(By Tsem Rinpoche)

Dear students and friends,

Below is a video teaching that I gave a while ago during a tsog ceremony at Kechara House 1 (KH1).

KH1 was our first official Dharma center at Sunwaymas. I gave many teachings there to small groups of students, but after a while it got a little cramped! In September 2007, we moved into a bigger place within the same neighbourhood, which we called Kechara House 2 (KH2).

Again, KH2 would often have people seated in the walkways during teachings. The place just couldn’t accommodate… so in November 2010, we moved into our current gompa and KH 1 has since been converted to Kechara Media and Publication‘s office.

In the video below, I gave a teaching on tsog rituals… its benefits and how tantric deities can bless us. A tsog ritual is usually not allowed to be witnessed by those who do not have tantric empowerments… but on that day, I thought that it would be great to explain to everyone about tsog rituals and to give a short Dharma teaching. 

Please listen well and learn from this video. It is very informative for those who seek blessings and knowledge and wish to create the causes for receiving tantric vows.  You will understand better how the Buddhas bless us and regarding tsok. I wish you all very well and attainments.

Tsem Rinpoche 

How Tantric Deities Bless Us – Part 1

How Tantric Deities Bless Us – Part 2

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Transcript

A Dharma teaching by Tsem Tulku Rinpoche

transcribed by Linda Meryl, checked by Khong Jean Ai

Tsog 24th March 2006

Tonight’s a Tsog ceremony. Tsog is a Ganachakra or special ritual that has to do with making offerings on a tantric level to the Three Jewels.

And what happens is this: usually tsog is not allowed to be participated by people who do not have any higher tantric empowerments. And there’s many reasons for that. It’s not an exclusive club of some sort. It’s not something that you separate or you make bias. It’s not that. It is a matter that in tantric practice, there’s certain practices that are not appropriate for people who are not ready. ‘Not appropriate’ not as in harm, not not inappropriate as in disbenefit, not inappropriate as in damaging but inappropriate that it would be too overwhelming, like a small child who is in second or third grade and they give them college level, university level instructions. So that would be very difficult.

So what happens is, but I made an exception today because I thought once in a while if all of us can attend tsog it would be very very good. There are many many benefits for those who engage in the tsog offerings, and for those who actually hold their commitments, hold their samaya, and engage in the tsog offerings and also for those who participate. And I dare let other people participate not because I’m of a position or qualification or thokpa… khasey wa rey… attainment that I am able to turn things left and right and move things left and right, but my first guru, the great Sera Mey Kensur Lobsang Tashi Rinpoche, who’s already passed away last year in New Jersey, when I received teachings from him, he would allow the general public to attend tsog from time to time to get blessings. So following Kensur Rinpoche’s example, then I dare do something like this. Otherwise, I would not.

In any case, doing tsog ceremonies, if we do it in a traditional Tibetan style, and we do the chanting it can last all day or three quarters of the day. Of course it’s not going to happen here.

So when we do tsog offerings, what happens is that there are very beautiful liturgy to be recited. They’re paths to the stages to enlightenment. They’re paths to the stages to enlightenment that include from Refuge to the Four Immeasurables to generating oneself as a deity, making offerings to one’s root guru, also confessions, also reciting the paths, path, LAM, and stages to enlightenment.

And it’s all condensed into a very short form written by His Holiness the First Panchen Lama. And what happens is that when you get to the actual tsog part, when you get to the tsog part, it’s very very sacred because you invite the Three Jewels to this presence, and not just Buddha Shakyamuni, not just Tara, not just Tsongkhapa, or not just one or two deities but you invite the whole entourage of the Three Jewels here. And it’s very very powerful if you can actually, if you have the eye to see, the path, if you have the eye to see you will be able definitely to see them.

And whether you can see them or not we don’t need to doubt in the presence and the power of the Buddha.  No doubt in that. There are many many conditions and there are many causes that the Buddha went through to gain his extraordinary abilities. So what happens is if we study up on his life story, if we understand, then it will be very very clear. In any case I won’t get into details about that.

When we invite the Three Jewels, when the tantric practitioners themselves, it is assumed that the most important is that they have very strong guru samaya. They have very strong guru devotion. Their devotion to the guru is that they can even jump off a building if the guru tells them so. That kind of devotion. Not that a guru will tell you to do that but you have that kind of commitment so attainments come very fast and very quick.  And also once to follow that would be the Fifty Verses of Guru Devotion. And… but first before we even adopt someone as our guru we should see the person and see how they affect our lives, see their knowledge and qualifications and see if what they say penetrates into our minds and benefits us. Does it help us to make a transformation? If it does, then this is wonderful, this is wonderful. It’s our spiritual mentor, spiritual friend.

And then we have as stated in the Fifty Verses of Guru Devotion, Gurupanchasika, so what happens is we have very strong Guru Devotion and then we do the Sutra path. We develop, in short, renunciation. What’s renunciation? Renunciation is not just a matter of not having things or giving up things or abandoning things. Renunciation has nothing to do with having and not having. Renunciation is a state of mind where we have grasped, in short alright, we have grasped and understand the nature of phenomena or the nature of existence. The nature of our bodies, the nature of our surroundings, the nature of our friends and what we have – that nature is always impermanent. It’s subject to change. It’s subject to change, it’s impermanent for the reason that the causes and conditions that make these things manifest around us including our bodies and our friends are impermanent. So when one of the conditions is removed or changed, then what we experience, what we have, changes. Completely.

So people who have a grasping, a very strong grasping towards permanence or towards things not changing or towards things that should remain the same, or that why do things change? They have an obvious non-acceptance and non-understanding of the nature of phenomena, the nature of things’ existence and that is all things are impermanent, subject to decay and subject to change, and eventually death and from that, another change.

So what happens is when we don’t think about or we avoid that and we intellectually understand that, it’s very difficult because when we only intellectually understand that, then it is like we intellectually understand the disbenefits or the harm that alcohol can cause us or lying or cheating can cause us but we do nothing about it. So when we do nothing about it, simply knowing what it can do to us brings not much benefit to ourselves or other people.

So what happens is to have experience in it, to think about it, and to become enmeshed with your minds, to become close with your minds is very very important. And how does that happen? That happens when we do, when we engage in contemplation, better, meditation. And meditation doesn’t have to be in an exotic room, exotic place, exotic scenery. It can be on your sofa at home. It can be in your bedroom sitting up. It can be anywhere, meditation. What is meditation? Meditation is familiarising yourself with a certain truth that is based on logic. And when we familiarise ourselves with certain truths that are based on logic, what happens is as we familiarise ourselves and we get used to it, we get used to it, we get used to it, we see our minds change. We see our minds become detached. We see our minds start to renounce. When our mind renounces or detaches it is not, we don’t care about the people we love. It is not we abandon our responsibilities. It is not we become ordained people. It is not we become yogis and yoginis. It is not that we completely let go of what we’re supposed to do.

The state of renunciation has nothing to do with the physical letting go. It has nothing to do with the physical abandonment of what we’re supposed to do. Renunciation is the realisation and complete attainment that we will not be affected when things change. And when things change, we accept it. Easier said than done. When it’s accepted and it’s understood, and it becomes part of our lives, when our body starts to decay, when we start to become old, when our hair changes colour, when we become sick, when we lose our vibrancy, when we lose our husband or wives, when we lose our friends, if we lose our money, if we lose what we’re used to, what we’re comfortable with, if we’re used to praise. Whatever it is that we’re used to and we’re comfortable with, when we lose that, of course it makes us sad but it doesn’t devastate us. It doesn’t destroy us and it doesn’t make us do things that would make it even worse than it already is. In fact, when negative things happen to us, we’re able to turn that around and make it into something positive. And I’m not just talking about a motivational talk where you make things positive. I mean you really make something positive. Totally positive.

Example, the high lamas of Tibet. I mean really the attained lamas and the attained people, it isn’t just lamas who are attained, there were a lot of attained men and women. When Tibet was lost, everything was taken away: their identity, their names, their family were killed off, they are completely taken away, even their climate – they had to go to the subcontinent India – their culture, their language was completely abolished and everything having to do with Tibetan uniqueness is not allowed. Everything having to do with Tibetan culture and Tibetan writing and reading and arts and crafts and knowledge and scholarship and Buddhism – anything having to do with that was completely abolished.  And what happened was that people in Tibet who didn’t come to the realisation of impermanence and change, they suffered tremendously. Suicide or they even retaliated, they fought back, which was futile.

But the people that were highly attained, for example His Holiness the Dalai Lama, or His Holiness Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, or His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, or His Holiness Kyabje Ling Dorje Chang, these great masters, His Holiness the Great Karmapa, who actually knew and left early, His Holiness the Great Sakya Trinzin, and Mindroling Rinpoche, His Eminence, and all these great lamas, they were very sad and they were very very distraught, and they did many prayers to stop it, but you see, they, it doesn’t stop them from carrying on and doing even better work.

And as His Holiness says, is that Tibet’s loss is the world’s gain. In what way? Not that the Tibetans have something wonderful to offer but the science of the mind that they have preserved for a thousand years in their country is of tremendous benefit to the world, because the science of the mind that the Tibetans have kept, and very well, was passed down by Indian great masters and they were passed down from the great siddhis, siddhas, Mahasiddhas, yogis and yoginis and the great great ordained masters, the panditas of India, which originally came from the arhats and those came from the great Lord Buddha himself. So that is spread out into the world due to this exodus, and that has brought tremendous, tremendous benefit to many many people.

And so you don’t see His Holiness, let me just use an example, harping on the past, being depressed about the past, or trying to retaliate or trying to fight or trying to bring harm. He doesn’t do any of that. In fact He is sad, and He wishes it was different, but He tries to do something about it but He accepts. And at the same time instead of sitting around and being depressed and moaning and groaning and waiting for, you know, social security or welfare or someone to give a helping hand, what His Holiness does is He spreads His message all over the world.

And due to His Holiness’ incredible hard work and help and peaceful stance in His practice, especially in His practice, His commitments, His samaya, and His incredible guru devotion and His non-stop work, the purity of His vows, that Buddhism is spread all over the world. And people like us who have a wonderful centre to go to and wonderful place to go to, indirectly and directly, comes from someone like His Holiness where, if He was not legitimate, if He didn’t do His job well, excuse me for saying, everybody else would, every time they saw a maroon robe, they’d run because they’ll say, “Well, the leader’s a scoundrel or something funny, so definitely everybody else under him must be also.” So that’s not the case and in the case of His Holiness it’s incredible because He is really selfless, really really selfless. And because of His selfless work we have a wonderful place in order to learn the Dharma to transform our minds. None of you are Tibetans here and none of you need to be devoted to His Holiness in any way, shape or form, but we have total respect for a pure monk. We have total respect for a monk who has held his vows for sixty, forty, fifty, sixty years, non-stop, and who’s tirelessly worked for others. We have that great respect. Like we have great respect for Mother Teresa who’s held her vows and selflessly helped many people throughout her life, until her nirvana.

And so what happens is this kind of people we respect tremendously and when we invoke upon them and we think about them and we make offerings and we pray, it brings us blessings. It opens up seeds in our minds. It also calms us down and inspires us and also gives us directions, somewhere to look, something to do.

In any case, like His Holiness, who is unattached, who’s definitely renounced, I don’t say this because He’s a great monk… you can see by His actions. His position, everything about Him was taken away, but it doesn’t harm Him, but He continues to benefit and help and bring tremendous relief to other people. Just like many lamas, like His Holiness Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. Non-stop they bring benefit to others, non-stop. Tirelessly. Life after life after life after life. So we can see they are definitely renounced by their actions because they don’t do anything really towards the betterment of themselves. But they spend their time in study and practice and meditation in order they can be of benefit to others. And some of them do not need to do that. They have very strong previous life imprints, but they do so, why? In order to set an example, an example. No exceptions.

Especially within the Gelugpa system, the virtuous way started by Lama Tsongkhapa, especially within the Gelugpa system, having… verification, authenticity and being able to have a lineage is extremely important, as I have mentioned before. Why is that? Because in the Gelugpa lineage, Lama Tsongkhapa stressed pure lineage and pure, pure means what? Pure doesn’t mean his lineage is pure, everybody else’s is not pure.

It means that whatever lineage you are practicing, it must be, you’ve received this teaching from your guru, you’ve received the empowerment. You’ve received the transmission and you’ve done the retreats or whatever and the contemplations in order to be able to speak it to others. So pure lineage doesn’t mean one lineage is pure. Pure lineage doesn’t mean only this or that lineage is pure. It has nothing to do with that. Pure lineage means that you have received the transmission purely, that you have practiced, and therefore it becomes a pure lineage.

