nowhere this pride and ego creep in, thinking, "Oh, I managed to realise my fault. That is good!" So it goes on like this. Then again I scold myself like this, saying, "No, I should not have this kind of ego. "

And then one day... you see, I am interested in writing scripts and making movies and all that. And one day I found myself praying to the Guru, "Please bless me so that I will write my script properly, so that my film project will be successful. Then immediately I thought, "No, His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche does not even know how to make a movie. How can I ask him that?" At that time I was reading both Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo's and Khyentse Chokyi Lodro's biographies. And in them they mention so much about how much devotion they have to their Masters and what they seek from their Guru as a blessing - enlightenment, benefit for sentient beings, all sorts of enlightened qualities. I felt very embarrassed that I was asking for such mundane things. But then because I have read enough Buddhist books I can bring all this. My mind, my ego, my selfishness is so clever that it skilfully brings good excuses. Then I thought I could ask for blessing to write a good script for the sake of sentient beings!


Photo 2.19 : Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche was giving initiations in Hong Kong back in 1982

Again I told myself, "No. Now what I am doing is actually helping ego and my selfishness, using all sorts of Mahayana excuses, which is not good." Anyway, going back to when I pray or supplicate to him so that will give me the blessings for my movies. After that I thought, "No, no, he does not know how to write a script. He does not know how to operate a camera. Stuff like that he does not know." And then later I realise

"See, this shows I have no trust in him. He is the Buddha.He should know everything. I have considered him as someone who does not know a single mundane thing such as operating a camera which takes two days or a week at the longest to learn." So that much I have no trust in him. And this shows that I still have to develop my devotion, develop my trust.

After that, I tried to make sure that I spent more time praying and supplicating so that he would bless me so that my wisdom would grow and so that all my enlightened qualities would flourish. And I have gained slightly more confidence, so these days I do not feel embarrassed about asking for blessings for anything, like writing successful scripts. I think it is okay. What I am trying to tell you is this. We have this problem of not concentrating on one point, like the Guru is okay as a teacher, but if you want longevity and you happen to know Amitayus, the Long-life Buddha, then you ask for blessings separately from the Long-life Buddha. Or if you want to increase your wisdom, then you ask for blessings from Manjushri. Things like that. This also tells us that we have this lack of understanding that the Guru is the embodiment of all the refuge objects. This shows that we still have lots of dualistic mind. As long as we have this kind of weakness, we will never have this courage to have wisdom.

We call those who have bodhicitta Bodhisattvas. And the name Bodhisattva has the connotation of someone having courage, not only courage to help certain sentient beings, but in fact courage to face the reality, the courage to face this illusory aspect of our life. So in order to have "khyen" or wisdom, one should have compassion. And without compassion, one does not have wisdom. And the quickest way to get these two attainments, "Khyentse" or wisdom and compassion, I personally think, is through devotion which is the quintessence of compassion. So, in this way, devotion has many degrees. We can start simple devotion mainly out of our own emotions such as admiration and inspiration. And finally, when we manage to increase this devotion, the very devotion that we have becomes wisdom. And then we will not have the fear of needing to depend on someone all the time. You know, depending on someone is a very strange thing. Our mind wants to depend on someone at times, but at other times the very idea of depending on someone can be a big hassle. So I think that is about all!



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