I have found this information about The Lord Buddha interesting and hope you would too.

There are 108 distinguishing marks on both the soles of Buddha. They represent the 3 worlds. 59 indicating the inanimate world ( Okasaloka ), 21 indicating the animate world ( Sattaloka ) and 28 indicating the world of the conditioned ( Sankharaloka ). The essence here is that the Buddha is greater than all the 3 worlds. These marks became apparent right from the birth of the Buddha when 8 out of the 108 royal astrologers present were asked to comment on them. 7 said that the child would either become the Buddha or the Cakkavati ( Universal Monarch ). Only Sudatta Kondamma, the youngest of them made a single prediction that the royal child was destined to become the Buddha. This is because there was the image of Cakkavatti on the child's soles and a personage superior to a Cakkavatti could only be a Buddha.

In worshiping the108 distinguishing marks on the soles of the Buddha, one should therefore remember to one's benefit that the Buddha is endowed with the attributes of :

The Chief Of The World ( Tilokagga )
The One Who Has Reached The End oF The World And All Things Wordle ( Tilokantagu )
The Knower Of The Three Worlds ( Lokavidu )

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“Motion sickness” as the name says it, means sickness due to movements. The most common occurrences are when one travels in a car, train, aeroplane and boat. It is caused when inconsistent signals are sent by the eyes, body and inner ear to the brain. An imbalance will occur as a result of this confusion.

For instance, when you are travelling in an aeroplane or a boat, when the aeroplane is going through a turbulence or a boat rocks in a storm, your body feels the movement, but your eyes are looking at things in the plane or boat which are still, will not register such movements. Therefore the signals sent to the brain is inconsistent resulting in dizziness and nausea which often leads to vomiting, perspiration and nervousness. Under normal circumstances, motion sickness stops when the movement stops.

There are ways to help ease travel sickness and mainly medications are used. Putting medication aside, I have personally found deep breathing pranayama and a stable mind helpful. Deep breathing or the full yogic breathing ensures that the body gets enough oxygen. Other than that, it contributes to calming your mind. In addition to that, think positive and imagine or convince yourself that you are in a stable environment. Avoid moving your head too much and if possible, sit by the window to get some fresh air.

In conclusion, both deep breathing and a stable mind work perfectly well together in ensuring a comfortable travelling experience whatever mode of transport you are in.

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Embody The Present

Our culture values productivity and speed. Before we know it, we’re embroiled in a perpetual battle with time, missing out on our connections to our deeper selves and to others. If your busy schedule leaves you feeling drained and depleted, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your relationship with time.

Mindfulness of time is rooted in the philosophy described in the Yoga Sutra—particularly the concepts of self-study, honesty, and non-grasping.  Practicing these concepts together can help bring you into harmony with time and allow you to enjoy the present moment. Look inward and get to know yourself better.  Ask yourself questions like – besides eating and sleeping, how do I allocate my time in a typical 24-hour period? Do the activities on which I spend most of my time nourish me, or do they feel obligatory? Your answers will help identify the activities that are intrinsically important to you as well as the pace that’s most compatible with your own organic rhythms. Self-study opens up your truths. Now, try to acknowledge and honor your truths, even the uncomfortable ones!  Eventually, your truth will illuminate what’s possible and what’s not.  Let go of the need to achieve more.  When you can stop grasping, even if only for a little while, you can access that state of flow, remain in the present and enjoy and harvest the time that is available to you.  Practicing these concepts will help cultivate awareness to the moment.

Each and every moment holds the potential for a transformative experience of time. Don’t be tied down to that stressful clock—embody the present.

Mindful Communication

The power of words isn’t lost on anyone – just think of the pleasure you feel when someone pays you a sincere compliment, or the discomfort of realizing you’ve spilled a secret you’d promised to keep.  Words and the energy they carry make or break friendships and careers; they define us as individuals and even as cultures.  We know this, and yet we often let our words flow out more or less unmediated, like random pebbles tossed into a lake.  Sometimes, it’s only when the ripples spread and cause waves, and the waves rush back and splash us, that we stop to think about the way we speak.

The sages of yoga obviously understood the human tendency to run off at the mouth, because many texts of the inner life, from the Upanishads and the Yoga Vasistha to the Bhagavad Gita, counsel us to use words carefully.  The Buddha made right speech one of the pillars of his Noble Eightfold Path. On the simplest level, these sages point out that unnecessary speaking wastes energy that could be devoted to self-inquiry and transformative action.  More important though, is the power that words have to change the communal atmosphere, to cause joy or pain, and to create a climate that fosters truth or falsity, kindness or cruelty.

