of raising my yeast in flour batter after I had tried one with raisins.

My wife advocates healthy food, so I use wholemeal flour in the whole process of making bread, although I personally like using white flour because it can make the bread texture more fluffy and softer. But we should not pursue the pleasure for our taste buds only, Health issue should be taken into account seriously too, so I satisfied her by using hundred percent wholemeal flour plus approximately 5% of gluten flour, which one of the posts in the web says will compensate the fluffiness and the softness of the bread when you use only wholemeal flour.

We had been using the commercially formulated dry yeast available in super market for five dollars per bottle of 150 g. This kind of yeast is recommended to be used up within six months otherwise you will see a sharp decrease or even zero of its leavening strength. But since I started experimenting on sourdough starter from mid July of 2010, we have completely stopped using the commercial dry yeast.

Every 2 to 3 days I will make breakfast bread once for the family. During the first few weeks, the bread I made was too tense in texture because it only raised the dough slightly even though I left it in a warm space to rise for as long as 10 hours or more. I pondered on the cause of this problem and I came up with the following conclusions:

• The ratio of sourdough starter and the flour is too far off the right one.
• The concentration of the yeast raised in the flour batter is far less than the required level.

Gradually I adjusted here and there in the process of growing the sourdough starter and it is now settled at this protocol:

1. The birth of first sourdough starter:
1. make a flour batter by mixing 1/2 cup wholemeal flour, 1 tsp commercial dry yeast and 100ml water. Keep in a transparent container and mark where the mixture is up to on the container. Leave it with lid loosely closed on the top of the container enabling the preferment process to go on in room temperature for about two hours, or when you see a layer of foam forming on the surface of the batter. This is the first generation of sourdough starter.
2. Thereafter, you need to feed the starter with 1/2 cup wholemeal flour and 100ml water. Stir the whole lot till the flour is wet, then leave it with lid slightly open in room temperature for a maximum of 4 hours or before you feel the yeast is beginning to become hungry again. It is time to put the lid tightly on and keep it in the fridge to sleep. If you don’t put the sourdough starter to sleep at this point of time, the yeast will begin to turn sourer and sourer and end up with a pail of rotten stuff and no longer edible, I believe.
2. Preparing to make a dough:
1. Take the sourdough starter in sleeping out of the fridge. I call this “wake up” and leave it in room temperature. You can imagine the yeasts are yearning and begining to work again.
2. Add 1 cup wholemeal flour and 200ml of water, stir the mixture till the flour is thoroughly wet. Then leave it on the working bench with lid lightly closed for about 2 hours depending on the temperature of that day, or when you see a layer of foam emerged on the surface.
3. Pour the batter into the mixing bowl till the remaining in the container falls down to the mark. This is the start point of another new cycle of the whole process. Refer to point 1.a.
4. Now the ingredients of the batter in the mixing bowl are 300ml water and 1.5 cups flour if you trace back the records. For making the softest buns of 16 pieces of the size of 5cm in diameter and 4cm in height, I add 3 cups flour, one tsp salt, 150ml water and 2 tbsp olive oil. Mix and knead till it becomes a dough and leave it in a proper space to rise. This takes about two hours depending on the temperature.
3. Shape the bread:
1. It is your turn now to exercise your inventive and creative capability in the art of bread making.

Having read "The Shack"

A friend, a devoted Christian and dentist based in North Shore City, recommended I read a book titled “The Shack” by William P Young.

The book begins with an explanation of the childhood of the main character, McKenzie, nicknamed ‘Mack’.

My reading took about two weeks, leaving me with the impression the content is quite philosophical because of the great amount of discussion between Mack and the Holy Trinity during a weekend spent in the shack. The discussion is centred on the tragedy which Mack had experienced.

Composed of 18 chapters, the book begins with a prologue of Mack’s childhood wherein the author tells of Mack’s father, abusive when drunk, always seeking forgiveness when sober. These details help me make sense of following episodes.

The core of the story is Missy, Mack’s youngest daughter aged 6 who was abducted from the camp yard where Mack was picnicking with his three children. Only Missy’s red clothes were found on the table by the fireplace of an abandoned shack in the bush. Overwhelmed by his tragic loss, Mack began to question the truth of God’s love.

