There's No Way But Up

      Zina Rachevsky as a Hollywood actress in 1953 The legendary Zina Rachevsky was the earliest Western student and patron of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Everything about her including her royal heritage had become legendary. Her family was incredibly wealthy to begin with. Her grandfather established SW Straus & Co. that…

Audience room of Tsem Ladrang. One of the most commonly asked questions when I am explaining about Tsem Rinpoche and Kechara is the question what is a ladrang? Well, the standard answer is that a ladrang is basically the Guru’s residence. However, it is not just the place from which the Guru lives, it is…

I am not sure if you had noticed this before but I have. Over the years, I have witnessed Rinpoche snapping his fingers just as he ascends onto his teaching throne. You know what’s funny? I used to think it was a signal for us clowns (Rinpoche’s term of endearment for us spiritual infants) to…

Picture taken from nickwinter.com I heard of fascinating stories of how rigorous and rewarding the monastic education system can be within Gaden monastery. So, I did a little bit of research to find out more about it. From what I know, the entire education system culminates with the Geshe examinations. Geshe is Tibetan derivative of…

A friend recently asked me what a Kangyur is and I gave her a brief explanation. So, to expand on that explanation, I did some research and here it is:- During the Buddha’s time, many of his disciples became arhats or great disciples that had achieved cessation of suffering through listening to the Buddha’s teachings….

One of Zong Rinpoche’s (Tsem Rinpoche’s root guru) previous lives was the famous Indian master Bodhidharma who was famous to have brought Zen/Chen Buddhism to China and is regarded as the first patriarch of this tradition in China. He has an exceptional story of transmitting the teachings without words. Bodhidharma was born a powerful South…

I found this on the net I thought it was rather bizarre and fascinating at the same time. The Buddhist temple Wat Proman in Thailand offers a rather bizarre ritual to bless devotees in order to ease their problems. All they have to do is lie in a coffin, “die” and be reborn again anew…

   The superheroined Enigma or Tara Virango makes her appearance in the Spider-Man series. Comic book lovers from around the world would find this very interesting! The scriptwriters at Marvel Comics had adapted the popular Buddhist deity Tara into a superheroine character in an episode of the Spider-Man comics. It is interesting to see how…

2012 came by just like that and I have been totally neglecting my little blog here. I am not sure if I still have an audience out there in cyberspace. Perhaps just a few clicks from Facebook and that’s it. Last year saw the publications of 2 books, Tales My Lama Told Me, which I…

I was at Rinpoche’s residence last night and he called me up along with Paris, Bryan, Ethan, Jean Ai and Jean Mei. We were going to bring up trays upon trays of glorious Wesak Day gifts for rinpoche to go through, one-by-one. Yes, Rinpoche would go through every single note, letter, card and gift. They…

Rinpoche is unusually photogenic although there are many times, I think the pictures’ don’t really reflect his real life charisma and powerful presence. We just celebrated Wesak Day here in Malaysia and we celebrated it here in Kechara House with a series of events, a fish liberation event in the morning, a baby blessing in…

Yesterday was one of those rare days that Rinpoche decided to go shopping. It seemed to be a spur-of-the-moment decision that was typically of Rinpoche. Now, shopping is not exactly a favourite pastime and unless he was shopping for someone, he would have to drag himself out of bed. He dreads the mall crowds and…

I have heard about the story of the billionaire’s son before but I have never actually read about it until Rinpoche blogged about this recently. I am quite amazed with the spirituality that this family displays although they are so wealthy, their spirituality is pretty much intact. The son is an heir to billions but…

I love horror movies and ghost stories but I would be scared shitless if they were good. For some strange reason, my fear doesn’t lessen my fascination with of the macabre. I love these stories although I was scared shitless. Anyway… A few days ago, I was telling Rinpoche a story of a particular real life…

(I am not advocating Organic Green Tea with Jasmine but the use of teas, herbs and spices as offerings. Anyway, I love the packaging. Hehe!) We instinctively know that the herbs and spices have a healing effect on our body. Even some animals know that and would instinctively look for certain fruits, plants and shrubs…

