HlaMin

Blog

  • Adeikhtan

    Adeikhtan is rendered as Determination. It is a commitment to do something as planned. One needs resolve.

    New Year Resolution is a form of Adeikhtan, but many do not seriously follow it.

    A time-bounded Adeikhtan is easier to fulfill. At some meditation retreats, one pledges to practice mindfulness for the period (e.g. one hour).

    According to the Buddhist Chronicles, the Bodhisatta (Buddha to be) made an Adeikhtan to meditate under the Bodhi Tree until he became Enlightened.

    Examples of Determination

    • Try a new task every day for a specified period
    • Learn a new language every year
    • [Hard] master four languages in a year by living and studying with native speakers
    • Visit a number of places (e.g. countries) within a specified period

  • Awareness and CERT

    U Khin Maung Zaw (EC76) commented on my post on “Disaster“.

    No matter if there is a somewhat connection with the ‘climate change‘ concept, the natural disasters, storms/earthquakes/tsunamis are getting as often and more powerful in the past several years. These has caused severe damaged to many lives, killed, injured, livelihood wiped out among others.

    In the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which covers these emergencies have discovered that they alone albeit budget crunch could not handle each and every aspect of the damages, They are now encouraging, and working with local authorities, city/county/state on many aspects of the disaster preparedness and recovery process and procedures.

    First, there is a FEMA App on all mobile platforms, where one can go through subscribing Alerts, Anticipate/Prepare for any disasters, Disaster Resources et al. In US, various regions have differing disaster, for example Washington State where I live, we have to be prepared for major earthquakes but not for Hurricanes etc. The local authorities have classes, training sessions, drills on where/how/what/who, the usual five ‘W’s on many possible disasters. My city, Kirkland has multiple levels of CERT, Community Emergency Response Team, classes, trainings, intensive training/classes for leadership levels, regular sync ups/meetings etc.

    They are also aware that not all local/state/federal could communicate well in the cases of disasters due to proliferation of different communication equipment and trying to alleviate the issue.

    One very interesting discovery they learned from the mega-disasters past couple of years is that the previous assumptions that they had for the preparedness were no longer adequate. The old assumption was that you need to have at least three day supply of food/water/first-aid – basic essentials. In the recent mega-disasters, they discovered that there are many instances no rescuers could get to you for more than a week or so, the new thinking/suggestion is that you need to have at least 2 weeks stock of live essentials. food/water/waste management/radios/batteries etc. There is also a movement where rather than you do it for yourself and/or your family, your neighborhood would pool resources in a commonly accessible area, like one’s spare space in a garage, you could store beds/cots/water tanks/medical supplies for multiple family etc. We live in a place where rain is given so tents/ponchos are a must. Dehydrated food, which could last 25+ years or so could be stored there.The city have all these info, with maps, co-ordinate with all authorities in the case a disaster,

    I could go on and on as I went through the very basic level of CERT, and am thinking of week long class/training.

    There is a consensus assessment that rescuers could not reached to many victims in major disaster where roads, telecommunication might be devastated. Seattle, Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond and many other cities in and around Puget Sound, Western Washington where life is way overdue for major earthquake.

  • Dukkha

    Background

    Dukkha is a Pali word.

    There are several forms of Dukkha :

    • Dukkha Dukkha
      “unsatisfactoriness” associated with Suffering / Misery
    • Sukha Dukkha
    • “unsatisfactoriness” associated with [Seemingly] Pleasant feelings
    • Uppekha Dukkha
      “unsatisfactoriness” associated with Equanimity

    Misunderstanding

    • Note that the Burmese term “Sin Ye Dhukkha” covers only Dukkha Dukkha.
    • Most translators render Dukkha as Suffering.
      This led many to believe that Buddhism teaches pessimism.
    • Some Sayadaws and Dhamma teachers point out that Buddha was neither an Optimist nor a Pessimist, but that he was a Realist.
    • In the Four Noble Truths, he described not only “Suffering” (or Unsatisfactorines), but its Cause and Remedy.
      Practicing the Eight-fold Path can lead to Liberation from Samsara (Rounds of Rebirth).

