Firstly, wishing all readers a smooth sailing 2019 ahead!

The little ambitious me was trying to run a few things over the year but the scattered attention plus largely distraction caused many delays. Major changes are happening and though looking forward and focusing on my main goal to be materialized in the coming years, some of these writing (and reading) project will tag along. They are part of me.

Whatever that I had experienced for the past year helped me to realize the meaning of what is being a ‘full timer’. But writing my passions is really not my ‘full time job’. I do not earn from my writings but who knows one day I may?

Yesterday, after years of little hiccups and delays, I finally did a proper (still considered as mini) celebration. I marked the 8th day of the 12th month in our Chinese lunar calendar as our Varadashrine’s Guardian Gratitude Day.

The first post that appeared on this blog was in Dec 2015. However, the starting of Varadashrine was not just a blog thing. It is actually an aspiration that I can share my take on Mahayana and also to be able to provide prayer services if situations call for it. And that meant that my shrine is consecrated and a spiritual petition done proper to express this little aspiration. The dharma friend that conducted the ritual then adviced that I have to commemorate and celebrate the Dharmapala’s “birthday”. Chinese Mahayana has typically thrown in dates for sacred beings in the Mahayana pantheon, if not, tapping on existing ones in Chinese belief.

The Dharmapala that I was drawn close since young age is Acalanatha Vidyaraja and it happens that neither the Chinese Mahayana nor Chinese belief itself had attributed any date to Him. So I picked yesterday’s date for a personal reason and that it is also the commemoration of the Buddha’s Enlightenment in Chinese Mahayana. And since it is not exactly His birthday, I have it as a day to represent the expression of gratitude instead. Which is how Guardian Gratitude Day comes about.

I do not actually accept the generic new age or spiritual stand that “everyone is born with a guardian or two”. I think different belief systems and traditions will have very different say about how one’s guardian come about and likely will not be able to come to an objective conclusion.

What impresses me about Acala among many thing is the trait on Immovable stands out so much that the Japanese martial artists take it as one of their philosophical practices. There can be any understanding in how to interpret “Immovable’ and for now I leave readers to ponder about and how this trait can aid us in our life journey.

Ser Ming