Good Bye Azmi Husein - Malaysian Cartoonist -RIP.

 

One sad part of growing old is seeing your friends and family recalled one by one, and then a vibrant, productive, creative, and full of Love and Compassion toward one and all regardless of color snatched away from his life. Innalillahiwainnalillahirajiun! I was stumped!

"Kita kena nasi Kandak, Kampung Melayu, apa kata Macan?!"

Through your creative genius and passion, you have become a legend. You have left behind a legacy of faith, commitment, resilience, and devotion to your fellow man. This City, this State, owes you a debt of gratitude. In the name of all the Penang Artists, the Crowd on the street, and the walls of the city, I say Thank You, Alhamdullilah! my Son. I am sure they will have a Kampung Melayu Nasi Kandak for us when I see you again. 

Mi, Pagi Jumaat ni says minta maaf dan minta halal makan minum diantara kita. Sedeh tu sapa tak sedeh, hati sapa tak rasa kehilangan saorang sahabat yang tali penjalinan siratulrahim kita sama seperti saorang ayah dan saorang anak jantan;  sedeh sama seperti kehilangan saorang anak. 

Semoga Allah a.w.j. permudahkan segala jejak langkah menuju kearash Yang Maha Pencipta.

                                       Attempting the Longest Caricature Sketches on Paper

                                                           He was taken away too soon.

It's that time of the year - The Fasting Month of Ramadan!

 The third day of Ramadan, the fasting month in the Muslim calendar, of which I have written every year with one episode or another, and today being the third day of the fasting Month, I feel at a loss, a feeling of stagnation. The weather is hot, and I am hungry and thirsty with a numbing headache at the back of my skull. This is what the fasting month normally brings out of one, as expected. The true nature of the Fat month is experienced by those who follow it to its essence. I cannot! I can only do just as much and then some. I love the fasting Month, and I also have ambivalent feelings towards it. Not in any negative way, but just on my shallow observations and what I can and cannot do has no bearing upon how religious I am. I have no perception of what makes a good Muslim, a pious Muslim, or a simple true believer of Islam. I love Islam, but I am afraid I have not given a complete devotion to the practice of Islam. I am negligent in my mandatory prayers and such, and I have committed numerous transgressions in my past and perhaps even into my future. All in all, I have to say that the fasting Month of Ramadan gets tougher with each passing year! Of course, I can choose to be complacent and bear the guilt, or I can rationalize the Buddhist way and wiggle myself out of having to do it. Nah, this is the most challenging time of my life; it's Karma! It's healthy, and it keeps me awake and revitalized, and the pangs of hunger and thirst are nothing compared to the self-realization that it's all in all just, another brick in the wall, another line cast in the river, another thought floating in the empty sky. I like fasting, but I am not able to do it other than during the Fasting Month of Ramadan.

                           Danau Toba or Lake Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia.I drove around this lake in 2008

During the Month of Ramadan, I am faced with numerous challenges and doubts, especially when faith, spirituality, and practice merge into one big question: Who am I? Who or what am I afraid of? Why do I allow myself and my mind to be led here and there as though I have no say whatsoever? I am grateful to be able to enjoy yet another month of spiritual cleansing, and I will abide by the rules and precepts as best I can. Alhamdullilah! Praise be unto Him, Lord of Mercy and Compassion. I once heard Him whisper in my ear, "Be Happy! All you need to do is just be Happy!" It was during one of those critical moments of me going through a psycho/emotional tantrum, complaining about life to God, kind of moment. I heard loud and clear within me this, and immediately I was awakened from my bitchy mood. "The world will be happy with you, just Be Happy! No matter the outcome, just Be Happy! A Happy and joyful person will not jump off the Penang Bridge, nor will a Happy person create discord in society; a Happy man makes others happy, and a Happy soul makes the Divine Happy. The joy and challenge of the fasting month is in how one stays harmonious and happy throughout the day while fasting at the physical level and how one can stay pure in mind when one is addicted to scrolling the Internet. Curbing your thoughts from sensual delights is a major precept to observe during the Fasting period; the mind has to be kept in pure form, not distracted, preferably focused on the Divine. One cannot indulge in profanities and meaningless gossip, nor must one be backbiting or cursing others; instead, envision compassion and forgiveness.