And you must be able to say where you get this information from, where it comes from, when you received it from your lama, it’s very very important. Why? We can’t simply go in front of people and say “Well, I say you should do it this way, I think you should do it this way. It should be this way or that way”. Why? Who am I? Who am I? I’m like you, unattained, a normal person, hanging out in Samsara, so if I start making up things, then it’s not going to help you because you can make up things also. So what’s very very important is having authenticity. When we have authenticity, even a normal, silly person like me can transmit the Dharma to other people. Why? I may be silly but the information I pass to you is not. It comes from highly attained masters. You see I don’t, I’m not ashamed of being normal and silly and having all the traits that everybody else on this planet has. But what I am very rejoiceful about, what I’m very happy is that I have received pure lineage, pure teachings from unequivocal masters, the last of the century and I’m very very fortunate. And I come from a very wonderful monastery that is authentic, that is incredibly, incredibly beneficial and it’s been existing for six hundred years.

So in that way when we practice renunciation, when we have renunciation… when we have renunciation, it is not a matter of you know you say to your wife, “Bye! I’m renounced, I don’t need to take care of you any more. I don’t need to give you a back rub, I don’t need to pay your bills. You know you work for yourself because if I work then I’m not renounced. So I’m renounced now.”

And then the wives don’t say to the husband: “Well, you know what? I think I’m going to go out there and be unattached too and not take care of the kids, not take care of themselves and just let it all go.” That’s not renunciation.

And then some people use renunciation very conveniently. Very very conveniently. I’ve seen some people, no offense to some people, when it’s to buy a car or nice clothes or jewellery or a night out or something like, I don’t know, some perfume, they’re very very renounced. They’re not attached to money at all. They immediately buy it. They grab it, they use it, they put it on, the new clothes, new car everything, not attached to money at all, it’s incredible how unattached and I fold my hands. And when it comes to Dharma or… or when they go out, you know they are very unattached to time, you know, no attachment at all. They can hang out at some… at some party, at some friends’ house, have pizza, have some bak kut teh whatever and just talk for six, seven hours about the neighbours, about everybody. And they’re very excited. If you say to anybody, almost everybody in this room: “Hey, let’s go for a drink, ah, yum cha!” Everybody go. Everybody run. But if you say “Hey, let’s go do some prostrations,” they say “Oh, I have no time… I have to work. I have to go to sleep. I have kids.” You know, everybody has kids, everybody has to go to work, but if you say “Go yum cha,” you say, “go out,” of course everybody has plenty of time because they are not attached.

And then when it comes to spending for their spiritual practice, they’re very unattached. Very very unattached to, unattached to what? Not the money, they’re unattached to the spiritual object, to buy a mandala, to buy a statue, to buy incense… very very unattached because they can have the poorest qualify statue, the smallest altar, the cheapest offering bowls. And you know the offering bowls shouldn’t be silver because they are unattached, they’re not attached to silver so they get little aluminium plastic bowls and they put it out there. Why? Because they’re unattached.

So people like that are amazing because their attachment and non attachment is very biased. And of course for a lot of these fellows out there, you know, they are very very unattached when it comes to very beautiful women. When the women are very very beautiful they are very unattached, “come on and see me”. And if the women are not up to their standard, whatever standard that is, right, they’re very unattached too to tell them, “No, I don’t think I can be with you because I’m renounced.” So you know you’ve heard that. And women these days are like that too. You know women are just the same as men, there’s no difference.

Example, I have a wonderful example. I have a wonderful example of women like that who are totally unattached to their form, their clothes, their hair, their actions, their speech, the way they look, everything. And in fact I was thinking of giving a certificate to this yogini to let her know that she is actually a highly advanced, renounced person. So if you need to know who this is, it is mahasiddha yogini Paris. Paris is the unattached person wearing the tight green shirt giggling away over there behind Andee. She is very unattached, incredibly unattached.

And anyways, all jokes aside, attachment is not wanting or having. It’s not a matter of having or not having. Attachment is what? Attachment is holding on to permanency. Holding onto thinking things must remain this way in order for me to be happy. And to remove that… if we think about it, every time something changes in our lives, how much suffering, unhappiness does it bring in us? How much suffering and unhappiness does it bring in our life? Like some people if they lose their job they become very depressed, they become very angry and, you know, they want people to take care of them and they retaliate and they don’t want to get themselves up again. Yes, it’s difficult but it’s not the end of the world. And there are people who if someone says something not nice to them, they throw a big BF. They’re not happy and they want to retaliate, they want to fight. They want to do something to show that they’re unhappy. And these type of people, no matter what they say, actually their attachment level is very very high. Very very high. So attachment, not people, attachment, not things around us, material items, not situations, not age, not anything but attachment to these items and holding on to permanency brings incredible unhappiness to us. Incredible.

For some of us in this room they’re thinking “Oh, what is he talking about?” It doesn’t matter. Even what I’m talking about if you don’t totally understand it’s all right because it’s the teachings of Lord Buddha. It’s the teachings. And I’ve received these teachings of the Three Principle Paths from His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. So my lineage of that comes from His Holiness, and by saying that, and by repeating that to you I hope to plant seeds in your mind as His Holiness has done with us that in the future the realisation of the Three Principle Paths may arise in your mind.

So the second qualification we need for tantra is Bodhicitta. We need to develop Bodhicitta, Bodhicitta’s very very important. In short, Bodhicitta’s not being nice to your wife, to your friends, to the people who give you business, who tolerate you, people who pat you on the back and people who like you. Bodhicitta is having a thought… having a thought that in this life our mothers have been incredibly kind to us, from the time we were conceived inside her womb, and then birth, and then toddler, infancy, toddler and how she took care of us and how she wiped and cleaned us all the time again and again and again, non-stop. And as we grew older how she taught us and guided us and loved us and would sacrifice herself for us at any cost. And then at the same time, when we grew older, even if we got into trouble, or we did anything negative or bad, she will be there to rescue us. And this type of love that we receive from our mother is very very hard to receive anywhere else in the world. Very very hard. We can’t even receive that from our wives and our children. It’s very very hard.

So this kind of love and compassion that is totally without agenda, without motive, totally love, this type of love does exist beyond the parameters of a mother and child relationship. This type of love we can actualise by realising that this is not our only life. We’ve had many many lifetimes, and in many many lifetimes, every single lifetime we’ve had a mother that was just as kind to us as the one we had in this life. And that perhaps right now we don’t recognise who these mothers were in our previous lives and their previous lives but definitely we would have had to have a mother if we were to take rebirth. So therefore remembering that you’ve had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and thousands of lifetimes for countless eons according to Lord Buddha. So if we lived in a small city, if we lived there long enough eventually we’d be familiar with everybody in that city. Similarly when you’ve been in samsara long enough, you’re going to have to meet the same people over and over and over again. So they must have been our mother at one time or another.

So since they were our mother at one time or another, they are equivalent to the mother of this life, in the sense that if we can remove their suffering and the causes of their suffering, and the actual problems that they encounter, if we can remove that from the roots, it is our responsibility to do so. So when we think that we have to take care of all mother sentient beings, how? If we physically go out and take care of all mother sentient beings one by one by one, that will be wonderful but even someone so great like Mother Teresa who dedicated her whole life, she wouldn’t be able to touch everybody in samsara. Even if Mother Teresa lived for you know a thousand years, she would still not be able to touch everybody in samsara. So my point is how do we do that? We can help the people around us. We should be as helpful as we can and forgiving as we can. Yes, but for us to spend our lives just physically giving food and money and, how to say, gifts and a shelter to people is nice, but if on a deeper level, if we can become an attained person, if we can become a fully enlightened being, then the benefit we can bring to others is much greater.

Example, if you were a nurse, and you went to an earthquake-struck area to help victims or you were a doctor, the benefits are very very different. Like that, on our level, the way we are able to help people is not bad and we have good intentions, but it is not powerful enough. So therefore how to make it powerful is by creating attainments within our mind. So when we create attainments within our mind, we control our mind, our body and our speech will definitely follow. We can be of tremendous benefit and tremendous help to other people.

So therefore Bodhicitta is realising that all mother sentient beings have been kind to us in one way or another at one time or another. And that everybody deserves freedom from unhappiness and suffering. So I will take that responsibility that I will sacrifice my time, my energy, my pursuits… and we can reach that level. Maybe at this time at this moment it’s hard, but to even hear the word Bodhicitta, according to the great master Shantideva, plants seeds in our minds that are incredibly powerful.

Without Bodhicitta, without the thought that I wish I should take the responsibility for others, I wish to take responsibility for the benefit of others, I wish to bring benefit to others, continuously without agenda, that mind to arise is very very powerful. When that mind arises, the first thing you see to go in you is intolerance. Intolerance of other people, intolerance of the situation around you – prejudice and bias will go away. And also tolerance of the difficulties you go through. Tolerance if your partner is difficult, tolerance if your children is difficult, tolerance if your parents sometimes manifests as difficulty. Tolerance will arise in your mind when some sort of Bodhicitta starts to arise in your mind, that’s the first sign, alright?

And what’s tolerance? Tolerance is being able to tahan or to take difficulties for the sake of others. So when we practice Dharma, when we engage in Dharma practice, the first person that we should practice great tolerance to is our partners. It could be our wife, it could be our husband. It could be our friend. It could be someone very kind to us. So if the people around us we can’t practice tolerance but we pray for tolerance, we pray for world peace, we pray for Bodhicitta, then it’s very empty because what we do is when we pray to the Three Jewels, any of the Three Jewels, to our yidams or whatever, for tolerance, we plant the seeds to be able to achieve it in the future, but how soon into the future is questionable depending on our practice.

So what happens is when we practice tolerance around us, to our friends, to our lovers, to our husbands and wives, and to the people around us, immediately, immediately we practice tolerance… what is the practice of tolerance? To be patient with the perceived faults we see in them. To be patient. Because, needless to say, we don’t know how many times they’ve been very patient with us for things that we didn’t even know we did. So when we’re very patient with the people around us, when we’re very very patient and we develop that, that would be wonderful. And that would be helped by what? That would be helped by our meditation in Bodhicitta. In Bodhicitta.

There’s a wonderful book called Meaningful to Behold translated into English… khasey wa rey… it’s a writing on Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, and it’s written by the great master Shantideva. I read that book maybe twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven years ago and it made a great impact on my mind. A very very great impact. I was very young. And if all of you would get that book and read it, in the correct mood, not like a romance novel, but to study, to listen, to think about, contemplate, it will have great benefit. Why? It talks totally about developing the state of mind that takes responsibility for oneself… that takes responsibility for others. That takes responsibility for beyond people who bring us pleasure or give us what we want.

You see it’s very easy to take responsibility for one’s wife, one’s parents, and one’s children – you’re supposed to. You’re taught to do that, but to take responsibility for people who absolutely have no connection to you or does not benefit you is incredible. And when we develop that mind, we are worshipped by the gods. We are respected by the people around us. Our countenance becomes pleasurable to others. We are protected from all types of spirits and demons. Our mind becomes peaceful. We are on the stages, on the correct stages to becoming a fully enlightened being.

No Buddha is without Bodhicitta. No Buddha. A Buddha, one of the Buddha’s ingredients, descriptions, is that he must have full realised Bodhicitta. So if we wish to become a Buddha and that’s why we practice Dharma, Bodhicitta is very very important. Even if we don’t wish to practice to become a Buddha, but we simply want to have a better life, even in that way if we practice Bodhicitta, if would be tremendously beneficial. Imagine if we can practice the teachings of Lord Buddha, really really practice, and I don’t mean chanting.

People have a wrong view that Buddhism has to do with chanting. No, chanting is a very small part of Buddhism. Buddhism has to do with logical explanations to pinpoint our problems and to add a correct antidote, and to apply it over time to bring a happier person, happier family, happier society which will contribute to world peace. If we ourselves are not happy, how can we make people around us happy? If we ourselves cannot make people around us happy, how can we talk about world peace? The world is not at peace not because other people are creating problems, but because our own mind is not at peace.

So what’s very very important is when we develop Bodhicitta you will see your mind transform and change. You will gain control of your life, gain control of your destiny and Bodhicitta is very simply, although it is not simple, taking responsibility for yourself, taking responsibility when you do wrong, and to not hide, and when you do right to rejoice and also not, you know, wear a t-shirt and advertise what you’ve done wonderfully.

But Bodhicitta is taking responsibility for oneself and one’s mistakes… and it’s okay to make mistakes because me and you and all of us are normal human beings. We get wrong thoughts, we have doubts, we get angry, we get jealous and we make a lot of mistakes. Making mistakes is not the big issue but not owning up to them and denying them is a very very big issue. Why? Then when we hide it, then it builds, it builds in others and it builds in us. So even if we take refuge in Bodhicitta and we practice Bodhicitta teachings, and we believe in it and we practice just letting go of the mind, acceptance of our mistakes and we move on, you experience incredible freedom. You feel light and feel happy because all of us are very good people. So if we practice Bodhicitta teachings, not necessarily you are a Buddhist, not necessarily you need to have a Buddha statue, not necessary that you become ordained, but practicing Bodhicitta also can be beneficial in society in general, whatever religion or not religion or atheist you are. So that’s the incredible point of Lord Buddha’s teachings are applicable to all sentient beings, all right?

