The Gyalwang Drukpa

First of all, there are so many people I want to thank, so many beings I want to send my gratitude to, especially to Zangmola and her two sons, Liam and Wee, who have been a great help for all of us. If you have joined us during the First ADC, you would understand what I'm saying. Now, both Liam and Wee are helping me with the design of the Hemis Monastic Institute. These two young boys are really like golden children sent by Tara to help us fulfill our wish in benefit of others. It's very difficult to make young people understand the need to engage themselves in some sort of spiritual endeavours, either through formal practices or through participating in volunteer work. Liam and Wee are either in Kathmandu or in Ladakh and sometimes in Sikkim, to give up their mundane activities and come to these remote places to offer their skills is quite difficult but they are doing it with great joy. I want to thank them both from the depth of my heart, on behalf of myself and my community. Liam and Wee are very positive and very patient and do not have any attachment and any propensity to practise the 8 demonic dharmas, they help wholeheartedly, without any egoistic intention, such as wanting to be famous or wanting to be known. Everytime I meet them, they always tell me that they are worried about me thanking them in the public. This is a very rare quality in most beings. I think, the way Zangmola brought them up was a very commendable way, therefore like their mother, they bring great joy to those around them. We should not be jealous about people having such positive qualities, in fact the way we should do is to rejoice in their beneficial work and to learn from them.

I could not believe until today that even I can be excited that much, because of excitement together with appreciation, I want to thank Liam, Wee and their mother and their entire family for dedicating their energy and resources to help me and our lineage fulfill our dreams. Besides them, I also want to thank all the sponsors and volunteers who have helped us fulfill many different and difficult projects. This is something I always remind myself, whether these sponsors or volunteers are still around with us or not, I am never going to give them up or to forget them ever in all my prayers for their well-being and happiness. Some of them have left us as they have found their happiness elsewhere, I am very happy for them because our wishes for them to be happy are fulfilled. We should never force people to stay with us. Sometimes, I feel that every relationship is like a marriage, if it lasts, this is fantastic, but if it doesn't, we should be appreciative that we have met and made the connection to benefit others. I am expressing this completely from my heart, whether you believe it or not. What I am sad about is that when people leave us with some sort of misunderstanding, they bring with them a lot of anger and sadness, with this kind of negative emotions, they regret whatever good deeds they have done when they were with us, this becomes a cause of suffering. Therefore, I always feel that letting go and rejoicing are very difficult practices for many of us.

I feel very encouraged when I meet people like Zangmola who is always positive. Unlike Westerners and we Himalayan people, most Asians who are very pampered, going to Ladakh and Tibet for a leisure holiday can be a great suffering, but I am very fortunate in a way that almost all of my Asian friends and students are trying their best to enjoy all the journeys and all the challenging trips with me. At least I have not heard them complain, maybe they are just being kind. For example, during the Pad Yatra, Zangmola was very happy, despite going through all the expected suffering, such as breathing difficulties, diarhea and suffering of many things. She kept herself so happy that everyone became encouraged and we are all missing her now and her laughter. I am not praising her here to make her happy, but I am telling you the truth. She was really the source of happiness for everyone, especially my people, everyone was so happy because of her. My nuns and monks call her "Ama Zangmo", which is true, because she is like our mother, giving us medicine when we are sick, encouraging us when we are not feeling so good and always smiling. Because of her attitude, she is a fortunate person. Being a big sponsor and an active volunteer, Zangmola could have asked for VVVIP treatment everywhere and of course we are more than happy to give her any of this treatment, and she could have controlled everyone because of her contribution, but until now, not a single moment I felt that she was helping to get VVVIP attention nor was she trying to manipulate my community. So the relationship becomes very easy and it is also very beneficial for her spiritual practice, because there is no contamination of the 8 demonic dharmas.

I just want to take a bit of time talking about this, because I think it is very important for those of us who really want to be genuine spiritual practitioners to understand and to avoid the 8 demonic dharmas. Pleasure and pain, this means that you only want happiness and you don't want unhappiness. Loss and gain, this means that you only wish to get what you want and to avoid what you don't want. Fame and disgrace, this means that you only want to be famous and you don't want to be unknown. Praise and blame, this means that you only want to be praised and you don't want to be blamed. So you set up so many different categories and territories and you end up locking yourself up. You are not free any more. If you are a spiritual practitioner, you should try your best to be free from this. Be happy, don't complain, we are all very fortunate to be here in this world, alive and having the opportunity to make ourselves better humans. I get headaches when I meet people who complain endlessly. For me, people who talk a lot should dedicate more time to recite mantra, this will make more sense out of their talking energy.

We live in a big community, therefore if we don't know how to appreciate and if we don't want to appreciate, we are asking for suffering. Sometimes, people tell me that this is a Dark Age. I think, people who have this sort of Dark Age mentality is making their world very dark. We should always think positive and try to dedicate our energy to do positive things. Life is short, why put so much energy to hate and to think negative about others. I think besides Live to Love, we should Talk of Love and Think of Love.

