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Everyone has a different perspective, so this section is for you.
Tsem Rinpoche
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Scroll down within the box to view more messages from Rinpoche. Click on the images to enlarge. Click on 'older messages' to view archived messages. Use 'prev' and 'next' links to navigate between pagesConcept: Tsem Rinpoche
Technical: Lew Kwan Leng, Justin Ripley, Yong Swee Keong
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Content: Tsem Rinpoche, Justin Ripley, Pastor Shin Tan, Sarah Yap
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I must thank my dharma blog team who are great assets to me, Kechara and growth of dharma in this wonderful region. I am honoured and thrilled to work with them. I really am. Maybe I don't say it enough to them, but I am saying it now. I APPRECIATE THESE GUYS VERY MUCH!
Tsem Rinpoche
H.H. Kyabje Zong Rinpoche Explains Dorje Shugden Initiation and Benefits (With English Subtitles)
Dear everyone... This is a good condensed talk I gave on Guru Yoga of Tsongkapa. This is the one you should share with others when they are interested in a not too lengthy explanation. It is the perfect practice for everyone who wants simplicity yet effective blessings. You can share this with more people, it will be good.
~ Tsem Rinpoche
Powerful Dorje Shugden's mantras
Tsem Rinpoche on National TV's Wesak Day Documentary
'The Promise' book launch featured on NTV7 Primetime
"If you say you don't have money to help a animal shelter, why then do you have money to buy meat?"
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Eating animals is not our God-given right, but being kind to them is."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"What makes us good humans is not how we abuse animals, but how much we allow them to live and be happy freely."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"We need another and wiser and perhaps a more mythical concept of animals.... We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complex than ours they moved finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."
~ Henry Beston, The Outermost House
"Not eating animals is only unnatural when we are not used to it."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"We may encounter defeat, but we must not be defeated."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"What you are today, is the choice you made yesterday."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"You think you can choose your life? What an ego trip!"
~ Lama Yeshe
"If TODAY you are dissatisfied, you must make the changes to create different results for TOMORROW."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
“Meditating on Dorje Shugden while reciting his mantra will open the gateways to higher dimensions, blessings and protection.”
~ Tsem Rinpoche
“If one does the recitation of the Lama Tsongkhapa guru yoga prayer for even one month using one of the visualizations for great or clear or quick wisdom, one will definitely see development of that wisdom. It is proved by experience. There is no doubt that by doing the Lama Tsongkhapa guru yoga practice one can meet Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings from life to life. And furthermore, it gives one the opportunity to be born in the pure realm of Lama Tsongkhapa, Tushita, whenever death happens.”
~ Pabongkha Rinpoche
"I was 18 years old in 1983. That was a very special year as I met His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche and received innumerable precious teachings and empowerments from Him at Thubten Dhargye Ling Centre in Los Angeles, California. It was the best time of my life. A time that seems so magical and surreal to me. Kyabje Zong Rinpoche is Heruka Buddha and I met Heruka."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"If being me offends you, maybe I'm not the problem."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Never abandon your spiritual teacher no matter how many inner obstacles you need to overcome."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Actions to force something to be permanent makes all the karmas arise."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"The dharma is not easy to listen to… because some people take it as criticism. But Dharma should not be just feel good only for the moment but for deeper contemplations."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Whether we do work and suffer but for others or we do work and suffer for ourselves, either way we have to suffer. That is the nature of samsara. So let us suffer for others and then suffering has meaning."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Those who really want the dharma to grow within themselves and to grow for others should never fear hard work, timing, difficulties, struggles, disappointments because it is for a good cause. Working for Dharma is not a prison or work, but it is purely spiritual practice. It is purely collection of merit and purification. Actually not doing dharma work is the real prison."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"His Holiness Zong Rinpoche stressed the need to continue to practice even when we come up against obstacles, and that we should continually review our progress. He stated that a happy, luxurious life was like a good dream, and that obstacles and difficulties were like a bad dream. We should give them no significance, but simply carry on working towards real, everlasting happiness."
~ Ngala ’ö-Dzin Tridral
"Things in samsara always go wrong. That's its nature. Don't be surprised."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Knowledge never quenches the thirst, only application."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"I pity men who occupy themselves exclusively with the transitory in things and lose themselves in the study of what is perishable, since we are here for this very end-that we may make the perishable imperishable, which we can do only after we have learned how to approach both."
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Money amplifies negative characteristics and that can cause problems. To walk away from that was actually very easy. I didn't even consider it."
~ Angeline Francis Khoo
"I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud."
~ Carl Jung
"There is a devil there is no doubt, but is he trying to get into us or trying to get out?"
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"If you love someone, show it by being honest, respectful & honorable with them."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."
~ Henry David Thoreau
"If I can just be the way I am & you the way you are & we accept each other, world peace is near."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"I am Asian, you are some other beautiful color. Together we make diversity so beautiful."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"It's amazing how some people have never met me or know who I am, but based on a few things they read here & there & rumours, they have formulated a new personality for me & all the things I've never done they passionately speak about....I find it funny and entertaining now. I guess we can't spend our lives fighting rumours...we just have to work hard & then rumours get proven wrong on it's own as a by product. No point explaining repeatedly. Just do our work & show results!!"
