The Festival Begins

Here in the Suntec center, a truly enormous convention center in the heart of Singapore, 5,000 Kadampa Buddhists have gathered to receive teachings and empowerments from Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.

Geshe-la (an affectionate term for a Geshe, a learned Buddhist spiritual friend who has trained in the traditional manner) began Wednesday night with an inspired and inspiring teaching on Lam Rim, the stages of the path to enlightenment (Tibetan : "Lam"= Path , "Rim"= stages).

The Lam Rim was created in the early eleventh century by the great Indian Buddhist master Atisha (982 - 1054). The Tibetan king had invited Atisha, the greatest living Indian Buddhist master, to come to Tibet and to help establish the teachings in the forbidding Himalayan"land of the snows." Out of compassion, Atisha agreed, and he wrote Lamp on the Path to Enlightenment, a work of true spiritual genius that distilled all of Buddha's teachings into an elegant and effective guide for all levels of practitioner.

Atisha's teachings revolutionized spiritual life in Tibet and made the pure Dharma, Buddha's teachings, accessible to all. The word "Kadampa" itself means someone who takes Buddha's teachings as personal advice, according to the instructions of Atisha.

In other words, someone who practices Lam Rim.

Geshe Kelsang himself wrote a beautiful commentary to the Lam Rim called Joyful Path of Good Fortune, pictured above (that's Atisha on the cover). Click here to see a video of Geshe-la teaching on Lam Rim at a recent festival in England.

A Few Days in Malaysia....

After arriving in Singapore, Sara and I went to Pulau Tioman (Pulau means "island") in the South China Sea, off the Malaysian coast.

It was beautiful and serene. We lazed around and got over our jet lag. We saw monkeys, swam with a sea turtle, and saw a bunch of HUGE lizard-dragon-thingys that were pretty well terrified of us.

Even amongst the tropical splendor, it was impossible not to feel incredibly fortunate at the life I have, having met my great teachers, Geshe Kelsang and Kadam Morten.

Malaysian Islands are exquisite, but the people there have lots of sufferings and problems, just like the rest of us. Nowhere than in paradise is it more obvious that true joy can only come from a joyful heart. Many of the local we met sat around all day chain smoking and watching Malay soap-operas.

Tioman seemed like a dream, like a heaven, but to a spiritual practitioner it was all too obvious that it's pleasures would only leave one feeling hollow soon enough....