VAJRA BUDDHIST CENTRE

LAMA NORLHA RINPOCHE

We're off to the Vajra Buddhist Centre in an area full of Buddhist temples:  Vietnamese, Thai, Malayan, Chinese, Tibetan and others.  This one is in Geylang Road and as usual takes a lot of finding.  Surprisingly, it's just around the corner and up the stairs from the only true vegetarian Chinese restaurant we've found, although they do do dishes in mock chicken, mock fish and mock shrimp amongst others.  The off-putting thing is that they are all done up to look authentic and I wonder what the point is in making it look like the real thing.  

After Fulmaya has eaten her fill - she gets hungry after a couple of hours without food - we go around the corner and up a narrow staircase.  We remove our shoes half-way up and enter into the shrine room.  There we meet with Johnny Ho, a Malayan Buddhist who has organised visits from various holy men and tells us the story of the temple.  In a corner sits Madame So, the founder and funder of the temple.

Johnny had been to Bhodgaya where he met the Karmapa and told him that he would like him to visit his shrine in Singapore.  The only hindrance was that he felt he didn't have enough money.  After his return to Singapore, the Karmapa sent him thousands of dollars to pay for various pujas, but the money was returned because various members of the community donated enough to cover the expenses.

The Karmapa did not eventually visit Singapore proper but had arranged to be in the airport in transit only for his followers to come and meet him. He gave the reason that he did not want to do anything contentious that might have riled the Chinese as the government had investments in Singapore and he did not want to jeapordise this relationship in any way.

The Lama who teaches is Lama Norlha Rinpoche who apparently helped the Dalai Lama to escape from Tibet. He is the master of the Six Yogas of Naropa and is one of the most experienced teachers of the traditional Kagyu three-year retreat.  We go there next Tuesday for Chenrezig Practice.

THERE'S A LITTLE STAIRWAY ON THE CORNER