A letter from Joey with gifts……
Dear Joey, You like the dharma, you accept the dharma, you admire the dharma, you have been fascinated by it for many years and you know it fits you… it would be good to practice without delays.
- Whatever promises you make especially in the realm of dharma-keep it at all costs.
- Don’t disappoint people because you are bored with something. Keep samaya clean please.
- Be kind to dharma brothers/sisters who have been so kind to you.
- Any dharma work you have committed to, treat it with care and do it all the way.
- Whatever you are doing now brings no short or long term benefits on the ultimate level.
- Never use excuses to cover, because excuses arise from the selfish mind. What benefits ever arose from selfishness?
- Once you take refuge in the dharma follow the good examples and go all the way.
May you have realization of renunciation, hold your samaya and not further accumulate karma that will be destined to bring regrets.
May you realize Tsongkapa-hood, benefit others full time, and experience love, praise and happiness that arises from it’s true causes.
You are in my prayers, my good wishes are with you and my sincere hope that you will shy away from self and work for others as our Buddha has taught. Because you can do a lot. Thanks for the gifts, they are appreciated. I offered them up on my altar to generate merits for you.
Tsem Rinpoche
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for the amazing talk on Dzambala’s practice last Friday. I was very happy to see Rinpoche in good health, and I hope Rinpoche will always be in good health and may Rinpoche’s activities grow more to help the many beings that require Rinpoche’s help. Rinpoche mentioned about emotional miserliness which made me realize that I do need the Dzambala Retreat and how fortunate am Ito have a chance to attend this puja to reduce my emotional miserliness. I have also recently received a salary adjustment and would like to celebrate this with a gift of 4 DVDs to Rinpoche, and also to make myself a little bit more generous. This is a summary of the contents of the DVD that I found online:
Coco Avant Chanel
This biographical flick details the life of Coco Chanel before she became who she is, when she was just an orphan by the name of Gabrielle and how she worked her way to become a lady of high society who revolutionized fashion and feminism of today. It tells the story of her many struggles in her life in order to be successful. The show also details on her love life, however. I chose this title as Rinpoche mentioned about watching biographies of successful people.
House
A psychological thriller, this horror film plays on the theme of guilt and past sins. A young couple with marriage problems checks into a hotel, only to find a killer at their doorstep. The killer demands a dead body from the couple, or both will be killed. As the night passes, the couple hallucinates about their past and about the killer’s demands. There is little gore in this movie although there are people being killed. A few reviews have lukewarm reviews on this movie, but it should be interesting in its own way.
KM31
Based on an urban legend of the Weeping Lady in Mexico ( La LIorona) (although marketed as based on true events), where the ghost of a lady will supposedly tempt anyone who drives by to their deaths, this show is about a pair of twin sisters. One of them gets into an accident at the said highway, and the other twin feels the pain undergone by the former. The other twin and her boyfriend and a few friends soon discover that the twin in coma is trapped between reality and an ancient legend. Reviews on this film have been quite positive and that it has quite a lot of gore.
Pandorum
This is a sci-fi thriller that features a spaceship that carried 60,000 people to a planet for colonization away from overcrowding earth. All of these passengers except for the crew is placed in hibernation. However on board, a few crew members went insane and mutated into cannibalistic monsters, mutilating and killing most of the passengers. Several of the still sane crew members battle these mutated monsters. The film ends with the monsters being killed and the ship landing safely.
I hope Rinpoche enjoys these DVDs.
Thank you
Sincerely,
Joey Wong
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Rinpoche loves and cares very much about Joey and have many times in the past provided Joey with the spiritual and secular advices for a young man like Joey.
I am happy that Joey still keeps the connection with Rinpoche by occasionally offering Rinpoche gifts.
Joey, the very fact that Rinpoche is posting this on the web and giving u point by point instructions and advice, it means Rinpoche has not given up on you.
Hence, accept Rinpoche’s advice and go along as advised and you will be able to see Rinpoche’s compassion for u. I am speaking from experience and truly, I will not be who I am today if it wasn’t for Rinpoche’s love and kindness towards me.
Do contemplate and execute Rinpoche’s advise to u. It will bring u much happiness as it have for me.
much care,
JJ
Miserliness is a common symptom we have that creates long term suffering in ours and other’s lives. Joey’s merits that allowed him to become aware of his emotional miserliness while listening to Rinpoche’s Dharma talk is a very good start.
This is another confirmation of the power of the Dharma. Being touched by the Dharma opens up our good karma which enables us to make progress in our Dharma practice and growth.
In addition to the awareness of what does not work, it is important to proceed to the next step of corrective actions. In Joey’s case, Rinpoche was so kind to clearly show him specific things to focus on and pursue. Joey is very fortunate. I hope that Joey will be able to follow Rinpoche’s clear guidance and experience mind transformation that will bring him joy and freedom.
It is always so nice and heart warming to read how Rinpoche’s students are transforming at their own pace and time, but they are really changing from inside out. I have always believed that everyone is born with the right to be beautiful. And beautiful here does not pertain to the external beauty. I mean, the inner beauty of the soul or spirit. However, we all blossom at different pace and time, similar to how a flower blossoms. For me, I used to think that I can always take my own sweet time. It is really due to my own selfishness and attachment of not wanting to change or let go. I didn’t realise that I was not growing at all. In fact for my case, I was starting to wither and not even blossoming. I had totally skipped that part somehow. These days, I know better. I am no longer interested in taking the slow, scenic or tourist route to self transformation. And I am getting it now – it’s the fast, express and sharpest route led by the Guru himself and the whole Sangha. It’s hard only because I am cutting through all my negativities and toxic habituations. So, it is not easy because of my own accummulated bad karma. IT IS NOT the method or the path that is hard. It is in destruction of the bad karma and negativities that causes me so much discomfort. But once I get through them, it is all blue skies and sunny again. The best thing is, I know I am already on my way to becoming better and stronger. And all that hardship in killing the enemies within is all worth it! Definitely so very worth it! This is why I have courage to continue and run forward!
Terima Kasih Rinpoche!
How lucky is one to have received such direct advice from Rinpoche who has only his best interests at heart and to enable one to chart life according to Dharma principles.
And the best part is in Guru Devotion, the part about learning true independence and liberty…away from the shackles of samsara’s mirage of false liberty and choices that leads one deeper into bondage and self defeat…
The choice is ours…and I need to create the cause for such a choice…
How nice that Joey remembers Rinpoche likes horror movies and also biographies.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing the letter for us to rejoice and also the kind advice that not just Joey, but all of us should remember and follow.
Thank you so much Rinpoche for your precious advice. I will hold these 7 points in my mind at all times and put in effort to apply them. This is the very least i can do at this moment for all the kindness, love, time and effort that Rinpoche has given me…
Thank you Rinpoche for all your infinite kindness and endless generosity.I am going to use your precious advises too!