Then the third and last point which I will not go too deep into is the complete attainment of shunyata or emptiness. A lot of Tibetan lamas and a lot of Tibetan students running around and they are talking about emptiness and emptiness, and I’m not going to sit here preaching to you as if I understand it or have any realisation but to make a point simple is, the state of shunyata and understanding is… removing all traces of the wrongly conceived ‘I’, the wrongly conceived ‘DA’, wrongly conceived self, that it exists in the way we feel it exists and therefore we have a wrong perception of the way ourselves exist… and because we have a wrong perception, we have grasping arises. When grasping arises we do many many many different types of actions and deeds that serves to reinforce this wrong type of thinking.

Example, very simple example… if one of your enemies or someone that doesn’t like you and is jealous of you in the office tells you: “Mr or Mrs. So-and-so, said this about you,” and you’re very angry and you’re very upset, and you every time you look at that person it builds up in you more and more and more. You don’t go and check it out… and then office workers when they talk or converge or they get together, you feel perhaps that this person said negative things about you to them and also that they’re gossiping and talking about you and it builds up more. You become uncomfortable, you become insecure, you become very very very paranoid, so everywhere, every place, you feel that people are talking about you, and they’re saying negative things about you, and you don’t investigate, you don’t check, or you don’t approach it and you don’t kind of… do something about it if something can be done, and we build on it and what happens is that we react to that negatively. We start fighting, we become defensive and maybe it costs us our job, maybe it costs us our friendship that it shouldn’t have cost us the friendship, where as if we actually investigated and talked and maybe approached the person kindly and asked “what’s going on” and maybe make them happy, that they’ll say to you “Oh, I didn’t say that. I didn’t that at all”. And you’ll say, “Oh my god, all these things that I’ve been doing and thinking, and all of these things that I have been conceiving in my mind, and all these thoughts that I’ve had around me are false.”

But you see to you they are very real. They were very very real. They were absolutely real, and you acted upon them as if they were real. Like in the dark you see coiled rope in the corner of a room, and when you look at it you think, “Oh, it’s a snake” and all your reactions come to it, for it, in dependence as if it is a snake… fear will arise, but when you turn on the light, you just see it’s rope and not a snake and you say, “Oh, what was I scared of? What was I scared of?” When we haven’t realised, we haven’t achieved this type of mind where we can totally root out wrong perception, then we experience this in life again and again and again.

Not just a rope snake, a snake that looks, that is not a snake but is a rope, not just in work but all around us, everything, and the degree of paranoia we have, the degree of unhappiness we have, the degree of unsettledness we have, the degree of how we’re not able to let go, how we’re not able to be kind to others, how we’re not able to let other people win, the degree of how strongly we’re attached to our mind that we need to be right, shows you how incredibly built up our personal projection is. Suffering arises from wrong perception. The ultimate cause for samsara, the ultimate cause for our personal and all samsara is ignorance, holding onto the wrong type of perception of how one exists. That is the root cause of all samsara, the root cause.

So when… that’s why most of the tantric deities, whether it be Lord Yamantaka, the great goddess Vajrayogini, or Heruka Chakrasamvara, whichever, Kalachakra, whatever, these great tantric deities, you will see they’re depicted as fierce, not because they’re angry, but they’re quick and fast in wanting to remove the cause of samsara. And usually under them, under their feet you’ll see stepping on and subjugated are different types of deities or animals or spirits or demons that are actually not what they look like but emanations of the purified mind of that deity.

So let’s say that deity when they were ordinary beings, was very angersome or they had a very self-cherishing mind, a strong one… well, if they become enlightened, they can, one method is they step on a snake to represent this hatred. That when they step on the snake it’s not an actual real snake that they are harming. You think, “Well they are Buddhas, why would they harm sentient beings?” It’s not that, it represents that when they step on the snake, they’ve overcome all kinds of anger and hatred.

In the case of the great Hayagriva deity, with eight legs, six arms, three faces, he steps on eight snakes. Has a lot of symbology but mostly about destroying anger. So what happens is Vajrayogini or Yamantaka, they step on desire and our grasping at desire, it is represented like that. And they also step on high level gods… they step on high level gods not because they are powerful and they catch them and they like step on them and show that they’ve won, you know, some kind of reality contest and Yamantaka won and the other gods didn’t win. It’s not that, you know. What it is… is that it shows you that it’s not necessary those gods are real, but it shows you that Bodhicitta, Bodhicitta, one representation is that it is so highly valued that even the gods will offer flowers, scatter flowers on you and offer praises to you.

So when they are stepped on by the deity, it is not that they are being harmed, it’s showing in symbology that even the great gods humbled themselves to someone who has Bodhicitta. Someone who has realised emptiness. So what happens in symbology is that it is very very very powerful to show us. So when we see a Tibetan deity that’s in tantric form, they may be fierce, they may be scary or whatever, what happens is… is that every part of their body, their colour, their symbology, their face, even their eyes, their hair, the way it stands, the colour of their hair, their ornaments, their jewels, their stance, their pose, their mudras, their position, what they step on, their aureole, their lotus, the colour, whether it’s the sun or whether it’s a moon lotus has a total significance of that deity’s manifestation of a particular form of enlightenment. And how when you practice this deity, you will achieve enlightenment through this particular method that is a good counter to you. A good counter.

So like that each deity carries accoutrements and weapons or hand objects or steps on certain things that when you see, it is actually a message or a symbology to you that if you practice this deity, through this method you will achieve enlightenment. You will achieve enlightenment.

So in order to practice tantra, in order to practice tantra you will have to, you will have to achieve the three principle paths: renunciation, Bodhicitta, and shunyata. And Kyabje Zong Rinpoche said, His Holiness the Dalai Lama also said, that if we don’t have the three principle paths and we’re not attained, then if we do the practices of tantra it will be very shaky. We might even go backwards. Why? We don’t have the proper foundation.

But at this day and age, where samsara beings wander, distractions are great, and practice is hard, and also a lot of people at the end of their lives find what have they done with their lives? They didn’t do anything bad. They did what they were told to do. They were told to you know get an education, get married, have kids, support them, the kids grow up and then they are happy with their grand kids and then they die… they’re supposed to be happy with that. That’s what we’re told, that’s what we do and then at the end of our lives, many people I’ve encountered, thousands, I’ve talked to, say they’re not happy. They feel what happens? Where’s it going? And the younger people who are about to engage in that, they’re not stupid or bad but they know no other way. Their elders have nothing else to teach them. They teach them what they know from their love.

So what happens is that at the end of a life we have to look. Are we prepared for death? How are we to be prepared? Simply that our kids are taken care of, that they have money, they have education? No, it doesn’t do anything for us. It won’t do anything for them when they die either. So we have to think on the deeper level. Is that true preparation for what will ultimately happen to all of us in this room?

Now if I tell you, “You smoke ciggie butts and you smoke cigarettes you’re going to get lung cancer”, and some of you say, “Maybe I do, maybe not” and you quote a lot of people who smoked their whole life, and not get lung cancer, yes I agree. Then if you say if you drive recklessly you might get into a terrible accident. Well you say, “I’ve been driving recklessly for years, you know. Look at these motor racing car drivers, you know? They drive recklessly all the time and they don’t die.” Yeah, I can agree with you, I can’t argue.

But if I say to you, “All of us will die, all of us, and no matter whether you have all your friends and family surrounding you holding you or you’re alone in the woods, you’re going to die.” And at the time of death, nothing helps you. Your kids, the money, your energy, your beliefs and your effort, nothing will help you at that time. Nothing can save you at that time.

What will save you is to development of your mind. The development of your mind when your other gross mind, in short, dissolves into your subtle mind, tramageshepa when it dissolves into your very subtle mind, and then you leave your body and you see the signs and stages of death, clearly in front of you with your mind’s eye. With your subtle consciousness… when you see it step by step, which we’ll talk about in the future, step by step by step and you see your elements dissolving, see fire, sparks like fireflies, see like hazy, see… feeling like the ground is moving. These are all signs of our earth, water, fire, etc, dissolving. And when that dissolves then our subtle mind will leave our body and how it leaves our body and where it goes and what experiences in the next life it takes will be totally dependent, totally dependent on what we’ve done in previous lives and this life. Very very important.

And at that time, at that time, some people believe at the last minute, “Oh, I take refuge in the Buddha” or, you know, “I take refuge in Jesus and everything’s fine”, it’s not so easy. You can’t wipe away a lifetime of habituation with taking refuge in a holy being. It helps but it can’t help you the way you think. You can’t become delivered. It’s impossible. It’s illogical.

If it’s logical, then we all we don’t need to be here. What we do is we clear you all out, clear the statues, clear the throne, send these monks back and say “See you later,” and send everybody back and tell everybody to get lost and what I do with my liaisons is I change into business partners. You see, I have seven liaisons who are my assistants. I change the title from liaison (or changtzo in Tibetan) to… khasey wa rey… business partners and you know what we’ll do? Immediately, we’d change this whole place into a big delicious, wonderful girly pub. It would be fabulous. We got wonderful, beautiful people in the audience, you know, maybe we got to be modern. Half is the girlie pub and the other half is the boyie pub. You know, so some of the all the girls can go to the boyie side. You know,Paris would be there immediately, don’t have to ask for donations. And then the girlie side and the boys here… I don’t know, some of the boys go to the boyie side too. With this crowd you never know. So what happens is we open a little girlie club, I mean no nudity of course, because we are Buddhists, oh no, not any more…. But ah, what happens is we charge for drinks, have a good time, put on a wonderful life, put on music and you know, we have a karaoke area and so.

Wow, forget about donations and please help for sake of, whatever. We just forget about it. If nothing happens in our next life. We just have a great time now, or what we think is a great time. We have parties and, you know, we talk with each other and you know we make a lot of money. We make a lot of money, we store that way and, I don’t know, we can follow some examples from the past. We can build a big pyramid and stuff our money down there because you know in the after-life we can enjoy it, what? That’s to say if some of our friends don’t know that it’s hidden there. Or we can put it in a big FD, a spiritual FD, and the minute you die you make sure somebody you love burns that money for you so you can receive it in the afterlife. I mean, you know, isn’t that wonderful?

So if Dharma and karma and all these things don’t exist, then we can do all that. But they do exist. They exist because look at the disparity among us. The way we look, the way we appear, our abilities, how we are, what we’re able to do, what we’re not able to do… this didn’t come from nowhere. This comes from a cause. The result always resembles the cause. Nyingpo. Always resembles the cause. How we are resembles what we’ve been doing. How we think and how we act resembles what we’ve been used to doing our whole lives. So what we’ve been used to doing our whole lives will culminate into… it’s called habituation, and we’ll be used to doing that. So if we’re used to doing that and we don’t need to change, and we can open up this great disco and you know get rid of everything and we have great fun, and you see Punstok? He’s a great dancer. Geshe Punstok is a wonderful dancer. (Tibetan speech to Geshe Puntsok). Just kidding. Of course he won’t. But (Tibetan speech to Geshe Puntsok). So I was just kidding, Geshe Punstok doesn’t dance, of course. But he can do tantric dances, but not your type of dances.

Anyways we do this and then just before we die, you know, maybe I get cancer, or something like that or you know, I don’t know, we have a premonition, maybe, you know, what’s his name Jenny Wong here has a dream, you know, you’re going to drop dead? So what we do is immediately we run… we run somewhere, to Gaden Monastery and find some lama or monk and we take refuge. And then everything’s fine.

So if we die we all go, you know, to Vajrayogini’s heaven, Sukhavati, Amitabha’s heaven, why? It’s very easy, what, we have, a great party our whole life and everything and you know if someone, if someone doesn’t pay up in the pub, if someone doesn’t pay up, we send Fat Monk there to talk to them. Yeah, we send, you know, we do the Malaysian way, what. You don’t want to pay up? We send people to talk to you. That’s why I always pay up in Malaysia. I don’t want anybody to talk to me. The horrible part is they don’t talk to you. They just they do different mudras that are quite scary.

