Little prayer for a fragile soul

On a Saturday evening, a large butterfly paid me a visit , in my apartment. It perched still on the glass window of the kitchen. The next morning when I was about to do some laundry at the back balcony of the kitchen, this pretty creature was still there, this time resting quietly on the wall, I figured it must have suffered injury of sort hence unable to move, but jolted a little when I tried to touch its wing. Once, its dropped into a bucket half-filled with water, when I came to its rescue it tried to move a little.

I just left this little creature undisturbed in its own world, however whispering words of comfort to soothe its frightened fragile soul as if it could hear me. I have this tendency these days to talk to sentient beings, other than humans, I somehow feel that they can hear me.

I got a tiny bit of decorative icing sugar from a cupcake for the butterfly , the sticky moisture helped the sugar stay glued onto the wall, lest the butterfly when hungry would need some food to fill its stomach. No idea if it would feed on sugar but the only food I could think of.

The night when I checked on it again it was still there. Unmoved and in utter solitude. I’d wonder if this little creature have had no hope continuing on, wasting its life away. If there were other occupants in my apartment, it would have amused them to see me talking and reciting a prayer to this small creature.

On Monday morning while getting ready to work, I took a peep into the same area. It was no longer there.
It must have healed by itself and journeyed somewhere else, and not fallen prey to other insect-eating creatures, or at least I would like to hope so.

My prayer has been gratuitously answered, it seems..

Random photos

Niece and nephew in kampung - first time learning the art of trade and how to earn money, sometime last year, and loving it. They moved a small table and plastic stool to the roadside and put their `barang jualan’ i.e durian ,on the table. Patiently waiting and with my niece standing on the road side, under the stifling heat, waving and calling out loud to every passing motorists: `durian durian, pakcik/makcik mahu beli durian? ‘ With their good efforts, they managed to sell off all the durians, for more than RM60, and got themselves a hard earned commission , RM10 each.


The pondok in front of the house. A simple shelter built many years ago where bananas, durians, rambutans and other fruits of labor from my parents’ kebun were placed and sold to passer-bys, mostly motorists during the fruit seasons. I remember when I was young, there was another simple wooden structure built by the road side and a Milo tin would be hung up together with bunches of bananas, plastic bags of sweet potatoes (ubi manis), cempedak etc with a price tag on each items, customers just had to place the money inside the tin and took away their purchases, without the hassle of us going out to attend to them. Business then was conducted on the principle of trust, and honesty.


At the dilapidated pondok with Yee Zhing while waiting for customers to buy our durians.

Wen Hui with his bergaya pose.
Sitting on a felled rambutan tree stub.

Baby banana tree at my parents’ house compound.


Fruits of labor : Durian kuning and rambutan.

On the lawn in front of the house.

My niece Yee Zhing and I in front of my parents’ old wooden house.This house has been and still standing strong for more than 30 years despite it’s slightly run down state. There’s no place like home really.


Sitting on the cemented ground at the 'bawah kulung' of my parents' home.

Some photos taken during Chinese New Year 2010.

Happy faces of nieces Tze Ern and Yee Zhing.
Nieces and nephews: Shirley,Cun Cun,Wen Hui,Yee Zhing,Wen Wen.


more old photos:

Fang seng activity

The day that was : 14 November 2010

On a Sunday in November and after breakfast, we went to the outskirt of town to purchase crabs and kepah/lala for fang seng. We paid about RM200, but not before much haggling and persuading with the vendors, hoping with the same amount of money, more lives could be freed.

With the purchases, my brother then drove us to Tanjung Lipat and seeked a section of the beach that was not occupied by weekend picnickers. After reciting prayers and mantras, the ropes used to hold the crabs tight were slowly cut loose, allowing the animals to hurriedly crawl back to the salt water to welcome freedom. Cutting the ropes required some patience and skill for if you were not attentive enough the crabs after struggling itself loose and mistaking you as an intimitading invader, would raise its craws against you. As if to vent out its anger and frustration against humans for their betrayal.

My brother once had fallen prey to its aggressive attack.

Seeing the kepah/lala were still wandering on the shallow water which I have earlier released them to, I had to go down the rocky shore and waded myself knee-high in the water to scoup them up one by one and throw each of them into a deeper part of the water, in a bid to prevent the creatures from being recaptured by some immigrant kids prying at the other part of the beach who were seen wading into the water to hunt for sea products.

As the waves travelled and beat against the shore, my jeans became soaking wet due to the salt water and I have had a taste of saltiness in my mouth as the splashing water landed on my face and lips.

Releasing life is such a meaningful activity which I have made an obligation on my part to undertake. Not only does it help to accumulate merits but we derive a sense of spiritual fulfillment knowing that we have helped to save the life of beings facing imminent deaths. Buddhist teachings value the sanctity of life and espouse that we should be kind to all creatures that have life and endeavour to give protection to all life forms. Even the life of an intruding ant should be mercifully and compassionately spared in this regard, for all creatures from higher groups such as humans to the lowliest such as insects strive for protection against dangers which would threaten its life.

Some fang seng photos:

Little notes

It warms the cockles of my heart:

A little note and a packet of biscuits left by two Venerable tzefus before they left for Taiwan in the wee hours of the morning while I was still soundly asleep, after spending a few days at my place, sometime in August 2010. They kindly and thoughtfully turned down my offer to send them to the air port lest in my sleep-deprived state as a result of having to rise up early I would not be able to concentrate at work the next day. The parents of one of the tzefus came to fetch them instead.

