There's No Way But Up

Two evenings ago, I rendezvoused with Tsem Rinpoche at a neighbourhood Italian restaurant for dinner with Seng Piow, Bryan and Ethan. I just had Minestrone soup (because I already had dinner) while the rest had pasta or salads. Then, we adjourned to Wendy’s next door for dessert – French fries and baked potatoes (not exactly the healthiest…

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…

Justin Ripley from New Zealand, a dear friend passed away last week, just barely a day before his mother and brother came to visit him for Christmas. It was so sudden that it caught everyone by surprise. I was shocked when I found out. The first thing I heard was that he was brought to…

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…

Look! I brought 3 new friends of mine to Kechara Soup Kitchen last Saturday. Huai Bin, Audrey and Timothy for a KSK run downtown last week. Yes, they are popular bloggers and I brought them because they wanted very much to experience the gritty experience of feeding the homeless and the destitute. As newbies, they filled…

It’s the time of the year again. It’s Rinpoche’s 46th birthday bash and in whole of Kecharadom, there’s no celebration bigger than this. Ok, this is very insider talk going on. But I am sure you know what I mean. Usually, Rinpoche would make his annual appearance at Kechara House Gompa to give an extensive,…

There is a certain stark reality of staring at myself in a clear mirror. The beauty of my self-image fades with the imperfections of reality. I go on looking and looking at what I once thought of as beautiful but now, it looks absolutely repulsive. The more I look, the more nauseated I am with…

Ethan here is the best Nerd of Kechara Care! Happy Belated birthday if you see this… I recently read this humourous article on CNN's website on the difference between geeks and nerds and I though I share it here. Apparently, the word 'geek' and 'nerd' are etymologically different in its meaning and usage. However, most people…

Nicholas Roerich, also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (Russian: Никола́й Константи́нович Рéрих; October 9, 1874 – December 13, 1947), was a Russian painter, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure. He created about 7,000 paintings (many of them are exhibited in well-known museums of the world) and about 30 literary works. Roerich was an author and…

Just three nights ago, Kechara Saraswati Arts (KSA), Kechara’s arts department just opened its doors at a completely new location. Prior to this, it was on the first floor of SS2, a bustling part of suburbia but also a complete parking nightmare. Now, spirituality through arts is easily attainable and accessible, just behind Kechara House…

I can't believe it has been so long since I last blogged. So much has happened since Shanghai. Well, I am back in town and I am most excited about the upcoming opening of the new KH Gompa. Check out the main image that will be enshrined there…. It is just so nice! I can't…

Wow! I just realise that I haven't been updating my little blog in such a long time. I had so many different thoughts swimming in my head as to what I am going to blog next about. I still want to mull about the next thing I wanna blog. The good thing is that I…

I have just joined the creative writing course that was run by Sharon Bakar at a place called the Learning Room. Today is the first lesson and it is on Flow Writing. The trick is to just write whatever is in our heads without restricting it with grammar, spelling, punctuation or theme. All Sharon did was…

I am greatly saddened with the recent news of two deaths over the weekend. It leaves a rather poignant reminder of how near death is to all of us.  The first heart-wrenching death is this cute white little Schnautzer whose name is Namse (I took this last picture of him in the pet hospital). He…

Such photos are truly precious! Rinpoche, our perennial Bodhisattva has done it again. His undying passion to spread the Dharma has found a new way of expression – Funky t-shirts with catchy phrases. Who would have thought of such a fun, contemporary phrase like that? – I belong to Buddha. It certainly beats all the…

I can't believe it! Rinpoche just gave me a new laptop as a gift! It is my dream machine! It took me a while to believe my eyes. It was not too long ago that I blogged about my dream machine. Rinpoche saw my blog post and decided that it would be a necessary tool…

On the eve of KMP's Bookclub reading (There's No Way But Up), I am having an insecurity fit! You see, I was pretty affected by some comments made by my kind fellow colleagues a couple of days ago regarding a previous book reading and I just couldn't get it out of my mind. So during…

  Date: 3rd April Saturday  Time: 2.30pm Venue: 24G, Jalan Telawi 2, Bangsar Baru, 59100,Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Tel: 603-22844136 I will be at the store to do a book reading and those of you who would like to know more of There's No Way But Up – my autobiography cum spiritual journey. Feel free to drop by. Do let…

Yup, that was me! In my heyday (not too long ago), the disco was the place to be on weekends and holidays. I was partying at the disco religiously and although I didn’t say it, hedonism was somewhat a religious practice for me. Saturday nights was reserved for worshipping the Greek god of the disco…