KMP's prostration retreat

Yesterday, KMP / KIT / KIM - Joe, Susan, Jamie, Yek Yee, David, Shin, JJ, Joey, Chris, Ms. Han, Julia - started our prostration retreat to collectively undertake 100,000 prostrations. 100,000 prostrations is one of the preliminary practices which all Tibetan Buddhists should complete in our lifetime. Our motley crew have been planning this prostration retreat since last year but somehow it never manifested. Finally, while the new KMP/KIT/KIM building is under renovation, we finally got our act together and requested for HE Tsem Tulku Rinpoche's blessings and advice.

Rinpoche kindly gave us a series of prayers to do, namely the preliminaries, the nine attitudes of Guru Devotion, the eight worldly Dharmas, Guru Yoga and the 35 confessional Buddhas. Our KMP sponsor, Annette Chan, and KMP patron, Professor Choi, were invited to join our retreat and they happily accepted. I dare say every single one was quite excited about starting this endeavour.

The group prostration retreat clears personal and group obstacles, which KMP felt would be very much appropriate as we embark on the next stage of KMP's growth - when we move into our own building.

We started at 10am and gave ourselves an hour for the prayers and prostrations. Yek Yee managed 270, Susan 250 while I only made 108. We gave ourselves 10 weeks to finish the prostrations, averaging 10,000 a week. Watch this space!

Four months

It's been four months since I last blogged. A lot has happened over four months. I don't know even where to begin. One of the highlights was definitely having the honour of being appointed as one of H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche's liaisons. The liaisons are Rinpoche's personal assistants and today, there are 17 of us. The liaisons council runs the entire Kechara organisation under the direction of Rinpoche as our spiritual guide.

The liaisons consist of Rinpoche's students, ranging from senior students who have known Rinpoche for more than a decade to those who have met him for a couple of years. Length of relationship is definitely not the criteria for liaisonship but 110% commitment to the Dharma and to Rinpoche's work is. We all come from different ages, educational and occupational and other backgrounds yet we are able to happily work together towards a common goal, continuously supporting each other through our personal transformations and growth in order to benefit others. Of course we're not all bodhisattvas - far from it - but at least we know what we aspire to and we have a kind and compassionate Guru who will show us how.