One day, two years after the tragedy, Mack received a note left in his letter box inviting him to re-visit the shack in which Missy’s clothes were found. It astonished him to see the note was signed “Papa”, in the way his wife Nan refers to God.

Curiosity, anger and guilt, buried deep in his mind frequently haunting him, made him determined to revisit the place to face and challenge the negativities he had been embracing.

One Friday afternoon, unknown to his wife and children, he set off. On entering the bush near his destination, the surrounding atmosphere became so peaceful, refreshing and solemn as he sighted the shack in the distance. It was there he encountered the Holy Trinity - God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

The following chapters of the book contain and explain the questions, answers and hot debate which ensue between Mack and God. The main point of the questions being that if God loves his creation, why are there tragedies and sufferings in the world.

I feel the author, William Young must be a very knowledgeable theologian or is a senior Christianity scholar as the arguments he weaves in the story are very deep and incomprehensible to me. Although difficult for me to read, I completed the book in order to improve my reading capacity.

After the two-day stay in the shack with God, Mack felt an inner transformation leaving him with a feeling of light and peace replacing the anger and guilt. He felt it was time to go home and back to reality.

At this point of the story, the author makes a technical twist to involve Mack in a massive traffic accident on his way home. Mack loses consciousness, falls into a coma and on awakening asked his wife what happened. It was then he knew he had been in hospital during the whole weekend whereas for him, he had been in the shack with God.

(Great thanks go to my English mentor Neville who corrected the grammar of the original post for me.)

Chan family (詹家)

In the afternoon of 18/09/2010, someone was knocking the door. I slowly moved to unlock the door and found it was Mr. Chan standing at the door step with a warm and kind smile on his face, both of his hands holding two boxes of something. "Some freshly baked moon cake for you" he said to me. Suddenly I realized that the moon festival was around the corner, another year had slipped into the history silently and rapidly. Since Mr. and Mrs. Chan retired in 2006, they had been presenting us with their homemade moon cake prior to the moon festival.

I thanked and received the two boxes from him. I opened the boxes and saw 16 pieces of assorted moon cakes. To me these are not just cakes, they represent solid friendship.

We made acquaintance with Chan family in September of 1992 in a Taiwan countrymen party held in a Taiwanese family somewhere in Northcote of Auckland city. Since then our two families have been in contact now and then and have never lost in touch in the past 18 years of time.

My impression of this family is hard working, intellectual and humble. They raised three sons. And not only that all of them are good boys at home, they all have outstanding performance at school. No wonder in 2010, when their youngest son was granted doctorate degree of Biochemistry, we witnessed their success in creating three doctors for New Zealand in 20 years of time.

Mr. Chan himself led a good example to his three boys. He possessed bachelor degree of Chemistry from Tonghai University in Taiwan. Having immigrated to New Zealand, he worked as a Baker in a supermarket. The work hour of a Baker is normally in the midnight, so Mr. Chan enrolled himself on a further study course in the University, and won himself a master degree of chemical engineering two years later.

Mrs. Chan worked at an electrical supplies company as an assembler. In order to help with her husband supporting their three children, she took extra jobs to be done at home. The children saw their mother worked so hard, they spared their studying time voluntarily to work on the job that mother took home.

Mrs. Chan is famous in the Taiwanese community for her very talented cooking skill. During the first half of the 90s, Asian food was very rare in the market. However we've got a chance to learn from her how to make those Taiwan delicacies at home. There is almost nothing that she doesn't know how to make in terms of cooking. Although she is famous of her talent, she lives quietly in the community. Every day she goes to work in the morning, and rushes back to make dinner for the family in the evening. Unless it is necessary, never have I heard that she drops in someone's home to chat. All her time is for the children and the family, and for their friends who are in need of help.

When I was going through my career crisis in early 2003, she quietly sought for any job vacancy through her personal networking for me. She has a nephew working for a computer company in Auckland. Her nephew is in a position of recruiting new staff to assist him. And one day when I paid a visit to their place, she said to me in a kind tone, "don't have to worry about job, go to see my nephew when your current job is vanished." Though I did not turn to her for help that time because a miracle fell upon me and made me secure a good job, her kind enthusiastic support conveyed through that few words is never erased from my memory.

