I HAVE MOVED

Call me Paris' blog has now moved onto http://jamiekhoo.typepad.com Apologies for the mad formatting on this page right now - things were changed a little to enable the blog to be imported over to the new one. So check out the brand new beautiful look there!

Precious writings

What does help to put some perspective to my self-created temper tantrums and neurosis is THIS: Rinpoche has started his own blog, full of sacred stories and divine little musings which I'm loving dearly. Really, it's quite incredible how much Rinpoche is able to write and blog in a day, considering all the other things he has to do, people he has to counsel, departments he oversees... It made me wonder and blush a little for my incredible laxity in maintaining this blog. It's become a bit of a vicious cycle really - I don't blog for awhile, so when I next log in to look at the blog, I see how paltry it is, which makes me not want to write, which makes it even more stagnant and dead than it already is, ad infinitum. And so. I shall give myself a divine kick up the butt, and start again.

Ladrang

I have been spending inordinate amounts of time at the Ladrang over the last 6 weeks - I think I've been spending more time here than at home and started to even move my things in. A separate set of toiletries, my toothbrush, a towel and a change of clothes have even made their way into one of the spare drawers in BK's room. It's like a giant, never-ending, divine slumber party and I swear, there is something in the air-conditioning in the chill-out BAM room here which makes for the most amazing sleep. Why is it, I ask myself, that I never get tired of being here? Why is it, that in spite of the little sleep I have been getting, I am still up now at 5.40am hanging out in the conference room with Shin, listening to crappy online radio and blogging? There seems to be a forever-and-ever energy here, a super never-never-land where the people never get tired and their passion never ceases. This is what it means to love what you're doing so much that you would live, breathe, eat, sleep it.

Hanging with the girls

I was about to sit down and work very, very hard on the transliteration this evening when Susan called to ask if I was up for drinks in Bangsar. What stupid girl would say no to drinks in Bangsar with her posse? I told myself I'd just have to stay up later to finish the prayers, the comic book and the editing of David's book. I fluffed my hair, got up and sped down to WIP. We were actually going to discuss some work things but that lasted about 10 minutes because are so very efficient with the way we organise our work now. Yes, really. Then we got on to the fun stuff - boys and sex and why it is so important to smell good. We are so deep, truly. People might think that because we produce books and work with Dharma teachings all day, we also spend our time outside work talking about Emptiness, and Nargajuna, and the state of the mind. No, no, no. None of that. Let's get real - that wouldn't be real Dharma for most of us, would it. We don't understand Emptiness and sitting about yarning over the various interpretations of this impossible teaching will not bring us any nearer to realising it. Our talk about boys (my new one, Li Kim's old one, Susan's previous imaginary ones that never came to be etc) was, for those few hours, a real kind of Dharma to me. It is moments like these, when you let your guard down and you relax into your very own Sangha community (Bangsar-style), that you gain other kinds of realisations that will carry through to your every day living. Dharma doesn't just happen at the temple or in your office, but in all the in-between spaces and everywhere outside. It is how you relate to the people you're working with and how much you begin to love them just so very much as if they really were your own family. These are real friends because we have seen each other at our absolute worst, have pointed each other's weaknesses out - harshly, even - and then got right back down to help them overcome it. And after all the shit, we still look forward to moments when we take an evening off for a couple of capirinhas and pizzas. These are the girls who have told me to my face how selfish I can be, who have looked me in the face and told to stop being so fucking self-absorbed already and get over myself; they have said, matter-of-factly that I am spoilt, arrogant and self-centered, that I think I know best. They have told me everything I knew about myself but never wanted to hear or admit. This Dharma family has woken me up to myself and made me see things a little more clearly, gain a little more focus. There is awareness meditation in friendships, all the time, if we just look out for them. These are also the girls who have chauffered me around when I busted my back and ankle, who bring me food when I'm down with the flu, who buy me presents just for the hell of it, who will listen to me lament about the same story over and over again (and then tell me to get over it). It's the good times and the bad, truly. And to realise the preciousness of that kind of friendship is a realisation enough. So there we were tonight, talking about how blow jobs aren't so different from singing karaoke, eating dessert pizzas and planning our next round of books for 2010 - and a tiny little almost-realisation of what compassion really means came a little closer to my heart.

God had a BF

Buddha sent me on a sacred mission this evening to take the two monks and The Prayer to a movie. He bought us gold class tickets for Legion and even sent me off with money for popcorn. Funny really, that Buddha would send us off for a movie about God hehe. I didn't understand what was going on for about half an hour. And The Prayer kept trying to talk to me which is impossible through the din of the movie. Finally, ah, I figured out that it was about how God was pissed off with all the shit that humans were stirring up and decided to send down an apocalypse. So it's kind of like a zombie movie, except the zombies are angels... or something. In between, there's a sexy good angel and a sexy bad angel and a battle between them involving a mean gun and a badass spiked weapon. In between, The Prayer asked me "What are they supposed to be?" I said, "They're angels" He said, "What's that?" and looked confused as to why they were running around chewing off people's necks and shooting each other. I said, "Errrr, they're something like dakas and dakinis" though he didn't look at all impressed with that. I didn't get it either. Why would God do that? Why is he so pissed off? And what happened to compassion and "the grace of god" all that? And if he doesn't have compassion and gets so pissed off so easily and decides at whim to send down an army of violent flesh-eating zombies, then why would we pray to him?? I still don't get it.

Turning Tibetan

Evidently, my plan to blog every day has kind of fallen through, although in my defense I must say that I have been doing rather a lot of things lately and the lack of blogging is certainly not out of a lack of motivation. Well, I have been thinking of blog posts. There should be machines to translate the long and elaborate stories in our heads into blog posts, a kind of James Joycean stream-of-consciousness writing. No? My latest project has involved transliterating Tibetan pujas. Two wonderful monks from Gaden Shartse, including the very super Kating Rinpoche are in KL at the moment and a few of us have been plucked out to help transliterate and learn a new set of pujas for the centre. It has been two long days of working with the monks, transcribing/transliterating every word that they speak. The thing about Tibetan is that their words are so subtle. It's an incredibly beautiful language and their script looks like flowers (what's not to love about it) but it is also extremely fine so that all the alphabets start to merge into one another. So DRIL, TRIL DRI, TRI, DI, DHI, TI, THI, DIL TIL all sound the same! Two days and 60 type pages of prayers later, Girlie and I sighed a big happy sigh and mentally gave ourselves a pat on the back for getting this far. The puja looks great and sounds even better but I realise that I don't understand a word in there! Still, perhaps it has taken me a little step closer to fulfiling that elusive dream of becoming a Lotsawa (translator) in this lifetime! Big respect to Kating Rinpoche and the other monk for their infinite patience in reading the prayers out to us and helping us check through every single syllable. It doesn't end with us either. There's another 9 pujas to go through between Girlie/myself and two other teams. And they just never, ever seem to get tired or grumpy or fed up, no matter how stupid and dull we are, sitting in front of them, trying to recite Tibetan words back at them. I swear, I will never laugh at way The Prayer speaks English again after this exercise of trying to transliterate and pronounce infinite Tibetan words... dil, tril, dhi, di, thi, ti, dril, thril, tri...

