Four years ago, we had our first pastorship ordination ceremony in Kechara House which is our gompa (main prayer hall) in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. At that time, I ordained four pastors. Now in 2015, we have 17 pastors of which 10 have requested to become fully ordained monks and nuns in the future. The other seven are lay pastors who conduct their duties as pastors and also hold the pastors’ vows, but they are not seeking monk or nun ordination in the future.

I am very proud of our pastors who work extremely hard to benefit and assist others. They are led by the Head Pastor Kok Yek Yee and together, they cover many roles in our organisation. Some of our pastors build, some of our pastors teach, some of them conduct pujas and do blessings and others assist me directly.

On the left in white are the pastors who have requested to be monks and nuns in the future, and on the right are the lay pastors. Pastor Tat Ming is now a pastor and future sangha-to-be

As I mentioned, more than half of our current pastors have requested to become monks and nuns in the future, and that is why they wear white robes. This is to distinguish them from the lay pastors who wear maroon shirts with grey jackets and pants. Becoming a monk or nun is not an easy thing to do in today’s world. Society expects you to grow up, go to school, get a job, have a family and grow old and retire. That is what is considered ‘normal’ and to be a monk or a nun in today’s world is considered strange, odd and something that invites comments and maybe even criticism and scorn. But I always wanted to become a monk and the comments and criticism and obstacles never scared me. Even at a young age I always thought how is it when people do everything that society expects them to do, and they are on the ‘normal’ and ‘right’ path, so many thousands of people are still unhappy and depressed? I really did wonder this and I looked at everyone around me as an example.

Just think back to your own life before you met the Dharma – did you come to the Dharma because everything was okay with your life, or did you come because you feel something was missing and there was more to life than just everyday routine? So like I always tell my students, why not try something different and go all the way with Dharma? When you commit and go all the way in your spirituality, it can only lead to successes because there is nothing in Buddha’s teachings that will hurt us or harm us, or lead us to becoming unhappy. And within the Buddhist tradition, there is no higher commitment to the Dharma than taking on the robes of an ordained monk or nun, holding the Vinaya vows well and keeping the Buddha’s teachings alive by actually living and practising them.

Pastor Lim Tat Ming with his two brothers and niece who came to witness and celebrate this auspicious occasion with him

So when Lim Tat Ming requested to become a monk, I was extremely happy for him to hear this because I know it will benefit him a lot, as it does for anyone who becomes ordained. Pastor Tat Ming has also been studying Dharma for many years and has a lot of knowledge to share, and has grown to become one of the teachers at Kechara House. People tell me Tat Ming is very patient, speaks and explains well, and is very sincere when he does pujas and rituals with the Puja House team. He has very deep belief in the the Dharma and genuinely believes it can alleviate others’ pain. So now that he is becoming a pastor, he will have the blessings of the vows for him to spread his faith and enthusiasm, and the benefits of the Dharma to others.

All of the pastors gathered in Kechara House on October 30, 2015 where the Head Pastor Yek Yee conferred the pastorship vows onto Pastor Tat Ming. The current pastors also took the opportunity to renew their vows. After the ceremony, for auspicious reasons, Pastor Tat Ming gave his first Dharma talk as a Pastor which I have reproduced below for you to read.

There is also a short biography of Pastor Tat Ming so you can know a little more about our newest Pastor. I congratulate Pastor Tat Ming on taking this first step towards full ordination in the future. May there be many more like him to follow in his footsteps as I wish very much for Kechara to have a thriving Sangha community which keeps Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition alive through their active practice.

