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Dear Friends,   All the creatures cum beings @ CAS of and belonging to Thousand-Arm Chenrezig are very grateful to so many of you out there emailing us all these weeks, your appreciation and support of our past programmes, particularly, the last one we had with the great Realized Being, Paltrul Rinpoche --    We feel really so undeserving of so much of your compliments......   It is the commitment of the beings @ CAS to be of highest possible good to all and even though we are pretending to be "pai-say" [ suggested translation: "bashful" ( ??!!) ] here, we are in fact truly crying out for all your help, physically or spiritually or otherwise, that we will all be able to work with our purest heart for good of all mother sentient beings and Lord Buddha's holy, noble Teachings --   Of course, any organization that works for the good of others is definitely deserving of our support -- financially, prayerfully or others !! -- and it is hence, CASonline's consistent practice to assist to forward to all any programmes that request to be posted on CASonline to all our friends --   With every prayer to be of continued service to all with purest Hearts,   bb & other @ CAS of and belonging to Thousand-Arm Chenrezig   p/s: Looking forward to seeing all at Gangteng Rinpoche's programme in late April '06 !!    ___________________________________________________________________________________________   One news before the announcements from our friends --     Buddhism comes to Bible Belt By KAY CAMPBELL, The Huntsville Times, March 17, 2006 Practitioners look for an inner peace, discipline, harmony with world Hunstville, Alabama (USA) -- For Glen Adams, it was a movie. For Jeff Simson, it was a with-it teacher at his high school. And for Jim Gordon, it was a time of crisis in his marriage 17 years ago that propelled him into the self-help and spirituality sections of the bookstore to save the marriage and his own peace of mind. But once they'd stumbled across Buddhism, all three men were surprised to find a personal resonance with ancient traditions of meditation and philosophy. Being Buddhist in America takes a certain amount of philosophical adventurousness - or desperation, Gordon says. "You're not going to have a Buddhist coming to the door to proselytize," Gordon said Saturday as he discussed Buddhism in the garden zendo, a meditation room, behind his home on Green Mountain. "People who come to Zen in the United States usually come through tortuous paths," he said. "They generally come through, if not crisis, a lot of introspection just because it is so foreign, so removed from mainstream society." But Buddhism is becoming less foreign than it's ever been in the United States, even in the heart of the Bible Belt. Sponsored by Buddhists in Florence and Huntsville, Gen Kelsang Mondrub, a Buddhist monk based in Atlanta, will speak locally this weekend. Mondrub comes because of requests, not because Buddhists have discovered an evangelical impulse, says Caroline Lopez, a leader in the Buddhist community in Florence. "We are not trying to convert anyone into becoming a Buddhist," Lopez wrote in an e-mail about the Mondrub visit. "We are offering a path or opportunity for people who are interested to learn practical methods on how to develop lasting inner peace." Adams, a deacon at First Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, incorporates Buddhist ideas and practices into his life as a Christian. Adams began reading more about Buddhism a few years ago after seeing the movie, "Seven Years in Tibet," based on the true story of a British pilot after World War II. Adams helped sponsor the Interfaith Mission Service's Interfaith Dialogue series at the church for members to learn more about other religions. And his Sunday School group also did more studies on Buddhism. "I don't see Buddhism as a threat to Christianity or that it undercuts Jesus' divinity," Adams said last week. "Buddhism emphasizes living fully in the moment. You can find the same sort of thing in the New Testament." Adams said the daily practice of meditation, of attempting to keep his mind quiet and ready but emptied of his own thoughts for a while, has brought him tranquility and better mental discipline. Buddhism, in fact, is not a religion, but a recognition of the interconnectedness of all life. "The closest Buddhists get to a concept of God is something like Jung's cosmic consciousness, that we're all one," Gordon said. "There are no prayers to anyone, no deity, no creator," said Simson, a Huntsville man who studied to be a Buddhist monk for several years and now works at an area veterinary office. Simson said that during the '70s, only a few years after he first learned about Buddhism from a high school teacher, he was perhaps the only Buddhist at Auburn University. He said he experienced outright disdain for his beliefs then, but that now people seem to be more accepting of them, particularly in the relatively cosmopolitan atmosphere of Huntsville. "Thank God for (Wernher) von Braun and the Germans!" Simson said. "Huntsville is more accepting of other people's ideas than other parts of Alabama." Buddhism is so different from a god-centered religion that it's hard to explain, he said. "Buddhism's driving force is to be here now and to contemplate life to be the best person possible," Simson said. Gordon found in Buddhism a practical morality that seemed kinder than the judgmental fundamentalism of his mother. He found a reverence toward the mystery of life that seemed more complete than the atheism of his father but without conflicting with the science he studies and uses as a physicist. And the mental