Friday night

Oh dear it's been a while since I last wrote... there has been plenty of drama and now lots of people are in the process of trying to get over how much they hate me. Well, a girl can't make everyone happy.

To assuage the emo-ness of the month, and to celebrate our booootiful new delicious book, we all went out to play on Friday night with the Buddhas!

I had just finished eating my very healthy dinner of roast chicken and steamed fish when I got a phone call from BK. "Rinpoche would like to invite you out to eat Mexican. We're going to town!"

Two things always happen when I'm invited to go out with Rinpoche:
1) I am on a diet and am trying not to eat, but we will, always, inevitably, end up going out for really evil, nasty, DELICIOUS fatty food
2) My hair is an oil bomb because I hadn''t washed it that day

That day, I was
1) on a diet but would not be able to get out of eating delicious Mexican food
2) very very oily. But never mind, the Buddhas are compassionate!

This is not merely just about being attached but about showing your Guru some sort of minimal respect - and turning up with a headful of ghee-loaded hair doth not a respectful Dharma student make.

Then BK told me that I'm supposed to drive Rinpoche that night which of course is totally scary because I keep bashing up my car and I'm the worst driver in KL and when you're driving around someone-no-quite-so-ordinary, you sure as hell better not go anywhere near bashing up anything. Also, my car was starting to look like the insides of Joe's old Kelisa, what with the piles of snotty tissues, old water bottles and enough supplies to keep me alive for a month.

But see, there is a reason why we are around the Buddhas - to teach ourselves awareness and buck up where it's all lacking. We managed to traipse into town without a single scratch. Rinpoche, the rest of the troop and I arrived unscathed and healthy!

We went into the beautiful new Times of Pavilion, where David, JJ and I crowded around the Buddhist book section and talked very, very loudly about JUST HOW GREAT Tsem Tulku Rinpoche's books were. There was a lady who was trying to browse books there and we stood all over here, passing KMP's books back and forth and making lots of noise.

Rinpoche came over when the lady left and told us how crap our acting actually was.

In the spirit of always giving people knowledge and teaching, Rinpoche stocked up on heaps of books to be given away to students. And it isn't just, you know, big fat tomes of the Kangyur. It's also books on Tibetan art and architecture, coffee table books to inspire JJ onwards in his brand new shiny role as production manager, and even fashion magazines for adoring fashiony Chia.

Gifts from Rinpoche not merely for us to sit, read, memorise and debate with ourselves in our small little retreat rooms. They are also about how they tap into what we love and are "attached" to, and therefore how they inspire us and "keep us happy" enough to spur us on in our Dharma work. Here again, even in a glossy magazine cover, he engages our desires to cut our desires.

For us mere mortals, it is a temporary relief that we can still ogle the delusions of "beautiful" advertisements and the lure of Lancome's newest lipstick.

It was still early, so we raided Parkson and looked at very beautiful work satchels. Rinpoche got JJ and I modelling lots of very lovely leather work bags and we looked HOT, baby! Eventually, he told us that he wanted to buy those bags for us (and for Sharon), as a gift for our work for the Coffee Table Book. I CONFESS! I totally had my heart set on the bag already because I knew knew knew it would just look so so so perfect with my brand new shoes and my new grown up, working wardrobe. So when he offered the bag to me, I just sort of stood there and looked dumb and ridiculous, and totally unshocked, like I had expected it. This is partly true, but still very embarrassing. How to pretend, after all, that I am shocked, when I am not? You don't want to lie, but you don't quite want to look like a greedy bitch either.

And as the Buddhas are always perceptive, he knew straight away that all my shock was all feigned. EXPOSEE - I really am a materialistic monster. As we went to pay for the bags though, Rinpoche reminded us again of this totally wonderful meditation to do where all beautiful things are visualised as offerings to the Buddhas - to cut our material attachments, and to generate the motivation that all we use may be to benefit others through our spiritual work. See, even a beautiful leather bag can be Dharma.

It's all about image baby, and as KMP grows up, so do we. Sleek grey, leather pumps, leather laptop bags and proper white working shirts would never, ever have made their way into my wardrobe (too corporate! too dull! too grown up! pish!) if not for Dharma. Now, I'm loving it.

To celebrate all things weird and wonderful, and the VERY FANTASTIC COFFEE TABLE BOOK, we went off to eat at the crazy new Mexican place down at Pavilion. Poor old Rinpoche got harrassed and picked up on again by some strange bald dude who started telling him his whole great philosophy of life. JJ and I were thinking, Well at least he gets picked up! Nothing's been working for us for awhile, not even with Lancome's newest lipstick.

We were all bouncy bouncy fun fun fun, so after gobbling, we squeezed in a movie. Maaaan, this would not be such a big deal if not for the fact that the last time I went to see a movie was Superman (when?! what? Yes my dears, it was that long ago). How exciting it is to go watch a PROPER movie, especially one with the gorgeous Cate Blanchett who is ethereal and beautiful even when she is caked in a million layers of white powder.

We spent the next hour trying to match everyone in Elizabeth's royal court to the Kechara mandala... and now, apart from the chain mail, outdated Elizabethan dresses, the lack of contraception, naval battles, there really wasn't much of a difference. Well, yes, okay, the whole big concept of motivation differs quite vastly: that while good old Liz was just trying to fend off the evil Spanish from turning her country in a despotic Catholic stronghold, Rinpoche is trying to fend off all our maras - which I'm sure you'd agree is a FAR greater undertaking - and not just for this lifetime, but every lifetime until we turn into Buddhas!

And before we knew it, adventures with the Buddha were over. It went by *snap* in a flash, and soon it was time to take our inspiration-filled heads home and sleep on our aspirations: because all really feels totally possible after a few hours with Rinpoche, the Buddhas, and all the lights in the world. No matter how silly, or samsara fun, or crazy it seems - what with handbags, quesadillas, Dharma teachings, popcorn and movies, and royal kingdoms - it's all like a little piece of Enlightenment that you take home with you.