39

I hit 39 yesterday. I felt ancient.

It's just a number, but as Rinpoche is so fond of reminding us, it marks another milestone on our inexorable march to the grave.

Lovely jubbly.

Anyway, as I am wont to celebrate anything and everything, there was a Kechara House party at Star KTV and I decided to make my birthday party there too. I must say my corner was the rowdiest. Shirley bought Susan, Jamie and myself tickets as well as a slew of other people. Wills came too.. and I totally forgot that I bought his ticket and told him Shirley bought it. But nevermind. Buddha, can I please have more RAM for my birthday?

Kim, GL, Carol, Zahrul, Beng Siang came.. Pyng and Sheryl couldn't make it, but I'd celebrated with them the night before. Unintentionally though, because I went to pick up something from their house and stayed and chatted awhile and before I knew it, it was past midnight and Pyng was popping champagne.

Susan gave me a Canon printer and a keyboard cleaner (so romantic... and yes, I do love it, darling), Kim, GL and Tina gave a set of crystal glasses, AP and Ester gave a key chain, Sean a block of diabetic chocolate as usual (I wonder when he'll grow out of that) and Beng Siang a cushion from British India.

I'd given myself a whole new kitchen, a study and a paint job.

Not bad really. Could be a lot worse (though Rinpoche's words keep ringing in my head - why do you want to redecorate your hotel room.. i.e. everything is impermanent so why spend so much time and resources on in)

Anyway, I digress.

I was feeling a bit down earlier because of my own personal issues, real or imagined but like all illusions, felt pretty real to me. Anyway, lucky I am a Dory sometimes and soon I forgot all about it and swung into the party.

I had a fabulous time. Susan surprised me with a fantastic profiterole cake and Carol also baked her famous chocolate cake. She and Kim also got quite plastered with Whisky and beer (yes, together in the same glass) and we finally ended past 2am with a dedication. Best of all, we found that we had also raised RM12k for KHEC.

Not too bad at all.

Sigh

It wasn't the Ikea people after all.

Yesterday morning, I asked Umi again - did she take it? She said no, so I called up Ikea - said I couldn't prove anything and just wanted them to be aware if other people complain. The lady I spoke to, Nadia, was very nice about it. I had 'let go' and didn't expect to see my laptop again.

Then in the evening, I was having a meeting at KLPAC for the yoga event this Sunday, and Umi rang and said an Ikea guy came by the house and the laptop appeared on my desk. At first I was elated. Then as I thought about it, I decided the story sounded distinctly fishy.

Firstly, if the guy stole it, he wouldn't risk returning it, he'd just dump it.

Secondly, if the Ikea people found it, they would've called me first before delivering it.

Fingers were starting to point in a different direction.

So I spoke to Susan about it and we decided to both talk to her the next morning.

This morning, we asked her again and she insisted that the Ikea man did come and he was in a small car etc.

So that was that.

Susan left for work. I went upstairs to work.

Then Umi came and said she wanted to talk to me. And she confessed that she took it.

I was relieved and quite calm about it. I told her that it wasn't about her or me - but the poor guys who were blamed for something they didn't do. I also told her that she had a pretty easy time working with us - and I was so easy going with her. If she had wanted to borrow it, she should have asked.

Then I had to call Ikea and tell them that it was my maid and apologise deeply.

Sigh.

Stolen Laptop

I had a horrible shock today. I discovered that my previous Sony Vaio laptop was gone... I had put it on my shelf in my new 'study' which is on the landing on the first floor of my house. I hate to run on assumptions without proof but currently, it looks like fingers are pointing at the Ikea installers who came to assemble my new desk and office chair just this past Friday.

Why? Because they were left alone in my study for an extended period of time. While I have been renovating my kitchen, none of the kitchen people have spent time upstairs over the past few days. The Ikea workmen might have assumed that they could get away with it because it was very obvious that my house was under renovation and there were plenty of workmen around and they wouldn't be the only strangers around. Little did they know that the painters of my house were loyal members of my Buddhist centre and therefore not of any risk at all.

It disappoints me that people are so greedy - I have to try and be compassionate about it but I will still call Ikea tomorrow to lodge a complaint. It is impossible to recover the laptop since they could have or would have disposed of it by now but at the very least, they could be stopped from robbing others.

Sigh.