Tsem Rinpoche

Pastor Yek Yee presents Pastor Tat Ming with his ordination certificate

About Pastor Lim Tat Ming

• Born on October 11, 1964
• Graduated from Tunku Abdul Rahman College with a Diploma in Commerce (Financial Accounting) in 1987
• Worked primarily as an Enterprise Resource Planning Application Consultant for over 13 years in multi-national and local companies
• Had a short stint in the external auditing and accounting work prior to the above
• Became a Kechara House member in Oct 2006
• Began working full-time in Kechara House as an Administrator on July 16, 2008
• Took refuge with H.E. the 25th Tsem Rinpoche on May 9, 2009 in Kechara House. Refuge Name: Tenzin Kelsang (meaning “Virtuous Rebirth Holding Dharma”)
• Seconded to Kechara Puja House Department on April 1, 2014
• Presently still based in Puja House and primarily involved in Puja House work. Also teaches the Level One and Level Two Adult Sunday Dharma Classes in Kechara House

Pastor Tat Ming giving his first Dharma talk as a pastor and Sangha-to-be

Pastor Tat Ming’s Dharma talk

Good Morning Kecharians and friends. First of all, I would like to thank everyone for taking the time off to attend and witness this special event.

I would like to specially thank my guru H.E. the 25th Tsem Rinpoche for giving me the blessings to be ordained as a pastor and a monk to be.

I would like to also thank the Kechara Board of Directors for my appointment as the Kechara Pastor.

Lastly, I would like to thank the team and all involved in making the event this morning possible.

Life is short and impermanent. Time waits for no one. Death is certain and the time of our death is uncertain. While I am still able to, I have chosen to go all the way in my spiritual practice. It took me, quite a long while to decide as there were many obstacles that I have to face.

I found spiritual practice difficult and I have my fears and doubts. However Rinpoche had kindly advised me that spiritual practice is not difficult. It is difficult because we project or perceive it to be difficult. If we change our perception and understand the true nature of things, we shall be able to handle them.  Rinpoche said, “Dharma is not hard, but our graspings project Dharma to be hard. Kechara was set up for us to win along the spiritual path. And if we go all the way, we can win and we will.”

On hindsight, I realise that I have the affinity with and am extremely fortunate to have met and followed a qualified spiritual guide H. E. the 25th Tsem Rinpoche. I have also met the incomparable and rare teachings of Lama Tsongkhapa that encapsulates the entire teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni who had turned the Wheel of Dharma 2500 years ago. Finally I have the opportunity to practise Dharma full-time in Kechara, a Tsem Rinpoche organisation that had grown over the years since its inception in Malaysia as one of the most vibrant and foremost Tibetan Buddhist organisations in this region and around the world.

I have all the freedoms and endowments to practise Dharma. Today I have taken on the role as a Kechara Pastor and also to go one step further as a monk to be.  I am glad I have made the right decision to go forward all the way in my spiritual journey as that would be making my life meaningful.

Now I share with you a brief introduction to some of the fundamentals of Buddhism such as The Four Seals of Dharma. As we have limited time available here, we won’t be able to discuss in detail this important and profound topic as it is the summary of what Buddhism is all about.

Buddhism is distinguished by these four characteristics or seals. The Four Seals of Dharma are:

• All compounded things are impermanent
• All emotions are painful
• All phenomena are empty; they are without inherent existence
• Nirvana is beyond extremes

The 1st Seal – All compounded things are impermanent

Compounded things means everything or all objects or all phenomena arise from the gathering of causes and conditions. Impermanence means these compounded things change or disintegrate when their causes and conditions are not applicable or valid anymore.

An example to illustrate this is our life. We are born into this life as a human as a result of the causes and conditions that we had created in our past life. Our life experiences are not permanent. Every moment, we experience change. In our present life, each one of us goes through the life events of birth, aging, sickness and death.

Due to impermanence, we experience pains or sufferings. It is due to impermanence too that we are able to transform ourselves to become a better person such as a Buddha, a perfect being. In other words, we can change the destiny of our life.

The 2nd Seal – All emotions are painful

It is easy to understand how negative emotions like anger gives us pain. But we find it difficult to acknowledge positive emotions like love and affection would give us pain. In reality even positive emotions give rise to pain eventually.

Due to our projections, our mind perceives things mistakenly or our mind does not understand the nature of things. For example, a man might think a woman that he saw is beautiful. But others who have different projections of the mind than his may not see her as beautiful.

All these projections give rise to emotions and everything we create through our emotions is in the end completely futile and painful. This is why Buddhists do Shamatha and Vipashyana meditations to help loosen the grip emotions have on us, and the obsessions we have because of them.