    Online Course

    • There is an on-line course which covers Dhammacakka and Anatta Lekkana Suttas.
    • It analyzes the two Suttas from several aspects (Psychology and Philosophy).

  • Dana

    Offering

    • Transcends religion
    • Cash & Kind
    • Services
    • Garawa to Sayas & Thet Kyees
    • Helping the needy

    Double Dana

    • Several Sayas donated the Garawa money to selected Charities & needy people
    • Saya U Ba Than donated to social, medical and religious organizations
      See “Double Dana by U Ba Than“
    • Saya Dr. Aung Gyi
      See “Double Dana by Dr. Aung Gyi“
    • Saya Dr. San Hla Aung
      See “Double Dana by Dr. San Hla Aung“

  • Generalist and Specialist

    A Generalist is a person
    who knows less and less
    about more and more
    until finally
    he knows nothing about everything.

    A Specialist is a person
    who knows more and more
    about less and less
    until finally
    he knows everything about nothing.

  • Kan So & Kan Kaung

    • Kan So means “Unlucky“.
    • Kan Kaung means “Lucky“.
    • One can be unlucky at times, but Good Luck might come your way unexpectedly.
    • A cousin brother was riding a bus back to Rangoon.
      He sat in the seat nearest the driver.
      One person demanded him to give up the seat.
      My cousin felt Kan So.
    • Sometime later, there was an accident.
      The truck in front was carrying logs (or similar).
      A log crashed the glass of the bus, and hit the “arrogant” passenger, who died.
      My cousin felt Kan Kaung.
    • U Than Lwin lost his beloved spouse due to a “hit-and-run” driver.
      She went out to buy some food.
      U Than Lwin felt Kan So.
    • Later, he studied Japanese at IFL (Institute of Foreign Languages) and received his Diploma.
      He was requested to help the “Ah Yoe Kauk Ah Phwe” from Japan.
      He helped several teams led by a Veteran Officer who was in Burma.
      One day, the leader asked how he and his team can repay his service as a kind and diligent translator.
      U Than Lwin asked, “Can you help some of my children study in Japan?”
      The answer was affirmative.
      The children returned from Japan and became successful entrepreneurs.
      U Than Lwin felt Kan Kaung.

  • Macro

    • A Macro is a text pattern with one or more arguments (or parameters).
    • Assembly Languages and Scripts support Macros.
    • We will illustrate Macros with some prayers.

    Example of a Macro

    Some people take the Three Refuges as follows.

    • I take refuge in the Buddha.
    • I take refuge in the Dhamma.
    • I take refuge in the Sangha.

    Macro Refuge

    Let us define a Macro called M with a parameter Y as follows:
    Refuge(Y) = “I take refuge in the ” + Y

    Then, the prayer can be written as
    Refuge(Buddha)
    Refuge(Dhamma)
    Refuge(Sangha)

    Macro Repeat

    Some repeat the Three Refuges three times.

    For the first time, I take refuge in the Buddha.
    …
    For the second time, I take refuge in the Buddha.
    …
    For the third time, I take refuge in the Buddha.
    …

    Let us define a Macro Repeat with a parameter X :

    Repeat(X) = “For the ” + X + ” time“

    Macro Pray

    Finally, define a Macro Pray with two parameters X and Y as follows :

    Pray(X, Y) = Repeat(X) + Refuge(Y)

    Then, Pray(second, Dhamma) yields “For the second time, I take refuge in the Dhamma.”

  • Mangala / Mingalar

    Mangala

    • Auspices
    • Blessings

    Mangala Sutta

    • First of the 11 suttas covered in “Paritta Pali (Protective Verses):”.
    • Discourse on Blessings
      38 Blessings
      Some are related to Loki (mundane)
      Some are related to Lokotra (supramundane)
    • Mingalar Kabyar
      Dagon U Tun Myint’s verses about the sutta
    • U Thu Kha’s book discusses the sutta using lay people’s terms

    Highest Blessings

    by Sayadaw U Silananda

    Excerpts from Paritta Pali (A Collection of Eleven Protective Suttas) and Protective Suttas (An English Translation with an Introduction)

    Not to associate with fools, to associate with the wise and to honor those who are worth of honor.

