Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Creating The Causes
Joy has been a student of His Eminence the 25th Tsem Rinpoche for over 15 years. Through the years, Joy has witnessed Rinpoche’s compassion and the unconventional methods he uses to benefit others. Some of the short stories she shares will tell interesting miraculous events that Rinpoche will not mention due to his humility. She hopes these stories will serve as an inspiration in your own spiritual journey.
Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Creating The Causes
In Tibetan Buddhism, when a Lama asks you to do something that is Dharmic or spiritual, for example, inviting a big Buddha statue home, which at that moment, you may not be able to afford, but you should still say “yes”. Rinpoche did this to some of us every now and then. Out of the blue, he would ask us a question or make a statement to indicate something we should do. For auspicious reasons, Rinpoche used to explain to us, that we should never hesitate and say “no”. Instead, we should always say “yes”, even though our logic told us differently.
Rinpoche always encouraged us to say yes and believe that the right conditions will manifest one day when the time is right so that we can fulfil that promise. By saying “yes” we also planted the seed and created the causes for that thing to happen. A real experience and a good example would be when one evening, I was in the first Kechara Paradise Dharma outlet in SS2, Petaling Jaya, I was attracted to their little altar. There was a beautiful 3-foot Buddha Tara statue sitting in front of a psychedelic tie-dyed wall hanging. Rinpoche stood behind me and teased me. He said something along the lines of “wouldn’t you like to invite one to your home?”
The first thing that came to mind was like “yes, but how will I ever be able to come up with so much money to get such a big beautiful statue?” Moreover, I was jobless at that time. Although I would love to and I wished I could, it made no sense that I could afford something so expensive. Then Rinpoche replied to me, as if hearing my thoughts out loud, “don’t worry, one day you’ll be able to invite one.” So, I just accepted and decided to trust what Rinpoche was trying to do, and made a wish that I may be able to do so one day. Rinpoche stopped me from uttering my pessimistic thoughts and said, “just think you can and you can”. In a way, Rinpoche prevented me from saying something negative out loud and creating another type of karma that would not give me a positive outcome.
Later on, I can’t remember exactly, it could be a year later, Rinpoche put his set of 2-foot 21 Taras up for sale. They used to belong to Rinpoche’s previous centre in Singapore. There were many other items for sale to raise funds for Dharma work. I remembered seeing that Tara from Rinpoche’s centre in Jurong Reptile Park when I went there to visit Rinpoche. Someone told me they were consecrated by Rinpoche’s Guru, His Eminence Kensur Jampa Yeshe Rinpoche. I knew I just had to find a way to invite this precious set of Rinpoche’s Tara statues. Somehow, I manage to get a loan from a kind friend and made the deposit payment and the rest to be paid by instalment. So, in the end, I managed to invite the holy Mother Tara statue home, together with her other forms! This was my first time experiencing exactly what Rinpoche explained about creating the causes. Everything fell into place nicely.
This is the 2-foot Tara with her 21 other forms in Rinpoche’s previous Dharma centre in Singapore’s Jurong Reptile Park. Never in my wildest dream would I thought I had the merits to invite her home one day.
For more interesting information:
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – The Assignment
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Change Karma
- Rinpoche Thorough My Eyes – Spreading Dharma in Jonker Street
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – What’s the New News?
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Mission Impossible
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Invoking the Buddhas to Come Forth
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Food and Dharma
- Meeting Rinpoche 20 Years Ago
- How Dharma Changed My Life
- From a Free Thinker to a Buddhist
Please support us so that we can continue to bring you more Dharma:
If you are in the United States, please note that your offerings and contributions are tax deductible. ~ the tsemrinpoche.com blog team
DISCLAIMER IN RELATION TO COMMENTS OR POSTS GIVEN BY THIRD PARTIES BELOW
Kindly note that the comments or posts given by third parties in the comment section below do not represent the views of the owner and/or host of this Blog, save for responses specifically given by the owner and/or host. All other comments or posts or any other opinions, discussions or views given below under the comment section do not represent our views and should not be regarded as such. We reserve the right to remove any comments/views which we may find offensive but due to the volume of such comments, the non removal and/or non detection of any such comments/views does not mean that we condone the same.
We do hope that the participants of any comments, posts, opinions, discussions or views below will act responsibly and do not engage nor make any statements which are defamatory in nature or which may incite and contempt or ridicule of any party, individual or their beliefs or to contravene any laws.
Please enter your details