One-Year-Old Baby

This blog is a one-year-old baby! It's been alive since exactly one year ago and I gave it life!

What should a birthday celebration constitute? The typical kind of birthday filled with cakes, presents, friends, family, fun and joy stops just there. But the true meaning of a birthday is very much undermined. One's birthday is the day when one gets a new lease of life, an opportunity to atone sins committed in the past lifetimes, a chance to cultivate oneself and follow Buddha's teachings so as to attain nirvana.

Thus, the most important part of a birthday is not the celebration or presents that is bundled with it. Rather, it is the thankful and grateful mindset which one should constantly bear. A simple thank you to our parents who brought us to this world is necessary. Our reincarnation can take the form of an animal, human being, etc depending on the karma we have accumulated and we should be grateful to our parents as they decide that our opportunity to reincarnate as a human can be realised. Only via being a human, can we learn the truths which Buddhism has been advocating and reduce bad karma, can we then leave the vicious cycle of reincarnation and proceed to nirvana where we all long for.

Birthdays are a time to think about and appreciate life. We must be grateful that years ago, our parents chose to keep us, chose to raise us up, chose to keep us under their wing with warm and care. Yet each birthday, are we in the right position to ask for a party? Are we not making things difficult for our parents when we ask for extravagant presents? Instead of showing appreciation for all the effort put in by our parents, going overboard and asking for more doesn't seem to be the correct thing to do.

This is probably the most insighful train of thoughts I can come up with for a birthday theme. And The Guai Gia World thanks all its readers for being here to witness it turn one.