One of the tzefus gave me a small diary with notes of encouragement, which I very much treasure:

A blind fish

The day after Christmas 26 December 2010.

Fang Seng on a Sunday

We took a picture of this ikan galak which suffered some bruises and a blind eye probably due to heavy struggle while being kept with other fishes in a small basin for sale, after being cruelly and forcefully robed from their natural habitat. It’s heartbreaking for me to see an innocent life being subject to unnecessary torture like that. After being released the fish refused to escape instead swam to the bank of the small swampy area and stayed unmoved for a long time. I tried to sooth this little creature by placing my hand on its body and uttered a little prayer, but it remained still seemingly oblivious to my touch. I was in fact fearing for its safety for being in such fragile condition it might easily fall prey to other predators like biawak.

I was relieved to find that the fish was no longer there when I returned sometime later. It must have recovered from its wound that it managed to navigate back to the deeper water, to where it belonged.

Or perhaps it had indeed felt, hence responded to my concern..

Dear little creature, I pray for your safety and may suffering evade you.

And you are now safe from harm..

Just this thought

Without us realising, we more than a week into the new year already.

I am simply amazed, at time in awe at how just time can really just zoom past us like that.

Time does not want to compromise with us even if we plead with all our heart wishing it can stop a little, when we are standing indecisively in the middle of nowhere and we don’t know where to go and we need some grace period while we sort out our direction in life.

And time’s intransigent when some of us are drudging through the muddles and stresses of our daily lives, thus are inevitably and unwillingly thrown into the darkness of deep abyss, while we hope and pray for time to wait till we come to the light of day but no, time’s an arrogant machine which will just speed through the dark tunnel of rail track without even turning back to check on us..

Neither does time want to compromise when we are savouring some precious moments in our life, a moment in time which will never come again. Where we feel like we want to freeze time right there and then, and to capture and slide those precious moments into a little pocket between the fabric of time itself.

Like our childhood. Our youth.

But reality is that snarky little jerk that’s staring you right in the face and say “wake up, you have no time for silly reverie like this.”

Yet reality is also that kind little thing that helped plant our feet firmly on the ground, for without which we might be like a lost child wandering too far away from the very spot we have embarked our journey on.

Sometimes, fear of what lying ahead of us presses against us like cold wind blowing in the street which we have no power to shield ourselves from.

But we must press on, in spite of our anxiety, our fear.

For the new year for most of us, there’s also going to be more plans and resolutions to stay ahead...

But just for these few minutes…

I just want to remind myself to breath, someone wrote about how it’s an easy thing to forget, and I must agree, sometimes we get so carried away with life’s seemingly trivial issues so much so we are distracted from what really matters, like the breaths under our nostrils.

That’s the most important thing that we tend to neglect.

To think that I have witnessed with my own eyes how a close relative breathed his last sometime this year make this realization a poignant reminder for me.

So as I am writing this, I just want to allow myself this opportunity to simply close my eyes for these few brief minutes, to really feel the inflow and outflow of breaths coursing through my system.

This very much neglected life-giving activity, so ever precious yet often times fragile, is what really matters, and the reason for my being here…

For that, I am grateful.

And I pray for a good year ahead..

Birthday & fang seng

The day that was : 19 November 2010

Friday, I was home nursing a fever.
after some rest and deliberately avoiding medicine,
I drove to the Tamu in Penampang,
along with my sister,
to purchase fishes for fang seng .

It was my birthday,
and I would like to release lives to celebrate this day,
a spiritual activity that I embrace in the calendar of my life.

We bought about 19 small plastic bags of ikan karuk ,
and a bag of ikan keli,
it’s ironic that the Kadazan lady selling the fishes would later offer an additional plastic bag of ikan karuk,
saying ` tolong saya lepaskan’. Even though I did not mention that we were going for fang seng.
Guess she just knew.
If I had my will, I would ask her not to capture them again,
but who am I to ask a non-believer to stop their trade,
probably the very source to their livelihood?

We then drove to a nearby river,
in the stiffling afternoon ,
I felt realy sick and tired .
But it did not deter my resolve to carry bags of fishes down to the river bank,
where a little prayers were said,
before releasing them to the cool and soothing river,
then witnessing the small creatures slowly and graciously swim to the deeper part of the dark flowing water
back to where they belong.

Later my sister said `let’s go buy some cupcakes for your birthday ,I belanja .’
Then stopped by a kopitiam for teh-c , teh-c ping and some bread,
before heading home for a rest.

It’s been a quiet birthday, despite a little emotional turmoil etched inside my heart.

But time is always a reliable healer, this soon will pass.

I pray on this day for the renewal and rejuvenation of the mind, body and spirit, to enable me to bravely embrace yet another chapter in this life journey..


Some fang seng pictures:
Bags of ikan karuk
Reciting prayers

I like how the sun was shining down its glistening rays of light onto the water, and when it touched the river surface a mirage was formed its presence immediately brought forth a sense of peace and tranquility to its surroundings, while my sister stood unfazed by the blistering heat reciting verses of prayer to the tiny lives being released into the water.

It is to me a heart-warming and endearing sight.