Do you believe in fate?

Seriously do you believe in fate?

Coming from a family with super strong superstitious values, I do belive in fate sometimes..

Here's my story:

Last month, a week before my Hong Kong Trip, I accepted a job offer from a Japanese MNC and informed the company that I'd be starting my job after my long planned trip. Unluckily for me, I fell sick on the way back from Hong Kong to Singapore (my home), so I couldn't turn up at work on the next day.. The company sent me an email that they won't pursue my employment further due to my absence at work. I was so mad! How could they terminate my employment contract just because I fell sick on my first day at work?

You know what? It's all fated! 2 days after that contract termination, I received news from my doctor to perform emergency lap surgery to remove my endometriosis & ovarian cysts, so I could conceive real soon. After the surgery, I needed at least 2 weeks to recover & rest well. Can you imagine if I continue working in that company, I wouldn't be able to take hospitalisation leave and I would have delayed the surgery because I couldn't just take long leave when I just started my new job!

Yes, It's fated and I am happy the fact that I'm not working and I don't plan to right now because I'm focusing on TTC (Try-To-Conceive).

During our trip to Hong Kong, we visited a very famous temple there (pictures below). Many Chinese believe that their prayer will be answered directly by praying & asking the God's advice. I don't mean that prayer will be answered later, but a real direct ANSWER to their question. To be more precise, when they pray, they are holding a bamboo vase with lots of bamboo sticks inside and numbers written on the bamboo sticks (normally no. 1-100, I'm not too sure too), then when they are praying & asking question (one question only, not to confuse the God), they shake the bamboo vase until one bamboo stick with one number written on falls down. Then, they will take bamboo stick with number to the temple staff and ask the meaning of the number, normally they believe it's the answer from their prayer to God in the temple.

Well, as you see in my picture below, many believers are praying with a bamboo vase being shaken out (oh well, you can see the bamboo vase here). I saw a few Caucasians asking questions to the God too.. I was amazed!

My husband did ask a question: "When are we going to have a baby?". The answer was there's a chance but a precious chance, meaning yes we will have the baby, but with hard work, full determination, a precious time to wait. It also said that we have 2 chances to conceive in a year time.

Back from the temple, as you know many Chinese people are very superstitious including my family, they believe in fortune teller, fate, etc.. , my mother in law went to a fortune teller in Hong Kong to ask when am I going to hold a newborn? The answer from the lady fortune teller was pretty good, she said "real soon" and she also said that I'm going to have 2 sons & 1 daughter in the future. Nah!!

The funny thing was the lady fortune teller predicted ALL of us well, good job, good life, good this and that, yeah all of us got predicted to do very well in life. I wonder how could it be? There are always ups & downs in life, right? I guess, she was just being nice, she didn't want to say something nasty, although if she could see it, she didn't want to disappoint her clients, oh-oh?

Oh well, let's see if she's right! 



Hong Kong Temple

The famous Chicken Rice

Hong Kong street, unfortunately, it was a rainy day, we didn't go out that much :(

Loves,

Netty

My Belief as a Buddhist

Hello...
I was spending my whole one day yesterday to think about my belief.. What's my belief? Do Gods and Goddess exist? Why bad lucks happened to good people? Why did God answer the bad people's prayer? If God exists, why does he allow bad things to happen to good people? What happened to my lucks, I have been praying every day, but why did things go so wrong? Why and Why??

Then I reflected myself. I grew up in a Chinese-Indonesian family where every member in the family believes in Gods and Goddess. We called our religion as a Buddhist and also as stated legally on paper (ID, birth cert, etc) but we know our self that we are not Buddhists, we are in fact practising Taoism. We believe in spirits, Gods, rituals, exorcism, etc.. My grandma & my mum used to practise the religion rituals on certain days. Every 1st and 15th of lunar calendar, they pray to Gods & Goddess religiously, they worship the Gods & Goddess with fruits, cakes, flowers, joysticks, burnt gold & silver papers (representing money) and many more! then they would make a wish for everything goes smoothly!

Many other rituals like worshipping our ancestors with burnt paper money, gold & silver, paper clothing, food & drink, fruits and all stuff you can think of. My family is very superstitious, when they think they are having some bad lucks, they would go to Chinese temple & ask what's happening, then someone (normally a nun or monk or just a normal person) representing the God or Goddess would tell them what's actually going wrong. I can tell ya, that's not a very nice answer!!

One day, my mum went to Chinese temple and asked the nun when am I going to have my first child. Then the nun said something bad is happening, your daughter is having difficulty if she doesn't perform certain ritual & pray to God (God of Heaven) every day, but don't worry I will perform the ritual and your daughter will be alright. Then, after that the nun charged my mum quite a big sum of money to perform the ritual. That was in January 2012. Now, end of May 2012, I haven't got any signs of baby yet. So, well?? and I did what my mum told me, pray & pray sincerely everyday to God of Heaven using lighted joysticks. Well??

Almost 5 months later, after the ritual, I asked myself "Does ritual to change certain things work?" "Does Gods according to my family's belief make things happen or create miracles?"
Yesterday I came to 1 conclusion : There's NO miracle. I am no longer believe things happen for a reason. If things happen for a reason, then what reason? What's that? NO miracle, NO magic, NO answered prayers.. I believe my fate is in my own HAND. I create my own fate!!

I slowly come closer to the Buddhist teaching and I want to be a Buddhist, a real Buddhist.. Although I have only taken a few Buddhist lessons in my life but I somehow attached to the teaching.

Buddhists don't believe in Gods, Buddhism is not a religion, but a principal of love, wisdom and compassion. Buddhists believe that even if there's a God or if there's a creator or not, it doesn't matter. What matter the most is NOW, the present time! and even if there's a God, He's not the perfect one and he does mistakes too. If not, why do people suffer?

A good point from the Buddhist teaching is if you believe in God or whatever image/thing, you tend to pass your responsibility to the God or image to decide for you and you will be less responsible towards yourself and when bad things happen, you don't know what to do because you have been relying on someone else all your life. But if you rely on yourself, responsible towards yourself, things could turn out much better than wishing miracle to happen. You create your own fate!

Another excellent point I learnt is you are your own God, why?? the first thing you should ask yourself is what are you looking in God? Love, Compassion, Wisdom? Then if you can have all Love, Compassion, Wisdom, you are already a God.. so God is in yourself!

Buddhism is a teaching of loving others, compassionate towards others, giving to others, forgiving others, keeping out the negatives from our lives, doing good deeds when we are alive and believing in Karma (cause & effect) Buddhist doesn't need a God, nor a temple to worship, or anything. It's all about the principal and teaching the GOODs in our lives :)

A few of Buddha Quotes I like the most:

1) We are what we think. All that we arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world
2) However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do if you do not act on upon them?
3) I do not believe in a fate that falls on men, however they act, but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act

Loves,
Netty