Conversations with Rinpoche: I am not me

There was a second part to that conversation with Rinpoche where he related an experience he recently had. It's not something I can quite grasp yet, having obviously not gotten very high up on the Dharma ladder just yet, but I think it's definitely something we can apply if we just contemplate what it's about. And if you can't feel it yet, fake it til you make it, baby! Rinpoche shared that a few nights ago, during a conversation with some of his Liaisons, he suddenly had this weird sensation where he felt that he was "sitting inside himself". It was like his body was a third party, just an outside object and he was "sitting inside it". He was looking at his students and the room around him but he felt like it it wasn't through his own eyes; it was looking out from a pair of eyes and observing everything going on around him as if in a kind of show. I asked him if it was like one of those costumes you see in a fairground, where you look out of these cut-out holes, and he said that yes, it was something like that. He felt suddenly like this body wasn't his body anymore, he was using it just for now but that it wasn't really him. He was just "sitting" inside it for awhile. He told me then, "I let go a little bit more at that moment. There is nothing to worry about losing because even this body isn't yours. I realised that. You know what I take away from these few moments of this experience? I actually have less fear now, building TKL and Kechara because I realise I have nothing to lose. At the same time, I will lose everything anyway when I die because this body is only something temporary. So just do it. What do you have to lose? Go all the way with your work and what you want to achieve." There is something spectacular about realising that you actually have nothing - even your body will betray you in the end and you're only sitting inside it for awhile, just to use it for whatever you need to do for a few years. Sure, it hasn't made me change overnight or leap up from a sudden and enlightened realisation but like Rinpoche advised, fake it til you make it. It is something extremely valuable to think about - for the next bad hair day, the next time I'm lameting I have nothing to wear, or the next time I chicken out from doing something because I'm so damn worried about "losing face" (haha good pun). Rinpoche gave the teaching again a few days later to a group of students. The next day, my housemate Wendy talked to me about this and said, "How can it be that he only just realised that the other day! No lah! He realised that how many lifetimes ago! He's got it all planned out - when he'd share that. If he hadn't realised that experience of letting go, he wouldn't be a tulku, control of his deaths and rebirths, and all that, would he?! " She has a point there. For tulkus - highly attained beings who have total control over where they go after they die and where they come back to - every body is a funfair costume; just whatever will help them to continue their work for others. It must be amusing for them to look around at all the rest of us, floundering about in our costumes, all falling apart at the seams, grey from all the years of wear and tear. And none of us even realise we're wearing a costume. We hang on oh-so-dearly to these silly garments, identifying everything about ourselves with the giant body mask that we've got on. Rinpoche must have been "sitting" inside his "body" one day and realised, "Okay, enough. I don't call them clowns for nothing. They really do believe are the ridiculous get-ups that they're 'wearing'". So he brought out this story for us - something he realised oh-so-many other lifetimes ago. And how very wise it is. Think about it. And the next time you're preening in front of the mirror, try to remember that the circus is great and people love the costumes but there is always a day that the circus has to pack up and leave town.

Conversations with Rinpoche: Letting Go

I am the kind of girl who becomes desperately possessive and paranoid about my relationships and friendships. And I believe there is a little part in everyone who worries constantly about losing a relationship, falling out, arguments or mending something broken. We think about it constantly we cry we lament we bitch and moan we lash out we get revenge we shut down we get depressed we take drugs and escape into our whiskeys we tell the whole world our relationship and family problems It is, we tell ourselves, because we claim we love these people and we have been hurt by them! Betrayed! Disappointed! How could they!!! Rinpoche gave me a teaching today about the profound importance of letting go and what it really means. So many of us fear losing someone and misinterpret the idea of "letting go" as throwing someone out, cutting off ties or running away from them. Letting go has never meant that we stop loving them or actually let go of the "object" we are attached to. It is about finding a different way to love them. When we let go, Rinpoche explains, it is not to let go of the person but to let go of the expectations and perceptions we place on that person. It is to realise that it these projections we place on what s/he is supposed to do to make us happy - which they don't meet - which makes us unhappy and keeps us stuck. It is these very expectations and projections that harm us. When we project or expect, and when that person doesn't meet what we have projected or expected, our world collapses. We can't understand why they don't do as we think they should? We ask over and over again, "Why do they do that? Why do they act like that? Why did they say that? Why didn't do this or that?" and we never get an answer that will satisfy us. So we get hurt frustrated sad angry disappointed irritated People react differently when they are hurt. Usually, we go into ourselves and think about the hurt. we think about it constantly we cry we lament we bitch and moan we lash out we get revenge we shut down we get depressed we take drugs and escape into our whiskeys we tell the whole world our relationship and family problems In the end, we're still none the happier and we haven't done anything to help ourselves, the other person nor the situation. But we claim to love these people. We care. We have given them everything. We have made them our whole world. Don't we? All we achieve is to get more into our (selfish little) selves and further away from the people we claim to love. We start to shut them out, we start to plot how we can get them back or we self-destruct. Letting go - of our expectations and projections - becomes the highest expression of our love for a person because in doing so, we STOP focusing on why WE have been hurt or disappointed and START focusing on THEM. We change from relating our experiences to OURSELVES and our OWN REACTIONS to relating situations to THEM and THEIR NEEDS. When someone - such as parent, our partners, our friends - don't approve of us (our careers, lifestyles, friends, religions etc) and we get upset, it actually only reflects our selfishness for how we want things to be, how we want them to like and approve of us and how we want to be accepted. There we go, thinking about ourselves again. Logically, it somehow seems easier to help and advise a person we don't know, than to help someone close to us who we love. For example: - it's easier to rescue an abandoned kitten and nurse it back to health than to listen to your father nag you about how much he disapproves of your career choice and thinks you're a loser - it's easier to counsel an alcoholic homeless man on the street than to tolerate your own husband's alcohol addiction - it's easier to counsel your friend when she's going through a divorce than to tolerate your husband cheating It's just so damn f*&%ing difficult because - you expect your father to support your career choice - you expect your husband to live virtuously and cleanly - you expect your husband never to cheat and sit by your side every single night whereas - you don't expect or need anything from the kitten - you don't really expect nor need anything from the homeless man - your friend's divorce problems are not your own problems Once you put yourself back in the equation - your expectations, your needs, your problems - you find you can't help the other person anymore. You can't be focusing on yourself and the other person at the same time, especially not in a time when there is conflict between you both. So you pick - focus inwards on yourself or let go of "yourself" and focus outwards on the other person. Though we fear that letting go means to lose someone forever and to lose any grasp at all that we might have on that person, ultimately, letting go actually means to let go of ourselves - our hangups, attachments and the selfish thinking we identify so strongly with which hurts us. As Rinpoche summed up perfectly at the end of that conversation, "No one can cause you harm. It is your projections that harm you."

Retreat

I shall have to start blogging as a retreat just so I'll do it every day.... because so far my efforts seem to have been a bit pithy, no? Well, then again, I *have* just been in 4days-and-nights of nonstop meetings (all part of spiritual bootcamp and training, let me assure you). Now that I have the opportunity to go to bed early, I won't. I'm wide awake as a button and wandering around Tsem Ladrang catching up on all my writing and playing with The Prayer's hair. I am a vampire, I know it. Darkness is much more exciting than sunshine. Alright. It's sadhana (prayer) time and I shall go off for my daily half-hour dose of holiness. I shall make grand and enormous aspirations to be able to write more regularly and to write Things of Substance. I shall make it a retreat, yes I shall.

Struggle

I struggle every morning to wake up. Sometimes, in a desperate attempt to be virtuous and diligent, I will try to go to sleep earlier, say at 1am, with the ardent hope that I will wake up earlier, start the morning at dawn and have plenty more hours in the day to achieve the things I need to. It never works. The struggle is still there and instead, I merely turn the alarm off and sleep in. This means, I just end up sleeping more than I normally would if I'd just stayed up late and slept at 5am. I think the only way I will ever be able to get out of bed is if someone set my blanket on fire every morning OR if I develop that sense of urgent compassion and swiftness of a Bodhisattva, which will prompt me to get up quickly and eagerly each morning, race out of the house and save more sentient beings from pain. (cf. Beng Kooi and her unceasing energy) I use my sleeping patterns as a gauge of how much more committed I am to my practice and Dharma work. I know I'm getting somewhere when I am able to sleep less hours and not bitch for the rest of the day and/or if I bounce out of bed happily each morning (no matter how little I've slept) ready to get to work/practice and gain attainments! hurrah! So far, it's been working, I suppose, but not quite as quickly as I'd like it to be. The complaining part has lessened dramatically and though I may feel like death defrosted, I'm happy enough to be awake. That thing about bouncing out of bed and not hitting the snooze button every minute for 2 hours still needs a lot of work though. Right ho, so we shall start now. I'll be up tomorrow by 9 and in the office by 10, no matter what time I get to bed tonight. And you shan't even have to set my bedding alight.

