Buddha Dhamma Sagararanna had their new temple opening ceremony at Port
Dickson last Sunday. Many sangha members from around the world attended
the ceremony… including nuns from Taiwan, nuns of Myanmmar and local
Dharma practitioners. How beautiful! I was invited to attend the
opening, due to hectic schedule I was not able to attend, but Kechara’s
Liaison Irene Lim attended and presented gifts on my behalf.

The sangha members were led by Venerable Chang Ern from Buddha Dhamma
Sagararanna Buddhist Association. Venerable Chang Ern also serves as the
Chief of Malaysia Buddhist Association (MBA), Negeri Sembilan branch.

Kechara’s liaisons Irene was contacted by Venerable Chang Ern, and Irene
immediately offered to host the group of sangha members for dinner at
Kechara Oasis (KO), Jaya One. This was a Dana offering on behalf of
Kechara at our own Vegetarian Restaurant!

At KO, Irene gave a warm welcome to this group of sangha members with an
opening speech thanking them for giving her the opportunity to offer
Dana. Pastor Ngeow and Liaison Paul Yap were also there to represent
Kechara House. The group was offered delicious, healthy and vegetarian
food… I was told that they liked the food offered to them very much!

After dinner, Irene and the group of sangha members went to the Kechara
House gompa for a visit. The sangha members and other lay Dharma
practitioners were then given a tour of our Kechara Gallery.

During this time, Ven Chang Ern and the group of nuns from Taiwan left
to another Dharma center to escort Venerable Chuan Dao (4th abbot of
Miao Xin Si, Taiwan) and Venerable Zong Hong (abbot of Jin Gang Chan Si
in OUG, Kuala Lumpur) to our center. Venerable Zong Hong is the Head of
MBA’s Youth Section.

I only got to know of the visit a few hours before they arrived at KO!
As it’s very meritorious to make offerings to sangha members, I decided
to go to Kechara House to meet the group and present a few offerings to
them. So while the monks and nuns were having dinner, I was with Paris
and my Private Office arranging offerings for these holy monks and nuns.

When I arrived, I was surprised to see so many of our Kechara members
upstairs at the main prayer hall! They only got to know about the last
minute visit 30 minutes before I arrived, so I did not expect it at
all… I was happy to see all of them. After I presented the offerings
to the sangha members and their assistants, they had to leave because it
was quite late already. I did not want to keep them up for too long,
especially the older sangha members who had very kindly changed their
schedule to visit KH…

I felt inspired to give a short Dharma talk to our Kechara members on
why we make offerings to the sangha. I don’t like my students to do
things blindly without understanding why they are doing it. I feel with
knowledge, Dharma activity and study and practice becomes more
meaningful.

I explained that our karma with each other is relational. This means the
weight of our karma depends on the person’s relationship with us. For
example, the karma of hurting our family and friends is heavier than the
karma of hurting total strangers who we have never met before. Likewise
the karma of hurting our parents is much heavier than the karma of
hurting our brothers and sisters. The karma of hurting our mother is
also heavier than the karma of hurting our brother, because she carried
us in her womb for 9 months. Now that is at an ordinary level. Then our
relational karma with strangers, friends, parents, spouse and sangha are
explained in brief here in this talk.

Actually I have spoken about this many times before but I wanted to
share it with Kecharians again because I feel it is very very important
that we make offerings to the Sangha to support their dharma practice
and generate merits for our KWPC or Kechara World Peace Centre which is
our retreat land in the mountains and our own attainments. I hope you
will listen to this talk and really put it into your mind. It will
greatly benefit your understanding of why supporting the sangha is
important.

Tsem Rinpoche

see my blog post on this: http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-…

The Buddhist scholar and commentator Buddhaghosa explains that each
saying recorded in the collection was made on a different occasion in
response to a unique situation that had arisen in the life of the Buddha
and his monastic community. His commentary, the Dhammapada Atthakatha,
presents the details of these events and is a rich source of legend for
the life and times of the Buddha.