Dharma Centres
Dharma centres are so important as dharma is still in it’s fledgeling growth stage now in the world…It is a place where everyone who wishes to join forces with their talents with other talented ppl to get together and do something. When alone, it is near impossible to do something, but combined with others, it all becomes possible. Some ppl might find dharma centres cultish or fanatical, but that is just their ignorance of the benefits dharma centres has brought to the non-Buddhist and Buddhist countries.
If we combined our talents into a system or a place (eg Monastery / dharma centre) then our efforts can be preserved, practiced and passed on for the future.
When Tsongkapa created Gaden 600 years ago, it was Dharma centre. When Atisha first arrived in Tibet he built dharma centres to the chagrin and opposition of many, but in time the dharma centres builty by Tsongkapa and Atisha were the fountain springs of many enlightened teachers stemming up till today.
If we can overcome ourselves, then joining a team effort is powerful to do work to benefit others as in a dharma centre. If we cannot be a team player, it may be harder, but still possible. We should rejoice in others joining a dharma centre because that is their choice and we must respect them for doing something worthwhile in their lives.
The wisdom of many great teachers has created dharma centres in the past which has manifested in powerful dharma now. Dharma centres are very powerful places for us to practice, develop, grow and contribute with other like minded persons. I was nurtured for 7 years from 16 to 23 years old in a dharma centre in Los Angeles. It kept my young mind grounded, my energies focussed and my inquiring mind satiated. If it wasn’t for this dharma centre in Los Angeles, as a teenager on my own, I could of gone off the deep end. It is a great place for young ppl. I make Kechara now a great place for all ppl especially the young drawing on my experiences from the centre I was at in Los Angeles.
Tsem Rinpoche
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Having Dharma centre is great as it will become the focal point of one’s spiritual growth through learning and practical practices. If that person have a whole store of merits, Dharma centre can become the place for their intense practices to further fuel their goal of enlightenment. Having a suitable, clean, peaceful and easily accessible resources are scarce nowadays. In that case, Dharma centre is best in that manner. That’s why we have KFR now, and I appreciate it do much. In a reply to one of my many silly questions, Rinpoche mentioned He built KFR for that purpose. A place for people to practice Dharma, genuine Dharma and to support their spiritual path. Also a place for higher learning and many other activities such as Taichi, TCM and etc.
Having a Dharma centre anywhere will surely benefit many sentient beings and the teachings of Buddha will spread then. To have such a centre, is where we can learn the whole path to liberation. Dharma centre is where Dharma will be preserved for the benefit of future generations. A powerful place for everyone to practice, develop, grow and contribute to the society.
Kechara Forest Retreat has come a long way to where it is now. We have to thank Rinpoche and those involved. With Rinpoche compassion, guidance, inspiration of our guru, Tsem Rinpoche Kechara had seen grown from a small place to a retreat centre now.
May Kechara continue to flourish and expand further with the second phase and third phase projects.
Thank you Rinpoche for this sharing.
tashi deleg
I pray for a Dharma Centre in Shanghai!
Sean in Shanghai
I agree that dharma centres are important because places like these make it possible for like-minded people to come together to a single point and similarly this is where many good ideas and benefits spring out off. Atisha and Tsongkapa have benefited so many people so many generations after their passing, just because of the very first dharma centres that they built up.
We all need a place to rest our feet and come out with great ideas.
In Malaysia, Rinpoche has created Kechara, starting with the main centre in KL and gradually many other dharma branches in other cities as well as other countries such as China and Indonesia.
Rinpoche has created much benefits for all of us here with the establishment of Kechara and with the sole intention to benefits many beings. May Kechara continue to attract more people onto the dharma path and that Kechara will flourish continuously from one year to another and in many parts of the world.
It has been proven and shown that Dharma centres have produced continous growth of enlightened dharma teachers the World over, both in the east and west. Dharma centres provide powerful places for the spiritually ignorant and inedequate, the young and old, including those with/without wisdom, to improve themselves, and faithfully and devotedly walk the right path to enlightenment. With good guidance from patient spiritual masters and teachers, the immensed benefits that Dharma centres have brought to endless scores of people are immeasurable. We ourselves, whole-heartedly feel deeply grateful for the wonderous and meritorious opportunity to be able to come into Kechara House to learn and practise Dharma. If not for the guidance, inspiration, untireless efforts and unfaltering compassion of our guru, Tsem Rinpoche, such dream of ours may not have been realised. Many heartfelt thanks to our Guru, for being our icon of LIGHT and living BUDDHA of compassion in today’s degenerating era.
I love to stay in a place (dharma center) where all my brothers and sisters under the name of Buddha (nature) happily practice, pray and meditate together. The merit of the Dharma works can bring peace and hamony to many people and the power can save the planet. Let pray to the Supreme One and ask all the Buddhas, all Boddhisattva and all the Dharma Protectors be with us and don’t forget their vows to help us on earth. I also have my own temple ( my physical body) here and this temple is just for Buddha nature – The Supreme One. May it stay strong and stay long.
Dharma centers bring endless benefits to people. It enable us to do offerings to the 3 jewels and gain merits. It is a place to share and practice Dharma. It creates the causes to prolong Buddha’s teachings and preserve the holy dharma, so that our next generations will have the fortunate to receive the holy Dharma and trained to carry on this mission to many more generations in future.