Mondays

The extraordinary thing about working in a Dharma organisation like Kechara is that there are no Mondays, or Fridays or weekends - every day is a new day and there is no need to lament the coming of a Monday, or "celebrate" the advent of a Friday. Every Monday, when I log onto Facebook, I see nothing but long status updates from friends lamenting the fact that it is Monday again and they are back to work. Dharma gives you a different perspective of work - it isn't "work" and it isn't about "going into the office to do a job". It is just something you do as a part of living. Monday is just the same as the weekend, which is just the same as Friday - everyday is a new miracle! I didn't sleep until 5.30am this morning because I was hanging out at Tsem Ladrang doing "work" and hanging out with the crew. I got home, rolled into bed and talked to The Prayer until he couldn't understand what I saying anymore. This morning, I couldn't wake up in time to "clock in by 10am" so I sent a sleepy text to say, "had a late night, will be in by noon." Then I promptly fell back asleep again until 12.42pm. *PANIC* 12.42pm! That's just being ridiculous, really. I sent another text, "OMG I totally overslept. Be in soon." And you know the amazing thing - our most super, amazing, compassionate, CEO sent back a text, "Babe, you must please get sleep so take your time. Don't panic. Just come in by 3ish so you are ready for the 4pm meeting." At 3pm Jean Ai sent a text: "Did you know BK hasn't slept since last night? Shin and I crasehd at 9am and just got up, and Beng's still gooooooiiiiinnnnnngggg." What's not to love about Dharma work - it provides the ultimate, most flexible flexi-hour working schedule in the world. That said, have a happy Monday. And Tuesday And Wednesday And Thursday.... And Everyday!

Purity Dress

I decided to start the new year with a new flouncy white dress I bought in Bangkok. It's all pure and cotton and embellished with leeeeetttle embroidered purple flowers. It's all purity purity purity. I BBM'd Jean Ai, smugly: I'm wearing my purity dress today. I thought it would be a good way to start the new year. She replied: What? By deception and lying? hah. Hmph. Nevermind, I felt oh-so-virtuous in the dress, all day - white and pure as a lily. Then I walked past JP, who then asked me if I was getting married. Deserves a slap, he does. Then, in the evening, when I went to the bathroom, I noticed that, oh dear, you could actually see my underwear through the dress this whole time. I BBM'd Jean Ai again, oops, I just realised you can see my knickers through the purity dress." She replied, smarmy girl: What can I say. You tried at being pure. And failed.

Loveliness

The books are all here and just absolutely booooootiful!* We sold 76 books within 5 hours of its arrival. It's not quite J.K. Rowling with bolted doors and screaming teenagers, but this is good and fantastic enough success for me and all of us in KMP. I was called over for a meeting at the Ladrang so I thought I'd bring the books over to Rinpoche at the same time. I traipsed in with a Pink Riding Hood basket filled with the books, pink ribbons, fluffy pink flowers and giant pink diamonds as a celebratory offering to Rinpoche. I skipped up to the Ladrang and then and accidentally ended up in another unscheduled meeting that was turning very quietly into a sort of BF. I bit my nails, curled my toes and wondered if maybe now my pink ribbony basket was a bit ridiculous in the light of all that was happening. A few minutes later, Rinpoche went back up to his room, while we sorted out errant individuals again. When the meeting was finally adjourned and everyone went on their way, Rinpoche was happy again. He'd seen the pink basket and thankfully, it wasn't as offensive as I had begun to think it might be. He sent out happy messages about the book including, "The book has put me in a good mood again!" He texted out, "From KMP, ANOTHER great book, 'Call me Paris' by Jamie Khoo has arrived! Jamie writes with candour, honesty and very indepth about her spiritual journey. In some pages, she swears like a truck driver and other pages, she's a pink dharma princess. The book is raw, candid, humorous and very entertaining. Great, great, great cover too! Curl up in bed with a cool refreshment and read! It will enrich you, your life and your spiritual journey!" (that was a bout of shameless self-promotion, I know, but as it comes from Rinpoche it deserves to go up!) Anyway, now begins the hard work of promoting the book, selling it to the world and inspiring people to become enlightened by tomorrow! If you haven't got your copy yet (and shame on you if you haven't!) get it here now now now. *(although I spotted a teeny tiny error already and if you spot the same one as me, I'll give you a dollar.)

Arrival

The books are due today, wheet, and I'm feeling so sick I think I might vomit. David too looks more excited than me. He keeps skipping into the room and saying, "Your books are coming soon!" "Your books are JUST around the corner!" "Are you excited about your books? I AM!" I hope there are no spelling errors. Like "Paris" is spelt wrongly on the cover or something...!

Delay?

On the way back from the airport, Production Manager Superheroine Deborah texted to say, "By the way, there's a problem with your book cover. Printer has to redo it and will rush it for 31st." PANIC. BUTTON. Press it. LiKim clicked her fingers and waved her magic cigarettes in the air and soon enough she had managed to convince the Very Fabulous Printer to still deliver the books by the 30th. Fingers crossed. Toes crossed. Hair strands crossed and braided. And all intestines in a giant knot so that things will arrive on time. If not, I shall have to cry and it shan't be a very Happy New Year.

Bangkok glamour

It has been another one of those insane weeks where all the days merge into one and become an enormous lonnnnnng day - you feel like maybe you're living your own version of that TV series 24 where every minute counts. I shan't go into the details but to cut a long story short, we had 3 marathon days of not sleeping, a long meeting and then, finally, lots of happiness. You shall have to join the Liaisons Council of the Kechara organisation to find out why our world is vastly more exciting than any of those pithy reality shows you see on TV. Anyway, to end the insane week, I trolleyed off to Bangkok with Jean Ai - supergirl extraordinaire and one of the most important people in my history of being in Kechara. We found ourselves on a plane to BKK after having had only one hour of sleep the night before. No problem, we thought. There is shopping on the other end of the plane to wake us up. Sleep when you're dead, and all that. We spent the entire weekend in the markets buying a ridiculous number of kitschy, cute tshirts and nonsense gifts for people back home. The Thais sure have a strange sense of humour but we love it - enough to bring 40kgs of it back home as pressies for the fabulous people back here. Apparently though, there really can be a limit to how much shopping you can do. After 2 full days of Chatuchat and Suan Lum markets and the madness that is Khao San road, I proclaimed, defeated, to Jean Ai, "I think I've actually had enough of shopping." She said, "Did you really just say that?" I swear, I never saw as many sundresses and tshirts in my entire life as I did in those 2 short days. Blek. Apparently, a girl really can overdose on buying Things She Doesn't Really Need. Still, it's about quality baby, not quantity. Best purchases of the weekend? - pretend Moleskine notebooks for a tiny fraction of the cost - a fridge magnet that reads, "Damn right, I'm good in bed. I can sleep for days!" - a pink tshirt for JP that reads, "I'm not short I'm fun sized" and best of all: - A t-shirt that reads, "I WANT I CRY I GET" in pink, no less. On the last day, we decided to redeem some of the unnecessary spending of money on unnecessary things and do something virtuous and holy and halo-producing instead. We woke up at 6am and made our way across town to make dana offerings to the monks. We then even had time for breakfast, before heading off to visit Emerald Buddha, the P. Diddy of all Buddhas - you'd never see as much bling on any other Buddhas as you would on him. He the man. Jean Ai asked me, wide-eyed and earnest, "Do you think he'd mind if we went up to him and say, "Eh WHADDUP Bruvva?!" "No, I don't think he'd mind," I said. We also had silly adventures with a crazy tuktuk driver who broke every law there was in the tuktuk road law book and then asked us if we would give him a tip? We went to one of the best cabaret shows in town, where the women (I mean, Men. I mean, women) are more gorgeous than you and I could ever hope to be. We rediscovered the wonderfulness of Thai vowels - words like Phloen Chit, Charoen, Klong Toey, Sala Daeng and Phra - made all the more lovely by the way Thai people always sound like their singing. We noticed that Bangkok really does have the largest numbers of 7-11 stores in the world. We ate oily food at every meal. And all the in-between, we spent talking about boys. Boys boys boys. Nothing beats a good girly weekend for being able to go out and shop, eat oily food and talk about boys. My life is just so very fulfilling, isn't it! Thanks Jean for the company, excellent shopping advice (yes, I did REALLY need that extra tshirt) and endless, fascinating conversation :) Remember, Phloooeeennnn Chit.

