There's No Way But Up

Devadatta attempts to assassinate the Buddha The following is my comments after watching the video of Prof. Donald S Lopez explaining about Devadatta in Tsem Rinpoche’s blog:- http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/devadatta-blaming-others.html In this video, Professor Donald S Lopez tells a clear and vivid story of the Buddha and his infamous nemesis, Devadatta from the Dhammapada Sutta – a collected…

Caring for animals is linked to the Buddhist teaching on compassion. It is obviously a physical expression of compassion and one of the noblest because unlike humans, animals are basically unable to reciprocate kindness. And that’s one of the reasons why Tsem Rinpoche encourages people like me – a typical self-absorbed, self-centered modern individual to…

      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….

  Talk about dancing in the rain…. Just something to express what’s going on in my head…

I ask this question because scientists are on the brink of a breakthrough with the latest technology of replicating meat. In order to find a solution to the growing demand for food production and to counter global warming, Dutch scientists have developed a way to grow edible bacon in the lab with stem cells taken…

This is the name of country pop song co-written and sung by the American all-female country band, Dixie Chicks. This song remains their biggest hit on the US chart. However, this song was written because of a controversy that exploded on the Dixie Chicks in 2003. While performing in London, lead vocalist Natalie Maines said,…

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…

Well, I wanted to blog about something and I had no clue whatsoever as usual. So, I  just started to browse through some old pictures hoping to glean some inspiration and I came across a series of photos that I had taken with my old phone and I thought, hey, these would make an interesting…

“We’re all prisoners undergoing a life sentence…imprisoned by our own minds…” These words narrated in the documentary have a particular universal resonance as it echoes the lives of the inmates of Tihar Jail, one of the most notorious jails in India. In 1993, Kiran Bedi was appointed as the new Inspector General of Indian prisons…

   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…

The first time I heard of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? was over seven years ago because I was introduced to it by Tsem Rinpoche. He seemed to love the dramatic acting of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Rinpoche would love to get into character and act out Bette Davis’ character with key scenes from the…

I have not been following the Olympics at all. However, I saw a post on this Olympic hurdler, Liu Xiang who was once a great champion but was unable to perform in the last Olympics due to his injury. His story was quite touching and one of the most memorable stories of this Olympics. He…

Omigawd!  What a crazy exciting month! I haven’t been blogging much because so much is happening in the  organisation. Just fresh of the printing press was Tales My Lama Told Me and now, Conversations In Love. Well, this conversation book was born out of an instruction from Rinpoche to me and I am glad that…

Well, its about time I blog about my new book, Tales My Lama Told Me. I enjoyed working on it although it took way too long to come out with this book. Can you believe that I started working on this book way before I even began writing There’s No Way But Up? The idea…

While I was working in the Ladrang assisting Tsem Rinpoche as an attendant, one of things we used to do was to watch hours of TV.  Mind you, it was not the ordinary crappy TV shows on air nowadays but classic TV series from his childhood. He ordered those from Amazon and they came in…

I was with Rinpoche just 2 nights ago and he was talking about a lot of things including the pressures that he was facing. He was in tears talking about it and as he talked, he turned to face his computer and played a song on YouTube. A wave of nostalgia swept through him as…

With a name that evokes the bar-tending  stainless steel cup (I learnt this from Wikipedia), my cousin’s new cocktail bar was something to behold. I just learnt of its existence from my cousin, Khai Yan, just 2 weeks back. It was apparently, a neat little collaboration between my cousin Guo Yi and her boyfriend, Indra. We…

Over the weekend, I was down in Singapore with my parents and Paul. I haven’t had the opportunity to spend so much time with my ma in a long time. It was a nice short car trip down to the island nation of immaculate streets and drab buildings. My ma loves Singapore and we were…

I had always loved the way Rinpoche told a story. I could sit there for hours listening and be enthralled by the amazing experience. His words always seem to draw me into his magical world of devotion, passion and power. His experiences are not an arbitrary experience with people and place but an incredible chain…

I just received this beautiful copper Mala (prayer beads) from Emilio O.Lopue. Jr, a Philipino boy who is studying in Renmin University in Beijing. I found out that he is an avid follower of Rinpoche’s blog, as well as my blog. I hope you are reading this and I just wanted to give a big shout out…

Just on the eve of Mother’s Day, I was up at Rinpoche’s residence, helping to move some fake trees into Rinpoche’s apartment. Yes, I know it is all sort of weird to do that but Rinpoche loves trees and being in the forest. So he has gotten quite a few fake trees arranged and ‘planted’…

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…

Rinpoche had for the longest time been affectionately calling us clowns because of the way we work and conduct ourselves. It just makes him laugh when we do thinks in fixed ways and we expect a different result. Hence, we were clowns. So, I cleverly bought a court jester hat one day to amuse Rinpoche….