Look at the white cloud in the blue sky
Look at the blue sky where the white cloud is
Look at the aircraft swimming side by side with the blue sky and the white cloud
Look at the passenger inside the aircraft having delicious meal
Look at the combination of these five things –
blue sky, white cloud, aircraft, passenger and delicious meal
All these five things,  true or not true?
Answer is –
All are true relatively
Ultimately all are beyond true or not true!
Middle of this is the interdependence of all –
white cloud, blue sky, aircraft, passenger and delicious meal
If one knows how to realize the beauty of this interdependence
Then it is called the perfect journey of 17 hours from India to California
And it becomes the best journey of joy and pleasure!

༄། །སྤྲིན་དཀར་དྲི་མེད་མཁའ་ལ་ཤར།
།མཁའ་དབྱིངས་གཙང་མར་སྤྲིན་དཀར་འཁྲིགས།
།གནམ་སྔོན་སྤྲིན་དཀར་གཉིས་ཀྱི་དབར།
།གནམ་གྲུ་གཤོག་རྩལ་ངོམ་པའི་ནང་།
།འགྲུལ་བ་བན་རྒན་ཟས་ཞིམ་རོལ།
།དེ་ལྟའི་རྟེན་འབྲེལ་ངོ་བོར་བལྟས།
། གནས་ལུགས་འགལ་མེད་ཤེས་གྱུར་ན།
།ཀུན་རྫོབས་དོན་དམ་གཅིག་ཏུ་མཐོང་།
།དེ་ལྟའི་སེམས་ཚོར་རིམ་བརྒྱུད་ནས།
།འཕགས་ཡུལ་སྟོབས་ཆེན་ཨ་རི་བར།
།འགྲུལ་བཞུད་ཆུ་ཚོད་བཅུ་བདུན་དེ།
།ཚོར་སྣང་བདེ་སྐྱིད་ངང་དུ་སོང་།
།དེ་མ་ཐག་ཏུ་མྱོང་ཚོར་བྲིས།

Outerly, Lord of Loving Kindness is like Lord of Moral
who is adorned with dignity and profound morality
Innerly, Lord of Loving Kindness is like King of Bodhisattva
who is adorned with vast kindness and compassion
Sacredly, Lord of Loving Kindness is like Lord Marpa Lotsawa
who is adorned with accomplished unity of visualization and realization
Guru Vajradhara, Pema Dhonyod Drubpa
One who represents everything and is the source of everything
Emanation of Guru Rinpoche
Your perfect body, speech and mind is adorned with the qualities of Buddha
who manifested in this world 64 years ago
I celebrate your glorious birthday with my pure samaya and utmost sincere devotion
May you live long as Buddha of Long Life and your Buddha essence shine to the ten directions

~I, Tenam, wrote this with the presence of Guru Vajradhara in my heart

༄། ཕྱི་འདུལ་ཁྲིམས་ཀྱི་མངའ་བདག་བྱམས་མགོན་རྗེ།
ནང་བྱང་སེམས་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ་བྱམས་མགོན་རྗེ།
གསང་བསྐྱེད་རྫོགས་ཀྱི་དབང་པོ་དགྱེས་མཛད་རྗེ།
མགོན་གཅིག་འདུས་ཀྱི་བླ་མ་རྡོ་རྗེ་འཆང་།
རྗེ་པདྨ་ཡི་རྣམ་འ྄ཕྲུལ་དོན་ཡོད་གྲུབས།
སྐུ་མཚན་དཔེ་དེ་བཞད་ནས་རེ་བཞི་ཡི།
འཁྲུངས་སྐར་དེ་བསུའོ་དད་དམ་ཡིས།
མགོན་རྡོ་རྗེ་འཆང་དབང་ཞབས་བརྟན་གསོལ།་
སྐྱབས་འོག་པ་བསྟན་རྣམ་ནས་བླ་མ་རྡོ་རྗེ་འཆང་དྲན་བཞིན་པའི་ངང་ནས་བྲིས།

On this Valentine’s Day, I send my unconditional love to all mother sentient beings wishing all to be free from limitations. May all reach limitless love and joy. Love without condition is the light of love whereas love with condition is the darkness of love.

