Upcoming Events: September

Hi everyone,

We've got a few upcoming events - come along or volunteer to help - we'd love to see you there!
[BLIA YAD]

Father's Day
A celebration of Father's Day. Bring your family and friends along (and of course - your dad!).

What: Dinner, Performances and Games
Date: 1st Sep 06
Time: 6:30pm - 10pm
Place: FGS Temple, 280 Guildford Rd, Maylands
Cost: Free!
RSVP: Ga Vin at gavin@mosaic.net.au / 041 326 3366 (Three) to let us know who is coming so that we can make sure we have enough food

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Multifaith Community Service
Working together with Muslim, Christian and Buddhist groups, Multifaith Community Service events are held as joint events between a number of religious organisations to promote interfatih dialoge. This time, we're clearning bush near a mosque and helping out at a Catholic primary school if you have time to come along and help.

What: Interfaith community work to build meaningful dialogue
Date: 2nd Sep 06
Time: 8:30am - 3pm
Place: Hepburn Mosque, Padbury (64 Walter Padbury Blvd) and Padbury Catholic Primary
Cost: Free
RSVP: Carl Ong at ong.carl@gmail.com / 0433 207 025 (Three) to arrange transport

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Wedding Renewal Ceremony
If you have some time on the 9th of September, we'd love to help from you. We're looking for volunteers to help out at the BLIA wedding renewal ceremony. Volunteers for this event are needed between 1-4pm to help run some stations.

What: Volunteer work helping out at a Buddhist Wedding Renewal Ceremony
Date: 9th Sep 06
Time: 1-4pm
Place: FGS Temple, 280 Guildford Rd, Maylands
Register: Please contact Ga Vin if you're free to help! (gavin@mosaic.net.au / 0413263355)

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Charity Dinner
As part of the wedding renewal event, there will be a charity dinner on the evening of the 9th of Sep to raise funds for the BLIA Love and Care group. Proceeds go to a number of charity organisations and activities. In the past this has ranged from the Salvation Army and Mission Australia, to aged care homes.
What: Volunteer work helping decorate the dinner venue, and performing various tasks on the night
Date: 9th Sep
Time: 9am - 12pm / 6pm till late
Place: Perth Town Hall
Register: Please contact Ga Vin if you're free to help! (gavin@mosaic.net.au / 0413263355)

For more information, visit: http://bliawayad.blogspot.com/
Or Contact Ga Vin Lee, contact details as above.

With Metta,
Ga Vin

Clip for my Dad

This is the link to my blog that I put the clips for my dad's birthday, I'll use it for the Fathers Day presentation too, but with a bit more modification.

Regards,
Carl

There's an Interfaith Community Service Event again on this coming 2nd Of Sept. Please read the details from the poster, or contact either Gavin or Me (Carl) if you can make it.

Regards,
Carl

Mission Australia Winter Sleepout

On the evening of the 19th of August, the Love & Care Group and YAD joined forces to raise funds for the homeless, through Mission Australia’s Winter Appeal.

The Mission Australia Winter Sleepout is a yearly event held to raise funds for Mission Australia’s Winter Appeal. Each participant raises money by asking sponsors to donate some money for them to sleep outdoors in the cold.

This year we were almost rained out by the heavy storms that rolled in across Perth. With the rain stretching through the day, we were almost at the point where we decided to go indoors for shelter. With masking tape, canvas and cardboard boxes though, we managed to set up a shelter (with only a few holes!) that would keep us warm through the night.

Together, we shared food, made a candlelight offering and prayer, and kept each other warm through ghost stories and discussions. Even with a cold, rainy and dark evening, our warm hearts were bright enough to light up the night!

For more information, or to make a donation to the Mission Australia Winter Appeal, please contact Ga Vin Lee, YAD President at gavin@mosaic.net.au / 041 326 3355.

A short clip about the Hoyt Family

An Inspirational Father

The following article comes from Sports Illustrated and is by Rick Reilly.

Please read the story first and then view the video clip to see images of the father and son in action.

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I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in
marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars -- all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much -- except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him
brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life," Dick says doctors told
him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution."

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes
followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way," Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain."

"Tell him a joke," Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!" And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that."

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped," Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks."

That day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!"

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way," Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?"

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour
Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud
getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way," he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling" he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 -- only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

"No question about it," Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century."

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape," one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago."

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really
wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

"The thing I'd most like," Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the
chair and I push him once."

(for pictures, see www.si.com/teamhoyt)

Father's Day 1st Sep

On the 1st of September, we're going to be having a Father's Day Celebration at the Maylands FGS temple. One and all welcome! (Bring your family and especially your dad)

The night will include dinner, presentations/entertainment, games and prizes and it's all for free!

For more information, check out the poster below.

Do Buddhas Have Ears?: Path of the Bodhisattvas Three

Do Buddhas Have Ears?: Path of the Bodhisattvas Three

cool layout and nice content