So what happens is… well, we can have a great time, we can party, we can do this, if we are completely sure that there’s no next life. If we’re completely sure (Tibetan speech) next life and karma and cause and effect doesn’t exist, if we’re absolutely sure then what we’ll do is I’ll lead the group like the Pied Piper. Like I said, we’ll get rid of everything, we repaint the place, renovate, put in a lot of lights, get rid of this horrible marble floor and we put disco lights under there like the Seventies, you know. John Travolta and Night Fever, we do those things. Imagine this whole place, the floor is lit? Then you know we throw votes, who’s going to dance and who’s not going to dance. Who’s not going to dance. That’s right. Like Sio Chian is definitely going to dance. Definitely. You know like, Uncle Lai, I think we’ll let him relax this time around. Definitely Andee has to dance. Definitely. Definitely. And let me see, who else? No, we’d better not get Christine all that, it’s going to be a little bit too child. Oh,Paris is going to dance, definitely. She’s going to have her own little corner with bars, and she’ll just hang there and swing around the bars. She’ll figure out something to do.

We do this the rest of our lives and then you know, at the time of death we take refuge and everything’s fine. Everything wiped away. You know OM VAJRASATTVA HUM. Everything’s fine. No problem at all. Are we sure about that? All the problems and difficulties that we have now, all, not some, all, arise from a cause that resembles what we’re experiencing now. So it’s very very important now that if we can’t do Dharma one hundred percent, that we need to add it to our lives, ten, twenty, thirty, forty percent. And as we get older, as we learn more, we incorporate Dharma practice into our lives more and more and more. And I’m not talking about just chanting. I’m not just talking about recitations, going for initiations and doing tsog and knowing pujas and being able to recite the text eloquently. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about Dharma practice where your mind transforms and doesn’t revert back to what it was. Very very important. To altruism.

So when we can do that we are preparing ourselves. Then on top of that, in order to facilitate our Dharma practice, meditations and contemplations, facilitate our readings and understanding, to facilitate we make offerings. We do the preliminary practices, Vajrasattva to purify. We do prostrations, we do mandala offerings. I will go through these again with you guys again because there’s a lot of new people. And also to do, to have a simple yidam at this point without initiation. Our yidam can be Lama Tsongkhapa. What’s more superior than that? Three Bodhisattvas combined into one. To do a simple meditation on Lama Tsongkhapa every day, example, Gaden Lha Gyama with Guru Yoga, Lama Tsongkhapa. Fabulous.

You don’t initiation, you don’t need to take a lot of vows. You look at these tantrika people here – they all sit there with beautiful tables and beautiful cloths, you know, they have nice cushions and they have flowers and they have mandalas and they look fancy schmancy and they have all their little covers all over it and then they sit there in meditative postures and they roll their eyes and you know, wow! Look at them, they’re a tantric practitioner, we’re like, “Well, I want to sit at that table too.”

It’s not that easy to sit at that table. Why? You have to take a lot of vows. You have to take a lot of commitments, and you have to take and you have to hold those commitments seriously. You have to have very strong guru devotion. You have to have some experience of the attainment of the three principle paths, and if you are going to sit at the table and hold the vajra and bell, if you’re going to sit at the table and want to practice tantra, no way back. If you want to do that, you have to start with a very simple practice, tolerance. Tolerance for people around you. Tolerance for your negative attitude, tolerance for your failures, tolerance for your laziness. But to have tolerance in the positive way to recognise and to move on. And to hold your vows very well.

And tsog practice is not itself the practice of Dharma. Tsog practice is only a supplementary practice that helps but is very very powerful. So what happens is when we do tsog practice, the tunes that are sung, I don’t think we’ll do all tonight because it’s late, the tunes that are sung are ethereal. They were composed by great lamas such as His Holiness the Panchen Lama, who actually has the ability to hear dakinis. He has clairaudience. He can hear dakinis. He can hear how they chant and what pleases the Buddhas. And record those chants down and they’ve been passed down for many many generations from guru to disciple, and held very sacred.

Why? With those very special chants, the…one, doing it, it transforms their own mind. You see the notes and the sounds inside of it, those chanting, actually transfers, transforms the person inside, temporarily brings peace and also it moves the winds, the energies, it opens up your drops temporarily for the blessings to enter.

And at the same time when you do those kinds of chanting correct with words and meditation, when you do it correctly, it invites the mythical beings which really do exist from the twenty-four holy places and they are, according to the Heruka Mandala, of twenty-four holy places, when Mahadeva was subdued by Shakyamuni.

Those twenty-four places are very powerful power places on this planet. There are power places all over the world. All over. The twenty-four holy places where the great dakas and dakinis reside with their entourage, one each at each place that are recorded according to the Vajrayogini and Heruka Mandala.

And these dakas and dakinis by oath, when we do tsog, they immediately converge to the place. And when we have our meditation correct and when we have our motivation correct and we have our samayas correct, they completely bless us. How do they bless us? Each time we do tsog, our minds transform. We let go of anger. We let go of hatred, we let go of intolerance, we forgive, you’ll see your mind transform and change. A blessing is what? A blessing is some healing comes about in you. And the healing comes about in your physical body. Healing.

At the same time tsog is very very special. Why is that? Because tantric practitioners are supposed to have gained some experience or attainment of the three principle paths. Therefore they’re quite, they’re people who are not attached. They’re usually people associated in the past, okay, with people who have given up on themselves and attachment towards themselves and they usually go to a cave. They usually go to a retreat place. They usually enter a monastery. You know, they don’t have to be monks either, when they go to a forest or whatever, they receive teachings and initiations from their teacher after training and they actually go into meditation to the forest to focus, to go away from politics, go away from society, go away from norms and go away from customs and whatever that society forces them to do, and not be distracted and beg for alms or be supported by a sponsor to have alms, and they go meditating in the forest. And so they don’t have a lot, they don’t have money. They don’t have a nice house. They can’t go to 7-Eleven and buy, you know, offerings. They don’t have a kitchen to cook. You know they don’t have a plantation to pluck the fruits.

So these great tantric practitioners, in order to realise their goal, they need to collect a lot of merit. Merit on meditation alone is not enough because not all meditation is that strong in the beginning. So these tantric practitioners must gain a lot of merit that supports their realisation so that when they go and meditate, when they go and meditate they actually can gain experience and realisation. Thokpa. Why? By habit, by knowledge, application. And supported, supported by, so you are not just a dry knowledge holder. Supported by merits. It becomes very moist. They gain realisations.

So for these tantric practitioners who don’t have a lot of material resources to make offerings, tsog is very powerful. Why? When you do tsog offering, the practitioners, if they do it correctly, they themselves are not ordinary beings during tsog. Whether we can perceive or not, doesn’t matter. They are not ordinary beings. They have become generated in the form of their deities. They can generate as Yamantaka, as Kalachakra, as Vajrayogini, as Heruka, as Hevajra, whatever their yidam is. And if they have, you know, many yidams, then the main yidam, they generate as that yidam.

So the whole place of tsog becomes a place, not a building, not a marble floor. It becomes a divine mansion, created a mandala palace, divinely created from the attainments of the yidam. So every structure, every edifice, every entrance, every corner, everything within this divine mandala is the extension of the deity’s mind. So the divine palace. Then every thing they hear around them is not chitter-chatter, is not just gossip, is not more words that increase our desire and hatred and anger. It is actually the sound of pure mantras coming forth and we hear pure mantras. So that whatever we hear doesn’t affect us, doesn’t bother us, and the minds themselves reside in divine pride – not pride, divine pride to benefit others.

So tantric practitioners themselves actually manifest as a tantric deity within and with the power of being a tantric deity, whether it’s actual or just imagined in the beginning, it’s fine. Then they do offerings. When they do offerings, they consecrate the offerings. When they consecrate the offerings, the offerings become [RECORDING MISSING – possible word: ‘multiplied’]. Doesn’t mean just one or two apples, whatever offerings you see is not just there. It is increased to fill the universe. And so when it is increased to fill the universe, the tantric practitioners visualise this offering, visualised in real, blessed by their mantra, by their Samadhi and by their mudra. Blessed by Samadhi, mantra and mudra. Empowered by their guru devotion and made firm by their realisation of the three principle paths.

Then it is a tantric practice. Then it is a tantric offering. And for that type of person, even if they’re wandering in a forest or they’re living in a cave and someone offers them one small bowl of rice gruel, rice porridge, tsog… even one small bowl or even they get offered one banana, that’s all they have, if they do a tsog offering, to you it looks like one banana, to you it looks like one bowl of rice or porridge, but actually to the tantric practitioner it’s been blessed and purified to increase, filling the universe.

And therefore when they make that kind of offerings to the Buddha, it is much much more powerful, much faster, and easier to gain more merit than normal offerings. As stated in Sutra.

So you’re saying well, why is that so unfair? The difference between sutra and tantric offerings is the attitude of the practitioner. The attitude, the visualisation, their commitments. So when they do a tantric offering it is very very blessed because the offerings are increased, so this person who’s actually in a cave doing offerings with just one banana, or stupid me hanging out at home offering hundreds of water bowls to the Buddha every single day, their banana will bring more merit than my hundreds of silver water bowls. Why is that? Because they have transformed it by mantra, mudras, and siddhi.

And they are motivated by Bodhicitta. Whereas I’m at home making silver offerings, as you all know, that I may become rich, that in my next life I will always be born with a lot of hair. Unlike some people. I’m not looking at you, Mr. Ngeow, relax. That in my life I’ll have a fabulous body, flawless skin like Henry. That I’ll be tall and magnificent and fabulous. Okay, here nobody laugh. And, rude isn’t it. And that the CG temple that I have magnificent, that I have great intelligence and wisdom so they don’t call me a, you know, Angel… sorry, I mean dumb blonde! And that I’ll have lots of money. You know I want to be born in money. You know I want to be born really in money, you know, just lots of money. And that you know I never have to diet. I stay skinny all the all time. And that I have great parents. They love me. They let me do anything, you know. They give me a house in Monaco. They give me a house in Tokyo. They give me two houses in Hong Kong. One house in Penang because I like the hills up there. And let me see where else? Maybe a house in New York so I can have fun. And you know, everything. And people, there are people out there who have that.

So when I make these offerings and I make that kind of prayer and I make that kind of wish, because you’re making it to the Buddha, it will come true. That will happen. That is possible, but once that happens, once you’ve experienced it, it’s over. And once you get it, what you do with it, doesn’t mean you do something good. You see some people get wealth and power and position, they become worse people. They abuse it and they create even more negative karma. Having those things doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the result of good wishes and good karma. It’s not a result of karma. I’m sorry, it’s the result of karma, not merit. Different.

So what happens is when you have these wonderful things, then every single person in the world who has everything, whose beautiful and fabulous and have a great body and you know they are rich and they are famous, they should be very happy. They should be extremely happy and their happiness is unending. If they were so happy, we wouldn’t have all these trashy horrible little magazines writing about their unhappiness. That they’re getting divorced for the seventh time and they’re getting married for the eighth time. That they’re getting a sex change or that, you know, they lost sixty million dollars or, you know, you always hear about something. So they wouldn’t be unhappy. There would be no unhappy rich person in the world. That’s not true. But that’s the same for poor people. There is no unhappy poor people. There is no, that’s not the basis for happiness and unhappiness. That’s not the basis.

So when we make tsog offerings, and our motivation is correct, especially our motivation, and even if we’re not realised and we do the ritual according to the way our lama has empowered us, has so kindly empowered us, even if we are not attained and we believe and we just do it to the best of our ability, it becomes *inaudible*, becomes something that is totally, that fills the universe with this offering. And when we do this offering every… twice a month at tsog, the tenth and twenty-fifth. The tenth is Vajrayogini Day. Every month, the twenty-fifth is Heruka day. Every month. And these are the days the dakinis are hanging around, waiting to get on a cloud and come and bless you.  So when you do the rituals, when you do the prayers and you invite them, they come, they come and they bless you and they come and they tap you and they touch you and they do everything. Wonderful, very powerful.

So when tantric practitioners make offerings, it brings great merit for the place, for the people. Even some of you who don’t attend tantric practices or tantric teachings or whatever, it doesn’t really matter. Let me tell you, tsog, everyone should donate one or two dollars. Whatever you can afford. Donate to the centre so they can buy offerings, put you in it. Why? Every two weeks it’ll be done, it’ll be dedicated in a very very powerful way. In that way, even if you offer one or two dollars, it’s multiplied to hundreds and thousands of dollars. Whereas if you offer it the normal sutric way, that one dollar when you offer, is just one dollar. So tantra is very different.

That’s why tantric practitioners, tantric practitioners, they gain realisations very quick if they do the practices correctly. Not simply that they got initiation. Why? The ability to collect merit, the ability to transform the mind, the technique and methods are much faster. Why are they much faster? Because Buddha Shakyamuni knows that during the Kaliyuga times, which is now, degenerate times, for us to practice Dharma is much harder than before.