School, Ghostbusting and Setrap

The day started bright and early with a visit to Sean's school to see his form teacher about his report card. It wasn't as bad as I thought though of course he has tremendous room for improvement. He dropped in his class ranking and came 38/47, which I was a bit disappointed at. GL kindly came to translate since my Mandarin was so rusty. Susan came along too but she was saying that my methods were not working, which of course upset me - Sean being my achilles heel and my feeling that I don't do enough for him already. So when we got home, we talked about Sean's progress (or lack of) and discussed several issues which had been brought up and never resolved. After throwing what we thought of each other's parenting roles at each other, which is the usual case, I said I would be more supportive of her and would try to make joint decisions.

I reminded myself NOT to have expectations. Although I am now wondering whether if I do not have expectations of someone, I then take full responsibility which means I am pretty much a solo act. Hmmm.

Anyway, we decided to check out Sri KDU as an alternative for his schooling.

Ghostbusting
In the afternoon, Susan and I went to Tania's house for a bit of ghostbusting. Funnily enough, I wasn't scared at all, though usually I am! We chatted for awhile then performed the ceremony before Tania's kids came home. The actual process was quite fast. We said 10 rounds of 'Om Dhrum Soha', made some offerings to the spirit, burned Rinpoche's hair and the whole thing was done in about half an hour. We left around 5, dropped by Burgerking for a burger (for me!) because I was ravenous by then. Dropped off the citibank visa payment, then went home to rest before the Setrap teaching at 8.

Dinner
My second cousin, Cheng, called and we agreed to have dinner so we had to leave at 6.45pm to eat near KH. We met his friend Belinda and then took at table for 5. Then Jenny, JJ and Shin joined us, so we changed to a bigger table. Then May Woo and friend joined in and we had a full table! The food was ok - and very reasonably priced.

Setrap Teaching

When we got back to KH, I was told that I was to make Body, Speech and Mind offerings to Rinpoche! I think I broke out in cold sweat! I hadn't done it before and I wasn't sure what to do. Maple gave me a quick run down but I was still nervous as hell.

Then Rinpoche arrived and I made the three prostrations but Rinpoche then took my hand and said there was no need to make those offerings but he would touch foreheads with me. Wow.. I was so happy! No need to worry about not turning around the objects properly and I get a blessing!!

As usual, he gave a Dharma talk about making priorities for the Dharma. Nothing new but a timely reminder to all of us about the inevitability of death, and the inconsequence of our indulgences.

Then he talked about Setrap - plenty of useful info for me for my book though I think I need another session with him to elaborate on certain things. At the end of the teaching, around 12.30 am, he then said that Setrap's practice was not as important as Dharma practice. He said that Setrap supports Dharma practice but he is not the main practice, which is why his chapel is always on the side. So we should focus on Dharma and propitiate Setrap for help to do more Dharma.

After question time, we finally finished around 2am - quite an early night really!

To Sir with Love

I hadn't slept much on Tuesday night - so when Webby told me that Rinpoche had invited us to a movie last night, I wasn't as thrilled as usual. I know it's so evil of me. It wasn't that I didn't want to go. I was just so tired and I was hoping to have an early-ish night after the KHEC meeting but... who wouldn't want to go to a movie with the Buddha?!

Webby told me that we were meeting at 1Utama GSC at 10.20pm, but during the KHEC meeting, she kept telling me to hurry the meeting along. I only discovered later that she had looked wrongly at the time and thought it was already 10.30 when it was only 9.30! Since I am queen of being anal over time, I asked her whether she thought it strange that I wasn't in the least bit stressed if we were so late!

Anyway, we toddled to 1Utama with time to spare. I hadn't had dinner because I was so tired before the KHEC meeting so I quickly scoffed a meat pie before the others arrived. Jenny had bought all the hot dogs and popcorn and drinks for everyone. What movie were we going to see? I knew it was a horror flick - Rinpoche's favourite - but which.

It turned out that the movie was a Korean production called "To Sir With Love". The story starts with some policemen discovering multiple murders at a house. There were two survivors who were sent to hospital - a young girl and an older lady. The young girl is not seriously hurt and recounts the story to the policeman. She said that the older lady was a retired teacher, Mrs. Parks, whose students had a reunion at her house to celebrate 'teacher's day'. Apparently Mrs. Parks had a child who was born deformed and she kept him in the basement, and the children were not allowed to play with him. Mr. Parks committed suicide in the basement of their house because he couldn't cope with having a deformed child.

