It is all about me!

I  am thirty this year (2010)…

*silence* 

It's not that bad, right? I am not that old!  That's what I keep telling myself while I am looking at my ever-expanding waistline. My name is David and I started blogging ever since my first book, There's No Way But Up was published (Hence, this blog is named as such). This blog is barely a year old and there is only 30-40 people reading my blog. It's alright.  

I am born and bred in Petaling Jaya and unofficially a nerd but officially a  really cool guy. <– I love subliminal advertisement. Anyway, I am really a cool Buddhist and a vegie-monster (I am vegetarian! For those who didn't get it). I completed my Bachelor of Computing at Monash University in Australia but never entered  the IT industry. I found myself in a sales job instead. (Yes, that's me screaming away in the picture above.)

Somehow with a stroke of good luck, I met H. E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche about 7 years ago and became his friend and student. One thing led to another, I would myself working in Kechara Mystical Treasure (as a salesman, again!), did a short stint of assisting Rinpoche in the Ladrang and then… Kechara Media and Publications! Yes, I have a great passion for the Buddhas and the Dharma but I am far from being a monk or a teacher. Hence, friends would call me a walking dictionary (of Buddhist terms) or Reshe – a wannabe Geshe (monks who had been awarded a degree in Buddhist studies). (Yup, the picture on the right is me when I was 'running' around with Rinpoche as his assistant. Boy! Was I skinny then.)

As mentioned, I am the proud author of There's No Way But Up, the autobiography that Rinpoche requested that I write. It is not really a bestseller…. yet and I have heard some people say that some parts of my book is too plain and serious but I have also heard that people loved the book and said it had inspired them and made them understand Rinpoche better. That was all I needed to hear.

At a book reading of There's No Way But Up.

I have also collaborated with Paul,  the head of Kechara Discovery (he is also my housemate) to come up with the Vajrayogini and Other Power Places in Nepal coffee table book. He collected the relevant pictures, liaised with the designer and arranged the funding while I wrote the text for this book. I must say that the book just looks spectacular! Don't you think?

I am also been appointed as Apprentice to the Liaison Council of H. E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche. That means I get to be part of important meetings and decide upon the direction of the Kechara organisation. Well, that sounds like a big shot but I am really just a big shot in training. <– Subliminal messaging again!  (One of the first things I have to learn as an apprentice is to sing karaoke…)