Off we go!

Call Me Paris is finally off to print! I spent all of yesterday with terrible tummy aches because I was so nervous. It took Li Kim ages to talk to me about the book or sign it off properly because I had to keep saying, "Okay, wait. I need the toilet again" and run off in pain. The printers came to pick up the files, dead on the minute that they proposed they'd come. I passed him the file and said, "Are you SURE you can get it done by 30 Dec? If not I'm not going to have a Happy New Year. Which means I'll be calling you up and screaming and crying and YOU won't have a Happy New Year either." He nodded, yes yes yes, and looked very confident. We shall have a book to celebrate and party with on the 31st then! (Together with Susan's birthday). Fingers crossed that there are no missing full stops or dire spelling errors. And anyway, even if there are, it's too bad now isn't it? Just time to suck up the good stories and feel nostalgic for all the history that I've packed into those 368 pages!

New family

There is lots to celebrate this week - too numerous to go into. We had 31-hours of celebration and feeling happy at this week's liaison meeting - updates, new news, plenty of awesome new things to be excited about in the growth of Kechara. These liaison meetings are like a giant drug trip - you feel inexplicably happy for extended periods of time. Ah, so that's what the Buddhas mean when they talk about Enlightenment. At the 30th hour, as the meeting ended and as Rinpoche was walking out the meeting door, the topic of new Liaisons suddenly came up. Boing. Karma opens up when you least expect it. Before we knew it, we were all sitting back down for another hour of talking - recommending new liaisons, giving comments and finally voting. So now, we are just incredibly, super, extremely stoked that Li Kim (KMP's Lady Boss extraordinaire) and David (the Svelte and Beautiful Boy) are now in the liaisons family. Whoot! After a day's rest - shower, sleep, recuperate - we were all back in the office today to talk about more exciting-ness and things to do for the next year. Midway through the meeting - all screaming, all laughing and some work - Li Kim passed David his official Liaisons Appointment letter. Here they are reading all about their brand new sparkly future, laid out in black and white:

Signed and sealed: We love you guys! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Storm Warriors

I've had one of those harrowing weeks, the kind that make you feel like you're in a movie and are watching yourself walk in and out of rooms; the kind where you are shouting at the heroine for being stupid and telling her what to do. Throughout, people from Kechara rallied round and hid in quiet corners around my world, ready to spring forward and help. All I needed to do was send a text. Dharma brings you this incredible quietness, no matter how loud and crazy things around you may get. I understand now why they call it "taking refuge" in the Three Jewels for in the midst of difficulty and great pain, you need only think of your Guru and the Buddhas to feel a moment of safeness. The people who knew what was happening checked to see if things were okay and send silent text messages full of peace and calm abiding to keep me steady. Those who didn't know what was happening but knew something was up, sent a message just to say they hoped I was okay and sent their love. Before I stepped into a storm, Rinpoche gave me advice - short, succinct and strong - which kept me steady and gave me that refuge I needed. I wondered many an instant how differently it would have all been if I hadn't stepped KH 5 years ago and met Rinpoche. I would have stepped into the storm and erupted myself. I thought to myself, "What is the worst that could happen?" and with Kechara, with Rinpoche and an entire city filled with the dakinis that were my friends I know that it couldn't be all that bad. I realised again and again in that one short week - nay, in those few hours - that this is really what Dharma was: a kindness from your Lama, your Sangha and the teachings that you can take refuge in; it keeps your mind safe, steady and strong in the midst of the most frightening things you could imagine.

The 10 covers

I (we) shall be forever indebted to Fang for creating 10 beautiful book covers for Call Me Paris. I don't think she's ever seen so much pink in her life; she's even professed to me that she is now officially sick of my face, having stared at it every day for Two Weeks Straight.

 When the 10 covers came out, all 13 of us in the office crowded around it and ooh'd and ahh'd and screamed at each other. BEAUTIFULNESS! Fang, you are incredible. 

 We got straight down to business and voted on our favourite. Then off it went for the ultimate blessings of Rinpoche. I worried - perhaps he would think we were being too frivolous? Was there too much pink? There's rather a lot of me on the front cover and I wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing for Dharma...

hmmm. We printed out the 10 coloured covers, slipped it into a plastic folder and tied it up with a cover letter, a khata and pink and yellow ribbons. Then I went to a party. 

It was non-stop happiness and excitement from Rinpoche after that. He sent a whole series of voice messages over the phone to tell us how much he loved the covers and how amazed he was with Fang. Rinpoche couldn't decide which cover he liked most - he narrowed it down to 5, and then, eventually to one. 

Someone in the office said we should go out and buy lottery numbers from the numbers that Rinpoche had selected (Options #3, 5, 7, 8, 9). The office was an huge flurry - we spent that whole office staring at the 10 covers deciding which one to choose. Susan said one of the covers looked pornographic (Joan said it was just a reflection of her dirty mind because no one else saw it like that); Li Kim picked what would be more marketable; I asked if maybe we could just publish the book with 10 covers (Li Kim gave me a look and said no, rather too quickly). 

So. 

We couldn't decide what we really wanted and after much dooo-ing and dum-ing, Rinpoche called us over for a chat.

He told us again and again how much he loved the covers and how they were an indication of where KMP could go now - the world! These 10 covers marked a new leap for us and has shown us (and Rinpoche) what we are really capable of. Coming from a distraught and traumatic history of awful book covers and neverending battles with designers, this. Was. Tremendous. All those tiresome nights looking through tiresome design options was all worth it then - it has led us to a success, finally, which is all the more appreciated for the slog that we've had to go through to get there!
 We finally made up our mind - so now it's off for tweaking and perfecting and printing... then it's up to you to tell us if you think the cover is as lovely as we think it is!

Impeccable timing

I finally have this small tiny window of opportunity to go watch a movie with The Prayer tonight and profess my undying love for him. I was all yay and hearts and increased pulse rates and all that. Then discovered that all the damn tickets for 2012 are sold out. The dakinis are playing games up there again and laughing at how ridiculous I am. I moaned and whinged at Sharon all morning. "So howwww?" "But how now??" "What are we going to doooo?" David said, "Well, you could go to the park with him instead." Gotta love David's ideas. Anyway, it isn't often that I have a whole evening with nothing to do, so I am determined to go watch a movie, with or without The Prayer. Have settled on watching Astroboy instead.

Visualisation

I came to the astute realisation recently that if I only meditated on Dharma teachings and the Buddhas as much as I did on The Prayer and Boys-in-General, I should be enlightened by now. See, well, at least it shows that I have the effort, ability and determination to do something if I really put my mind to it. All it needs now is a little bit more of getting my priorities right and a little less of being governed by lust.

Fat?

