2 dramatic happenings....

1. Veteran opposition politician, Mr J.B. Jeyaretam, died of heart failure early on Tuesday morning. He was 82.

2. dow jone faced the biggest drop of 777.68 points overnight in wall street! latest update on local sgp market

STI: 2250.49 (-110.85) KLCI: 1002.15 (-17.57) * HSI: 16898.33 (-982.35) DJIA: 10365.45 (-777.68) NASDAQ: 1983.73 (-199.61) S&P 500: 1106.39 (-106.62)

10:28 Reuters TOPWRAP 1-U.S. bailout failure sends markets reeling
10:27 AFX FXNEWS-Asia FX down on U.S. bailout rejection
10:27 Reuters Siam United Services :Report to Share Repurchases for Financial Management Purpose
10:26 AFX Hong Kong shares plunge on Wall St selloff, fear of global recession

HDB - subsidized or speculative?

Priciest flats go on sale
FOR sale: the most expensive flats ever released by the HDB.

They are the remaining 111 five-room units at the iconic 50-storey Pinnacle@Duxton in Tanjong Pagar, which is due to be completed this year.

Prices start at $545,000 and go up to an eye-popping $645,800 for a 49th storey unit, making them Singapore's costliest new flats by a long shot. Forty-four cost more than $600,000.
Sep 27, 2008 Saturday
Updated 2.01 pm

the gov are supposed to provide "affordable" HDB flats. just look at the ridiculous prices. are HDB flats really being subsidised at such exorbitant prices? or it is the intention to speculate such value to spiralling high prices?

where does that leave us with our CPFs for retirement??

the meaning of OM MANI PADME HOM

OM MANI PADME HOM


Explanation of this mantra



It is very good to recite the mantra Om mani padme hum, but while you are doing it, you should be thinking on its meaning, for the meaning of the six syllables is great and vast. The first, Om is composed of three letters, A, U, and M. These symbolize the practitioner's impure body, speech, and mind; they also symbolize the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha.
Can impure body, speech, and mind be transformed into pure body, speech, and mind, or are they entirely separate? All Buddhas are cases of beings who were like ourselves and then in dependence on the path became enlightened; Buddhism does not assert that there is anyone who from the beginning is free from faults and possesses all good qualities. The development of pure body, speech, and mind comes from gradually leaving the impure states arid their being transformed into the pure.

How is this done? The path is indicated by the next four syllables. Mani, meaning jewel, symbolizes the factors of method-the altruistic intention to become enlightened, compassion, and love. Just as a jewel is capable of removing poverty, so the altruistic mind of enlightenment is capable of removing the poverty, or difficulties, of cyclic existence and of solitary peace. Similarly, just as a jewel fulfills the wishes of sentient beings, so the altruistic intention to become enlightened fulfills the wishes of sentient beings.

The two syllables, padme, meaning lotus, symbolize wisdom. Just as a lotus grows forth from mud but is not sullied by the faults of mud, so wisdom is capable of putting you in a situation of non-contradiction whereas there would be contradiction if you did not have wisdom. There is wisdom realizing impermanence, wisdom realizing that persons are empty, of being self-sufficient or substantially existent, wisdom that realizes the emptiness of duality-that is to say, of difference of entity between subject an object-and wisdom that realizes the emptiness of inherent existence. Though there are many different types of wisdom, the main of all these is the wisdom realizing emptiness.

Purity must be achieved by an indivisible unity of method and wisdom, symbolized by the final syllable hum, which indicates indivisibility. According to the sutra system, this indivisibility of method and wisdom refers to wisdom affected by method and method affected by wisdom. In the mantra, or tantric, vehicle, it refers to one consciousness in which there is the full form of both wisdom and method as one undifferentiable entity. In terms of the seed syllables of the five Conqueror Buddhas, hum is the seed syllable of Akshobhya - the immovable, the unfluctuating, that which cannot be disturbed by anything.


Thus the six syllables, om mani padme hum, mean that in dependence on the practice of a path which is an indivisible union of method and wisdom, you can transform your impure body, speech, and mind into the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha. It is said that you should not seek for Buddhahood outside of yourself; the substances for the achievement of Buddhahood are within. As Maitreya says in his Sublime Continuum of the Great Vehicle (Uttaratantra), all beings naturally have the Buddha nature in their own continuum. We have within us the seed of purity, the essence of a One Gone Thus (Tathagatagarbha), that is to be transformed and fully developed into Buddhahood.

(From a lecture given by His Holiness The Dalai Lama of Tibet at the Kalmuck Mongolian Buddhist Center, New Jersey.)


Om Mani Padme Hom

million$ ministars LIKE mrbrown's bak chor mee!

satirically damn expensively funny!! ;9)