Chogyam Trungpa conjures up a lot of interesting imagery besides being a Dharma teacher. He’s married, he’s an eccentric, philosopher, womanizer, drunkard, artist… and the list goes on. Whatever he is, he’s definitely the product of his time. We must come understand him through his audience first. His very first circle of students came to him…

Yeah! That’s me reading and trying real hard to digest this very technical and deep book called “Tsongkhapa’s Praise for Dependent Relativity” by Lobsang Gyatso and Graham Woodhouse. It is an assignment from Tsem Rinpoche to read this book in a month and digest its entrails. Fortunately, it is only 123 pages long but it…

This is my little office shrine. It is a little quirky and little traditional, which kinda reflects me. I know it seems like a hodge-podge of mismatched devotional and decorative items put together into a space that I call my office shrine. I didn’t realized how it evolved into this but it just came together…

Disclaimer : This conversation is just a friendly discussion of the God creator-theory and I have no intentions to insult any God-fearing person. I found it thought provoking and so I have reproduced here with minimal editing for people to form their own conclusions.  Me :I don’t believe in God Friend : Oh… So you…

Birthday celebrations for most people are usually celebrated with a birthday cake, colourful balloons, shiny bright presents and a huge banquet just for the birthday boy/girl. Well, its Fang’s birthday and I was little late in blogging about this but anyway, here it is. Well, it began with a nice idea from Fang to have…

My flight was canceled and so I took the next flight to Kathmandu. Fortunately, the second flight was pretty smooth without much hiccups. After a few hours of sleep, I slide the cabin windows open as the captain announced that we will be reaching Kathmandu soon and we could see the snow-capped Mount Everest and…

The maternal Tara is one the most widely revered within the old Indo-Tibetan Buddhist world. However, she is not as well-known within the earlier diffusion of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. Even then, some Lamas proclaim that Kuan Yin (a popular Chinese Bodhisattva of compassion) as a manifestation of White Tara (one of the more popular forms…

There was a time when I was constantly being attacked by an unseen spirit when I was asleep. I would hear a buzzing sound and then I would be rudely awakened by the feeling of paralysis. I would struggle for awhile before I would be set free. There were times I would feel hands pinning…

I have always loved this photo that I saved from the Internet sometime ago. This sepia photo depicts a Chod yogi wielding his ritual Chod drum and thighbone trumpet along with a display of ritual implements right before him. Chod is a practice of cutting off the self-cherishing mind. It is a meditative practice developed…

Last Saturday, I was invited (by Rev. Thomas George) to participate in an interfaith lecture, in memory of Swami Satyananda. This was held in the Pure Life Society center. It was interesting to be here on premise and the topic was ‘Religion in the Marketplace’. It was such a broad topic and the panel of…

A visit to the local muzeum was not really on the top of my to-do list. However, I found myself visiting it along with a bunch of my friends from Kechara as part of an educational visit arranged by H. E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche. We are there not to soak in the culture of Malaysia…

(In order to safeguard the identity of this person, I took the liberty to change the details of these people so as not to offend anyone. So, please don't jump to quick conclusions about the identities of these people.) This afternoon, I went for lunch with this person, who has a sibling in the Dharma….

I promised a facebook friend that I will take a photo of my shrine to share with him. So I thought I share it here with anyone who would chance upon this blog. The main deity is Lama Tsongkhapa sitting on a little Dharma throne with his two foremost disciples at his feet, Gyaltsab Je…

For those of you who are interested in engaging in a Je Tsongkhapa retreat, I have taken the liberty to include here the instructions from the Tsongkhapa boxset manual. However, I would encourage those of you who are interested in conducting the retreat to go through the entire manual and read about Je Tsongkhapa's amazing…

There is a special puja that can be performed to request Lamas who have control of their lifespan to extend their lives. No matter how spiritually attained the Lama is, they still cannot live forever. However, an attained Lama can extend their life according to the collective merit of the students. Therefore, a very special…