As I mention in the book, growing up as the fattest kid in class can have dire effects on a girl's psyche. You grow up with never-ending weight issues and, no matter how thin or normal you get, you never, ever believe that you are thin enough. The truth of the matter is that I really am in need of losing a bit of weight at the moment. The scales are starting to make funny noises when I stand on them, as in protest of the sheer bulk that is stomping onto its surface. And none of my clothes - except the ones with elastic in them - fit. I need to be a bridesmaid next May (yes, again, another wedding that's not mine! Don't ask.) and as the bridesmaid dresses are a purplish-maroon, I shall be trotting down that aisle like a Ribena Berry if I'm not careful. Not quite the svelte and stylish opening that Isabelle would be envisioning, I'm sure. Still, it isn't good enough to just say, "I'm a bit pudgy now, eh? I think I shall have to eat a bit more healthily from now on" and just hope that the weight will somehow drop off on its own. You have to well, actually eat a bit more healthily from now on. Murphy's Law, however - or perhaps the twisted neurosis of our minds - dictates that the moment you determine to go on a diet, you will do the exact opposite, which is to develop insatiable cravings for stupid things like Burger King's fried mozzarella sticks and chocolate biscuits and sugar. All day. Every day. Just as I was contemplating the futility of going on any diet programme, Wan and Albert (of Kechara Paradise) and I started talking about the workings of our subtle and gross minds. Such is the sort of intellectual conversation we have while volunteering at the outlets. Anyhow, Albert was saying something about how our subtle minds control up to 80% of our actions. This means that no matter how subtle or insignificant something may seem to be on a gross, it can have a huge impact on our subtle mind; which in turn, feeds our actions on a gross level. Round and round we go. "So," I asked, carefully, "Does that mean that if I keep saying, 'Oh, I'm fat, I'm fat, I'm fat' my subconscious registers it and works towards KEEPING ME FAT?" Albert looked at me and nodded his agreement. "Uh huh." Wan looked at me and nodded furiously. "Yes, yes. When you say that, you constantly remind yourself that you're like that and your subtle mind reacts to that to keep it that way." Great, I thought to myself, I have literally been talking myself into getting bigger. It was true too - the more I lament that I'm fat, the more I want to eat (and only evil, calorie-laden things). I have changed my song since, developing new and fantastic affirmations, like, "I am the most beautiful, healthy person in the world". Never mind that it's exaggerated. The subtle mind doesn't know that. Actually, on a Dharmic level, all this makes a lot of sense and is a very logical way of thinking / acting. Rinpoche speaks to us often about the huge influence that out subtle minds can have our own gross minds - and how we subsequently think, speak and act on an outward, gross level. He reminded us the other day also that many, many people "constantly reinforce and believe in what they are, but never believe in what they can be." We stay so fixated in our problems - how we are, what we're facing, what we're stuck in - that we fail to see beyond it. Perhaps, if we looked beyond ourselves for a second, we'd realise there is so much more that we can be. I remind myself of that now when I step on the scales. Instead of focusing only on what I am ("Oh dear, I'm a bit fat now") I'm trying to switch it to believe in what I can be ("The most beautiful, healthy person in the world"). It works for everything else too of course. Something like this: Stop thinking, "I am lazy!" and start believing that "I'm productive, active and successful." Stop thinking, "I made a mistake, poor me" and start believing that you can find ways to fix it. Stop thinking, "I'm such a bad spiritual practitioner" and start believing in your Buddha nature. From weight loss issues, to productivity at work, to Enlightenment, all we need to do is switch the intention and affirmation; stop affirming all the negative things we are and begin a new affirmation of what we can be.

The move to the new Ladrang

I forgot that I started my previous blog entry about the wonder-evening in Ladrang and then proceeded to not actually say anything about it. So here it is: I had popped by in the evening to just help out with packing and unpacking a few things, in preparation for when Rinpoche's move in on Sunday. But the Buddhas like to catch you by surprise and before we knew it, we heard that Rinpoche had decided to move in that night itself. Fortunately, thanks to the immaculate planning of wonder-girls and boys like JP and BK, almost all was in place - we just had Rinpoche's room to unpack. Jean Ai and I spent the early part of the evening writing up things on Rinpoche's enormous noticeboard. What would a Rinpoche need with an enormous noticeboard, you wonder. Ah. Well, you see the organisation is getting rather immense now and the only way to remember who is in every of the departments is to write it all up, big, big on a giant noticeboard for quick reference. (I said, in a fit of smug arrogance to Jean Ai, "We should take a photo of this board with allllll our departments and names of staff on it and email it all those pricks with their puny little 12-people centres who keep saying crap about us"). We are a proper organisation, yo. I read all the names out to her, while she balanced precariously on a ladder and wrote every one up in perfectly neat letters. When she got to the end, I said, "The ink looks weird over there. Should we re-do it? Consistency, and all that, you know?" Datuk May walked in then and said, "Why does the ink on that side look different? Consistency is excellence!" She gave Jean Ai some tissue to rub off the messy parts and re-do them, then toddled off. JP walked in a few minutes later and said, "I think you need to redo that part. Let's be consistent." She got off the ladder, pushed it back to the beginning and redid the messy part. Attention to detail, my darlings, is essential. Rinpoche came by after midnight, when the real evening started and when we began unpacking the things in his room. It wasn't complicated really - all he has are clothes (which erm, all kinda look the same since they're all robes), books and statues, including many extremely delicate ones that we had to try not to trip over, smash or crumble. Rinpoche ran around the room screaming jokes at us, pulling out things to give away, tickling us as we balanced delicate hundred-year-old statues and rearranging his incredible book collection - featuring, the Dalai Lama, Lamrim and Singaporean ghost stories, among other fantastic gems. He pulled out a kitsch bag from one of the boxes and waved it at me, "Look, Paris!" It was a white cloth bag, with a sketch of a woman's face and the word SLUT written across it in big letters. "Look! You'd use something like this, wouldn't you?!" "Sure!" I said. "Okay, you can have it!" he said and tossed it my way. We unpacked everything by about 5am and everyone, weary and hungry, started to inch their way down to the kitchen for toast and tea. Rinpoche and The Prayer stayed upstairs to finish off a few odds and ends. Finally, just as the sun started to creep its way up, we all sat down for a proper breakfast at the Ladrang's new giant dining table, that can seat up to 30 people. It's the size of a small island. Everyone's faces melted into their breakfast but Rinpoche was still bouncing about and full of energy. He screamed jokes at us across the table and made us laugh; he reminded us again that this Ladrang is never about him but always about being a base from us to work from and, eventually, to build our retreat centre; he gave us precious little teachings in between, as he made sure we ate up everything on our plates; made plans for we were all going to do that day; and teasingly slapped The Prayer awake several times during sudden quiet moments *smack* "I'm sure Paris would like to slap his other cheek," he added. We finished off and waved Rinpoche off to bed (well, to his daily three hours of sadhana) at 9am, did a massive bulk of washing up (25 people's plates and cutlery) and then, finally, went home and dropped off to bed at 10 in the morning, just as the rest of the world was starting to stir. All in a good day's work.

The Ladrang

I spent an evening full of specialness and wonder last night with Tsem Ladrang* as they put the finishing touches on the new building and officially invited Rinpoche in. It was another little historical moment for the entire Kechara organisation, as the Ladrang moves onwards and upwards, bringing all the other 10 departments with it to greater heights. A whole blog entry must go to the Ladrang team, whose dedication, commitment and boundless energy is incomparable, amazing and an enormous inspiration to every one of us working in the organisation. While it may be difficult for us to think about Enlightenment just yet, it may perhaps be good enough for now just to aspire to be like them. The team is is headed by JP (read all about him in the book - he got a chapter all to himself) whose leadership skills are what most of us can only dream of achieving in this short lifetime. In actuality though, there is incredible leadership in all the Liaisons of the Ladrang - Datuk May Phng, Su Ming, Beng Kooi and Seng Piow, each of them extremely successful people in their own right who "gave up" worldly pursuits in exchange for great and tireless work to benefit others through the Ladrang. It is with them that the Ladrang have now been able to expand and move to a much needed bigger building, grow their team to 15 full-time staff, raise tremendous funds to support the growing work of the Kechara organisation and connect literally thousands of people around the world - as far flung as Bulgaria and Machu Picchu - to Rinpoche's teachings. They have this massive capacity to sleep a mere 3 to 4 hours every night, juggle an impossible number of tasks and also maintain that exquisite balance with their other personal commitments, family and relationships. Under their guidance, the Ladrang team have grown to include 10 other full-time staff who show the rest of us what it means to be fully and heartily committed to the fantastic work of serving the welfare and benefit of others. They too sleep very little, juggle an enormous portfolio and, in the face of any difficulty, remain smiling, bright, uplifted and an inspiration to anyone who walks through their Ladrang doors. Nowhere to go but up with these lovely and incredible people. Lots more adventures about and with them in my book - too long to go into now but trust me when I say that if there is every a group of people to aspire to be when you grow up, they are it. *A Ladrang is a Lama's private household and office, and also the headquarters of any Dharma organisation. Tsem Ladrang, clearly, is the Ladrang of our Lama, H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche, and is a pivotal department in the organisation that supports and works closely with every of the 10 Kechara departments.