It is said in the Vinaya, one day now for us to hold the monk vows, the merit generated is equivalent to Buddha’s time when we held a monk’s vows a whole life. Why? Due to time and degeneration. Time. These days you ask people, “Do you want to be a monk?” Before you can finish your sentence they’re gone. They’re out of here. And if their parents find out that you made their little prince or princess a monk or nun, they’re going to come get you. You’re not a Rinpoche any more. They’re going to come and hang you, come with nooses, guns, cannons. They’re going to come get you. But you see during Buddha’s time or even before, if you said you were going to be a monk, everyone folds their hands. They want to be your sponsor. They want to offer robes and food to you. They want to offer dana. They are very very happy. Why? They know the virtues of it.

Degeneration comes when you want to do… degeneration is when you want to do virtuous work and the tide is against you. When you want to do virtuous work and the tide is for you, that is a meritorious time. So now to do Dharma, to do any type of Dharma, much more obstacles. Therefore whatever you do, has more power and significance.

So when we’re doing tsog offerings, for the tantric practitioner, the motivation is to become a fully enlightened Buddha as quick as possible. So when they make these great offerings… what they do is during these offerings, they rejuvenate their vows, they remember their vows for sentient beings that they’ve taken in front of their holy lamas. They take refuge for the sake of others, they generate themselves as the deity. They make offerings, body, speech and mind – inner, outer and secret offerings to the Three Jewels – and they dedicate that for sentient beings. And during the tsog offerings, they also make confessions of any downfalls so that this downfall doesn’t affect their practice for the benefit of others. And when they do the practice, the Three Jewels, all appear, all appear.

And for those without initiation sitting in the crowd thinking, “Well I’m not a tantric practitioner. What happens to me?” No. The sun shines on all, whether you accept or not, whether you know or not. Like that the Buddha’s blessing shines on all. So even people who are able to sit with the tantric practice, long or short, never mind, tomorrow you’re a little bit tired. Be tired. Be tired for a blessing, be tired for good results. If tonight we dance the whole night… we dance the whole night and we’re tired tomorrow, that’s a useless type of tired. It’s of no benefit. But if tonight we’re tired because we meditated and we prayed and we recited mantras and we thought about the kindness of our parents… if we recited tonight and we’re a little tired late, never mind. One night a little bit late, one or two hours you go to bed, you’re too tired, you know, your eyes cannot open, and you crawl into bed. Tomorrow a little tired, never mind. I’ll give you my picture. Tomorrow you can punch my picture, no problem. I’ll give you my picture. All of you can punch my picture, step on it, pee on it, whatever you like. Doesn’t bother me. I like it, it’s attention.

So but tonight, tired or not, get the most out of it. How? During the ritual, during the ritual, the energy is there. The blessings are invoked. We have a great Rinpoche here from Gaden. For many lifetimes he’s been in Gaden, Kating Rinpoche. Many many lifetimes. We have a great Geshe here who studied for over twenty years and also finished his tantric degree in Gyume Monastery. He did the whole course. You got a real live Geshe here. Pure in vows.

So we have these sangha and that’s part of the reason I invited all of you here. I don’t have much blessings but they do. So they’re going to pray for you tonight. And their holy sangha energy, whether you believe them to be a Geshe or Rinpoche, forget it, but they are really practitioners because they live in Gaden, they devoted themselves to the lamas. They’re monks. So when they chant and they pray, whether the voice is pleasant or not pleasant, it doesn’t really matter, the blessings there. So I invited all of you to come because we have sangha members here, and for all of you to be blessed by sangha members. Blessed. Definitely blessed.

I am… I am ordained, but I’m showing myself as not ordained so it’ll be easier for me to accomplish my works here for the time being. I have my reasons. But these two are much more senior to me in their vows. So what happens is to be blessed by sangha is wonderful. I believe that. It is true.

And Irene worked very hard. Irene went to India and went up and down, up and down in India to get the visas to bring them here. So a lot of time and energy was spent. And the liaisons worked very hard to arrange for their place to stay, cleaning, food and shopping, and the liaisons to work with each other very very hard. Very very hard, to make their stay very pleasant and nice. And… a few very kind people donated to the monk fund so that I can invite these people here, these monks here. So it didn’t come from one cause for one situation. It came together. These are the Gaden monks. Real Gaden monks.

And what happens is, then we have tantric practitioners here who have received correct initiation from a correct lama. And when we do it together, it’s wonderful.

Those of us who have received the initiation but doesn’t know how to do tsog yet, never mind, you do your yidam’s mantra three times the normal times you usually do it, that will cover. Being in tsog will be good enough. So let’s say that your yidam is Vajrayogini, let’s just say, and normally you do twenty-one mantras a day. Then on that day, you triple that. Sixty three. You can do more.

For those of us who don’t have any special whatever like that, like that, you know, what we can do is this, the people, the people who are sitting nearby, don’t waste it. Think about your parents, and what you can do for them. Think about your beautiful wife, think about your beautiful husband. Think about your beautiful children. Think about people who have been kind to you. Think about them for the next few hours. Think, don’t close your mind off. For once think about others.

And recite Lama Tsongkhapa’s mantra. <Recites Migtsema>. You can recite that throughout the tsog which will be very powerful. Why? Not only are you sitting in meditation, you are also reciting and thinking.

And those of us who don’t know Migtsema, never mind.Tara’s mantra’s wonderful: OM TARA TUTARE TURE SOHA. Buddha Shakyamuni’s mantra is wonderful. And if you don’t know any of that, OM MANI PEME HUM’s wonderful.

But those us who have tantric initiation, should do your yidam’s mantra quietly, quietly. Triple the amount you normally do. And if we miss tsog that’s what we should do. But we shouldn’t miss tsog. We should not miss tsog. Tsog is very important. Very very important practice. And if we make our priorities right, we won’t miss it.

And also when we do this partic… there are many tsogs, there’s Yamantaka tsog, Heruka tsog, many types of tsog, many types, but within our system, within our system, a tsog that covers everything, a tsog that covers everything is a Lama Chöpa. Lama Chöpa is Guru Puja or making offerings to the guru. Guru means what? The guy sitting in front of you in a white robe and screaming and shouting at you and telling you you’re nasty? No no, that’s not what it’s referring to, actually. The guru tsog or the Guru Puja, puja’s purification. Purification. Guru is what? Guru represents every single enlightened being who can bring you to enlightenment.

So the Guru Puja is making offerings to every single enlightened being, CHO CHUE – ten directions, DUSUM – three times, past, present and future. All enlightened beings who exist, past, present, and enlightened beings even in the future, we make offerings of song, praise, confession, reciting the paths of Lord Buddha, to remember and also offering the actual offerings to the Three Jewels.

And that is manifested as our guru Lama Tsongkhapa who completely reigns over the Three Jewels. So this type of practice, Lama Chöpa is very very powerful. It is powerful for us to sponsor the practice, to make offerings of fruits or whatever, yoghurt for the practice, and also to sponsor the place of the practice, to sponsor the ritual objects, to sponsor the mandalas, to sponsor the people, if there are monks or nuns or people who are doing practice, to sponsor this activity is very very great. It creates causes for you to be able to practice in the future.

And doing tsog puja, whatever anger you have, whatever unhappiness you have. Whatever doubt and jealousy or whatever you have, all of us do, to let go and to leave today’s puja released, let go. To be happy and to make people around us happy. Even if it is not genuine happiness, but to create that atmosphere by starting somewhere.

When we leave puja today, all the things that have been upsetting us, we’ve been holding onto, we want to get revenge for, and we want… we’re bitter about something, we’ve been holding on for a long time or short time, we should let go because during the Puja when we let go, the dakinis can bless us even more. How can they bless us? Your door is open. Your psychic channels open. They’re blocked! You open them by forgiving. By letting go, by realising that everybody makes mistakes. It’s all right. And not seeking revenge. And not having a black face or bad speech or to hurt or damage or be cold and cruel.

But to open up because this is a temple. This is a centre, this is a holy place. It’s totally because all of you are here to generate that mind. It’s holy not because of the statues, no, not that. They’re plenty of evil people like me who have statues. It doesn’t make me holy. But this place becomes holy because we are gathered here to generate a kind heart, to forgive, to accept, to let go.

How do we do that? Life is short. We all make mistakes and things can change. Nothing is permanent. So if we work for the Dharma, if we engage in the Dharma, we do practices, we do black tea and we’re very devoted to our yidams and Dharma protectors, if we are, but we hold anger and we hold on and we don’t let go and we don’t release, then our practice has very little benefit and even having Buddha statues around us cannot maximise their benefit.

So this place is holy because of all of you, gathered together to do prayer. What kind of prayer? For the lottery ticket? No. You’re not allowed to pray for that for yourself in this temple. You’re allowed to pray for that for me. So everybody pray, “May Tsem Rinpoche win the 4-D lottery, eight digits. May he win.” If you pray for yourself it’s bad karma, you go to hell. If you pray for me, it’s good karma, you go to heaven. So you’re not allowed to pray for yourself. And then you pray that Tsem Rinpoche has a long life, a fabulous body and that he never gets old and he gets a lot of money and he gets fabulous friends and obedient students and wonderful liaisons and plenty of money and wait… and more money and money. I can’t… did I miss anything? That’s what you pray for.

For yourself you pray, “May I be humble. May I be renounced. Maybe I not be attached. May I forgive and love. And may I may I may I talk to my friends again, may I let go. Oh for Tsem Rinpoche you know what you’re supposed to pray for. But if you leave the centre people ask you, don’t tell them. That’s our little secret. It’s tantra. Tantra we’re not allowed to talk about, what.

So when people ask you what Tsem Rinpoche asked you to pray for him, tell them that he prays that you… he asked you to pray that his wonderful manifestations will manifest all over the world non-stop because he’s a living Buddha. You just tell them that. Don’t say I said so, of course. But inside we know the truth. The truth is pray for him to get luck, beauty, 4-D, money, friends, slaves, nice house, lots of cars, and… what else am I missing? Ah, I can stay skinny without exercise. Thank you. And that I can you know not carry anything that’s from pasar malam… anything.

Okay, so that’s what you pray for yourself you know what, humility, humble, nice and sweet and everything. That’s what you’re supposed to pray for. No I’m just kidding. But what you should, what we should do now is for the next, for the few times we’re together now and the tantric people are doing prayers in their ritual, you can be just as effective if you generate that mind. “I forgive and I let go and I’m not going to be bitter. And I know life is short. And I know people make mistakes. And I’m going to let go and I’m going to forgive.”

And you may say, “Well what’s the point because tomorrow I might get angry again?” Yeah but you see, if you do it one time, two times, and three times, slowly it becomes a habit. If you never engage in it, how does it become a habit? It never becomes a habit. We have to engage in it.

And for the tantric practitioners, they themselves must think, “I take refuge from my heart.” If you take refuge, you follow the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, like on the door there… and you hold your tantric vows, and you be tolerant of the people around you and kind, you be exemplary. And you respect elders and you respect the law. And you try to generate your mind to be of tremendous benefit to others, tantric practitioners. And with that divine pride, we generate ourselves as the yidam.

Just because you’re a yidam, you know, maybe some of you generate yourselves as Kalachakra, a lot of arms. Some of you generate as Yamantaka, you know, with even more arms. Kalakchraka’s twenty-four. Yamantaka, I don’t know, maybe a hundred thousand, whatever lah, there’s all kinds of manifestations… thirty-four arms. And then you know some of the yidams here are just two arms so you slap the other yidams, they move over. You’ve taken enough space. You don’t do that. Don’t be sneaky! Different yidams don’t slap each other and move each other over. You be very gentle. Just because you’re Yamantaka, you’re on flames, you don’t tell the person next to you to move over, “You’re just Tara lah!” All is the same.

So for Tantric practitioners to have that kind of focus and meditation, and whether you can ring the bell perfectly, or do your ritual perfectly, you do the best you can from your heart. That’s what Buddha cares about.

And to regenerate your vows. Very important. Regenerate. How do you regenerate? <Tibetan; Four opponent powers: regret, not to do it again, purification, and vows and commitments not to do it. Purification practices. You should, we should do that as tantric practitioners, so-called. That’s very important. And to set an example for others, tantric practitioners must set an example for others. Not set an example of the road to hell, but set an example to the road to inner peace and happiness.

And people who are not doing the rituals, actually, never mind, please sit, savour and enjoy the chanting. Savour and enjoy the words. Whether you understand or not, they’re holy, they’re holy. When we’re young people give us vitamin C, we don’t know what it is but it still benefits our body. We don’t have to understand something to benefit us, we don’t. And to recite whatever mantras we know.