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"There's a difference between patience and laziness. Patience comes from respect while laziness from disrespect of others."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Although outwardly we have so much, we have so many conveniences, inwardly we have become more unhappy, so, acquisition is not the secret to happiness. The more we get, the more we have, the more unhappy we become."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Before we experience any pain, we already had a fixed view of how things should be. When the experience we encounter contradicts our views, then the pain arises. The pain arises due to our fixed views not so much the experience itself. So the secret is changing the views. Re-educating ourselves on our views."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"You know since very young, for better or worse, I always did the things that others told me not to do. I wasn't really good at following the rules. Even now with how I share Dharma and my practice, I just do it the way I think it should be done but I do it sincerely. Not what others tell me what I can and can't do."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Love me or hate me, both are in my favor... If you love me, I'll always be in your heart... If you hate me, I'll always be in your mind."
~ William Shakespeare
"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous or honest."
~ Maya Angelou
A section for you to clarify your Dharma questions with Kechara’s esteemed pastors.
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Comments I like from
Jason Carmelita DAvis Thierry
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Dearest Rinpoche, Thank you SO MUCH for all of the work that you tirelessly do. Because of you, now I know about Lama Tsongkhapa guru yoga and the Migtsema prayer. ... Read More Rinpoche, u have a unique and wonderful way of teaching the Dharma. I listen to your YouTube teachings almost every night. You are a wonderful teacher!!! Read More I just come out from a liaisons' council meeting with my spirit up and inspired! It is my wish that I can help more by becoming a liaison of Tsem ... Read More
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Dear Andrew,
Thank you for the question, it seems that you have a lot of faith in Lama Tsongkhapa which is very good. If you engage in the practice every day it will have great benefit in your life leading to real transformation.
In regards to offerings there is no ‘best’ set of offerings to make to Lama Tsongkhapa or any Buddha for that matter. Any offering made from sincerely from the heart will generate merit for you on your spiritual path.
To start with it is best to make a set of eight sensory offerings, which is the most common set of offerings and is actually very beneficial on our spiritual path. In fact, most offerings made for various prayers, rituals and offerings comprise of elements from the sensory offerings.
The offerings are usually set up as eight offering bowls that contain various offering items:
1. Water for drinking: there are eight qualities to water – it is cooling, sweet, light, soft, pure/clear, free from impurities, easy on the stomach, and is soothing to the throat. The benefits that one generates is pure ethics, you will always have good quality food and drink to live, one’s mind will become very fluid, flexible, clear and alert, one’s obscurations will be purified, one will develop good and pleasant speech, and one will be free of illness. This first offering is very auspicious.
2. Water for washing: This is offered to the Buddhas to symbolically wash their feet, as was custom in ancient India when welcoming guests. This symbolises that we are inviting the energies of the Buddhas into our lives and as the feet are the lowest part of the body, we are humbling ourselves before them. It is through this offering that we purify our negative karma, represented by washing the feet of the Buddhas.
3. Flowers: this symbolises the beauty of samsara which is impermanent in nature. Offering flowers creates the merits to realise emptiness and the inherent non-existent nature of samsara, while also creating the conditions to be reborn in places and situations that are conducive to continuing our Dharma practice in future lives if we do not achieve enlightenment in this life. It also represents the development of generosity. When someone gives us flowers, since they are nice, we want to keep them for ourselves, therefore they signify miserliness. By offering them up to the Buddhas, we create the causes to develop generosity instead.
4. Incense: the scent from the incense represents the holding of one’s vows, promises and the development of integrity in one’s life. This is important as holding vows and promises are a very effective method in purifying negative karma and the generation of merit that is necessary on our spiritual path. In essence it creates the causes to have good ethics and moral discipline.
5. Light: just like a candle or lamp dispels darkness, this offering creates the conditions to develop wisdom which dispels the darkness of ignorance. When we have wisdom, we are able to be more patient, which is necessary on the spiritual path and a transformation of the mind.
6. Perfume: which was anointed on the clothes in ancient India represents joyous effort and perseverance. These are qualities one needs in life to achieve anything in both secular life but most importantly also in spiritual life.
7. Food: the offering of food represents sustenance and this creates the causes to be reborn in places where is it easy to acquire what we need to have a good livelihood, as well as creating the cause to gain the results of spiritual practice, which are realisations and ultimately enlightenment.
8: Sound: this is represented by a musical instrument, most often a conch shell. It creates the causes to attain wisdom that understands existence and leads to enlightenment. Take a guitar for example, we hear the sound when someone plays the instrument, but if we examine it the sound does not come from one place, the guitar, the strings, the fingers that pluck the strings, the person that plays the guitar, the person that made the guitar, etc. If we mediate on this we can realise that nothing exists inherently and relies on causes and conditions, which can lead us to the understanding of the concept of emptiness. This is represented by sound, which comes into existence based on causes and conditions, and then ends and disappears, as with all phenomena.
This set of offerings, although very common is very profound and has a great many benefits. I have only listed some of them here. I hope this helps.
Thank you.