Someone like me, I truly need a Dharma center to ground my mind. I will spend the rest of my life in my mother Dharma Center KECHARA. Thank you Rinooche for putting all these together and letting me have this honour to serve the Dharma. Now KECHARA is benefiting my daughter. It is a home for her too. She found her dharma sisters and brothers, there she can play and have fun like any other kids but the difference is that Dharma grows inside her.
Just to add. This blog can be a dharma center to all those who cannot be at Kechara House. What happens here is exactly what happens at Kechara House.
Thank you Rinpoche for spending alot of your time in this blog. its fantabulous!!
In my opinion, Dharma centers are great places for us to learn the dharma and its a also a great place to practice the dharma that we have picked up. Everyone in the dharma center goes through the same teachings and also should be practicing the same teachings. This is very essential to strengthening/not deluding your practice/mind. Sometimes when dharma is not so strong in us yet, like myself, it is very important to spend time practicing in dharma centers so you can strengthen your faith, practice and mind before you reach out to others outside the center/dharma. If we are not stable and strong ourselves, we may be deluded when we try to practice outside the dharma center because we may not have as much support or understanding from others. But if we are stable and strong ourselves, we are able to benefit others and spread the teachings of dharma to others effectively. I love my dharma center. It has been built with much thought and love. My dharma center is Kechara House.
As Rinpoche says, the Buddhadharma, in countries such as Malaysia,is still ‘fledgling’. Hence a Dharma center is very necessary for all who wish to find spirituality of a meaningful kind that will enable us to live our lives mindfully and with great purpose.
Just as Je Tsongkhapa had created monasteries like Ganden Monastery in Tibet, and Atisha (before him) had created Dharma centers when he first arrived in Tibet, so too did Rinpoche create Kechara in Kuala Lumpur when he came to bring the Dharma to this country.
In keeping with modern times,where people cannot perceive the practice of Dharma as being about going off to a cave or monastery to practice,a center , like Kechara(owing to the skilfulness of Rinpoche), offers a whole range of activities(including community and welfare service)that allow people to be socially engaged as well as to pursue their interests and express their talents and practice Dharma at the same time!
Through Kechara,a new ‘tradition’ of spiritual practice will be established for the benefit of people today and for future generations.
Also,Ganden and other monasteries, set up by Je Tsongkhapa,and the Dharma centers set up by Atisha, have become wellsprings from which many great masters have arisen. May Kechara too become the wellspring for producing great masters for the future to benefit all beings, through the preservation and spread of Dharma.
For years before I had Kechara in mylife, I literally had NO-WHERE to go to. Everywhere I looked there was an ocean of samsaric poison.
The workplace was where we became detached from ourselves, putting most of our lifetime into an exercise called “Career” that got us nothing but tangible reminders of how really unhappy we are. They call it a rat-race, not a human-race, for a reason.
Cool places to hang out after work played Buddha-bar music with all BUT dharma in it. There. we delude ourselves into a few hours of idle chatter. There we potrayed ourselves to be happy people before we head home feeling empty, and drunk and sick and tired.
Fridays and Saturday nights had no definition. We called it a weekend, but really they were dead-ends for a whole week of aimless wandering. The “weekend” was the call and reason we needed, not to think, to be inert (cos we earned it…what a diseaseto have earned).
Sundays was a day of worship and a couple of hours of piousness later, I was off chomping on dead carcasses and ex-lives, all while talking about scriptures and god.
Every where, there was nothing but huge endless flats of parched, arid, dead desert…everything that was not sand, was a mirage.
A dharma centre, is really an oasis in this great empty land. It is where the nectar of dharma is given out freely. It is where our “soul” is told to rest under the watchful eyes of beautiful Buddha images. It is where we are taught to weave that new skin of dharmic truth to protect us from the blizzard of wrong thoughts and lies we have been telling ourselves, our family, our friends, our children.
The dharma centre is the reliable fireplace, where we, the small pieces of coal, became reingited. We becam part of the furnace and not mere pieces of coal. take us away and in time we get cold and snuffed out.
The dharma centre is a haven. It is Kechara…a great Buddha’s paradise for real.
Weekends are no longer dead-ends but opportunities to study words that came directly from the Buddha. Words that travelled very far to reach our ears. Weekends are now opportunities to focus on others worst than us. Opportunities to be rejuvenated by practising the dharma.
I cannot help but imagine…if a small-ish dharma centre has had such an impact on me, what would a regional world peace centre do for me, and for the world.
Very nice =)
May all sentient beings be fortunate enough to be a part of a dharma center always
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That’s so accurately describe . Dharma centres could be even a place for people that needed help , support and advice to come to and they dont even need to be Buddhist or even believe in Buddhism. With all the problems we face today in the world Dharma centers will become even ever more important than before for mankind and all other living beings. It will serve a pivotal points for the flourishing of all other activities that will benefits all people without the segregation of gender , race , creed or religion background.
I think we even need to quickly begin to potray Dharma centres is not just a place only for worships , we need to make it as if a place for always welcoming , non superstitious and relevant to this age of technology and science.
The advancement of humans must go hand in hand with the growth of Dharma centres. A balance must be seek when we dwelve in our daily samsaric chores with joining a Dharma centres. Then our live will be live to the fullest , with contentment and meaning. When we die or about to die we shall not regret that we have done nothing beneficial.
Humans indeed has the upper hand due to the wisdom and our abilities to make a difference.