If we’re not Buddhist, whatever religion we are, we can chant, you know, “Hail Mary.” It doesn’t really matter. If you’re atheist, then you think about people that have hurt you and harmed you. That you perceive, to let go and forgive, and not to return their harm. To generate that type of mind. So when we generate that type of mind together, it’s fabulous. It’s wonderful. Then the place is holy and it blesses the whole area, the whole neighbourhood. Even at Datuks’ around here, the small earth gods and deities, are blessed. It’s very very powerful. So you should think like that.

And remember for this particular lama, this particular tsog is extensive. It’s done every two weeks in all the great monasteries, whether it’s the great Gaden monastery or Sera Monastery or Drepung. Drepung has over three thousand monks. Sera has over three thousand monks, currently. Gaden has over twenty-five hundred monks. Every… all the nuns, even His Holiness’s personal monastery, Namgyal Dratsang, Gyuto, Gyume, Upper and Lower Tantric Colleges… Lower and Upper Tantric Colleges. Tashi Lhunpo. Everywhere, every two weeks this ceremony is performed. And done to generate peace and happiness for everybody who is concerned.

And to be there also plants the seed for us to receive initiation and to practice it in the future. It’s incredible. So don’t think that, “Oh, it’s just a get-together to watch a show”. No, this is not a bunch of dancing clowns from Tibet.

So what we need to do? We should revere and feel very happy and during the time, during the ritual if we feel a little discomfort with our legs, we can stand up and stretch it quietly and don’t talk, and sit down again. If we need to use the toilet, we can. I mean tantric ritual is not S & M, you know, you don’t move, you gotta hold your pee, and you can’t do anything and you get slapped. I’d enjoy doing that for you because I like to purify your karma, but… but yeah, you can get up and go to the toilet and all that stuff. If you are little thirsty, drink, no problem. You know you have to sit there in mental absorption of the third level, and not move with your eyeballs like that… And not move… no no no, you don’t have to do that. You don’t. You can relax and be comfortable.

Recite your mantras and feel, “How lucky I am to be able to be here and to be blessed”… and next tsog, not everybody’s allowed. It’s going to be the usual crowd. This time, make an exception.

And if those people who really want to attend tsog, why? Even attending tsog for you in the present, let me tell you something, it purifies your negative karma. It purifies your obstacles. If you have spirits chasing you and disturbing you, it chases them away. It makes them stop their harm. Your body becomes clean. Your mind becomes fresh from thinking about compassion. Even for people who are able to sit in tsog, it’s very very powerful. Very very powerful.

That’s why you guys are very privileged. Why do I say that? Because I’m here? No. That is a well-known blessing for the people, blessing well-known. So feel like that, feel very happy and… our particular kind of tsog is the most profound, and it encompasses all the Three Jewels, past, present and future. All the yidams, every one. And I will show you. I will show you. Let me see. Kunga and Jenny, open the Lama Chöpa thangka. From left and right, yeah.

This is a new thangka that just came from Nepal, and it represents all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and deities, I’ll show you around. Just hold left and right, open it. Ah, that’s good. See, that’s very nice.

The puja is for this. This is the puja. All the lamas, all the lineages. Up there is Sukhavati Heaven, Amitabha’s Pure Land. On the left is Maitreya’s heaven, Gaden. Gaden Monastery is named upon this heaven. In the centre you have the lineages of Guhyasamaja, Yamantaka, Vajradhara, Atisha, and Heruka, all coming down, all the lamas of the lineage coming down and absorbing into Lama Tsongkhapa. And then on the left you have all the Indian masters on top who are before, and the Tibetan masters on the bottom. Then on the right, also the same. All the lineage masters, every one dissolves into Lama Tsongkhapa completely.

This teaching I received from the great master in Los Angeles, Geshe Tsultrim Gyeltsen who went through an extensive teaching on the guru tree at that time. And then in the centre you see Lama Tsongkhapa holding a begging bowl. He’s a monk, pure meditator, and with Buddha Shakyamuni in his heart. Within that is Buddha Vajradhara. Complete. And then on the top you have the yidams, all the high tantric yidams: Yamantaka, Guhyasamaja, Kalachakra, Vajrayogini, etc. All the kriya yoga, charya tantra deities. All the Bodhisattvas. All the TONGSHAG Buddhas, all the Svavakas, Pratyekabuddhas, the solitary realisers, and then dakas and dakinis who are highly enlightened and all the Dharma protectors who are fully enlightened.

So when we do guru puja, the guru puja is not done to one guru. It is done to the entire refuge tree. So our particular tsog is all the Buddhas. So when you give one or two dollars and we do puja here, it’s multiplied to the ten directions and offered *inaudible*. Because you know what? You buy one pau bread and you give it to me, how I’m going to share that with all these guys? Look. All these fellas, they are quite hungry. How to offer one pau bread? Then you guys buy one Coca-Cola, you give, “Here, I offer it tsog lah,” how are they going to drink?

Tsongkhapa’s the boss, he’s says, “Gimme me the Coke”, the other guy’s like, “What about me?” How? So cannot, so we have to multiply the tsog into great amounts and offer it to all the Buddhas. And every single Buddha, every two weeks, we make offerings of tsog to. The offerings of food, objects, sight, sound, sensory offerings from our attachments, our body, speech and mind. Our generation of Bodhicitta. And altruistic mind. Regenerating our vows and offering our vows up. Offering up the merits we created to dedicate to others.

So when we do a Guru Puja tsog, this is what we are praying to every two weeks, all over. So you know, it’s not one little Buddha. It’s all the Buddhas. It’s not one yidam, it’s all the yidams. So none of you can come up and say to me “Well, my yidam’s not up there.” Definitely it’s up there. Definitely. There’s no other Buddhas that exist beyond this. This is recorded.

Krystal told me… she told me she had a dream there’s no more Buddhas. So we’re going to have believe her because if you don’t she’s going to… you go talk to her later. You’ll believe her. Or you get this. All right, so what happens is, this is it. This is the guru puja we do every two weeks for tsog: Gaden, Sera, Drepung, Tashi Lhunpo, Gyuto, Gyume, all. So when we make offerings, it’s wow. Think about that, how fantastic.

So when they do tantric rituals they are praying to this. There’s no puja more superior to this in general. That’s why the great monastic universities, the great masters do this all the time. So this is what we’re doing too, and I just let you guys know. All right.

So what I’m going to do is this. I’m going to have Jenny come around. No, I’m sorry, I’ll have Kunga come around, this will be rolled up with a khata – except the monks, not the monks – everybody just hold your hands respectfully. He’ll come and tap you on the head lightly to get the blessings of all the Buddhas. That’s one.

The second thing is Jenny will come around with this stupa. This stupa contains the cloth of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche’s clothes… the beard and the moustache of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. Mantras written, Vajrayogini’s mantra written by Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. Pabongkha Rinpoche’s clothes. Pabongkha Rinpoche’s body. Many many holy items in here. Chakras made by these great lamas. And they are all in here and this is very blessed. (Aside: Not the monks.) They will come around and they’ll place it, and not Ani-la. Ani-la, Ani-la, you just put your hand and touch like that, no put on her head. And then this one will be placed on your head gently.

And when you receive the blessing just fold your hands and think, “May I forgive people who have hurt me. May I be of benefit to others. May I generate altruism. May I do that.” For one time don’t pray “money”. For one time don’t pray “beautiful girlfriend”. For one time don’t pray your “wife gets skinny”. For one time don’t pray your “husband get lost you get new one”. For one time. Just one time. This one time pray, what? “I may forgive people who have harmed me and when I leave, I will bring happiness to others and I will be of tremendous benefit to others.” Think like that when it’s placed on your head. You don’t have to just hold it there and go, “OOOhh”. Just very quickly think, no problem. Some people go, “Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move.” They’re praying, “No me, no me”. We do that, we’re going to be here until tomorrow morning waiting for you to generate your altruism. And I won’t be too altruistic if I have to stay here the whole night with you guys!

All right, so we’ll come around and do that. And then this is Tara, which is highly consecrated and highly blessed with many many holy items in there. Tara is the Buddha of long life. Cintachakra Tara Devi. Wisdom, merits, to purify our diseases. To purify inner and outer diseases. She’s wonderful to clear away negative dreams. So also what we’ll get is David will come around with a khata, and place this gently on your head, and just fold your hands and think, “Maybe I bring long life, happiness, wealth and merit to everybody who I encounter.” All right, not the monks and not Ani-la. Ani-la just the hand. That’s good. You do from the bottom. Bring one khata here for the thangka.

Today instead of doing a long long ritual and sing sing, song song and all that stuff, I thought I’d give you guys a Dharma talk of what tsog is, a short one, a very light one. Also an explanation of what it’s about so that you can get some benefit. You can get some benefit. Okay, in a few minutes we will start the tsog, which is not very long because I’ll speed it up tonight, but there are certain places where we’ll chant it out for the blessing of everybody. Again, during the tsog ritual, do your best to generate the states that I mentioned just now. Most important, forgive, accept, tolerate, and care and never hold on to the past and never hold on to what happened.

Think about the future. If we are not tolerant and compassionate and let go now, we will also be like that next week and it’ll be stronger next month and next year. So next year the chances of us being more harder, more angersome and more unhappy is going to increase because we create the causes by doing that now. If last time… if right now we feel like that, it’s because we’ve been doing that for a long long time. So now is the time to let go. Now is the time to release. Now is the time during blessings and puja, to ask the Buddha to bless your mind that you can do this. But the Buddhas can’t do it for you. You need to do it.

Today I spent more time doing explanation, small explanations, rather than doing the puja, why? Explanation for you is puja. Doing lengthy, lengthy chantings and singing and all that doesn’t benefit you much if you don’t understand and you generate a negative mind. Maybe you’re bored! But if it’s short and you understand the meaning somewhat and you can open your mind, then it’s much more blessed. So in Malaysia it’s very important because people here are very educated and people here are very very advanced and very very knowledgeable.

So here when we teach Dharma to people we don’t teach them like we teach peasants. Some places inTibet, we need to explain, some places we just teach very fast, tell them what to do. So I don’t believe in the type of Dharma that just tells you what to do, just tells you to chant, just tells you to pray. This is your… this is the temple, donate or whatever. I don’t like that. What I like to do for the people here, because you have education, because you are very advanced and smart, cosmopolitan, I can give you explanations so that when you leave this place, Kechara House, you have some more knowledge, and more understanding.

So whether you join Kechara House as a member to study the Dharma, to pray for the benefit of others, it’s up to you. Wherever you go or wherever you don’t choose to go, whether you choose to practice or choose Buddhism or not, it doesn’t matter but at least after tonight you will have gained some knowledge. And some understanding that will benefit you tremendously. So that’s what I… that is my purpose of having a Dharma centre here. It’s to give knowledge, to teach acceptance and tolerance, to bring the family together. And to respect the laws of the land and to make people good citizens. By knowledge and, on top of that, to develop Bodhicitta, Shunyata, to engage in higher practices and to become someone that’s of benefit to others. That’s the purpose of our centre. No other purpose.

And we have special traditions and empowerments and blessings and practices that are very special to Gaden Monastery. Very special. In particular, to His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, His Holiness Kyabje Trijang Dorje Chang, His Holiness Kyabje Pabongkha Dorje Chang, His Holiness Kyabje Dapo Dorje Chang. All these great masters. The lineage. And on top of that, combined with the holy essential teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Why? Because the Dalai Lama are their disciples. That’s his gurus and his lineage gurus also. So this is what we plan to do in this centre and we respect everyone else and we love everyone else and we totally support everybody else but we do our own practice well. And that would be very good.

So during the tsog puja again, let me remind you, please recite the mantras and let your heart open. Forgive. Let bitterness go away. Let things that have happened in the past that are not good, let go and move on. I’ll tell you why. Because if you do that now, you’ll feel different next week, next month, next year. And you’ll get the results of your mind generation tonight. Then combine that with mantra. Alright? Day by day. And it will open up and when it opens up you will experience the force of the actions you have done to others, but multiplied.

Depending on who you have done it to. Maybe you’ve done it to an attained master, an attained being. If you’ve done it to an arhat, a Bodhisattva, a sangha member, your parents, or someone who really believed and trusted in you. If you’ve cheated them, if you’ve lied… if you’ve taken away things, if you’ve deceived them in any way, if you’ve hurt them in any way, all these actions, no matter how temporarily they bring us wonderful, some sort of relief, in the end, the karma will catch up.

It doesn’t matter what colour we are, it doesn’t matter what race we belong to, it doesn’t matter what culture – when we die, in any culture, no matter what they dress us in, no matter what we believe in, if it’s cold or hot, or North or South Pole, when we close our eyes, it’s final. When it’s final, everything that we have done in our lives, doesn’t matter any more. The kids that we have so much sacrificed for cannot help us any more. Our reputation and our name cannot do anything for us any more. Our ancestors cannot do one thing for us. The Buddha cannot do anything for us. No one. Why? Now the power and the forces of karma and its effect will take over, very very strongly.

