There's No Way But Up

Last night, Tsem Rinpoche, Pastor Seng Piow and myself went down to Walmart to do some shopping for offerings and batteries after dinner. Walmart was 24 hours so we didn’t have to rush and worry about closing time. Like other Walmart outlets, this one was huge with wide aisles and long line of shelves that…

Well, I love stories and was told quite a few in the last few weeks with Rinpoche. Some of which, I have never heard before and some of which Rinpoche had already told and was even recorded onto YouTube. I shall try to recollect the stories I have been told for posterity sake. There was…

Just two nights ago, Tsem Rinpoche asked Pastor Jean Ai, Pastor Niral and myself, which statue we would pick out of a selection of Amitabhas, Chenrezigs and White Taras. I pondered for awhile and finally, I forced myself to pick Tara. It’s a difficult choice! It’s not that I am so holy but I am…

I was with Rinpoche at a bookshop just the other day and he flipped through a Bhagavad-Gita and he came across a painting of a sadhu meditating in the jungle with a deity appearing next to him. Rinpoche said that this picture will always remind him of his childhood. He recalls drawing Buddhas and deities…

Kyabje Zong Rinpoche was known to be an accomplished debater and Tantric master who developed occult powers due to his meditational practice.  Kyabje Zong Rinpoche is Tsem Rinpoche’s root Guru and is one of the greatest masters to have escaped Tibet after the Tibetan exodus into India. In the late 1980s, Kyabje Zong Rinpoche arrived…