Lake Toba (Indonesian: Danau Toba, Toba Batak: ᯖᯀᯬ ᯖᯬᯅ; romanized: Tao Toba) is a large natural lake in North Sumatra, Indonesia, occupying the caldera of the Toba supervolcano. The lake is located in the middle of the northern part of the island of Sumatra, with a surface elevation of about 900 metres (2,953 ft), the lake stretches from 2.88°N 98.52°E to 2.35°N 99.1°E. The lake is about 100 kilometres (62 miles) long, 30 kilometres (19 mi) wide, and up to 505 metres (1,657 ft) deep. It is the largest lake in Indonesia and the largest volcanic lake in the world.^[1] Toba Caldera is one of twenty geoparks in Indonesia,^[2] and was recognised in July 2020 as one of the UNESCO Global Geoparks.^[3][4][5]
 

Throughout my childhood, I had enjoyed being in the fetiveness of the Fasting Month. As children, the month meant food was different, better, and more in choices. Today, it is a major spiritual retreat, much more strenuous than a seven-day Seshin in the Zen School of Meditation Retreat. If strictly observed, the fasting month is a very effective way of realigning, getting back in balance, and attaining better syncrhroncity in the overall performance of the conscious and sub-conscious, material and Divine, mundane and the supernatural. Those who observe this month with purity of heart and sincerity of soul will be blessed in the here and now and the hereafter. This is the month that the Holy Quran was revealed to man, the month when the Angel Gabriel came to Muhammad and whispered, "Read!" From this moment on, Isalm came into being.Insha'Allah! The rest is the history of the religion as it is spread across the globe embracing other religions and cultures. Today, Islam is both feared and the fastest growing in number all around the world. To me, Islam is the answer to many of the ailments that our modern society is infected with, especially in social and interpersonal relationships. Do good and avoid sin is the tenet of most religions in the world, and so is it one of Islam's main principles.

Lake Toba is the site of a supervolcanic eruption estimated at VEI 8 that occurred 69,000 to 77,000 years ago,^[6][7][8] representing a climate-changing event. Recent advances in dating methods suggest a more accurate eruption date of 74,000 years ago.^[9] It is the largest-known explosive eruption on Earth in the last 25 million years. According to the Toba catastrophe theory, the eruption had global consequences for human populations as it killed most humans living at that time and is believed to have created a population bottleneck in central east Africa and India, which affects the genetic make-up of the human worldwide population to the present.^[10] A recent study has cast doubt on this theory and found no evidence of substantial changes in the global population.^[11]
 

It was a Mirracle- Indeed!

 "Aging is not something being taken away from us but something being given, aging is not an end, it is a new beginning, it is a Miracle!"-Quiet Wisdom.- YouTube.

Taking that one step beyond in Good Faith and Grace is the ultimate aim of everything that dies; this is the Truth of Suffering. To be present and awakened at the moment of death is a Miracle; making this happen is the goal of every living being in the Universe. The Impermenannce of life is the most subtle form of pain that we suffer as we grow older witnessing the changes that Outlooks is going through, we learn to surrender, to accept, to simulate all that we experienced and we move on to the next level of manifestation the realm of the inner world, the realm of the unknown, the realm of the unseen, the realm of formlessness, we move on to the other shore and continue our journey, we arrive home. Home is where the Heart Is! Meditate on the Heart Chakra and feel the expansion of your source of Compassion, Love, and Devotion. Feel your inner being struggling to be set free to express with all intensity its aspirations towards attaining a Bodhisattva vow fulfilled; Beings are Numberless, I Vow to Awaken with Them! If by chance someone reads this and it makes all the sense in the world to him/her, I would consider it my service accomplished in saving others from this realm of Maya. This is what happens when you seriously take a vow of the Bodhisattva Virtues; one is bound by the laws of karma that bind these vows to you. The vow also acts as an ankle band that keeps track of where you are and who you be. It discourages one from being overconfident and feeling cocky about one's prowess. It is the Very Duty of a Bodhisattva to serve, to help ease the pain and burden of others in the most skillful ways. it is no easy vow to make, but it has been made. For as long as I breathe, I am at the service of Humanity and all other Sentient Beings of this Universe.

