There's No Way But Up

One of the things, I had always wanted to blog about more was cars. However, I have not really gotten into it much. I do like a good set of wheels but unfortunately, they don’t come cheap here in Malaysia. Import duties are sky-high, thus rendering simple Japanese models to be in the ranks of…

America is hardly the place you would associate with the impoverished. After a whole decade of a stellar economy, America is really hitting it hard on a downward trend these days and this documentary highlights the lives of 3 different kids experiencing life in a bad economy. In all honesty, I feel for these kids……

It’s been awhile since I last posted on this blog and I just received a wonderful sharing by Rinpoche just the other day. Rinpoche had been sharing a lot lately about gratitude on social media and he explained what dawned on him recently. He noticed that friends and students who transform and take on more…

My trusty current Samsung touchscreen Recently, I have been itching to change the gadgety gadgets that make my life go round. Well, before you jump to conclusions, I think I have pretty valid reasons. I currently own a Samsung Galaxy Note and a Apple MacBook Pro 17 inch. Both were wonderful gifts from Tsem Rinpoche…

  Let’s just say I love books and bookstores although I don’t have that much time to read these days. I had always loved books. For as far as I could remember, the moment my parents brought me out to the mall for a weekend stroll, I would immediately gravitate to the bookstores. Well, that…

Well, I have a friend who had been in a relationship with a girl for few years now and apparently, they had a rocky relationship from the beginning. They tried to give a shot at it for far too many times and this was my friend’s diagnosis of it. From day one, the girl had…

Stephen Tang, a student of Zasep Rinpoche Recently, I got in touch with a young student of Zasep Rinpoche in Toronto over Facebook. His name is Stephen Tang and we were just talking over Facebook chat and out of the blue one day, he said he would like to offer little Lama Tsongkhapa hats onto…

I am in the mood to write about something deep and I thought about this topic for awhile. It is so fundamental yet it is clearly misunderstood by most people, from casual observers to practitioners who are in it for years. As Rinpoche put it very succinctly, ‘You may be in the Dharma but is the…

Ripley’s Believe It or Not was founded by Robert Ripley early in the 1920s that featured bizarre items and strange events in a comic strip. Travel and exposure of the world was limited at that time so people often question his claims. However, it grew to such popularity that he expanded it to different formats…

I took these photos a couple of weeks back on my phone when Rinpoche took us out for supper. We had just watched Star Trek and we were just enjoying supper. As usual, Rinpoche was cracking really funny jokes and posing really uncomfortable but hilarious questions at Moh Mei. There were several uproars and I…

I live in Malaysia and the only natural disaster we experience here in Malaysia is just the haze. The white and grey smog that blankets the city in an almost picturesque manner. It is only picturesque until you breathe it in, smell the burnt scent and the dry irritation that creeps down your throat. That’s totally…

A couple of weeks, Tsem Rinpoche took quite a few of us for a movie treat in town. It was to be the latest installment of Star Trek. While waiting for the movie to begin, I read the rotten tomatoes review and apparently, it had near perfect ratings with its little red juicy tomatoes displaying…

Tsem Rinpoche came over to Manjushri Hill (my office) and did some stuff with a few of us here. Then he shared an amazing Dharma talk with us. It was quite an extensive teaching on associating our mind with our bodies that creates our suffering. Rinpoche began by uttering something really profound, he said that…

Last Sunday was father’s day and it was coincidentally my dad’s birthday as well. Well, it ain’t coincidental when it happens every year but whatever. Unfortunately, I was late for dinner and so we ended up in a Chinese coffeeshop and not anything fancier. Mum was starving and not up to waiting for food as…

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…