In the first Noble Truth, the Buddha taught us to know and understand suffering. Many of us however mistake pain for pleasure—the pleasure we now have is actually the very cause of the pain that we are going to get sooner or later! In other words, this is to say that when a big pain becomes smaller, we call it pleasure. That’s what we call happiness.

The 3rd Seal – All phenomena are empty; they are without inherent existence

Due to our ignorance, when we see something, the object that we saw is interpreted as really existent or exist from its own side independently. The existence imputed is a mistaken assumption. It is like when we see a mirage, there is no truly existing object there even though it appears that way.

Buddha taught in Emptiness Teachings that things do not truly exist as we mistakenly believe they do and they are really empty of that falsely imputed existence. We suffer because we believe in these confused projections or imputations.

The Buddha taught three different approaches on three separate occasions i.e. The Three Turnings of the Wheel. They can be summed up in a single phrase: “Mind; there is no mind; mind is luminosity.”

“Mind,” shows that the Buddha taught that there is a “mind.” This was to dispel the nihilistic view that there is no heaven, no hell, no cause and effect. When the Buddha said, “There is no mind,” he meant that mind is just a concept and that there is no such thing as a truly existing mind. Finally, when he said, “Mind is luminous,” he was referring to buddhanature, the undeluded or primordially existing wisdom.

Nagarjuna said that the purpose of the first turning was to get rid of the non-virtue. Where does the non-virtue come from? It comes from being either eternalist or nihilist. So in order to put an end to non-virtuous deeds and thoughts, the Buddha gave his first teaching. The second turning of the Dharma-wheel, when the Buddha spoke about emptiness, was presented in order to dispel clinging to a “truly existent self” and to “truly existent phenomena.” Finally, the teachings of the third were given to dispel all views, even the view of no-self. The Buddha’s three sets of teaching do not seek to introduce something new; their purpose is simply to clear away confusion.

The 4th Seal – Nirvana is beyond extremes

This last seal is uniquely Buddhist. In many philosophies or religions, the final goal is something that you can hold on to and keep or the final goal is the only thing that truly exists. But nirvana is not fabricated, so it is not something to be held on to. It is referred to as “beyond extremes.”

We somehow think that we can go somewhere where we’ll have a better life, a place where everything is there the moment you think of it. It is not that we are adding something new that was not there before. Nirvana is achieved when you remove everything that was artificial and obscuring.

Buddhism helps us understand the truth. If there were some true permanence in compounded phenomena; if there were true pleasure in the emotions, the Buddha would have been the first to recommend them, saying, “Please keep and treasure these.” But out of his great compassion, he didn’t, for he wanted us to have what is true, what is real.

In conclusion, when we have a clear understanding of these four seals as the ground of our practice, we will feel comfortable no matter what happens to us. As long as we have these four as our view, nothing can go wrong.

Thank You.

Before the ceremony began, everyone took the opportunity to offer a khata to H.E. the 25th Tsem Rinpoche's throne

Our President of Kechara House Datuk May Phng gave the opening speech and introduced Pastor Tat Ming and his background to all present

Datuk May making body, speech and mind offerings with the assistance of Pastor Chia

The other pastors took the opportunity to renew their vows

The vows were given by Head Pastor Yek Yee who is dedicated, selfless and extremely hardworking and compassionate

Pastor Tat Ming making body, speech and mind offerings immediately after receiving his pastors vows

For auspicious reasons, Datuk May makes her first offerings as President of Kechara to Pastor Tat Ming

Datuk May presents offerings to Pastor Yek Yee

Pastor Tat Ming's brother offers a khata and prostrations to Pastor Tat Ming

Pastor Tat Ming together with his Dharma brothers and sisters from Kechara House

All of the sangha-to-be who have requested to take full ordination as monks and nuns in the future

Pastor Tat Ming with his two brothers and his niece

Relaxing in Kechara Care Lounge after the pastorship ceremony

For more interesting information:

• My 46th Year

• 2 Pastors & 58 Taking Refuge

• 3rd Pastor Ordination at Kechara Forest Retreat!

• Congratulations are in order

• Do women make good Buddhist Pastors?

• 10 Incredible House Blessings by Kechara Pastors

• Last Act

• Support the Kechara Pastors

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