HOL in Aug: Buddhist Weddings & Pineapples
In August, we covered the presidential elections, how to make your wedding more Buddhist and also had a chat with the CEO of Greendot
Greetings supporters:)
We hope you had a great entry into the final quarter of 2023. Looking back at August, we saw some of you in person at the private Q&A Session with Venerable Thubten Damcho. It is always a pleasant experience for us to see our readers in person! Missed the event? The recording is here!
In September, we will be at THISBFF (Thus Have I Seen Buddhist Film Festival) to give out our latest stash of postcards right in the heart of Orchard Road!
From Weddings to Retreats
In August we covered a huge array of topics (made us feel like we were everywhere all at once).
We shared tips to make your wedding more Buddhist. A quick Google online would show that Singapore has no ‘proper’ way of having a Buddhist wedding. In fact, Buddha never talked about what a wedding should look like but rather, how a couple should treat one another.
This article paired nicely with our article on meditation retreats and what we can expect as newcomers. It is definitely more flavourful than eating awesome vegetarian food at GreenDot.
Independence is…overrated?
We also explored how SG, MY, ID celebrated Independence Day during the same period and how we can reflect on that via a Buddhist lens.
On the topic of independence, we analysed how Barbie’s search for independence had many Buddhist elements.
Lastly, the word ‘independent’ was thrown around a lot during the presidential elections. We captured insights from our chat with Mr Tharman and lessons from Mr Ng Kok Song.
One key takeaway from our team was that we did our outreach WAYYY too late to the presidential candidates. We couldn’t get a video chat with them.
We were too ‘independent’ of the clear tight timeline 🌝. Better luck next time. Is there someone pretty cool we should interview? Do drop us an email.
Friendship Recession
Something I learned this week is that social circles are shrinking. Particularly so for men. Over the past 30 years, there has been a five-fold increase in men (15%) saying that they had no close friends.
This is pretty detrimental to mental and physical health. It makes me wonder where digital communities come into play. It might be necessary but insufficient.
I learnt recently of letterloop, which generates a newsletter from your social circle by emailing your friends a question every week and compiling it into a monthly newsletter to keep in touch.
Maybe that is one way to fight the friendship recession? Time will tell. HOL will also be doing a couple of community events in the coming quarters too!
Upcoming topics we are sourcing for!
In the following months, we are exploring the following topics!
Halloween
Kathina
Christmas
New year resolution
Diwali
Men’s Day
Do drop a message if you might want to write an article on any of these topics.
Thank you for your support always!
Metta,
Heng Xuan
Wall of Impact
Every article and cent contributed to Handful of Leaves enables us to increase our reach to the community. Here are some captures of appreciation! Thank you for your support!
“The Buddhist wedding article has been really popular with my friends in Malaysia, we finally know how we can plan one with Buddhist elements in it. Thanks HOL!”
“I listen to your podcast now before going to work. It centres me and makes my commute more peaceful than before when I used to watch videos non-stop before reaching work.”
“I live a busy life. Being able to read the bold words on the videos/podcast is a gamechanger for me. Thank you HOL.”