Recent thoughts

As I've posted in FB earlier today, or yesterday :
'Recently things got heated up especially towards boycotting the products originated from Israel. They do know that accumulation of little efforts brings an effect to the whole picture. I hope we all as Malaysian can apply such thinking into other issues as well. (Recycling, reduce waste and resources consumption etc.)'

Its time for everyone to understand, each of us wield the power to change, or to do something that will contribute to the world, in a scale that we never in our wildest imagination would ever thought of. IF, we are dedicated and passionate towards the cause of it.

'A great human revolution in the life of one person can change the destiny of humankind and our planet. It is Buddhism, the Lotus Sutra, that encourages and enables people to become aware of their great power, to draw it forth and use it. Buddhism gives people the means to develop themselves thoroughly and opens their eyes to the limitless power inherent in their lives.' - Daisaku Ikeda

Anyway, this is after the talk I've attended that discussed about the current topic of Palestinians in Gaza. I love the speaker a lot, the whole talk was not as extreme, bias, or fueled with hatred, as I've suspected earlier. Based on the social media (which I'm fully aware it is not really reliable), the Israelis are damned, scolded, cursed and all the other words you can think of, but for me, aren't they humans too? Of course, it is evident that Israeli's military forces are using lethal armaments against unarmed citizens, but war are not one sided, the citizens of both sides must be suffering as well.

The speaker yesterday sparked our compassionate heart into feeling the suffering of others as ours, instead of scolding and raging the whole talk into some emotional, motivational speech, she instead, analyzed and explained the whole issue calmly and systematically, including histories and facts. In fact, she has been there in Gaza 2 years back and is going back there this Thursday! An active activist I would say in giving humanitarian aid. So I believe what she said must be of the truth, at least it is much more reliable than social media whereby their details and info can be twisted to feed certain side's needs.

For now, I'm following her plead to boycott, although it is near impossible to boycott all Israeli's product, as Malaysia is not a self-sustainable country, but products like Nestle, Mcd, Maggi, Loreal could all be substituted with other brands, which, I think I have to do a little bit more readings on what are the available brands in Malaysia for chocolate drink. Sigh. lol

Anyway.. Its an issue worth concerning, although I'm not a Muslim, but this is more than religion or culture, this is an invasion towards the basic rights of human to live! It has already oppose the principals in Buddhism where we must treat all beings, regardless of sentient or insentient with utmost respect, what more human life!

And suddenly, there are a lot of other problems that jumped into my mind, national issues, corruption, pollution, politics, environmental issues... ahhh... This all seems to be overwhelmingly complex that most of us choose to be numbed by them and carry on with our daily routine.

 This, however, should NOT be the case.