Finally, the last teaching entitled mindfulness completes the book of ‘The Three Teachings’ by Tenzin Palmo.
In this topic, she uses simple examples of drinking coffee and eating tiramisu in explaining the meaning of mindfulness. So enjoy your last teaching by reading it mindfully.

Three Teachings-Mindfulness ( downloadable pdf )

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To all my readers, please do some karma yoga with just a click on your mouse by casting a vote on an Australian website called Sunsuper Dreams for LASSIE, the Langkawi based animal charity which I have been supporting for more than 5 years now. They are in the running to win AUD 5000 for the most votes  in the month of February. Please click on LASSIE ON SUNSUPERDREAMS to vote. It will also be kind of you if you can spread the news to your family and friends. Please help us fulfill LASSIE’s dream to save the stray cats and dogs of our lovely Langkawi island.

You can follow LASSIE on Facebook and Twitter.

Here’s a cute video on youtube by LASSIE.

We were recently featured in The New Korean Lonely Planet Magazine. So yes I cannot comprehend the writings in the feature but I know that Langkawi Yoga will be known in Korea as one of Malaysia’s Hot & Top, and that is good news. The pictures were taken by their own professional camera woman when I was having a class by the beach.

I hope all of you enjoyed reading the first teaching entitled Retreat. As promised, this is the second teaching from Tenzin Palmo which she called  Mahamudra. In Mahamudra, she highlights the difference between love without attachment and attachment itself which alot of us consider is part of love. So enjoy Mahamudra.

Three Teachings – Mahamudra ( downloadable pdf )

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Karma has been a very commonly used word these days with the familiarity of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ karma. Karma takes the meaning of an ‘act’ or ‘deed’ which is not only limited to physical actions but also encompasses mental actions. It is governed by the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction. Simply put, if something good is done, you will be ‘rewarded’ and if something bad is done, you will be ‘penalized’. It has weight when done consciously, despite of whether it was intended or not ( some say that animals and children are not bounded by karma as they do not have the consciousness as to what is right or wrong ) . Therefore, I would like to emphasise that karma and fate are entirely unrelated as karma entirely results from one’s actions, whereas fate refers to forces outside your control or unavoidable.

Karma refers to the totality of our actions and reactions, not only in this lifetime but also previous and all of this determine our future ( near or next life ). With that, we should note that there are four ways that karma can be produced:

a)      through thoughts

b)      through words

c)      through our own actions

d)      through actions performed by others under our instructions

We should then keep in mind that not all karmas rebound immediately. Let me introduce to you the three types of karma known traditionally in the Hindu religion.

SANCHITA KARMA

-         currently fructifying

-         collected karma from one’s past lifetimes but has not been fully effected

-         it is being experienced now but the stock of sanchita lasts a few lifetimes

AGAMI KARMA

-         growing and developing

-         actions created during your current life which will be added to your ‘sanchita karma’, be it positive or negative

-         for example, you can do good and add on to your stock of good karma to negate the bad karma in the next lifetime

KRIYAMANA KARMA

-         instant karma

-         it is actions created in this lifetime and worked off immediately in this lifetime too

-         for example, when you hit the red light and you get a ticket from the police

In a nutshell, to experience good karma and a better life ahead, we should be mindful of our actions towards others at all times.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you – Matthew 7:12
and
How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.  ~Wayne Dyer

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Few years ago, a friend of mine lent me a book entitled Three Teachings. It consists of three talks delivered by Tenzin Palmo in Singapore in the year of 1999. Born in London in 1943, she was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1964. Her talks were aimed at an ordinary audience of people with families,professions and normal social obligations.  Therefore, in order to make Dharma appeal to these people without expecting them to leave their social responsibilities, Tenzin Palmo retracts the ‘over-emphasism’ of sitting meditation as the sole means to enlightenment. Instead, she points out that when one lives his or her everyday lives with awareness and open heartedness, that is the very basis of a Dharma practice. Tenzin not only delivers her teachings in plain language and with compassion, but makes it lively with humour.

In this month’s blog post, I have attached a downloadable pdf file of her first teaching entitled “Three Teachings- Retreat“. The second and third teachings will be uploaded in the February and March blog posts. Enjoy:)