Change is good for you

I feel like I want to talk endlessly about The Prayer and all the distress in my head. But I shan't. I won't. No, no, no. A girl should have more substance and dignity than that. I will however, sing in a last ditch attempt for attention, "Hey, hey, you, you, I don't like your girlfriend! No way, no way, I think you need a new one!" No really. Let's talk about more serious things. Like when this book will actually be published. My parents have taken to asking me every time I go out to dinner with them. "So when's your book coming out?" "So what's happening with your book?" "So when's your book coming out?" "So what's happening with your book?" And other variations of the same question. David (the fairest boy in all the land) and I met with Rinpoche a few nights ago to talk about our books. And it has now changed again - bigger and better, of course, and with lots more pink. We came away full of ideas and new amendments and our darling art director, Fang, is now working on 10 more new covers. (We love you Fang, love love love). Also, lots of photos, all in colour now too so everything will be more in-your-face, surround-sound, technicolour and exaggerated than it already is. Woot!

date?

The Prayer called me today as I was in a mall. I have trouble understanding him at the best of times, so trying to decipher all the stories he was telling me in the middle of crowded, noisy Parkson's toy section is a whole challenge unto itself. He was talking about that movie 2012 and then, somehow, I *think* he said something about how we could go watch the movie together. I spluttered in my head and asked myself the question every stupid romantic airhead asks herself: Was he asking me out on a date? Before I could answer it however, he started telling me his elaborate plan for how he would avoid a natural disaster like that, which was to stay on top of a very high mountain where floods wouldn't get to him and carry him off. "Just get food and stay on the mountain lah." I said, "What happens if there's a landslide and everything collapses? You're still in trouble." "No lah, it won't happen lah. I'm talking about a flood lah." He's got it all worked out, he has. The date however, I haven't quite worked out yet... I think perhaps I might just go watch a movie with Jean Ai. Girls are far less complicated than boys.

The Paramita of Patience

I have found some new and very valuable practices for attaining great patience in a very swift and highly efficient way: - Bangsar Shopping Centre and Bangsar Village carparks on a weekend: you wonder why the entire city of KL insists on jamming themselves up on the topmost parking floor, creating massive jams and extremely long waits as they fight for one or two spots. Instead, they could just go down another floor which is usually completely empty and has hundreds of free lots. You develop: great equanimity - Maxis service centres: the SS2 night markets are less crowded than the service centres. You wonder why it is that one of the country's largest phone service providers, which seems to only get bigger and bigger, doesn't think it necessary to improve the efficiency of their service centres. You develop: great tolerance and patience - Astro hotline: An example: I rang today to unsubscribe from Astro. The conversation went like this: "I'd like to unsubscribe from Astro please. Can you tell me what I need to do please?" "You mean you would like to subscribe to a package?" "Nooooo..... I would like to cancel my account." "Oh. That means you want to cancel your account, yes?" "Yesss...." "Oh ok.... So you would like to terminate your account, is it?" "Yess....." "That means you don't wish to subscribe to Astro anymore?" She then asked for my account number. After I gave it, she asked, again, "So that means you wish to terminate this account?" She asked me about six times. You develop: great compassion How do you NOT get enlightened with great practices like these?

Fashionable Eric

I was invited to Eric Choong's fashion show at the Malaysian International Fashion Week which turned out to be a really lovely evening. Usually, I avoid these things like dengue because I can't bear that thing of air-kissing people I don't know and getting caught out for not recognising people who seem to know me. Anyway, there I was - I found the only decent dress I had that wasn't crumpled and even decided to go all fashionable bare by not wearing a bra - freedom of expression and all that, haha. JP looked at me and said, very loudly in the middle of a throng of MIFW guests, "WHY AREN'T YOU WEARING A BRA?" This MIFA thing is an odd thing for me because it's what I always wanted to do - fashion, lights, cameras, runways, glamour - but what, inadvertently, serendipitously led me to Dharma. Read the book to find out the details, it's too long to go into now. So it was somewhat of a nice surprise to find myself back in MIFA again last night with all my Dharma family. Met lots of other people there too, most of whom, luckily enough, I recognised. Whew. I knew their names and where they're from and how I know them any everything. It took absolutely forever for the fashion show thingy wotsit to actually start. I only really liked Eric's collection which was stunning and his models were the only ones of the whole night that didn't like seriously deficient in vitamins and minerals. I wanted all his dresses - now if he could only make it in a slightly bigger size because my enormous thighs wouldn't fit through anything. I really didn't care much for the rest of the designers, so I spent the rest of the two hours contemplating the anorexia of the models and the questionable fashion taste of the people at this fashion event. I swear I saw someone wearing a bin liner - although she probably didn't even know herself that it was a bin liner. Susan, sitting somewhere else, sent me SMSes about the worrying emaciated states of the models. I know she was probably doing this as a way to make me feel better about myself since I used to constantly whinge about how I wished I had bigger boobs. (The fact I was running around Pavillion without a bra though, was evidence enough that I have decided to just be happy about the A-cups) Some of the models really were a bit toooooooooooo thin. It isn't that attractive when your spine sticks out like a dish drainer. I sooo just wanted to buy them a big hamper of biscuits and tell them to try this new and very fashionable thing called EATING. To rejoice in my wobbly bits, I went out for an especially large Nasi Lemak breakfast this morning and celebrating having flesh on my bones. Anyway, enough blathering. Onto photos?...

With Datuk May Phng

With Susan, doing some artistic photo thing by standing on staggered steps. Whatever. It makes her look like a giant.

Oh dear, I've run out of pictures, or rather have lost the patience of uploading etc. You shall have to imagine them into being. I've off to learn how to become a Bodhisattva now (Dharma classes and all that).

For our own good

I've been having backache again and nothing seems to cure it - not yoga, not sleeping on the floor, not painkillers, not Ayurveda, not anything! So it was with some relief that I discovered Mr Li Jang, the god of all massage therapists in an obscure little traditional Chinese treatment centre in SS2. Now, the first two sessions were heaven, all the pain was massaged out and for that one hour, I felt like I could finally feel my spine again. I was addicted. I wanted more and quickly but Mr Li told me to come back only once every 7 to 10 days. If I wanted my back to get better, I'd have to follow the programme and do it properly. The fact that he wasn't like those hundreds of other con therapists that try to sell you every package in their dog-eared foldout menu and convince you come back every day for daily consultation fee of a few hundred ringgit, endeared him even more to me. Excellent massages and honesty - what more could you ask for in a therapist. I went back today for my third session, full of joy and anticipation for yet another wonderful session of bliss and relief from pain. Yay. It wasn't any of that of course. It was an hour of sheer, pure, total unadulterated PAIN. He seemed to up the ante and every press at every pressure point filled me with nothing but suffering. After what seemed like an eternity and as Mr Li popped out to get something, I checked the clock, thinking that the hour must surely be up by now? It wasn't. I was only half way through. Another round of pain would begin once he came back. Ding! I wondered why I was putting myself through such incredible torture. Then again, isn't that what we put ourselves through all the time, all in the name of some benefit or other? We allow our doctors to invade our bodies with their scalpels and stainless steel; we trust that they'll fix us, sew us up properly and not leave anything behind in our stomachs. We allow our facialists to squeeze our pores and pop our zits, trusting that they won't create any scars on our pretty faces. We submit ourselves entirely, wholeheartedly to our personal trainers at the gym who put us through varying levels of pain we never thought possible from a machine and a set of dumbbells. We trust that the ugly, nasty nutritionist knows what she's doing when she prescribes us oats and steamed vegetables for our diet plan. We put ourselves through all that because we want to be better, more beautiful, more healthy. We believe that no matter what they put us through, it is for our own good. Why then, I wondered as Mr Li knuckled his entire fist into my shoulder blades, do we react so differently with our Gurus, our spiritual guides? When things get tough with him - the person we call our Guru - we give him a slap, get up off the therapist chair and leave in a huff. How dare he, we think, as we think about what he has said to us or made us do; how dare he do that to me! What an uncaring, horrible, nasty, mean Lama for hurting me. I hate him! Why is it that we're prepared to let Mr Li put us through an entire body of pain but not prepared to ride through the difficult times that our Lamas "create" for us? Why are we able submit our bodies - the one thing that keeps us alive - to complete strangers but not allow our egos to undergo the spiritual training of our teachers? Is the physical pain of Mr Li's incredible massage really any different from our Lama's metaphorical jabs at what embarrasses us / shows us up / "hurts" us? If we bear the difficulties and overcome them - whatever form they're in - wouldn't we emerge stronger and well, healed in some way? I grit my teeth and allowed Mr Li to massage through all the ugly, tangled knots in my back and shoulders. I hated him in that one hour for making me hurt so much but I stuck it through - I knew that afterwards, the day after, everything would be well again, better than before. And it was. I just had to let go and trust, for that one painful hour, that it was for my own good.

