He is my new artist idol.

Amazing.

Acrylic on Resin.

Be Inspired.

I made for first Tong Yuen today!! All by myself! Bwahahhaa.

And it looks ugly in the picture because colour all is so retarded but it’s actually very nais okay!!

Lesson learnt today.

As with all days i decide to make something I’m unsure of.

NEVER!

I repeat.

NEVER!

Ever follow online recipes exactly because they always screw up for me “=___=

I couldnt get the consistency of the dough right by following recipes i found online and got so frustrated that i dumped everything and restarted a new batch based solely on feel.

IT WAS PERFECT!

Perfect for me la. Haha.. since the consistency an the chewiness was just the way I like it ^__^

Happy Dongzhi festival everyone!

La la la la laaa

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Unexpected.

That was my first reaction stepping into Kechara House for the very first time. The centre looked more like a boutique hotel than a Buddhist centre. My initial reaction when Ginny first received the invitation for us to attend HE Tsemtulku Rinpoche’s 46^th birthday, the Guru of Kechara House, was a mixture of amusement and uneasiness.

I mean seriously, what’s a twenty-one year old asian girl like her with almost-blonde hair suppose to be doing in a holy person’s birthday? Jump out of a cake and sing La Bamba….in Tibetan?

The feeling of uneasiness soon eased away the moment I stepped inside the lobby of Kechara House right around 7pm on a Monday night. The centre was just outright chic and modern. Nothing like a conventional temple at all. Hey, we might actually enjoy this. 

“ Hi, Welcome to Kechara House” a lady at the concierce beamed with a smile so wide I wished I had brought a present or something instead of a sheepish grin and an empty stomach. After all it’s not everyday one gets to attend a holy monk’s birthday coupled with the hordes of his friendly staff ushering the guests around. A simple card would have left me a little less guilty. 

“Hello, I am a blogger under Nuffnang, and this is my guest” Ginny replied. A couple of page flips later, she discovered she wasn’t in the list.

 “You are an evil demon disguised as a blogger to ruin this holy occasion!!!!”…..screamed the concierge. 

Ok,  I made that up. But that’s how it kind of felt when your names were not on the invitation lists like its suppose to be… impostors.

“Its ok, our list seems to be missing. We’ll place you guys in the media section where the bloggers will be seated”

After climbing a flight of stairs , I was inside a huge hall with a few hundred people already seated and right in the middle of that hall was a humongous statue of a deity. It must have been almost 20 feet tall. I mean, that’s really huge for it to be placed indoors. I later found out that his name was Lama Tsongkapha, a really holy being that existed thousands of years ago in Tibet.

“Here’s your gift pack with some information about Kechara House and His Eminence” the lady handed over. I rummage through the nicely prepared pamphlets and little books about Tsemtulku and discovered that he was going to perform a ceremony to ordain four people as Buddhist pastors at his birthday party.

Somehow, you gotta hand it over to the holier folks. I mean, on my birthday I would be eagerly waiting for presents and trying to get my friends drunk. Here instead, they give you presents and try to give their friends a holier life with a higher status. Perhaps it’s time to re-examine my priorities in life.

After about an hour of gazing around the huge hall and watching some very distinguished Datin-like ladies sauntering around in their beautiful evening gowns, the emcee announced the arrival of the birthday boy followed by the sound of some ominous trumpets blaring across the hall. His Eminence strolled in, wearing traditional monk robes and flashed smiles and greetings to the audience. He is definitely a lot bigger and taller than I had actually expected. I mean, if he ever needed a career change, he could guarantee himself a place in the World Wrestling Federations’s Hall of Fame without breaking a sweat. 

Strangely though, his presence emanated a sense of dignity and calmness that descended upon the room the moment he appeared. Maybe, just maybe this is the powerful aura a higher being possesses that is often explained but seldom witnessed.

As he got unto the ornately decorated chair which is referred to as “the throne”, we all waited eagerly in anticipation. Thus, began one of the most sincere teachings I have heard in a long time, Buddhism or otherwise.

 Tsemtulku started by explaining the reason why he wanted to ordain four of his followers as the first Buddhist pastors in the world and we were all witnesses to the first event of its kind. He said that to expect people wanting to be monks and nuns in today’s world is almost impossible, as lay people like us would find it very difficult to give up the life we have right now. Hence, the Buddhist pastors would serve as a halfway house between a lay person and monkhood. Whoever says that innovation is dead in Buddhism gotta check this out.

Suddenly out of nowhere, Tsemtulku blurted out that he likes Oprah’s style of connecting with her audience and climbed down from his “throne” and started walking closer to us. I liked him better already.

Tsemtulku spoke english with a strong American accent. It was kinda surreal listening and watching it all as this person dressed in tradition Tibetan monk robes dished out a Buddhist talk with a Californian drawl. Kinda like watching an Asian flick translated into English.

His teaching was about “changes” and in a nutshell he says that it is better to change oneself than to expect others to change. This simple but profound insight struck a chord in shallow me that somehow always expected the world to change accordance to my whims. The best part was Tsemtulku spoke to us not like a teacher to a student but as one friend to another with a good dose of American humor thrown in that drew guffaws from all of us and actually drew us closer to him.