It turned out that the students who were visiting the teacher all had deep issues and were all angry with her for the way she treated them when they were children. Mrs. Parks is wheelchair-bound and subjected to death threats by each of the dysfunctional students in turn. As it is a horror flick, the students expectedly start to die gruesome deaths one by one.

To cut the long story short (and here is the spoiler), later it is found that the young lady telling the story is rather psychotic and she had made up the story about all her classmates. She had poisoned them all and all the dysfunctional behaviour attributed to them was actually about her. Mrs. Parks does not remember the incidents and is generally bewildered by the accusations. The movie does not reveal whether the deformed child was real or a figment of the story teller's imagination. And if he was real, what happened to him is not addressed - either deliberately or accidentally.

As usual, one can find a Dharmic angle on almost any story and for me, I thought that this movie was about our attachments to wrongs against us. We create our own sufferings by reliving all the real/perceived wrongs done against us, while the perpetuators of the suffering generally go on with their lives in happy oblivion.

The movie also lightly looks at a few issues: Firstly, how we perceive being teased - the damage to young and fragile egos by the cruelty of children and adults. Secondly, that poverty is demeaning and children from poor families will feel a lack of self worth commensurate with their financial status. Thirdly, that the pressure to conform to societal demands for physical beauty and slimness is also overwhelming for children. The reactions of the children to the deformed boy is terrible and yet so common.

Anyway, the movie was more of a thriller than a horror, and I was glad I went. After the movie, Rinpoche of course invited us all to have a chat and all 21 of us then adjourned to KP.

After Midnight at Kechara Paradise

Rinpoche played what's the new news - where we all had to come up with a new piece of news (surprise surprise) and if it wasn't a good story, we had to come up with 2 more! When it came to my turn, I thought I'd tell him about my Angel documentary with an Australian lady, Tania, and said that we could perhaps portray him as an expert from the Tibetan Buddhist side. "Portray?" He said, "Portray?!"

I don't know how it came about but I suddenly brought it up that Tania said she was having a spirit in her house which was disturbing her daughter. So Rinpoche asked me what I did, so I truthfully said that I had referred her to Master Yap Cheng Hai, but I didn't know if she had called her. I said that I would have asked Rinpoche but Rinpoche was not taking audiences at the time. Rinpoche explained that he needed divination secretaries and a correspondence secretary and that candidates excluded myself, Jamie and Andee (I didn't ask why), and until he found these valuable support staff, he could not carry out his work properly.

Then he suddenly asked for his divination box and popped an Olivia Newton-John CD on. It was really surreal - Rinpoche doing divinations while Olivia belted out 'You have to believe we are magic... Nothin' can stand in our way... You have to believe we are magic... Don't let your aim ever stray... And if all your hopes survive... Your destiny will arrive.... I'll bring all your dreams alive... For you.'

He explained that music can be an offering to the Dharma Protector. 'I honestly love you', another Olivia classic, can also be like a praise to the Protector, Rinpoche said. Enlightened beings perceive things differently.

I believe him.

We finally finished around 5.30am - just in time for us to get home to see Sean off to school then go to bed. But unfortunately, my day was not yet done. Sean hadn't done his homework properly so I made him re-do it, which meant he missed his bus and I had to take him to school. I only got to bed around 8am though I know a few others like Jenny would have had less sleep than I.

Oh what a night.

By the way, here are the lyrics to 'Magic' - I didn't realise that it could really be a song from our Guru to us Dharma chickens until I read it through:


Come take my hand
You should know me
I've always been in your mind
You know that I'll be kind
I'll be guiding you
Building your dream
Has to start now
There's no other road to take
You won't make a mistake
I'll be guiding you

You have to believe we are magic
Nothin' can stand in our way
You have to believe we are magic
Don't let your aim ever stray
And if all your hopes survive
Your destiny will arrive
I'll bring all your dreams alive
For you

From where I stand
You are home free
The planets align so rare
There's promise in the air
And I'm guiding you
Through every turn I'll be near you
I'll come anytime you call
I'll catch you when you fall
I'll be guiding you..

RINPOCHE ROCKS!!