A bit of history

I'm so proud to have been a part of this most fabulous publication. We were nominated for national awards while I was still there and have since won several. Just found out that they recently took home the most highly acclaimed "Best Student Newspaper" award of the country this year. Ahhh. Brings back wonderful memories of being 19, campus politics, working until absurd hours in the news, office, cold Yorkshire mornings and, most of all, some pretty damn good writing which is what I miss most about having left England.

It is important to know how to behave in public

I MC'd my cousin's wedding last weekend - for some reason, she had this extraordinary faith in me that I'd be able to string a coherent sentence together and not trip over my dress and destroy the cake as I fell over. I got a proper dress, had a hair make-over and even made little cue cards for what I'd say on stage. I'm rather pleased to say that I didn't mess it up; at least I don't think so. My co-MC, J, however, left much to be desired. He had gotten a bit too happy on the whiskey 2 hours before the event started, even before the guests had started arriving. (tip for aspiring MC's and hosts - believe it or not, it is actually NOT cool to be drunker than your guests). He moaned at me about how he was in great pain because of his flu and asked ever-so-earnestly if I would please help to cover him and talk more as we did the presentations etc. All started well and we were quite well coordinated, did lovely introductions and told lots of nice stories. Midway through the event, everyone paused from their meals to toast the bride and groom, and cut the cake. We did three "yum sengs", full of hearty cheers and delicious champagne - all was splendid. Then the groom was invited up to give a speech which was also wonderful and made me want to cry all over my 7th course. After the speech - when we all least expected it and when he'd clearly drunk even more whiskey - J tumbled his way onto the stage on his own and started giving his own speech, wishing the wedding couple well and giving my poor dear cousin some of his most profound wisdom. He said, to the horror of most of us, "Sharon will be be a very good wife by doing the laundry, washing the dishes and, when TS comes home drunk late a night, she will look after him." He snorted at what he thought was a very clever joke and staggered his way off stage. A few days later, Sharon paged me on MSN: "J asked me if we were mad at him. He was worried he had upset him." I said, "hah. Well. It was SOOO not cool what he said about you being a "good wife". She agreed. She was horrified too but the video camera was staring at her, 400 guests were staring at her, and most of all her parents and in-laws were sitting next to her staring at her. Bless her, she did the best thing she could do: "I just smiled lor, what to do."

David

I've just finished editing David's book today. Wheeeeee! It's now gone on to proofreading and final changes, very exciting. David is one of the first people I met in Kechara, one of the first people who allowed me to stalk him through the streets of Nepal on our first pilgrimage and harangue with questions, which he answered eternally patiently and with a heart full of wisdom. There isn't a bad bone in David and we are really quite a lucky department to have him here with us. The book is fantastic - full of lovely stories, shocking stories, drama, history and plenty of a surprising honesty (about himself!) that makes David so lovable. I want to marry him again after editing that book. This is his first book and we all know how he squirmed and avoided and sighed and tore his hair out through many late nights over the 11 chapters. But the result is something that leaves this wonderful feeling in your heart and makes you feel sad when you get to the last chapter because you know all the loveliness will end soon. His story rings true and beautifully for all its honesty, sincerity and truths that arise from revisiting the experiences of his spiritual journey. There are some books that leave you with a special feeling like you've made a new friend and the specialness of the experiences you read about in the book remain with you for a few days. Good books do that. And I'm very excited to say that David's book did that for me. I can't wait for the whole world to read it! Watch this space for more news... there's lots more sexiness coming out of KMP soon!

CD - an old-school gift

I am making The Prayer a CD compilation of songs - just like how we used to do this for best friends and boys we fancied at school. Kitsch and campy and oh-so-tacky - don't you love it! The CD is full of the World's Most Campy Songs including, among other things: Kylie Minogue's "Can't get you out of my head" and "Come into my world" David Guetta's "Toyfriend" and Christina Aguilera's "Ain't no other man". If that isn't enough of a hint, I don't know what is! So. It may result in a happily-ever-after-and-forever OR it may just bring out any proclivities towards gayness which may be lurking within, in which case I'd just be shooting myself in my stilettoed pumps. I'm off to see him now to give him the CD! Whhoooppp!

Ending

Just as I thought I was wrapping up the book, just as I was doing that last, last check and getting ready to finalise the file, I decided then - typically - that I now wanted to change the ending. You want something to leave a bit of an impression, don't you? The kind that make people close the book and sigh, sad that the book had to come to an end. I felt like that - at the end of every story in Miranda July's collection of short stories, No one belongs here more than you - Sarah Waters' Tipping The Velvet - Jamie O'Neill's At Swim, Two Boys -Alan Hollinghurst's In the Line of Beauty and even the old classics like - Moliere's plays - Flaubert's Madam Bovary - Hugo's Notre-Dame How does a former literature student ever find it in her to write an ending that would be quite as spectacular as the last few paragraphs of phenomenal books like that? I'm stuck, on the very last line of the book and I have a rather awful feeling that it's not about to end at all spectacularly :(

Love

I'm kind of very much in love with this boy (and if you don't know who he is by now, then you must either be in exile, in a coma or in the Big Brother house). Let's just call him The Prayer (and if you still can't figure it out from that, then, well....pppfftt) It's a little bit ridiculous because I've liked him for about 10 months now but haven't actually plucked up the courage to do anything about it or make the first move. Like, what if he rejects me. The world will collapse if he does. Samsara and all that will just flop down and bury me in its entrails. So for now, I'm living in this pretend bubble where everything is in that nice rosy phase of maybe-he-likes-me-maybe-he-doesn't. He calls me almost every night at absurd hours when I'm already asleep but I wake up, groggy groggy, fumble for my phone and force myself to wake up to talk to him. He tells me all kinds of amazing stories like something straight out of a Xinran book and I try very hard to stay awake enough to put the story together and respond in a coherent way. During the day times, I tell myself stoically, determinedly that when he next calls me, I'm going to profess my UNDYING LOVE FOR HIM FOREVER AND EVER and run over to his house, take him by the hand and run away into a romantic sunset. Then every time he calls me, I am either too damn sleepy to recall my grand plan (and fall asleep while he's talking to me) or I'm too damn chicken to do anything about it. Maybe I've gotta face the awful, ugly truth (coincidentally, the movie I'm watching now) that he's just not that into me.

How glamorous is it to eat pain?

Yesterday, YY, our super Chinese editor, played horrendous, screeching videos all morning about animals being slaughtered and tortured. I was working (very hard, I assure you) on editing David's book when I heard this awful, awful, awful screeching coming from her laptop. She was sitting glued to the screen, watching this video about a pig being tortured to death - it went on for aggggggggeeesssss. She looked visibly disturbed but also unable to actually stop the video. Like roadkill, but much worse. I jumped around the office and screamed at nobody in particular, willing her to stop it already. Then Sharon also decided to look up those videos. There were no sounds on her laptop, thankfully, but she gave running commentaries instead. "That's disgusting. The Chinese believe that the more you torture and animal, the tastier it will be." "Ewww! Oh my god, even I can't handle that. They just chopped off a kitten's head." Like that, all morning - wonderful reminders of why I AM VEGETARIAN AND DO NOT EAT DEAD BODIES, thank you very much. Next time you think it's oh-so-very glamorous to scoff foie gras or whatever other succulent morsel of dead body, remember that those few ridiculous minutes of pleasure your taste buds get is the result of huge, huge, huge and tremendous and unnecessary suffering. Ask yourself how glamorous it is to eat pain?

