Making the move forward
Greetings sponsors, writers, and readers! Heng Xuan here! I hope that March has been a fruitful month!
January and February were packed months for us to plan and decide what we wished to pursue for the new year. Remember us talking about experimenting with different ways for us to scale Handful of Leaves at the beginning of January?
We did our very first workshop and some of you came to support it! We are constantly exploring how we can financially sustain our aspiration of becoming Southeast Asia’s leading Dhamma platform for accessible and practical Buddhist wisdom.
Effective Communication from a Buddhist lens
We hosted our first ever half-day workshop focusing on ‘Effective Presentation Workshop from a Buddhist Lens’ which was conducted by Kai Xin & myself. This topic was chosen for our first-ever workshop because presenting our thoughts, ideas, and requests is something that we do every day but sometimes struggle with. Why not lean on Buddha’s teachings and modern concepts to improve ourselves?
Being one of the greatest communicators in history, Lord Buddha has portrayed various communication skills that are timeless, which we can adopt in our every life.
Hence, the workshop combined communication styles that can be learned from Lord Buddha through Suttas as well as our expertise in communication & presenting ideas.
We are grateful for all of the attendees’ presence and participation! If you’re a participant reading this, your willingness to invest your time and energy into this workshop meant a great deal to us! We hope that you have found it to be valuable and rewarding.
If you have missed out on this workshop, don’t worry. We are doing a second run of the workshop on 22nd April, slots are limited!
What else have we been up to?
We dived into topics of interpersonal conflict and dilemmas this January & February. I personally enjoyed the ‘realness’ of our writers sharing about grief as a Buddhist and how we can reflect on our departures.
In February, the month of love, we also explored topics about relationships. What questions do we ask before we ‘chope’ a potential life partner? When things get tough how do we argue with our partners like a Buddhist? Cynthia Kane was awesome in sharing that on our podcast. In the same vein, May Liu, a clinical psychologist, shared on how our parents shape our romantic relationships.
What’s next for us?
Beyond our workshop, we are planning an outreach event somewhere in the middle of 2023. What does that look like? The team is passionately discussing how it will work and how we will do it! Stay tuned.
In addition, we are talking to different Buddhists who are experts in their field to build workshops for the larger audience. We couldn’t be more excited.
Topics we are exploring and would like your contribution!
Vesak day and what it means for me
Pride month (LGBTQ+) & Buddhism
Asalha Puja Day
Ghost month and my reflections
Have other topics we should cover? Drop us a message on this Telegram comments page.
As usual, we capture some of the feedback from our readers! Never underestimate the impact your support for HOL brings to the people across Southeast Asia and beyond.
Thanks for reading :) See you soon!
Wall of Appreciation
“I've had the toughest of times when my mother passed away last week. Reading HOL was a balm to the wounds of loss that tore open when she left. Thank you Wilson for writing on depatures.”
- Malaysian reader who lost his mother in February
‘I am far away from Singapore right now. However, reading HOL ties me back home to the stories of hope, practice, inspiration. Thanks for sharing stories that makes me feel at home no matter where I go.’
- Singaporean working overseas in Australia
My girlfriend has benefited a lot from HOL, she (a non-Buddhist) now understands my faith more and is slowly embracing the Dhamma in her own ways. She finds many parallels in the Dhamma and her life experiences.
-Singapore reader who is introducing his girlfriend to the Dhamma