discipline of meditation helps him calm an active mind. The bells, incense, mantras and postures used during meditation are simply ways to help each person find the Buddha, the awakened one, within, Gordon said. The bows to a little statue of Buddha or to the other members of the sangha, gathering, are to show humility before those elements in each person, not to worship each other or idols. Often, Gordon said, people who come to Buddhism after rejecting the faiths of their childhood, find in Buddhism a peace with those faiths. Buddhism teaches followers not to value attachments to possessions or people or even ideas, and to be respectful of every path people take. "A lot come to Zen though Christian or Jewish traditions and therefore have rejected everything," Gordon said. "But the longer they sit (meditate), the more accepting they get. The goal is to live in harmony with other people - and dogs and cats and mosquitos - all those things that grow."   ____________________________________________________________________________________________   Reilly Zagreus Phanes  wrote: I watched this film in the cinema and was really touched by it. Now, it's available on Youtube. Please watch it and spread the word about the plight of Tibet, a nation of loving and peaceful people under unjust Chinese oppression.   Free Tibet!   peace love and sunshine Ry   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M92HetGpkUM&search=tibet ___________________________________________________________________________________________   Webcaste of video and audio - His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Monlam teachings ----------------------------------------------------------------------- www.dalailama.coom His Holiness'sannual Monlam teaching on Shantideva?¡¥s Compendium of Precepts (Laptu) and A Guide to the Boddhisattva?¡¥s Way of Life (Chod-jug)  started yesterday 15 March and will end on 29 March 2006 at the Main Temple, Mcleod Ganj, Dharamsala HP India   Date : 15-Mar-2006 His Holiness the Dalai Lama began his Spring teachings today, embarking on a reading of two works by the great Indian scholar and adept Shantideva, Guide to the Bodhisattva?¡¥s Way of Life (Bodhisattvacharyavatara) and Compendium of Trainings (Shiksha Samucchaya). The two texts complement each other well, the Guide being Shantideva?¡¥s own composition and the Compendium being an assembly of sources for the Bodhisattva?¡¥s training in the scriptures. His Holiness began with the Compendium explaining the importance of generating a good motiva tion, pointing out that human beings?intelligence allows for the real possibility of change. Turning to the Guide, he began to explain the benefits of the awakening mind, the altruistic aspiration to enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.   Click at the link for both Tibetan, English and Chinese. http://www.dalailama.com/page.128.htm   _________________________________________________________________________________________   Dear Boon Beng, Hi! Its been a long time. Would like to check with you whether it would be convenient for you to help me mass mail the information of the Yoga Fasting Retreat that I have just sent  to you to your CASonline group? Please advise your opinion whether it is fine for you. Warmest Regards, Pua, Luck Kheng Benjamin Centre Manager Tender Loving Care (TLC) Student Care Centre Branches: Blk 621 Ang Mo Kio Ave 9 #01-68 S(560621) Blk 684A Choa Chu Kang Crescent #01-308 S(681684) Tel: 6454 6686 / 6310 6410 Fax: 6454 6696 / 6219 0068 Website: www.kmspks.org ________________________________________________________________________________________      Helping out at Vesak   Dear All,   Calling for kind-hearted helpers to help Awareness Place out at Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery for Vesak 2006.      Below are our slots for Vesak celebration (you will notice I will have to be conscious for more than 72 hours, so take pity on us)...   Thursday, 11 May 2006 2.30pm - 7.30pm 6.30pm - 11pm 10.30pm - 3am (12 May 2006)   Friday, 12 May 2006 2.30am - 7am 6.30am - 11am 10.30am - 3pm 2.30pm-7.30pm    Volunteers will be helping us to man booths to sell Buddhist items and at an exhibition we are doing on Buddhist art.   Let me know if you can help (give me your contact number too) so I can quickly confirm our manpower schedule - any and all help will be much appreciated. Many thanks. Warmest Regards, CHERYL YONG AWARENESS ENTERPRISE PTE LTD 88 Bright Hill Road Singapore 574117 TEL: 68495349 FAX: 65531961 E-MAIL: cheryl@awarenessplace.com www.awarenessplace.com ___________________________________________________________________________________   "Jie Yuan" for the deceased   Dear Mr. Tan,   There are ?¡ãJie yuan?¡À services organized by Chinese chanting groups at wakes for the deceases. I wonder puja could be performed in Pali at wake in HDB?¡¥s void decks? I would like to suggest that you might start by collating e-mail addresses who are interested to participant by doing a survey in CASonline. When there is a need to perform the service, you just do group e-mails the place, time and date of the puja to the participants.  The family of decease could arrange transport at the Yeo?¡¥s building. It is meritorious to plant positive seeds now, in order to geminate in the future.   Regards, Yong   Yong may be contacted at: EKLYONG@ntu.edu.sg   ___________________________________________________________________________________________     From two Friends:   Our Samsaric Existence... Again and again, we go thru this cycle                    This Life: Only a Bridge "This world is only a bridge; you may pass over it, but you should not think to build a dwelling place upon it."