Besides an Asian Ama, that is Ama Zangmo, we also have a Western Ama, Ama Kunzang from Australia. Her family including Ugyenla, Choyingla and Kungala who is a great musician that you all know very well, have been a great moral support for my parents and I. Kunzangla arranged a few hundred pairs of shoes to be donated by Keen Footwear and sent from Australia to India for my nuns, because she was so worried that they could not walk in their lousy shoes. Of course I can understand, because none of nuns or monks are earning any money and they could only buy whatever they could afford. She was constantly checking my boys and girls to see if they were ok and whether their feet were painful. So we are very happy to have these 2 Amas, I think we will have many more, because our community is growing steadily, based on the foundation of understanding, love and respect.

There is a very long list of people I want to thank. One couple we will forever remember is Dr Thiery and his wife Dr Cecile, without them we would not survive all the health related difficulties. They were completely dedicated to help others and even though they were also having some physical difficulties, they always put others' interests ahead of them. They are really Dr Live to Love. Lama Namgyal and Chantal were also great help for us, especially for the non-Tibetan participants, Lama Namgyal translated all of my gossips simultaneoulsy. I am daringly hoping and wishing that he can come and help me with the translation during my teaching in Ladakh in February next year. Lama Namgyal knows exactly my uneducated style of teaching, this is great for me! Of course, Carrie Lee from America is really such a wonderful and energetic young girl who helped us so much with all her legal and public relations skills and her sister, Wendy Lee, whom I believe will be a great movie director, is now going to be editing our Pad Yatra movie for all of us. There are also 3 younger people who have just joined us, the children of Tan Sri Ta, who were surprisingly a great joy to be with. I really hope to see them in many of our other excusions. I have not forgotten Sumanth whom I have known since he was a baby and Dr Dolkar's daugher, Sonam. I am actually so happy to see these young people joining us in this Pad Yatra.

Then I want to thank one of my Asian students who contributed 25% of the cost of the Pad Yatra. He did not want me to mention his name, so I just want to say something here to let him know that I appreciate everything that he has been doing for me without any condition, without any demand. This really makes my life so easy. Of course, I am thankful to many other people like Carrie, Vincent, Manyee, Vanessa, Theresa, Kin and Anita from Hong Kong, Wendy from Switzerland, Jampal and Ta family from Malaysia and many other individuals who have been very kind to generously sponsor the cost of the Pad Yatra, besides fundraising for the different causes.

Jigme Chokyi Senge from Germany and Cindy from Hong Kong also did a great job taking wonderful photos of the Pad Yatra. I also want to thank David from UK who gave us such great encouragement to continue. Despite his health, he was the hero of our Pad Yatra. He did not give himself any excuse to be weak or to slow down.

Alice, who was not able to join us at the Pad Yatra, she sponsored and raised funds to get hats for my nuns and also oilment for all of us. The hats were so good and useful. I am in fact thinking of ordering more sets so that everyone can have a fresh new one for important occasions and the old one for outdoor activities.

As I said in the teaching during the Pad Yatra, don't thank me all the time for teaching you and for sharing my knowledge and experience with you, in fact I should be thanking all of you for giving me the opportunity to share, otherwise I have no job. A guru without practising students is a very sad person. In this case, I want to thank all of you, even those of you who are reading my gossips and following my web all the time, your enthusiastic response and encouragement make me want to write more, to share more and also if I am allowed to say, to live longer. All of these depend on you.

There is another piece of news. Our Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo has accepted my request to be the Deputy Chairperson of the 2nd ADC. This is another great news to share with all of you!! By the way, His Holiness Dalai Lama was also quite excited and interested about our Pad Yatra, asking many things about it. I am so happy to learn that his blessings and holy rejoices were there with my students and me, as myself being one of the tens of thousands lucky ones to be his spiritual followers. I usually feel very sensitive in front of my guru, sometimes I feel a little down if they indicated or sounded as if I have been doing stupid things, I hope I am not being childish, I guess I have strong and deep belief that if they are happy, that means I am doing something beneficial for all sentient beings. Whenever I go to see any of my gurus, I am always checking myself if I have been fulfilling any of my spiritual practices and my spiritual motivation to benefit others.

So sorry for nagging that much, and THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING THERE FOR ME!

Before I forget, I just received a notice about a new program called "Talking the Walk" by Khamtrul Rinpoche Jigme Pema Nyinjadh in Malaysia, organised by Drukpa Penang and also another program by Drukpa Mexico, both on the Pad Yatra. I think if any of you have a chance you should take a look at how these programs are organised, maybe they should be sharing this idea with everyone. I think we should be creative and innovative in the way we communicate the spiritual teachings to the public. It's too bad that my schedule is already very packed, otherwise I would love to join the Talking the Walk program and it would be so nice if Jampal could provide live webcast for us. For those of you who will be attending, I hope you will be enjoying a lot!