So instead of waiting till the last minute and procrastinating and waiting, we should adopt the practice of generating a good heart… a good mind, now. How? By immediately, immediately, immediately, not tomorrow, not next day, not when we’re in a good mood, not after we’ve had a meal, not after we’ve gotten our pay-check, but immediately to let go of things, people that disturb us and not seek revenge. Showing a negative attitude in silence is revenge. Killing someone is revenge. Revenge is something that we react back to others that we don’t like, that we feel have done something negative to us. So these people we feel have done something negative to us and we react back in any way, to react back negatively is revenge. And what happens is that revenge is small but it becomes bigger and bigger and bigger. Why? We habituate ourselves. In the future if some one does something else or whatever it is, we will do more and more revenge, and it never ends. The mind cannot be calm, cannot be happy.

So what happens is most important, most important is to read the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation and those are on the wall at the entrance on the right, painted by Margaret beautifully. Those are… that is the credence or the credo of our Dharma centre. And whether we believe in Buddha or not, we must believe in kindness and giving kindness and appreciation for people that have been kind to us.

And so the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation should be our heart of heart practices. All of us. Whether we believe in Buddha or not, and if we do we’re very lucky… the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation should be our heart practice, should be our main practice. We should study up, we should memorise and we should recite that every single day, upon waking we should recite it immediately. And we should think and examine it. And as time goes on you’ll see that it becomes easier and easier. And if we can do that daily and follow it, I guarantee you, it’ll be much much easier. Life will become much easier. Anger will go away. Hostility, and also uncomfortable, anxiety, fear, loneliness, fear of being alone, fear of being abandoned, fear of death… all that will go away. Why? The heart essence of those Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, if you combine all of the Buddha’s teachings they come in those eight forms, in simplified form. Or it is the actual words written down that are actually you can say the essence of compassion, the essence of Avalokiteshvara, the essence of Kuan Yin. It is the essence.

So Kuan Yin is universal, Avalokiteshvara is universal. It is kindness. So, if we practice that, we will ensure that this life becomes happier, enemies become friends, enemies who don’t become friends become neutral, and the good things that people have done for us, we return their kindness. Anything that anyone has done for you in your life that has helped you in any way, you can never forget that person. Never. You should always reflect upon their kindness, reflect upon what they’ve done for you again and again and again. And to reciprocate their kindness, to help them if they need help, to be with them, to make them happy, to make their minds calm and, if we can, to encourage them towards the practice of Dharma. To remember the kindness of others.

Why? Once they have died, there is no use for us to go to their gravesite and offer flowers and incense. They can’t feel it or see it or smell it. So it’s very important for us to develop and it’s very important to let other people know that they’ve affected our lives. And then when we practice the Eight Verses, and we remember people’s kindness and we transform our minds, then when we do puja, when we do our sadhanas, when we learn the Dharma, when we teach Dharma, when we engage in Dharma activity, whether it’s cleaning the temple, whether it’s filming, whether it’s travelling, whether you’re a liaison, whatever you are, whether you’re a lama or a monk, it doesn’t matter. If you practice the Eight Verses and then you do Dharma work and Dharma activity, then the effects will be very strong, the blessings will be faster. One’s mind will become very calm and very happy. Very very happy.

And when one engages in the holy meditations that Lord Buddha has taught us, the meditations become fruitful, results will come easier and even when obstacles arise, they will not seem as obstacles to us. They will seem as pleasure. Why?

If a mother sees her son or her daughter suffering, the mother will happily take the suffering away and suffer it herself. And she will not think, she will not blink an eye, she will not think in any way that it’s unhappiness. In fact she will be very very happy to suffer this for her child. Similarly, if a mother can have that kind of thought, that means we are capable of having that kind of thought. Therefore if we are capable, it’s a matter of expanding that thought, expanding it.

So therefore when we have this kind of thought for others, this altruistic universal thought of forgiveness and kindness and letting go, many things in our life change. We don’t have to change the world, the world becomes changed for us because people will view us differently. To be extremely humble.

“Whenever I associate with others, may I think of myself as the lowest of among all and hold others supreme from the depths of my heart”.

It’s incredible. To be extremely humble, to act humble, to walk humble, to talk humble, to think humble, and to know that no matter how wonderful we are, there’s always someone else better. To be very humble is very very important. When we do these practices, it’s not magic, it’s not mantras, it’s not miracles. It’s not high Tibetan lamas coming and tapping you on the head and transforming your lives. No such thing. No such thing. There are very high lamas from all countries, from Tibet also, but they can’t come and touch your head and tap you and make everything go away.

If they can, Jesus would have done that, Buddha would have done that. Mohammed would have done that. Krishna would have done that. There’s so many great masters. Mother Teresa would have done that, tapped us on the head, we change. But they can inspire us and teach us and show us the way, and be wonderful examples, but we have to do the work. Some people say it’s very hard. To me, it’s harder if you don’t. Much harder if you don’t.

So my heartfelt advice to all of you is right after tsog, which is very auspicious because our minds are clean and pure, obstacles removed, is to practice the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation. And every line, and every stanza to memorise and to recite every day as if it’s your holy Bible, because it is. And when difficulties come up, reflect on what it says. And we have books available to give you insightful teachings, and I’ve given talks on it, it should be on CD somewhere, and you can listen to it and think how to do it.

And slowly with that if you find that the Dharma is suitable for you, if you find the Dharma is something that will benefit you on your spiritual journey, then you practice Dharma. You practice Dharma, you learn about refuge. You study the Lam Rim. The Lam Rim to me, very very honestly, is very dry. It’s quite boring, but that’s my negative mind. But when you read the Lam Rim, you read a chapter at a time and you get other books of support… you can read books by great masters like Lama Yeshe, incredibly funny, incredibly entertaining but very very very good. Geshe Wangchen. Many many many many great masters out there. So what we can do is read that and study supplementary texts. And attend Dharma talks.

When we have time, attend Migstema here twice a week in order to collect merit. And then slowly step by step we can learn how to offer mandalas. We can learn how to do the practice ofTara, I will be giving in the near future that does not require initiation, the practice of Lama Tsongkhapa.

And also I’ll be giving all of you a practice on Dzambala. How to do Dzambala practice. Chinese favourite, right, Dzambala. Dzambala, let’s translate that into Chinese. I don’t need to speak Mandarin, “I will get lots of money.” Isn’t that wonderful? “Dzam-ba-la. I will get lots of money.” So that’s wonderful. So I like that practice too. That’s, I don’t know, I want to make a big fat statue and live inside. In any case, Dzambala’s wonderful. I’m going to teach you all, I’m going to share with you all how to learn to Dzambala’s practice without initiation because right now I don’t want anyone to get any initiations. You don’t need a lot of heavy commitments at this time. And so how to do the water offerings to Lama Dzambala and how to do the torma offerings and how to recite his mantra. What to focus on. I’ll share all of you. I received that holy initiation twice, twice, from His Eminence Damo Lecho Rinpoche of Drepung Monastery and His Eminence Kensur Jetsun Jhampa Yeshe of Gaden Shartse. I’ve received twice that holy initiation. All the forms.

So I’m not qualified but the information I have will be qualified to share with all of you.

So we learn about Dzambala which is over there next to Tara on the right. The beautiful wealth Buddha.

And that Buddha was sponsored by the most miserly cheapskate rich person in this country. I won’t tell you what her name is. I won’t tell you where, what she looks like. All I’ll tell you is she’s extremely miserly, she has very scary hair that turns up like Vajrapani, she wears red, nasty, powerful shirts. She wears a shawl and she’s sitting next to Diane… oops, I slipped. Now this lady is the stingiest, very wealthy rich lady I’ve come across. And when she first came to the Dharma, she wouldn’t even sponsor one stick of incense. And all of sudden, out of the blue, I don’t know what happened, maybe one of the liaisons grabbed her in the back and put a gun to her head, I don’t know. But she sponsored that beautiful Dzambala for the centre, so there she is. And well if you mention wealth deity, she sponsors. Anything else she don’t have time. So it’s some kind of motive, but never mind, good motive. Good motive.

So we’re going to learn about how to do Dzambala practice. We’re going to learn and I’m going to share it with all of you. So those of you who stick around, I’m going to keep whetting your mouth, a little at a time, a little at a time.

The next one will be how to do mandalas. I will give you a teaching on how to do mandalas. What the benefit is, why we do it and how they can change your prosperity luck around. Definitely. Definitely. And then after that we’ll learn the different types of yidams like Dzambala, Tara, and Tsongkhapa, short form prayers and we’ll do mini retreats, and then for those who are very fortunate, then I will, last, give explanations on how to do a Dharma protector practice which is Setrap, that doesn’t require any type of initiation. Doesn’t require any kinds of commitment. That will be simple and easy so that all of you will be wonderful, fabulous, walking, living bomohs (witch doctors). What do you think about that? Anybody want to do magic, you Setrap them. Anybody don’t have money, you just Dzambala them. Anybody whose mind is depressed and unhappy, you Tsongkhapa them. And anybody who’s just not well, you justTara them.

So you can walk around, you have all these magical formulas and mantras and retreats and you know all these things and you just walk around and you know… nice. Maybe you can wear a robe and a yellow hat. I don’t know. But if you wear a robe and a yellow hat, out in public, don’t say you know me. I’m not embarrassed or anything, I just don’t want to…ah I don’t want to show off. You know, you just say that Buddha appeared and talked to you.

So we can learn all these things and why? We can do those practices ourselves and they are very beneficial and we can share those practices with people we love. In times of need and problems, we don’t have to go and look up this person or that bomoh or this lama or this monk. We can do it ourselves. We can do it ourselves. All of us are the same if we just learn and we put in the discipline and practice. So nothing here is about “I’m god and I’m up here and you’re down there and you worship me”. No. It is about you and I being the same thing and wanting the same thing and if we learn, it’s the exact same thing. Exact same thing. So that would be very very nice. Very very nice for all of you.

I’m very very happy that all of you have so patiently attended tsog and sat through it, I’m very very happy. I’m very happy because it benefits all of you. And it’s very very auspicious also because we gather together and do something beneficial, so all of you in your hearts should feel very very happy and think tonight before you sleep, you should think, “I did something very good today. I prayed for someone else. I prayed for others. I listened to a Dharma talk. I controlled my body. I controlled my mind. And I relaxed and I focused. I did something really good. I listened to the Dharma. I thought about it, I did prayers, and I was in a roomful of people who also did the same prayers and even if I don’t make it to the Dharma centre every day, but I made it today. And I’m very very happy because I did something good and most of all, also, that I prayed for someone that I cared about, alive and dead, to repay their kindness,” and that’s what it’s all about.

The more we practice religion, the more we practice Dharma, the more kinder, the more open, and the more accepting and the more tolerant we must be. If we are Dharma practitioners, we must be double what everybody else is. If we’re a lama we have to be 1.5 more than everybody else. Just kidding. We all have to be more.

So the minute we open our mouth and say we’re Dharma practitioners, that we like Dharma or that we’re associated with Dharma, we have to reflect that. We have to reflect that. You can’t be like you know one of those people that says you’re a nurse but never went to nursing school. And you know, “Hi, I’m a nurse from hell”. You can’t be like that. So you can’t be a Dharma practitioner from hell. You can’t be. You can be one that’s been there but you’re not there any more so you don’t have to act like that, alright?

So if you have the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, that’s wonderful. And some of you think well, I want an exotic deity, I want an exotic mantra, I want an exotic prayer. I want to have a yidam. Well, let me tell you right now, the most appropriate one for all of you, in general for preliminary practices, will be Lama Tsongkhapa. Why? Why Lama Tsongkhapa? He’s gentle, he’s peaceful, he’s a fully enlightened being. He’s also historical. He’s a mahasiddha. He’s a yogi. He’s one of the greatest scholar masters that originated from Tibet. In fact many many of the lineages in Tibet in teachings and high lamas in the monasteries all arose from Lama Tsongkhapa himself. And Lama Tsongkhapa’s body, up till 1959, was entombed in Tibet, Gaden Monastery, where it still showed miraculous powers. Where the nails were still growing after 600 years. The hair was still growing and the heart was still warm.

And in Tibet, Guru Rinpoche statues, Lama Tsongkhapa statues, Tara statues, mainly these three, manifest some kinds of signs to people. Either they float up, they speak, they drop a tear or some dutsi, like a precious pills is released from their body. Many very very very much.

So we’re very meritorious and we want to be meritorious and we want to collect merit and we want to preserve our wealth and we want to bless our future lineage, and we want to help our kids through school and we want to increase our happiness and to protect us from negativity. Why protect us from negativity? Because he is Vajrapani. Protects us from interferences and scary things. Dirty things. He is Vajrapani.