Having three excellent grown-up sons, their retirement life is very secure of course and they are simply able to enjoy a very wealthy style of life, but they are not. Almost every time I rang them to make an appointment of visiting them at their place, they are always at home to answer my call. Mr. Chan is always working in the garden or on some housework, while Mrs. Chan makes simple but delicious food in the kitchen.

Although their three children secretly discussing which one among them should be living close to where their parents are so as to look after them. But Mr. and Mrs. Chan frankly told the three children that they should not be worrying for them for the time being, and it is okay for them to go to any place in the world to actualize their potentiality. So now all three of their children are in big international research or financial institutions in Europe and Australia. Here, in Auckland live this pair of very happy mum and dad being busy in the kitchen and in the garden respectively.

Pass over the slack months (度小月)

Well before I was in courtship with my wife in 1975, I had already heard of the story about "Du Xiao Yue” 度小月, meaning "pass over the slack months".

Du Xiao Yue is a small restaurant serving very delicious and traditional Taiwan delicacy located on the corner of two streets in Tainan city. Since Tainan is my wife's maiden home town, so when I paid my first visit to her family, she naturally took me to this restaurant and told me the story of the founder, Mr. Hung, a ferry boat operator in mid 1800's.

"In order to feed a big family, Mr. Hung worked very hard. But there were always a few months in a year during which he could not earn a living for the family due that the demand for ferry transportation was very low." Jean continued, "people called the months when they were put in the idling state as Xiao Yue, small months. We can appreciate how anxious Mr. Hung were during those small months. He saw that his time was wasted in waiting for passengers, he brainstormed for ideas of using of the slack months for other ways of income."

"He withdrew from the ferry boat gang during the small months and ran a mobile food stand selling fast food. His food featured with a unique recipe of the spoonful of very aromatic stir-fried pork mince put on top of the noodle with soup cooked out of the big bone. Very few people could resist the temptation of that aroma drifted over in the air when they passed by where his stand was located, and by and by he gradually built up a solid base of loyal customers, thus his story became a popular legend and has been used as an inspirational example to encourage people to face to the challenge when their business gets stuck."

The story Jean had told me 35 years ago vividly flashed through my mind. When my thought came out of the story, it immediately associated the story with my son’s current issue -- job-hunting.

Through the unimaginable cause-and-factor process, my son landed in a job serving as guitar tutor since 2007 when he was in the second year of university. To a student, this is a good job for earning some pocket money while on school study. However, the nature of this job is being unstable with income because the wage he earns is based on the actual hours he teaches. For example, during the school holidays, there will be many students asking for leaves so as to go on holiday with their families; students may quit at any time for any possible reason. Therefore, in some months he may earn a lot more, and in some other months he has to eat into his reserve. So my son has been concerned about the disadvantage of his current job now that he has graduated he is desperate for a full-time job.

It is fine to change to other path of career if the circumstance cooperates, but I know he loves music and being passionate with one’s job is very important, so I have been trying to make him understand about this point and stay in where he is and try to develop his guitar tuition business into full-time scale, or even follow the example of “Du Xiao Yue” by doing some sideline casual jobs. This kind of father and son interaction has been found pretty active in my home recently.

In a chat with my wife this morning, the topic was unintentionally switched to Taiwan delicacy, and it naturally went into our mutual memory of that morning in Tainan 35 years ago when we were in that reminiscent small restaurant called Du Xiao Yue devouring that very yummy Dan Zi Mian. And the conversation swerved to the story of Mr. Hung, the founder of Du Xiao Yue.

I found Du Xiao Yue story is very inspirational. It’s a story about how a father identified his problem; figured out the cause of his problem; worked out a practical plan and took action to achieve it. The part I extolled the most is his spirit of not wasting his energy and time in self-pity or complaining about his miserable destination. Instead, he did what he could or should do step-by-step toward his goal. His descendants seem to have discovered that the secret of Mr. Hung’s success is in his strategy of earning extra income by using of the slack months that they later in some time branded the fast food stand Mr. Hung has passed down to be “Du Xiao Yue”. A brand name that fully reflects the founder’s spirit.

Jean paid a visit to her mother in hospital in Taiwan

Chenny and I got up at 5:45 AM in order to drive to airport during the busy traffic hours of the motorway and arrived there in time to meet with his mother. From my observation, Chenny is nice to his mother although very often he is impatient with her.

