Cheng Beng and 1Malaysia

Cheng Beng is when the Chinese visited the graves to sweep the tombs and offer prayers to their departed parents, grandparents and other relatives as an expression of fillial piety, respect and gratitude to their ancestors. As traditions dictates, offerings and prayers items are offered and burned for the departed needs in the other world.

Many of our ancestors and dead relatives were holders of the blue identity cards or the latest MyKads that determines their status as citizens of Malaysia. In the spirit of once a family always a family, it will be apt to keep the belief alive that the departed ones will always be remembered as part of the family, part of Malaysia...dulu kini dan selamanya.

On top of the Mercedes Benzes, gold ingots, trillions notes, bungalows, international passports, Jimmy Choos', Armanis', Ipods', shopping vouchers, mahjong sets and other types and shapes of paper offerings, maybe for this season of oneness, those going to the cemeteries can opt to bring one of the latest hype in the nation.

Do bring along a 1Malaysia logo as offerings to the departed ones. This is in the spirit on one nation and to tell the departed ones that they will always be remembered as Malaysians first, even though they may be residing in a different world now. Their sacrifices and deeds in bringing up other fellow Malaysians and patriotism for the country will always be remembered, disregard of their current place of domicile as long as they regard themselves as Malaysians first when they were still eligible voters in this country.

Don't be too worried if you can't find any 1Malaysia logo to be offered for your departed love ones, shops selling joss paper and other prayer's paraphernalias will be able to help you to create one. - Loka

Connectivity

Cheng Beng is an important occasion for family members to get together especially for grandchildren of the deceased grandparents.



This is the time of the year when family members who lived in different parts of the country meet up at the tombs of the departed parents or relatives for the traditional sweeping and cleaning of the graves (although nowadays these tasks has been taken over by paid workers especially in privately managed cemeteries) and prayers at the site.



With addition of the younger generations, visiting the graves of grandparents is an opportunity for the younger ones to meet up and learn to carry out the tasks during this important event for the Chinese.



Every kindergarten children can help out the preparation for Cheng Beng. One of the more easy and interesting task is the folding of joss papers in "gold and silver " nuggets. This origami style paperfolding job can be performed by those kids and they do love it, albeit in the initial stage. But when the "nuggets" that are required to be folded runs into the thousands, these kids will cleverly devised excuses to avoid doing it.



Anyway, those in the joss paper and prayer items business are surely very good copycats in producing new items each year and they are very advanced too. Sometimes I wondered what will happen if we put these people in the R&D of the MNCs. Maybe some scientists will lose their job!



Anyhow, I was wondering with the internet being part and parcle in the daily lives of our human realm, what will be the broadband penetration in the other realms? Maybe someone will develop a software and a domain name for those in different realms to connect to each other and surf realm wide web? What about "burning" an email address to those in the other realm who wanna go online? Any takers?

Respect Others of Different faith

Living within a society with different cultural background and religious practice is an opportunity for us to understand, share and appreciate our practice better.


Last Friday was Cheng Beng Day, the day for children, grandchildren and relatives to visit, clean and pray at the tomb of their late parents or relatives. I still prefers to use the Hokkien term Cheng Beng, a term which I has been accustomed to since I lost my father when I was five.


This year the whole lot of my siblings families and my family visited our parents tombs this weekend to pay our respects. This is the first Cheng Beng for my late mother who pass away last year.



Two pertinent comments were raised by my eldest boy during this Cheng Beng season which I took as an opportunity to advised on the importance of respect to the elders and family ties.


The question or comment he raised with me when I told him about our plans to visit and pray at the graves of Ah Kong (grandfather) and Ah Mah (grandmother) was that some of his Christian friends will not be visiting their grandparents grave. I told him that no matter which faith we adhered to, we need to respect our elders and our ancestors as this is not determined by our religion but our practice of fillial piety which is an important culture and traditions for people of Chinese descent. The practice of fillial piety is also an important teachings in Buddhism.



Another observation my boy notice is that my other siblings still practice the usual Chinese traditional and folk practice of offering and burning of joss papers and other Cheng Beng accessories. I am sure he raised this because my children has been taught the difference between Chinese traditional folk practice and the teachings of the Buddha. We do not burn those joss papers at home and the local Buddhist temple that my family congregated adhered to the Buddhist approach to devotion.



He must be curious why we participated in those offerings when we are together with my siblings families?



I explained to him that we need to respect other people beliefs and traditions. Furthermore what is important the relationship among our relatives are intact and stay together. It is not wise to push our beliefs upon others and causes friction and breakdown in the family. As long as we understand and be strong with our Buddhist teachings, these Chinese traditional practices will not undermined our faith and practice as Buddhists.


To be a Buddhist did not mean we have to severe ties with others of different faith or traditions. In contrary it should be taken as a responsibility and opportunity to share the Teachings of the Buddha.