    To live in a suitable place, to have done meritorious deeds in the past, and to keep one’s mind and body in a proper way.

    To have much learning, to be skilled in crafts, to be well-trained in moral conduct and to have speech that is well-spoken.

    Caring for one’s mother and father, supporting one’s spouse and children and having work that causes no confusion.

    Giving, practice of what is good, support of one’s relatives and blameless actions.

    Abstention from evil in mind, abstention from evil in body and speech, abstention from intoxicants and non-negligence in meritorious acts.

    Respectfulness, humbleness, contentment, gratitude and listening to the Dhamma on suitable occasions.

    Practice that consumes evil states, a noble life, seeing the Noble Truths and realization of Nibbana.

    The mind of a person (an Arahant) who is confronted with worldly conditions does not flutter, is sorrowless, stainless and secure.

    Having fulfilled such things as these, beings are invincible everywhere and happiness everywhere. This is the highest blessing for them.

  • Member

    • A group’s health depends upon its members.
    • Active members help the group grow by posting interesting, informative and often nostalgic articles and photos, by providing facts and data in the comments, by sharing selected posts and last but not the least inviting their friends to join the group.
    • “To err is human”
      The accuracy of posts is enhanced by readers who report discrepancies, errors and omissions.

    Netiquette
    (Etiquette when using networks)

    • No spam and advertising
    • No link to irrelevant sites
    • No flames
      e.g. avoid calling names
    • Be courteous
      e.g. disagree diplomatically

  • Medical Education

    *** ဆေးပညာရေး Medical Education တချို့

    (ရှေး)

    မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ မှာ LMP / Licensed Medical Practitioner ဆေးကုသခွင့်လိုင်စင်သင်တန်း ဘဲရှိတယ်။

    MBBS, MD စတဲ့ သင်တန်းတွေကို နိုင်ငံခြားမှာ သွားသင် ရတယ်။

    ဦးကိုကိုအေး (ကွယ်လွန်) အဆိုအရ LMP ကျောင်း ဟာ Scott စျေး / ဗိုလ်ချုပ်စျေး နားမှာဖွင့် ခဲ့တယ်။ ဗုံးဒဏ်သင့် ပြီးပျက်သွားတယ်တဲ့။

    ဦးမောင်မောင် (LMP, ကွယ်လွန်၊ ဦးမောင်မောင်ကြည်ရဲ့အဖေ) ဟာ ဂျပန်ခေတ် ရန်ကုန်ဆေးရုံကြီးမှာ ဒေါက်တာဘသန်း ရဲ့ Staff ဆရာဝန်အဖြစ် တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်ခဲ့ပါတယ်။

    —-

    (နောင်)

    ရန်ကုန်မှာ MBBS သင်တန်းဖွင့်တယ်။

    LMP တွေ အတွက် MBBS (Condensed) သင်တန်းဖွင့်တယ်။

    ဗမက လှဟန် ဟာ LMP, MBBS ရ။ Commodore သန်းဖေ ကွယ်လွန် တဲ့ အခါ ကျန်းမာရေး နဲ့ ပညါရေး တာဝန်ခံ / ဝန်ကြီး ဖြစ်။

    —

    Prank

    လူတယောက် ဟာ LMP လို့ရေးထားတဲ့ သေတ္တာ (လေး) ကို ကိုင်တယ်။

    ဆရာဝန် လား လို့ မေးတော့ Licensed Master Plumber လိုင်စင်ရ ပိုက်ပြင်ဆရာပါ တဲ့။

    —-

    ** ဆက်နွယ်

    Medical Pioneers

    Faculty of Medicine

    IM (1)

    IM (2)

    Mandalay Institute of Medicine

    Burma Medical Association