Finding Anchorage in a Volatile Sea

Today was the day for Venerable. Dr. H. Gunaratana to give a talk in the Armada Hotel, Petaling Jaya, on the topic of "Finding Anchorage in Volatile Sea: Developing Peace & Purpose in Life". The topic was a mouth full, yes i know, but the talk in overall was excellant. The Venerable was a soft-spoken energetic man aged 78 today. Despite his age, no one could've guessed he is this "young".

Well, we start our journey from Cyberjaya, PYY, KimShing & me. I already guessed that today was an auspicious day ahead of me as good omens can be seen so obviously lingering on top the sky above me. I realize it while PYY was driving and me sitting beside her. It's a rainbow on top of us, a giant one.



Here's a larger view coz i know the previous one like so miniature.


It doesn't look so great in the pictures actually, what's more after i rezise it to so small. Well, anyway, it's not like you've never seen a rainbow before. I'm just saying that it marks a good opening for the day ahead of us.

Well, this is the hotel the seminar was held. The Armada Hotel.



I would like to remind you of something, the title of the seminar to day is "Finding Anchorage in Volatile Sea". The venue of the seminar is The Armada Hotel, PJ. If you notice the logo for Armada Hotel is a ship. Is that purposedly or is it queer coincidence?

Now, this is the logo+posters+banner that we get to see on the internet. This is a real one, printed in larger-than-life size as the stage back-drop. Don't worry. The blur thingy at the right-hand corner is not a lost soul lingering in the hotel. It's just someone who happens to walk past there when i was taking the picture. So, don't go spread rumours about the place being haunted, okay?



Upon the registration of our arrival to the seminar, each & everyone of us were given a file, containing a name-tag+pencil+key-chain+papers+feed-back-from+receipt. Put together, they looked someting like this:


The first session of the talk was intriguing, but taken the fact that the location of our seats were slightly after the middle row, it's not the good spot for photography. Additionally, the shaky hands of mine prevent me from taking pictures without my tripod. So that's why i don't have any nice pictures to show you guys. Oh, one more thing, even if i have the opportunity, i would'nt have taken my ears away from the talk as it was really interesting.

This is the crazy bunch. Although we didn't came together from Cyberjaya, we are still representatives from MMU-DSG.



It was lunch time at around 11am plus. The food was marvellous, despite that the crowd was so huge there wasn't enough place to sit. But still, the committees are doing a fine job in trying to make everyone feel good at all times. Congrates ya guys!



After lunch, i got back to the hall to snap some pictures. This is the empty hall.


We manage to catch Mr Loo, the President of Nalanda Buddhist Society, to snap a picture with us.


And then we went into some crazy photo snapping spree.


Just outside the seminar hall, there's some free distribution and also some exhibition promoting hymmes. Finally, i-Gems got their album released. Consisting of 11 songs, it's indeed a nice album worth to collect.


During the 2nd part of the seminar, i passed my camera to BeeHui so that i can get more pictures. So here's Venerable Gunaratana & Dr Pang.


The talk goes on until 3pm, then we went for a tea-break. So we snap more pictures again. YAY...!!

From left -> PYY, Christine, Choi, U-KNOW-WHO, Nicky



After tea, we came back for more Q&A session. It's not like no one ask questions & the moderator will need to pop their heads to think of something to ask the Venerable. NO. Questions were pouring in non-stop. Though some questions are sort of silly, but still the Venerable answer all questions with remarkably wise statements.



Finally, i would really like to mention this at the end here so that i can get more focus talking about them. The Nalanda Choir. They are young, they are talented, they are the future. There's no doubt about it. They make me feel vibes in Buddhism among young people.


Actually there are more pictures but i couldn't post those up as it's either too dark or it's blurred, no-thanks to my shaky hands. I wanted to post a picture of my idol, Bro. Tan but i think putting a blurred picture of him is kinda insulting. All in all, the event was a success. Congratulations to Nalanda Buddhist Society again.

Sadhu to the Venerable Gunaratana for making it possible for all of us to learn from him. This is of course a rare chance and a blessed opportunity.

Now, here goes my weekend and it's going to be work again first thing tomorrow morning. Well, don't know how am i going to cope with this lifestyle in the future but anyway, that's for the future to think.

Sukhi hotu.

ChiM