The Gyalwang Drukpa

Sorry that I wasn't able to continue. I was told that many people were very eager to know who was Zhonu and some of them said they came and look at my web everyday and every hour, like reading New York Times, to find out if I had put up some photos or news about Zhonu. However, I have been so busy, trying to finish some parts of the teaching for the nuns and monks up on Druk Amitabha Mountain, being nosy to look around the construction progress of the Assembly Hall and the Coffee Shop and getting stressed doing nothing. Suddenly I realised that my trip in Asia is mostly about teaching people how to deal with stress. So maybe I am warming up myself for this teaching.

Of course times are bad. As long as you are in samsara, the kind of happiness we have is never permanent. This is why I always say that one has to experience samsara with mindfulness and not with emotions and attachment, which are very bad for mind and very bad for health. One of my students who is a stockbroker said that he has not been able to sleep because his wealth evapourated. I asked him, "What do you mean by "evapourated"?" One needs to understand that everything is interdependent, it's no point feeling depressed. I didn't think that he was very happy or not having any stress when he was making millions in a day. This kind of ups and downs that you put yourself through is mainly because of your weakness in the mind and your inability to live in the presence.

I can say this because I sometimes am also carelessly drawn into the same situation. When I look at one of my gurus who is forever busy with meetings, conferences, travels, teachings, audiences, etc, he is amazingly never stressed. I have never seen him stressed or talk about being stressed. As I mentioned in one of my messages before, sometimes I think... think... think... and worry... worry... worry... and this is how my time is wasted. So when I realise that, I become more stressed.

There are certain things that you cannot control. The entire world is in a mess. I don't know what I can say or share, except that if you are a genuine practitioner, you really need to ground yourself. Getting drunk won't help, being stressed won't help and running around like a crazy person so that you can make yourself look busy but actually you are not, this also will not help. Inner strength is very important. I was just scolding one of my students when I found out that using the excuse of stress, she has been drinking, and then she has been indulging in music. I am not against this, on the contrary I like music. But the thing which one has to be cautious is that one needs to be mindful, you should not be carried away. One day, alcohol is not there, music is not there, all these external enjoyment or "painkillers" are not there, what are you going to do? So I think, in order to go through this period of turmoil, you really need to work very hard to maintain your inner peace and harmony. Everything is a perception of our own mind. Mind is messy, then the world outside is messy.

This is Zhonu, which means "youthful", the guy that everyone must be curious about, who is a newcomer to my family. But I somehow feel that he has been a family since I came to this world, I guess he also feels the same way.

Phende has very kindly sent him from Taiwan for me. Zhonu is very proud of himself. I don't know what what exactly he is thinking about himself or those around him. Maybe he is thinking "Why these people are making unnecessary noise, while I am so quiet." He thinks that we don't need to make any noise when we are doing pooja. So he is a bit uncomfortable with noise and cars, especially big trucks. I can understand. These machineries are indeed quite scary when you think closely. We humans are pretending to be so smart, so daring in craving for more and more endlessly. But we reach no where except getting so much headache and becoming so dangerous for everybody including ourselves. We create all these unwanted things in the world and now we are suffering tremendously, much more than what we deserve, I guess. Of course, in some aspects, we deserve pain and sufferings due to some of our misbehaviours in the previous lives which is the so-called "karma" in Indian language. I fully believe in karma, but I also believe that we do not have to go through such kind of dark period if we go with the natural way of leading the life collectively. We humans are so arrogant that we don't know who we are and what we are up to. However, I don't want to say a lot this time because I do not have that much of time.

The Asia Tour just started. Whenever I have time I will try to share so that those of you are not with me know what's happening.