There was an old man here with his brother. He was around 90 and his brother 85. Very healthy and fit the both of them. We visited them this morning and the elder one has passed away during his Vajra Yogini retreat. The incredible thing is he was 6ft tall but his body has shrunk down to 12 inches, not decomposing and enveloped by rainbow lights. The Dorje Shugden oracle said he has ascended to Kechara Paradise during bardo which is the transition period of death and birth. This morning Vajra Yogini knocked on their door. When he saw her in a form of a older woman, he recognized her immediately as she had orange darting eyes and he lept at her and hugged her his brother saw and related to us. Next thing you know. He sat down and folded his hands and passed away immediately peacefully. The lady disappeared. After passing, his body started to shrink and many rainbows appeared. His 5 feet Vajra Yogini statue in his room on the shrine has some water (perhaps nectar) dripping from her mouth this morning the brother recounted to our astonished ears. A good omen.

Namo Guru Buddha Vajra Yogini. Praise to the Buddha Goddess Vajra Yogini who leads her disciples to a place that never knows suffering. We are going to miss this elderly man. As eccentric as he was, he was very kind. But we know he will be in a better place. He has a wife and two kids (a boy and girl). They are practitioners too but in retreat in Nepal for the last 5 years. We will inform them. His brother who is asthmatic will continue to live in the house and we will watch over him. He is in retreat on Vajra Yogini too. Such beautiful people on our land. So many stories of people on our land to share. But that is it for today.

~ Tsem Rinpoche

This house is nearby and several students want to move in too. They are recovering from surgery and decided the city is too polluted. They have given up ciggies, alcohol, meat, white flour, sugar and processed foods. They realize their ill health is due to living in the city with pollution of the air, earth and water. They are now practicing Tai Chi, Manjushri retreats and also fasting. They will get well. The divination says they will get well if they follow this program and we will support them in all this.

~ Tsem Rinpoche

An old monk from Gaden Monastery lives in this retreat house. He focuses 80% of the day meditating on Lam Rim, Tsongkapa mantra recitation and Yamantaka. Often we see his house surrounded by opaque ‘fires’. Someone said it is Kalarupa manifesting to guard this monk while he enters deeper levels of Tsongkapa and Yamantaka completion stage meditations. Often people see buffaloes roaming around his house yet when we get closer, there are none. We often go to clean his house and bring wood to him. We bring him fresh flowers and veggies from our garden daily. This old monk loves squashes and pumpkins. Many times he will blow mantras on our heads and we feel light and remain in bliss for a few minutes. This monk has lead a life of purity, meditation and dharma and we are so lucky to have him live in our community. I love monks and nuns. I love the holy sangha and making offerings to them.

~ Tsem Rinpoche

I am removing the bed from here. This is my meditation room and my room where I keep my most precious dharma books. It is my favorite room because I can look out onto the forest. In the distance we can see bigfoots often and we can identify them from other forest creatures as they have glowing red eyes. They often come nearby if we are not making alot of noise during our monoply games. Besides apples they like lettuce from our garden too. You wouldn’t think so, but they do. They bring us horns of animals that had died naturally. From these horns we make small Vajra Yogini and Manjushri and Dorje Shugden pendants to wear. To carve one pendant from the horns takes about a week. They usually leave the horns at our doorstep. I guess it is kinda of a gift from them to us as we give them apples and lettuces. Bigfoots are friendly but shy. They are powerful but never harm the environment. Humans can learn from them. I see them sometimes bring berries to offer to the large Zong Rinpoche statue I have under the tree outside of my porch. They can feel the spiritual energy from these holy statues.

