Wesak Day 2010

A happy Wesak to all of you and may the tripple gem with you always!

Wesak is the day every Buddhist makes a special effort to bring happiness to the unfortunate. We celebrated our Wesak by raising fund for our welfare activities for the whole year. Almost 90% of our welfare fund was raised during these two days.

The lady members (Sis. Sally, Mrs. Kow, Sis. Connie, Sis. Dora, Mrs Tang, Sis. Thum, Sis Chan, Sis Beatrice, Sis. Mae, Sis Suan See, Mrs. Tan, Sis. Janifer etc appologies for missing some of the names! ) sacrificed two days of hardwork before Wesak Day making hundred over vegetarian dumplings, cutting "tauki" and making sambal for the vegetarian nasi lemak. They also sacrificed their sleep on Wesak Day to prepare the food for sales. A big sadhu to all of them!

This year we have several specialties for our food stall : nasi lemak special by Sis. Sally Teh, vegetarian dumpling special by Mrs. Kow, ais kacang special by Bro. Richard, nyonya vegetarian dumpling etc. All of them sold like hotcakes and almost everything was sold out before 5:00pm on the Wesak Day.

Let's have a good look at some of the photos at our foodstall taken by Bro. Soon Kok:

Busy serving customers. A big sadhu to all the volunteers at the foodstall!

What better way to support a good cause than to tuck into a mouth-watering dish knowing that your hearty meal will go a long way towards helping those in need.

Most of them didn't sleep on the previous night and were very tired.
However, they were happy because they sacrificed their sleep for a good cause.

The British chef and television personality Gordon Ramsay who is best known for his acid tongue and television show Hell’s Kitchen was in Buddhist Maha Vihara on the Wesak eve to prepare a special vegetarian dish at the temple’s kitchen for the Prime Minister's visit. Our Welfare Chef, Sis Sally Teh took photo with him at the kitchen.

The former location of our exhibition counter was occupied by the structure for the thorana (Wesak Pandal).

The thorana (Wesak Pandal) depicting the life of Buddha

Our exhibition stall was relocated to the exit point of the Vihara. As a result of this, our collection had been reduced almost by half comparing to last year.

Filling up 45,000 bottles with water for Wesak Distribution

The activity to fill up bottles with water for Wesak distribution is an annual activity organised by Welfare Section that many friends and members look forward to participating. Because it's the annual bonding time for buddhist fellowship for a common cause - performing veyyavaca**, to renew friendship, sharing dhamma, for reunion of hearts and enjoy each other's company.

This year, we commenced the production on 9 May and finished filling up 45,000 bottles with water on 16 May 2010.

Bro. KC Kong (a professional photographer), the first time volunteer who participated in this activity had chronicled it with his camera. Here are some of his masterpieces:

Washing bottles. First wash with chlorine, second wash with salt
and the final wash rinsed with clean water.

Filling up washed bottles with filtered water and capping.

Tying the bottles with 3 yellow strings each.

Packing

A group shot of volunteers remaining after the cleanup on the final night.

A big saddhu to all volunteers who took part in this veyyavaca activity to fill up 45,000 bottles with water in 7 days. A big saddhu to Bro. K C Kong for chronicling this activity with his professional photographs. This was the first time this activity had been chronicled in so detailed manner.

You can view more photos (total 17) from Bro. Kong's blog. Here is the link http://metta.kckongphoto.com.

* veyyavaca = rendering service to temple.