There's No Way But Up

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…

Welcome to pink city dubbed Jaipur. This is my first time here in Jaipur and I didn’t know what to expect. I came with Li Kim, my CEO boss and my favourite pink writer, Jamie Khoo. Coincidentally, both of them love pink and we are all now in pink city. Apparently, pink is the colour…

2012! New year and new beginnings. I was suppose to blog about this a whole lot earlier but I was too lazy and I got caught up with ‘things’. As I recall what I did last year, I am not altogether too happy with I had done. I know. I know. Nobody is surprised. I…

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…

Li Kim and I flew to New Delhi from Kathmandu via Kingfisher Airlines. It was a pleasant flight as you can see the airport is state-of-the-art unlike the crummy Third World charm of the Kathmandu airport. I love the Mudra hand gestures the form the facade of the immigration hall. I think the same gestures are…

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…

Its the time of the year for travelling again… For work of course. I just got an email of my flight schedule. Usually, it would just be Nepal but this time, I am going to India as well. New Delhi to be exact and this is going to be my first time in Delhi. Will…

Seksualiti Merdeka (Sexuality Independence)! That’s the big clarion call for an annual festival of workshops, talks, film screenings and letter writings on the issues faced by the LGBT community. LGBT or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender is a broad term to describe the often heard but clearly misunderstood minority. This festival was started by brave folks –…

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,…

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…

I was in Penang last weekend for the launch of Kechara Soup Kitchen there. It was a relatively low key event but we were still graced by the Chief Minister of Penang, YAB Lim Guan Eng. He seemed rather down to earth, attending the event with his wife and son. It was nice, fair-weathered day,…

Almost everyone I meet in Kechara would ask me whether the stones are out. It is almost like a standard greeting from the people I meet to ask me about my ‘stone’. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not complaining but I find it rather amusing. Unfortunately, the stone is not out and so…

Last Thursday morning, I woke up with a slight dull pain on the left side of my stomach. I thought I had stomach ache so I sat on the toilet bowl and it took me quite awhile to realise nothing was coming out. I thought it might be a food poisoning so I grab my…

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…

Have you heard of the Kinsey scale? I have not and I just came across it recently and I was very fascinated to read about it so I thought I share it here on the blog for the world to discover their sexuality. Just kidding. I guess anything about sexuality ‘arouses’ (pun intended) my curiosity….

There was a break in this afternoon at Heruka House, the place where I am living. It is scary to discover this but fortunately nothing was taken. There were only three of us living in this house. The intruder went into our rooms and opened all of our cupboards and rummaged through everything including our…

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…

A Moleskine is basically the most expensive notebook in the world! Well I can’t vouch for that statement but it is the most expensive notebook in any bookstore in Malaysia. Only a few stationery shops carry these yummilicious notebooks. Well, this is not a paid advertisement although I wouldn’t mind if it became one. They…

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…

Due to monetary reasons, Paul (my housemate) and myself have been looking towards moving for sometime to lower our rental cost. Simulataneously, my mum has an apartment in the Hartamas area and she had recently asked me to find someone to rent the place because she didn't want to live in this 1600 square feet…

Welcome to Laddaland, the latest Thai horror flick to reach our shores. Like many other brilliant horror films from Thailand, it is not a mere mindless scare-fest. It is smart, sexy and packs with enough psychological drama to make the on-screen characters come to life.  Initially, I didn't really like the main character, Thee (Saharat Sangkapreecha)…

For the weekend, I am in Johor, the southern-most state of the Peninsular. Unfortunate for me, it is not a holiday. I am down here in Johor to help out at a roadshow with the Kechara Paradise crew – Chia, Jazz and Wan.    We are here in JB's Sutera Mall for the whole weekend…

(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…

One of my recent projects was to organise the launch of the cookbook, Eat Healthy, Daily. Li Kim (my boss) wanted it to be more than just a launch, she wanted it to be a platform to promote vegetarianism and turn the whole world green. Well, I wasn't really very keen with the idea as…

I know this is way overdue but I am going to post up some pictures of KMP (Kechara Media and Publications). I have never worked in such a beautiful office before. The showroom of Volvo (one of my previous jobs) was not bad too but I was a lousy salesman. Anyway, never in my wildest…