For whatever it is worth, I am willing to admit that I have at last come to realize who I truly am at the present moment, as I am not sure what the next moment will bring. I am Whole! Complete and Perfect, Strong and Powerful, Loving and Compassionate, Harmonious and Happy! I can be what I choose to be or do what I want to do. So help me God! InshaAllah. When in doubt, remind yourself of your affirmations or remind yourself of your vows made to be a servant. Islam accepts servitude as a very formidable form of prayer, more so than the normal prayer ritual five times a day. This ritual is aimed at the individual's salvation, whereas servitude involves the well-being of the rest of the Sentient Beings. With every breath you take, you manifest Loving Kindness and Compassion to the external world, the reflection of who you are. You may not be wearing the garment or a robe of the monk, but you still manifest yourself as the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion attending to the call of the suffering from all ten directions, six realms, and past, present, and future. This is the state of being an awakened soul after eons of evolution, burning karmic states and creating new ones; this is the Path of the Chosen Ones. 

Part of the fun of growing old is the fact that you can talk yourself into believing anything just so long as it helps you to stay awake and take care of the business at hand. Here I am, feeling all exuberant and abundant over nothing in particular but elated nonetheless. I am in a complete and perfect state of consciousness where all seems as good as it should be. Nothing to hope for and nothing to lose. I am expecting a surprise from somewhere at any time now, so I am a little excited. Now I am looking forward to receiving the 'gifts' from the Universe, the Higher Power, the Lord God, from Allah s.t.a. I feel rich already! I feel like I have all the money at my disposal, and what do I do with all this wealth? I will leave it up to my imagination; I am good in this department. In fact, my imagination is one of my most impeccable assets as a man.

                     Every character that sits before me is a person or potentiality full of possibilities.

I would spend hours staring into the horizon at my secondary school, which was next to the sea. I would find myself sitting on the seawall and making up stories about how cold the Alaska landscape must be or what it would be like to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. I was a dreamer. At 13 -15, I was reading James Michener and Harold Robins, novels that soaked my mind with dreams of what it would feel like ... the snow! the Desert! The mega Cities were all dreams and imaginations triggered by such novels as Hawaii, Alaska, Chesapeake, Harold Robins's The Dream Merchants, The Carpet Beggars, and so forth; I had great teachers where imagination is concerned. I realized that what I had imagined as a young teenager would materialize and manifest as it had in my adult life. Never in my teenage life did I imagine that I would live in the Mid-West State of Wisconsin for eight years of my life to feel snow, or live for two years in Alaska, in the Aleutian Chains, There is no doubt in my mind now looking back at what has transpired in my life the past 70 odd years is indeed a Miracle! Do I believe in Miracles? Yeah! Fuck yeah! Maybe a little too late to admit it, but I am blessed; that much I can safely say, and I fully acknowledge it most of the time in silence. Sometimes, I would even deny myself thinking thoughts that I truly did not deserve such blessings, such forgiveness, assistance, and guidance, but now I am fully committed to the feeling of being a magnet to miracles is not such a bad idea after all.

                                        I have been poor on the needy side of life, but I enjoyed it like a gift.

The miracles in my life have been almost hidden from view when it happen, like a snap of a lightning bolt in a midnight sky! Now you see it you don't. The miracles were never extravagant or epic in proportion, but they nonetheless were there, making every move I made almost choreographed by an unseen movie Director. I did not accept being led or managed in any way, guided or otherwise, not even by the Buddhas themselves! I am my own man, and I will abide by my own rules and commitments, my own choice of actions free from any external manipulations; I grew up a very stubborn and angry man in my younger days and took no nonsense from fakery in life. Unknowingly, I had taken one step too many and deviated from any religious piety or submission for many years while living in the West. Then, I found a book called The Way of Zen by Alan Watts. I found it among books by J. Krishnamurti and Fritjorf Kapra, and one book in particular by Richard Bach, which caught my interest, a book called The Illusion, or the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. Illusions woke me up to the reality that I was in: living in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with no future to look to, I was the piece of wood drifting down the stream learning the meaning of letting go. I was working my way through college as a librarian helper and had all the time to check out all the books at my leisure or simply sat there and read them in between working hours. Indeed, a miracle! A small but significant miracle. A song by Leonard Cohen, I think. It's a miracle!

I have had the opportunity to meet them on the Streets of San Francisco and in restaurants when it gets cold at night.

Today, I am looking back to realize how much of a miracle my life has been! I am simply grateful to the Power that Be. I am grateful for the numerous blessings I have received, knowing or unknowingly, I am blessed; Alhamdullilah! r.a. I made it through ten years of my life in the Bay Area of San Francisco. It was a Miracle!