Two tracks, wrong or right, both are extremes. It’s better to stand still in the central balance. It always saves you from swinging between sides because the entire reality of existence is illusion and dilution, yet not out of the context of the Ultimate. That is the core meaning of middle path!

On December 30th, 2016, I went for a walk with my Tibetan friends, Mr. Thubten and his wife Mrs. Sonam to Berkeley Marina. Using her iPhone, Sonam took a few photos of Thubten and me walking, playing and chatting. Sonam, looking surprised, showed us the photos and said, “Look, something is different with Lama’s picture.” As you can see in the photos both of my hands appeared differently from Thubten’s.

On the 31st of December, we took a walk at Mount Tamalpais where His Holiness the Dalia Lama and His Holiness Tai Situpa conducted a special smoke puja as a part of the “Active Peace Pilgrimage ” organized by H.H. Tai Situpa back in 1998.

We walked and said some prayers because Mt. Tam is a historical holy place for the native American Indians and it’s also where “Active Peace Pilgrimage” prayer was conducted by both His Holiness the Dalia Lama and Tai Situpa.

On the way I wanted to climb up to a magnificent rock so much. And I did. As I sat on the rock for a few minutes in silence, Sonam and Thubten took a few pictures of me.

Afterwards we came down to town and stopped for coffee. As we went through the pictures, we noticed a picture of me on the rock appeared abnormal as you can see. Sonam, the photographer was completely innocent. She used no tricks, no fancy filters. It was just the simple original camera app that came with the iPhone.

My intention of sharing these pictures is —

Normally many spiritual seekers of different faiths get super excited seeing this kind of photos when it happens to themselves or to their teachers or Gurus. They would make a big deal out of it which i used to think it’s a very wrong perception.

With these photos I feel my thought was proven because I have no qualities that can be counted as special yet my pictures turned out quite strange. It just means how delusive we are if we get excited by this kind of pictures full of illusions.

To conclude what I try to express –  we should only get excited if we can see the nature of our mind which is limitless. In my view, that is absolutely truly exciting to see, rather than getting excited by various illusions from photos.

Pictures are part of the illusions in our worldly lives. And those abnormal appearing pictures are even more of the “Illusions of Illusions.”

There is no reason why walking, talking, gazing and drinking coffee cannot be a part of positive spiritual practice if you are with the company of the right patrons who are with no negative habit of gossiping.

Old monk is roaming around without any worries of pleasing others but many are showering their kindness unconditionally because of the blessing of Guru Vajradhara. So that mind is relaxed and ready to accept whenever the last day comes!

Pilgrimage to Tso Pema

Under the protection of Guru Padma Sambhava, monkey and monkey mind is resting well in peace physically and mentally at holy place of Tso Pema!

By the blessings of Guru Vajradhara Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa, I had three most special events in my life within two weeks in year 2016 as follows –

1- On the most auspicious year of Iron Monkey which is the birth year of the Lotus Born Guru Padma Sambhava , I got the opportunity to visit the country Bhutan which is blessed by Guru Padma Sambhava and, with the uncontaminated nature, the most outstanding leaders His Majesties and Her Majesties.

A country with well preserved culture, religion and nature in both outer and inner aspects is a perfect and clean environment for people. It gives me a feeling of an awakened world by witnessing and taking this country as an example.

2- I had such a golden opportunity to have audience with His Majesty the 4th King of Bhutan who was prophesied by Guru Padma Sambhava, as well as audience with His Majesty the 5th King, Her Majesty Queen Jetsun and the magnificent Royal Crown Prince which made me feel so fortunate. It tells me in my mind that all leaders of world shall wake up and take them as examples to be noble leaders.

3- With pure samaya from dharma sisters and brothers, I got the opportunity to go for pilgrimages to various holy places in Bhutan including Tiger Nest and Holy Shrine of Buddha in Paro Kyilchu. The blessings from these holy places were so alive so I dedicated the entire merits from this trip for this world to wake up and for entire sentient beings to have happiness and joy.