~ Tsem Rinpoche

This meditator down the other road is from the US. He is an expert in carving malas from wood especially spruce wood and sandalwood. He makes beautiful malas and we all use the malas for our mantras made by this man. He practices Cakrasamvara and Vajra Yogini for over a decade now. He is very devoted to his practice and hold his refuge, bodhisattva and tantric vows very firm and yet he is so light hearted. He is always smiling and he loves to bake apple pie and make Tibetan tea when we visit. Some cannot handle the Tibetan tea but drink it anyway because this man is so sweet. But his apple pies are heavenly. He always has a sparkle in his eye as he has travelled to Tibet. He stayed in Trode Khangsar (350 year old chapel dedicated to Dorje Shugden) in Lhasa for three years. He cleaned the place. He took care of pilgrims. He did black tea daily and he did a one year retreat on Dorje Shugden in this chapel. Naturally he speaks Tibetan. He learned while in Lhasa. The monks of Trode Khangsar were very supportive and took care of him while he was in retreat. It is said when Dorje Shugden took trance of Panglung Kuten and this man was around, Dorje Shugden gave him a deep hug and whispered advice into his ear. Dorje Shugden is very affectionate towards him. He now lives here with us in our community in this beautiful house with greens surrounding him. He has a beautiful German Sherperd that follows him on walks.

~ Tsem Rinpoche

A beautiful elderly lady lives here. She will be taking on the vows of a nun soon. She is so fit and strong. She loves to work in the garden…. and look at the clear running stream she has right next to her house. She adores this stream. There are many small fishes in the stream and she feeds them. She said all her life she wanted to be a nun and she lived like one. She has had her hair shaved for the last 30 years. She said preparation for being a nun was to keep her hair shaved. But she worked in her business and made money for her dharma centre and teacher so they can pay the bills. She was happy to do this. She wanted to support her teacher. Now her teacher told her she can retire. She is very devoted to her teacher. We are so happy for her. Her favorite books are the Lam Rim and the biography of Lord Buddha and Naropa. She reads these often and she read the bio of Naropa out loud to the deers that visit her. She leaves celery out for them. They visit her from the nearby forest. Her favorite meditation is Tara. Some say she and Tara have become one due the merits of serving her guru for so long and so devotedly. Some of our community members ‘caught’ her speaking to her Tara statue on her shrine. When she noticed she was being observed, she stopped. She is humble. She recites the sacred Tara mantra always. She said better to recite mantras than to gossip. She has invited a large Tara statue to put outdoors near the forest so all the animals can circumambulate Tara and be blessed. She sometimes give the oral transmission of 21 Praises to Tara and the Tara mantra. People come from very far to recieve this from her. I guess they can see her Tara nature. I can she recognizes her Tara nature within herself.

~ Tsem Rinpoche

Two monks and three geshes lives in this house. The house looks small but it has 7 bedrooms and 5 toilets. These monks and geshes write books. They translate too. They have four young students living with them to help in this project. The young students did not want to join the secular rat race of making money, holidays, buying house, having kids, getting old, sick and just dying. They are exceptional kids because they are not materialistic at all. Beautiful people. They are in their early 20’s. They wanted to do more with their lives and so they joined these monks to do translation. They are studying with these monks and their Tibetan written and spoken are becoming top notch! They are just on the other side of the hill about a 15 minute walk from my house. They are in the process of translating the complete teachings of Panchen Sonam Drakpa and Tsongkapa into English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and Korean. They work with other international translators online for these languages.We suport them by bringing fresh vegetables, free range eggs and home made yoghurt to them. Yes we keep around 20 cows that roam on our grassy land for milk, cheese and youghurt. We never take too much milk from the cows so the calves get more than enough. The calves are very fat and happy. The cows too are very happy and free to eat all the grass and roam in the sunshine. They keep the grass trimmed so we don’t need to mow the grass. We are so happy with the works these people are doing. So inspiring.

~ Tsem Rinpoche

This house is vacant. But soon I am sure some people are going to move into this house within our community. This one is not far from my house about 20 mins walk. Some lady from Luxembourg in Europe in fact inquired if she can move into this house yesterday by email. She said she will pledge to do the gardening and be in charge of all the plants. She said she will cultivate all the veggies for our growing spiritual community. She does not need help. She said her routine is to do Dorje Shugden practice for two hours in the morning daily. After that she cleans her house and cleans her cat. She then is free. She is very consistent with her schedule she says and she said she is alone and she would like to join and I feel she is a beautiful person. I feel she will make us happy and we will make her happy. She will be part of our family. She said she can help in the evenings with the German translations with the geshes. She said she has always wanted to be a nun. She requests to be one in our community. Well I will write back to her to see how this will work out.

~ Tsem Rinpoche