 There was a moment of sadness when Tsemtulku told us that he has been diagnosed with an incurable disease and he had no more than a few years left in this world unless a miracle happens and if so, he would be granted another 16 or more years before he leaves. He said that he was not afraid at all because all have been foretold by one of his Gurus. We all felt his courage and the lightness he placed on his own life. I later found out that his failing liver was the cause.  

 The whole talk lasted a good two hours but it was one of the shortest two hours of my life. I wanted more. Even my empty stomach was no longer hungry. He was seriously that good.

 His 46^th birthday party ended up with four of his followers ordained in a somber ceremony of hair cutting and mantra chanting. The generous Tsemtulku presented some of the guests with Buddha statues and his coffee table biography “The Promise”. Yes, we were one of the few fortunate people who got a copy of the book. Beautifully written and visually exciting.

 I left at about 11 pm that night from Kechara House with a feeling best described as strangely happy and light-hearted. Those few hours virtually changed my whole perspective about Buddhism. The whole experience including the beautiful and modern centre, the smiling and friendly people and the super charismatic Tsemtulku kinda made religion fun again for me. 

The wise once said that if we are really lucky, we will get to meet people and visit places during our short journey in life that will change us for the better. I honestly think that this chance encounter with His Eminence and Kechara House is one of those rare moments.

 Happy Belated Birthday Mr. Tsemtulku and thanks for everything.

 - Arthur

(Ps. the Queen claims shes going to do another post regarding this so wait up for that next week as well)

Some memories burn in your head like a hot brand placed across your skin.

Some become mixed up with dreams. Dreams that depict a reality or so we think that’s what it is.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The strong scent of incense in the temple pavilion wafts through my memory filters as if it were just yesterday i lay cross legged on the floor, surrounded by people decades older than i was. The flickering shadows casted by the hundreds of red candles placed all around kept a warm glow going in the golden room that was not really a room. There seemed to be too many openings, too many exits out of the place. This was necessary of course, there was no air conditioning; only the breeze that snaked it’s way into the place acting as a cooling system that worked maybe a little too well. It was hard for someone as young as me to stay awake in such conditions, i lapsed into phases of semi consciousness and sleep over the hours that we spent sitting on the wooden floor.

It was a love hate relationship with that temple i now no longer remember. Or maybe i never even knew it’s name or the exact location of the place.

The only clue i had was these cat dolls i would constantly bring back everytime we made a visit there or when my dad went and left me at home.

Over the years these cat toys disappeared from my life for reasons i cannot recall and they never made an appearance again until today. The images flashing in my head are too vivid to have been dreams.

I know that place. I know the hours i spent there and how hard it had been not to cry and wail in the circumstances of meditation at such a young age. The cats had been the official 1995 mascot of the Chiang Mai sea games. They were my best friends for the longest of time and i had an indirect obsession with them. Why did i let them disappear from sight? Where did they go? Did i not even keep a single one? This idea seems almost absurd. I love my dolls. I get too attached to things to throw them out. So why out of the multitude of other toys i had, was my Chiang Mai cats missing? I had at least 3 of them of various different sizes and materials. Is there something about that phase in my life that i was meant to forget?

But right now, at this moment; I can recall the smell and the sight almost too realistically.

Those red candles symbolised something to me. Although i do not know what but their lights had served as some sort of constant reminder of the place.

If i close my eyes and allow myself to calm enough, i can hear the chanting of the monks and the rustling of the bells. The soothing sing song way they said their Sanskrit behaved like a lullaby to me. I remember occasionally we would repeat some of these chants. I often wondered why i had such a strange affinity to those buddhist Sanskrit chants i collected from random times but it never once occurred to me that it was because of that temple and my repeated dreams of the place.

My final memory of that temple is the buckets of cold water.

The reason i hated the place.

I hate the cold and i hated how the monks would drench me in the cold water that was meant to be holy.

Yet i allowed it.

I liked how the little pinkish red candle wax floated in the water and how the water smelt. I think i even enjoyed drinking it.

I was fascinated when the wax droplets got themselves lodged in my hair and i would laugh picking them out and then collecting them to see what shapes they made out. My mother would tell me to throw them away but i always shoved them in my pockets and brought them back to the hotel with me.

I would smell like the incense they used for days there after.

It’s been well over 10 years.

I wish to stand in that pavilion again. Even if it’s just for a while.

The memories of the place are too haunting to forget.

*~*~*~*~*~*

This year, i kept my dates open to return to Chiang Mai after all those years; sacrificing my yearly 2-4 week trips i make to get away from here. Chiang Mai had never once appeared in my consciousnesses as a holiday destination but for some reason this year it appeared. My 21st.

It may be superstition or just plain coincidence but for a hidden memory to relapse after so many years just strikes me as a little strange.

21st. Chiang Mai. Reiki. Yoga. Meditation.

.

.

.

The hotel has been paid for.

Only, it may not be happening anymore.

And i wished you would stop doing this to me year after year where anticipation builds up only to be slapped back with false hopes and disappointments.

Some wishes retracted inflict a lot more damage than others.

This is one of them.