Jean's mother, aged 90, had a fall at home and then lost consciousness during the daytime one day in late June of 2010, and was thus rushed to the hospital. On July 5, Chenny and I sent Jean to airport early in the morning to get on board of the earliest flight of Korean airline for Taiwan to pay a visit to her mother in hospital. Time flies by very quickly, Jean's scheduled returning date is up, and here we are going on the way in the raining dark early morning toward Auckland airport to meet her.

The traffic was not as bad as we expected, so by the time of 6:45 AM, we were already sitting in the waiting room of the arrival exit, while well ahead of the 7:30 AM arriving time of the flight. I estimated Jean would not be able to get through the customs and everything within one and a half hour, so we both dozed off in the waiting zone. Suddenly Jean appeared at the exit with a cart loaded with three luggage on it. Chenny briskly stood up and walked forward to greet his mom with an affectionate hug and a sheepish smile. I found these 2 to 3 seconds Chenny's greeting to his mother was very moving and beautiful, and I regretted I was not able to capture that few seconds in the camera.

After having settled everything at home, Jean told me that once her mother was in a very dangerous state, "mother's face showed great pain, nervousness, horror; hands and legs pushing and kicking as if being horrified or annoyed by something, and everyone of the family was expecting the very worst and showed extreme anxiety." she continued, "Suddenly an idea flashed through my mind that I should go to the pure land Buddhist group nearby to make pray for a peaceful pass away for mother and/or do a repentance service on behalf of mother."

So she told her siblings about what she thought and wanted to do for the rest of the day, and she immediately left for that pure land Buddhist center.

At the receptionist's desk, a female Buddhist told her that they were undergoing a 21 day service called "the three-time reminder (三時繫念法會)" which were exactly suitable to her mother's case. So she enrolled on straightaway and took part in the ritual wholeheartedly through the rest of that day.

Having returned to the hospital, she told her siblings what she had done that day, and then they began to notice that their mothers facial expression radiated peacefulness, and the doctor discharged her from the ICU that night, and every one of the family were greatly relieved and unanimously attributed this dramatic change to what Jean had done in the Temple.

Jean has told me many stories about what she experienced, saw, heard in this trip to Taiwan. To get the cheapest airfare, she flew with Korean airline, and thus had to stop by Seoul airport on both ways to change airplane. On her flying to Taiwan, they were supposed to stay overnight in Seoul and change airplane the next morning. That was her first time in life she had to travel on a journey through which she must use her limited English to solve any problem that could possibly arise, so although she still smiled all the time when she was telling me the story, I believe she must be pretty nervous when the aircraft was descending to land and that would be the beginning of using her English in making inquiries relating to accommodation, meals, and etc..

She said that she could feel all the single female passengers who needed to spend one night in Seoul to change airplane in the next morning were anxiously looking for someone of same-sex to join as a group. And soon there came two ladies toward her, one Asian and one European. They friendly and politely asked if Jean was going to change airplane in the next morning? And so three of them naturally became a group, and they went to the transition desk, to the bus stop, to the hotel, to the check-in desk, to the restaurant for dinner, and etc. together. and Jean's innate enthusiasm naturally made her become the leader of the three member group. The Asian lady was heading for Qingdao, and she had no English almost. The old Europeans lady was to fly to London to see her granddaughter. She was living in Tauranga. Jean's limited English turned out to be helpful to the two nervous ladies during the trip.

In the next early morning after Jean's arrival, I found this e-mail in the inbox when I turned on the computer after I finished my morning practice. The message indicates that mom's condition is still improving. Amituofo!

姐夫與真姐您好！

真姐安全抵達，我們也放心了。

今(8/2)早進病房，媽張著眼睛看我，跟媽講話她會點頭；把手套拿掉，跟她作手部運動，幫她作合十動作說"謝謝妳啊！"，之後她說"謝謝妳啊!"媽就自己拱手了。

今天這些進步都讓我與敢非常驚喜，但媽手上的傷口發炎紅腫，倒是令人耽心。皮膚乾癢讓媽常想抓癢，幫媽剪了指甲，擦了E油，情況緩解。

陪伴中，敢早晚都幫媽作腿部伸曲運動各50次，避免僵硬。

下午2：00遷移到安養中心，照顧雖不如醫院周到但也不錯了，敢晚上可以回家好好休息了，他也夠辛苦了。

你們多保重！

阿健