Bad/good hair day

I finally got my hair cut and was swayed to even get it coloured. The colourist pulled out a chart and pointed at this funny oaky colour. I pulled a face and said, about five times, "Are you sure???" I decided to be adventurous and go for it. When all was done, washed and towelled off, Teng the colourist took the towel off and I said, my face twisted in horror, "I don't like it. I look like a mushroom." She blew dry a part of my hair and said, "Wait, wait, it looks different when it's dry" though I really didn't think it did. Anyway, I couldn't sit there for another half an hour to colour it again so I decided to be adventurous again, and just live with it. When I told Shantini about it over text, she said, "I'm sure you don't look like a mushroom. You're just going to have to work it." Then again, perhaps I should have more trust in these professionals because after all was blow-dried, clayed-up and fluffed, it looked pretty damn good. And then I received a hundred compliments that night and many days after. Funny, because every other time that I've left a stylist thinking my hair looked good, nobody said anything except, "Oh. You cut your hair. Oh." Lesson of the day: don't trust your own judgement AND what you hold to be true is often just a horribly misaligned perception.

Eyeliner

Li Kim - CEO extraordinaire of KMP - and I both decided both rock up to work today with eyeliner and a new hairstyle. When I walked in the door, Deborah - Production Manager with wings - said to Li Kim, "Did you issue a memo that everyone should wear eyeliner to work today?" I looked at Li Kim and she looked at me and we blinked. *blink blink* "Oh yah, you're wearing eyeliner too." I explained, "Bill Keith told me to wear eyeliner every day. So I told him I would for a week, and send him a progress update. Also, it makes me look less mushroomy." Li Kim said, "This new hairstyle shows a lot of my face. It's too much face so I gotta do something you know." We nodded emphatically at each other and went on our way. It's good to have highly intellectual discussions in the office hallway every now and then. A great bonding experience.

Struggle

There this thing called Djrib and he lives in my head. The scriptures and teachings explain that Djrib is a kind of phenomenon or feeling that overwhelms us as we're trying to do Dharma work, a kind of invisible obstacle that "attacks" us just as we're trying to do something positive. You see this happening all the time: people who fall asleep just as soon as a Dharma teaching starts and wake up just as it ends, people who get sick as they're doing Dharma work, or people who get fidgety and distracted the moment their Guru enters the room. Djrib has moved in with his whole family for a few days as I try to sort out this impossible book. Today, he attacked me by making me fall asleep on the sofa. In between proofreading many pages, he hypnotises me and makes me do stupid things like check Facebook a hundred times, make lemon tea when I don't really want to drink lemon tea, and find stupid things to talk to Sharon about when clearly, she is very busy and not at all attacked by Djrib. Perhaps I am her Djrib. I hate Djrib. Hate him. Hate him. Hate him.

Re-writing and re-working

I had the book all ready to go so I printed it out, clipped it neatly and sent it on to Rinpoche with a note that said, in short, "Seeee Rinpoche! It's all done! Can I print it now? Can I? Can I? Can I?" The next time I saw him, he said, "Read it a 100 times, get 100 people to read it and make it perfect". I was like, "But, but, but... isn't it ready to go to print?" So here I go, reading it again and finding another million things to change and make more perfect. I never thought I'd say this but I'm getting really rather sick of listening to my own "voice" in the book. It's like having constant dialogues with myself. This can result in one of two things: - I become more confident (but not arrogant) or - I become totally neurotic and start hearing things. Let's hope it's the former and that soon, the book will go to print. What a lovely Christmas present that would be.

The most glamorous woman in the world, really

There's this spectacular lady in the Kechara organisation called Datuk May. She is the most glamorous woman in the world, truly, and when I grow up I want to be like her. Anyway, she's read the book, after which she sent me a lovely email: Dear Jamie,

I have finished your manuscript and it is absolutely amazing, I throughly enjoyed it and kept on reading, completing before DEADLINE because:-

1) It is very informative, giving much explanations to many "words" of Buddhism and essence of Rinpoche's teachings.

2) A very interesting view of your personal transformation and how it is possible for many others.

3) Light and fun reading.

4) Your trial and tribulations on the Dharma journey and your reactions were quite similar to mine in many ways. Imagine the reactions between you, a young 23 years and mine a 62 year old can be similar. Therefore, I presumptuously confirm this book will be a great contribution to all spiritual readers.

Thank for giving me the privilege to be one of the first readers of your book, great job.

Much love, May So I was all glee and joy and everything looked a little bit pinker that day. Datuk has fabulous taste and excellent style and is most certainly NOT the kind of lady that can be bribed to say something is nice if it's actually rubbish. So. If Glamorous Datuk is saying it's rather good you better hope it is! I know, I know, this is rather a lot of shameless self-promotion and I should try to feign some sort of apology for being so full of myself but that would be untruthful, wouldn't it!

The Amazing Support

One thing that must absolutely be mentioned is the incredible support that I have received for this book. Okay, see, the thing is that it's not ENTIRELY about me. It IS supposed to be a Dharma book after all and there is much to be shared and learnt from the spiritual aspects (I hope). Though it's masquerading as a self-indulgent biography, I had wanted the book to be more a reflection of the rather spectacular and profound inspiration and influence that Rinpoche has brought to my life. Things can change, literally, overnight and I wanted to show the world how there is always a better way up, no matter where you are and what you're doing. This would not be possible if not for all the incredibly kind, super, amazing people who have contributed towards the sponsorship of this book. Much much much much much love to Professor Choi Kim Yok, Madam Ong Yeok Lian, Khor Ai Chin, John Colquhoun, Sharon Saw (who has not just contributed towards production costs but also also edited, proofread and put up with endless nonense from me over the many years). Special mention must be made also about my lovely parents who have sponsored a huge part of the book. Now, they're just DYING to read it and have been trying to squeeze info out from everyone. We haven't told them anything - it's full of surprises and they'll only find out when it's been baked, printed, shrink-wrapped and tied in a ribbon. In the meantime, many, many huge thanks from the bottom of my fuschia heart to everyone who has contributed towards this Dharma book. May it go out to many, many people and hopefully, change their lives as Dharma has changed mine.

Dotting the i's and crossing the t's

What did people do before they had computers? How did people Jane Eyre proofread her huge 300+ books? Didn't Dante go mad checking his enormous VOLUMES of work? I've been checking through my manuscript and every time I look at it, I find something else I want to change. Eventually, I've had to flog it off to someone else to read through. I think if I look at it anymore, my eyes will permanently cross themselves and never uncross. Not very stylish, I'm sure you'd agree. It is now in the very capable hands of an excellent writer/editor (and best friend). She must be having a splendid time going through those 380 pages? Better her than me!

Beginnings

Well, it seemed there couldn't be a better excuse for writing about myself - self-indulgence! boastfulness! self-praise! yay! About 18 months ago, I got a text message (characteristic, as you'll find out in the book) from my Guru, H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche that I should write a book about my experiences on my spiritual journey. I said okay because I thought it would be fun but I did silently wonder how on earth I'd be able to pull off something as massive as this. Write a whole book? Like, I'd have to actually do some work? Not a chance! But then again, it was also a chance to be self-indulgent. I love writing and I love myself (hah!) so this seemed a perfect marriage. I got down to it, in parts... very slow parts until Rinpoche asked me one day what one earth was happening with this book. I coughed up a sort of deadline, he gave me a big smile and off I went to try to finish off the book (finally) in six months. I met the deadline (see, all is possible if you just put your mind to it, even for lazy people who don't want to work). The manuscript is done and needs just a little bit more dusting before it goes off to the printers and prettified for shelves. This blog gives a little more insight into what went into this book, some sneak peeks of chapters before the book is launched and lots and lots of salacious gossip that goes on in between the lines and after you've finished reading the last page. Stay hooked, me darlings, and discover a different sort of glamour.