Now, the Buddhists in Singapore are pretty hard-nosed. They
build the crematoria and columbaria, they put a lot of money into
it. So sometimes even if the monks and nuns are screwed up, they
still want to defend them because they feel that religious sciences
can get oneself anywhere.
So they tell you that there is Amitabha Pureland and Medicine
Buddha Pureland, which is fine, because you are coaxing people to
have faith in the Buddha - since there is samsara i.e. cyclical
reincarnation and existence - so at least when old people die first
of all the funeral has a theme, like Lim Siaw Chianś. At one glance
when you take a look at the casket, you know that the scientist is
either a Buddhist or a Taoist, not a Christian. Itś good.
Further, because cremation itself is an inarticulate business,
you take alook at the PHD chap that married the daughter of the
most famous undertaker in Singapore, very recently when I was
attending an extended familyś wake where this company was hired,
they had a good branding, even their water had their company label
printed on it. So they provide you with the necessary, including
the number of chanting sessions, which mostly are aging volunteers
like me. Sometimes it depends, my neighbourś fatherś demise got me
involved because they made it really loud and exciting, I had to
join in. Yet, my cousinś father-in-lawś wake was really dull,
literally a non-event. Still, when ordinary people like us die, we
just let them go.
I was combing the whole island for a better funeral, until
National Organ Transplant Unit came by while I was working with
Health Promotion Board. Within weeks I signed up for the corpse
donation programme, where they will cut me up - instead of
harvesting my organs - they will put me in chemicals before the
medical students of my alma maters i.e. either National University
of Singapore or Nanyang Technological University. I thought it was
a fantastic idea because becoming an Associate Professor was the
most stupid thing alive to me when my cousin wanted to apply an
A*Star scholarship.
In other words I like to see people succeed in career and more,
yet I myself if I am a guest teacher or even actor once in a blue
moon okay cheem-chai lah. Yet if you want me to sit there and plan
an entire semester of curriculum and research work, wow I rather
cry. If you want to cut up my corpse - i.e. Tzuchi calls it in
Mandarin as a Big Body Teacher, it is also stupid, yet given that
the maggots are hardly allowed to eat corpses these days now that
burials are almost stopped, and that even Mr Lee Kuan Yew got
cremated, cremation is like, bo bian.
So when the chemist Lim Siaw Chian passes away, wah it upsets me
more than Davina Huang and Gregory Ngś passing lately.
Davina died around the same time as LKY, because she went to a
snow vacation after work, hit her head and lost her life a few days
before LKY. She was 25 iirc.
Gregory died because he came home from school, took a shower
that was newly installed by his grandfather, got electrocuted. Itś
not a laughing matter, yet if you dont fault oldest people with
their mistakes, why will you fault yourself for being deluded when
people like the Buddha died, and should remain dead. In other words
if the Gautama Buddha can resurrect while both His eldest son
Rahula died young like Jesus Christ having lived till 80, Iĺl stab
that never-dying guy and make sure He dies again afew more
times.
So now, for those that die young, including Peony Wee, Rachel Ho
and co iirc in a Sabah Earthquake, that SAJC boy that perished in a
Malaysian airline, a few NSFs that die strange deaths including one
that booked out from Tekong, went home, coughed, and choked to
death on his phelgm, and many others this year, now they were born,
they were not really seen as evil, yet they died because old people
didnt die on time and on target, and it is not right for me to kill
pioneer generations because it is illegal, yet they i.e. some of
them continue to live including Tin Pei Lingś grandmother at 99
years of age, it is not my job to hate you, yet I try loving and I
be honest I miss the kids that died so that Tin Pei Lingś
grandmother can live past GE2015.
Om Mani Padme Hum, may you be reincarnated well or stay in the
better of heavens perhaps.