And to increase our wisdom to understand the Dharma, to increase knowledge and to retain it, he is Manjushri. And then to let go of people who have hurt us, let go of our own reasonings for being hurt, and anger, and disillusionment, and to make our minds light and happy, then he is Kuan Yin or Avalokiteshvara. So in his mantra he completely combines.

<Recites first line> You are unlimited compassion, your are Avalokiteshvara.

<Recites second line> You are stainless wisdom, undefiled, has realised emptiness. You are Manjushri.

<Recites third line> You are the one that’s terrifies inner and outer demons. You are Vajrapani.

And out of the Land of the Snows, the crown scholar and sage of the master, Lama Tsongkhapa, please give me enlightenment, I prostrate at your feet.

If you recite this holy mantra every day, twenty one times, one hundred and eight times, up to you, you don’t need any other mantra at this time.

<Recites Migtsema>

And you think it’s so long. No it’s not so long because it remedies a lot of problems we have. A lot of problems, a lot of problems. So if we recite Lama Tsongkhapa’s mantra, we focus on Lama Tsongkhapa and if we’re very very lucky, if we have the luck, and really I mean this, to bring Lama Tsongkhapa home, then we have a holy image, a holy statue, a holy thangka of Lama Tsongkhapa, in the center of our altar and to make offerings. In the house calm and happiness will pervade. People’s minds will open up and Lama Tsongkhapa, it is said, it is said, he is so incredible that even if we are bound to misfortune and no food and poverty, by the power of having a Lama Tsongkhapa image in our house, in our house, where there’s someone who’s not supposed to get food to eat, they will receive food to eat. You will not start. This is what His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche said before, as I remember.

So Lama Tsongkhapa by see, hearing, viewing, contemplating, has great bliss. And by reciting his mantra it calms the mind. He is well known for healing depression. He is well known for taking care of angry mind. Why? His mantra forms a type of sound also that when it permeates our body, it opens and circulates the winds, the chi and energy in our body, that it calms the mind down. It makes the mind more calmer. Anger energy goes away.

So Lama Tsongkhapa is the best. Don’t expect Lama Tsongkhapa statue to flow up or he talks to you or anything. If Lama Tsongkhapa statue talks to you please don’t come and see me. Please don’t. If Lama Tsongkhapa statue doesn’t say anything to you but you become kinder and nicer and more wonderful, please come and see me and please don’t come, come to me empty handed. Never come to me empty handed. Come with this very thick, you know this is kind of small. Get the A, the big one, A4 sized envelope. Stuff it and bring it and come see me. Alright?

And never see, Tibetan lamas and monks and geshes and rinpoches, you can go see them with nothing, with rocks, with just your heart, is fine. With me, never come see me without a red envelope. Never. Never. Alright. If you come see me without a red envelope, I might be busy. I might be doing deep meditation in deep retreat. Or maybe I’m having conversation with Tsongkhapa. Then you really don’t want to talk to me, right? I don’t see Tsongkhapa. I can’t talk to him. I wish I could. I’ve been telling him, can you talk to me? Can you talk to me? You know I used to sit in front of the altar when I was very young and look at deities and say “Can you talk to me? Are you guys alive? Hello?” Nobody. Not one word. They all just stared at me like this. They stared at me some more. They wanted more butter lamps and more incense. I’m like greedy! I’m just kidding.

But what I did notice over the years of practicing and meditating and doing the little bit of silly practice that I have been doing, very silly. The little bit is my mind has become more open. I mean it. I’ve become more forgiving. Very very different, and extremely tolerant. Very very tolerant. And proof that I am very tolerant, look at this room and look at yourselves. Look what I have to tolerate. Just kidding. Much more tolerant. And anger goes away very fast. I still get angry. I still get major major BF, but they go away very fast. Very very fast. And I noticed that happened to me that I Lama Tsongkhapa and that’s what I want.

If Lama Tsongkhapa talks to me but I still have a lot of anger and hatred, the at the time of death what’s going to happen? Maybe it wasn’t Lama Tsongkhapa. Maybe it was a demon manifesting trying to talk to me. I don’t know. So I’m not into all that. I’m not into all that. I’m into transforming of the mind. So if people are interested in changing their mind, people are interested in learning more about themselves, learning more about how to improve themselves, then welcome.

If you want magic, you want miracles, you want rainbows and bomohs, down the street, make a left, make a right and then go all the way down. So you see a neon sign that says “Insane Asylum”, just go inside. Here don’t have magic. You k now why? Unlike Trijang Rinpoche or Zong Rinpoche, I’m not very accomplished. I don’t have much so I can’t show you any magic. But I’ve learned a lot of magical words from them that’ll transform the mind. That I can share with you. So it will be very very good.

And look how wonderful. We got together to share the Dharma, to pray together and to listen to something that is good. And it’s a little late and all of us are a little tired, but we did something good for ourselves and it’s really worth it. Really really worth it. We did something good. And we should rejoice in that. Alright?

I mean that’s good, and for those of you who wish to make food offering, dana offering, to the holy monks, you may do so. Please contact liaison Ruby. She’ll be in charge of that. On weekends she’ll be taking care of their food. On weekdays it’ll be Geraldine. So you can contact liaison Ruby if you want to make food offerings to the holy sangha since that’s a tradition we all believe in.

And also our wonderful translator and his consort, if one wishes to make offering to them, also one may do so. Why? They may not be ordained, but they do wonderful work that benefits others. Alright? So anyone who wants to make food offerings and dana offerings you can contact liaison Ruby, and I don’t know exactly what all of us are going to do the two monks and the three people from *inaudible*, I don’t know really. We’re going to get together and just talk a lot and see how. I don’t know how long they’re going to stay, I don’t know what the plans are. You see I haven’t seen them in twenty-two years, so we got a little bit to catch up on.

And the two monks I’ve seen them two three years ago, but I’m going to see what’s the plans, what’s going up and what’s going to happen. But once they’re here, it’s not going to be that easy to go. Punsil, no problem. Punsil likes to come to Malaysian dance with me but Kache Rinpoche not easy to get him out. You want him to come here to Malaysia, no, not easy at all. Not easy. You have to trick him, have to bribe him. You know. Here, here there’s a very high lama here and I heard His Holiness is coming here, the Dalai Lama is coming here… he’ll be here. But when he got here and says “Where’s His Holiness?” I lied. He’s very humble. He doesn’t want to show his powers, but never mind.

But in any case, how wonderful. So I’m not going to, I request all of you not to disturb them, anybody, and I will take care and talk to them. They won’t go for any appointments or anything. And food and everything will be taken care of by our liaisons, which is very very kind. And they’ll be staying at Andy’s house and the holy monks will be staying Dame khang, and then Andy and Tashi are very kind to lend their house over and make it place of residence for them because when he heard they were coming, he immediately said they can stay in my house. And very simple, he likes Dharma practitioners.

And Andy’s not a reincarnation of a house wife or a house keeper or a maid, so Andy gets a little messy and dirty just like all guys. So what we need to do is chip in a hand and help him clean up. Why? Because I told you, his name is not housekeeper Rinpoche. And so he does a lot of translation work so that people staying in the house are going to help him to maintain and Dianne, she’s, Dianne is going to be fabulous. She’s going to cook up a lasagna storm. And she’s going to feed it to David and all these people and the monks. And you know it’s going to be fabulous. And she’s the type that she gives you know on your fourth helping, she says “Have another one!”. She will stuff you silly. Her lasagnes are the best in the world. No, I’m not kidding. It’s really wonderful. And if you’re a vegetarian, she’s going to make a little noise, but she’ll try something.

But it’s going to be really wonderful so, be alert for the mandala teachings. I never give dates ahead of time because I want you guys to be alert. Be alert for the Tara teachings, Dzambala teachings. And if any of you for any silly reason miss it, you can look at it on tape, but you don’t get the oral transmission. So it would be good to hear orally, directly. Be very very positive.

As I said, again, I’m not anything special. Or attained, but the information I have is. It comes from a correct source, so sometimes the cup may be broken or scratched or a little bit cracked, but you can still put fresh, beautiful milk inside. So the fresh, beautiful milk in me is there. The cup’s a little cracked and scratched and maybe got one or two holes but we’ve *inaudible* with glue. Okay?

Ah let me see, and the tsog that’s been offered to all of you, the tsog that’s been offered to all of you those are food we call sacred food. They’ve been offered to all the assembly of Buddhas, just think, it’s the Buddhas’ left overs. They’ve taken the essence. So it’s considered very blessed and for auspicious reasons the tsog that you’ve received never criticise: Oh I don’t like that. That’ll make me fat. I don’t like to eat this. Never criticise tsog. It’s blessed food. Just eat a little and get a blessing. When you eat it it is said to open up your channels, bless your mind and plant the seeds for yourself to be able to do tantric practice in the future, alright?

So we don’t, the tsog, we don’t feed it to dogs, ah we can give it to like birds, if we can’t eat it, but not to dogs, usually okay? So what happens is this, the tsog is very blessed and many people made donations to offer it and that is what tsog is called: the actual substance, alright? So it’s blessed food, it’s wonderful food and you please take it home and you enjoy it and share it with your friends and it is said that people who are ill it is very good to eat a little of that because it is a blessing for them to get well faster.

So everything is based on compassion. Everything is based on benefiting others. Everything is to help others. Everything. Okay. Henry? Anything else? Nothing, right, okay, I’m going to go to my little room now, and I’ll go to the little toilet, put sixty cents in and go inside. They charge me for toilet, can you believe this? It’s horrible. They charge me. I don’t even dare take a shower. It’s one fifty. And that’s without towels. Can you imagine? Horrible. And you guys don’t know. It looks nice, it looks like they treat me nicely and all that but I’m abused here. I’m abused. That’s right. Looks like the opposite. They’re good actors. Don’t believe anything. Look look at this one.

Don’t believe her. She wants me to go into that room, see? Don’t believe her, they just look nice and kind. They’re mean, green eyed monsters, very very scary. And you know who’s the scariest monster, the scariest? Very very scary. It’s this pretty lady here from Thailand named Wan. The white shirt. She’s very fierce. One wrong move, Wan may be four foot five, but she’s got a stick that five feet six! She’ll get you. That’s right. Be very careful. Wan. Be very respectful and walk around very carefully. One wrong move. Don’t forget her name: WAN. Ying Gua Cha. I can remember, huh. She got a husband but you can ignore. Nothing to be scared of. He gets on your nerves, give him a slap, tell him to move over. Yeh, she’s got some husband, I don’t know where she found him. I think he was hanging around sweeping out the temples or something like that and she finally had compassion for him and said okay I’ll marry you. Something like that. That one you ignore.

And the second person you need to be very very careful of, that’s not a liaison but is a staff, you have to be extremely careful of is David Lai. You can point to him, come on. This guy in the red shirt and the glasses looks sweet, looks like the boy next door. Looks very innocent, and those lips when they quiver… don’t let him fool you. It’s cologen gone wrong. Don’t let it fool you. He’s dangerous. He give you a sweet smile and flash at you and you think he’s nice and everything, he opens doors for little old ladies, helps the ladies into their car and all that stuff. Careful. I think he’s a spy. I think he works for the KGB or something. You gotta be very careful.

And the last person you have to be very very careful of, not the lead, he’s not even the staff, a little new student, who runs around thinking that they’re spiritual. They have to be very very careful. And with this person starts doing their Indian dance, you run. This person’s name is Khandarohi. Alright there, thank you Paris. Be very careful with Khandarohi. Khandarohi’s the consort of Paris. Spiritual. And when Khandarohi does her Indian dance, which is beautiful, actually, very good in dancing, Khandarohi, but when he does that dance of destruction that Shivanataraja, run. Very dangerous, a lot of tantric secrets there.

Okay? And oh I forgot. And the last person is if you are having hair growth problems, recite OM GNAU HUM PHEH. That’s Mr. Gnau over there. He’s the Buddha of hair. You know why he doesn’t have hair? Because he donated it to everybody. He meditated the hair going to you. You know Tsau Chen meditated on him, did the mantra, one thousand times. Look at her hair. Oh. You know she did, she did his mantra, did his hair, look, look at her hair. It can’t stop growing. Some are growing straight up. Ah. So if you need hair OM GNAU HUM PHEH. If you want peace Migme <recites Migtsema. If you want to get on my good side, OM AN PAU HUM PHEY. All right, you remember all that? So it’s very late. I’ll see my three American guests and two Tibetan guests in a little while. I’m going to go in there and you know get into some deep *inaudible* meditation called releasing the wind. And it’s been wonderful. I enjoyed it tremendously. And I’m very happy to see all of you and I thank you for putting your time into yourself the right way. Alright? And in the future when we have Dharma talks we can have question and answer so it won’t be too late.

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