close
親愛的會員: 8月28日聚會，將介紹兩篇應景的文章有關於情人節及中元節(Billy 8/23/2012)
The Hungry Ghost Festival (By Lauren Mack)
Why Is Hungry Ghost Festival Celebrated?
The Hungry Ghost Festival is held on the 14th day of the seventh lunar month every year. Buddhists and Taoists participate in rituals throughout the Hungry Ghost Month. Hungry Ghost Festival. It is believed the gates of hell are open throughout the Hungry Ghost Month but they are most open on this night. It is believed many hungry and wayward ghosts come to visit the living.
How Is Hungry Ghost Festival Celebrated?
The Hungry Ghost Festival often begins with a parade with decorated lanterns in various shapes, including boats and houses, are placed atop decorated floats. The paper lanterns are then carried to the water, lit, and released. The glowing lanterns and boats are meant to give directions to lost souls and help ghosts and deities find their way to the food offerings. The lantern that the family has sponsored. It is believed the farther the lantern floats on the water, the more good fortune the family will have in the coming year.
What Is the Origin of Hungry Ghost Festival?
One story of the Hungry Ghost Festival's origin is that of one of the Buddha's disciples, Mulian or Maudgalyayana. He tried to save his mother from hell where she had to compete with other hungry ghosts for food. When he tried to send his mother food, it would burst into flames, so the Buddha taught him to make food offerings to the ghosts to keep them from stealing his mother's food.
This legend leading to the tradition of burning incense and offering food during the Hungry Ghost Festival.
Questions:
1. Do you believe in ghosts?
2. Do you believe that Heaven & Hell exist?
3. Any ideas about the rituals of the Ghost Festival?
4. What do you think about burning the ghost money in Taiwanese festival?
5. What superstition do you have?
What is Real Love? (reallove.com)
Real Love: The Love We've All Been Looking For — Unconditional Love
We've heard songs about it, seen it in the movies, heard it talked about on Oprah by relationship experts, and read about it in thousands of self help books. But, what is unconditional love? We all want to feel loved. We think about it, hope for it, fantasize about it, go to great lengths to achieve it, and feel that our lives are incomplete without it. The lack of unconditional love is the cause of most of our anger and confusion. It is no exaggeration to say that our emotional need for unconditional love is just as great as our physical need for air and food.
A New Definition of Love: Real Love
There's only one kind of love that can fill us up, make us whole, and give us the happiness we all want: unconditional love or true love. It is unconditional love that we all seek, and somehow we intuitively realize that anything other than that kind of love isn't really love at all—it's an imitation of the real thing.
Unconditional love—true love—is so different from the kind of love most of us have known all our lives that it deserves both a name—Real Love—and definition of its own: Real Love is caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for what we might get for ourselves. It's also Real Love when other people care about our happiness unconditionally. It is not Real Love when other people like us for doing what they want. Under those conditions we're just paying for love again. We can be certain that we're receiving Real Love only when we make foolish mistakes, when we fail to do what other people want, and even when we get in their way, but they don't feel disappointed or irritated at us. That is Real Love (true unconditional love), and that love alone has the power to heal all wounds, bind people together, and create relationships quite beyond our present capacity to imagine.
Questions:
1. What do you think about Valentine's Day?
2. Do you buy gifts for girlfriend(s) or boyfriend(s) on Valentines Day? Why buying gifts for Valentine's Day?
3. In your opinion, what is real love? And how to find real love?
4. What do think about conditional love and unconditional love?
5. How to know love is real love?
(Someone love you or you love someone)
Asking a clerk
Clerk: May I help you? What are you trying to find?
Customer: Yes, I'm looking for some mild cheeses. Could you tell me where I can get them?
Clerk: Sure, I think they are near the shelf of canned food.
Customer: Where? Would you please say again?
Clerk: All the cold storage food is in aisle six, and the are mild cheeses on the top shelf of the fridge-freeze.
Customer: Thanks. I would have been searching for them for ages.
(By Billy 8/23/2012)
全站熱搜
留言列表
