1318：Seeing a Lighthouse While Drifting off Course

Prostrations to His Eminence Vajra Guru Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, His Holiness the Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang, the Lineage gurus, and the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Greetings, fellow believers and Dharma brothers, I am Chen Xue Zhen from Group Four. I took refuge in His Eminence Vajra Guru Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche on January 24, 2021, and my Dharma name is Hui Cu Drolma. I am grateful to Rinpoche for bestowing me the opportunity to praise the guru’s merits, share with you how Rinpoche has helped my family members, and repent for the evil karma I have committed. 
 
First, I would share with you the fate origin of my refuge. In November 2019, my younger brother was admitted to the hospital for surgery and has not been out since. At that time, I recalled that a monastic Dharma brother had once invited me to attend the Great Amitabha Puja of Transferring Consciousness held by an accomplished great practitioner, His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche. The Dharma brother shared and praised that His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, whom she had taken refuge in, to benefit sentient beings, had truly practiced, realized attainment, and possessed great meritorious power and vast vows to rescue sentient beings. She said, ‘The only one who can save your younger brother now is His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche!’

After hearing this, I immediately took the High-Speed Rail from Kaohsiung to Taipei. She gave me the precious nectar pills bestowed by Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, told me to read Happiness and Suffering, to donate to the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche each month, and taught me how to implore Rinpoche to bless and help my younger brother not fall into the Three Evil Realms. After returning to the hospital in Kaohsiung, I held Happiness and Suffering in my hands, faced Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche’s Dharma portrait, and knelt to implore Rinpoche to bless my younger brother. I immediately placed the precious nectar pill bestowed by Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche into the mouth of my younger brother, who was in critical condition in the intensive care unit. The next day, my younger brother truly regained consciousness.
 
When my younger brother regained consciousness, I had him look at Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche’s Dharma portrait, recite Rinpoche’s Dharma name, and repent for the evil karma he had committed ever since. While my younger brother was awake, he told me that Rinpoche had been appearing in his dreams, expounding to him the truths of impermanence in life. I am grateful to Rinpoche!

After a few days, my younger brother fell into a critical state again. I immediately rushed to Taipei to see the monastic Dharma brother, and she taught me to call the Glorious Jewel to sign up to seek an audience with His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, imploring Rinpoche to help my younger brother not fall into the Three Evil Realms. As I knelt before Rinpoche, tears streamed uncontrollably down my face, yet I stubbornly implored Rinpoche to save my brother. It turned out that Rinpoche said, ‘I bless him only once.’ At that moment, I was truly immature and selfish, unable to understand my brother’s suffering from the severe illness and unwilling to let him leave. Later, the monastic Dharma brother gave me another nectar pill and instructed me to place it into my brother’s mouth when he passed away.

On the night before my younger brother passed away, he accepted the fact that he was leaving. I told him that he needed to let go of everything and visualize that His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche would save him. He nodded, and a few hours later, he passed away. My younger brother’s mouth had originally been open. After the precious nectar pill blessed by Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche was placed into the mouth, it closed tightly, and my younger brother looked extremely pretty. When the family saw the appearance of my younger brother after he passed away, they all said they had never seen a deceased person look so pretty. I am grateful to His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche for his compassionate (maitri and karuna) protection!

I am truly and exceedingly moved! For the first time in my life, I witnessed the peerlessly incomparably wondrous blessing power of His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche!
 
The second time I sought an audience with Rinpoche, Rinpoche asked, ‘What is it?’ At that moment, I didn’t know where I found the courage, but I directly replied, ‘I implore Rinpoche to transfer the consciousness of my younger brother!’ Rinpoche, extremely compassionate (maitri and karuna), said, ‘Then who will attend the pujas?’ I answered, ‘I will.’ Rinpoche then said, ‘To attend the pujas, you should be a lifelong vegetarian!’ I replied, ‘Okay.’ Rinpoche compassionately (maitri and karuna) granted my imploration and asked me to register. I am profoundly grateful to Rinpoche!

My younger brother was cremated on December 28. My husband, who was helping to collect the bones at the crematorium, was astonished and said, ‘Wow! This is the first time I’ve seen a skull with a hole!’ He then asked my nephew, ‘How much would it cost to invite this great Dharma master for this incomparably wondrous result?’ Our entire family felt that this manifestation of this incomparably wondrous and auspicious sign was remarkably incredible! All the siblings felt exceedingly grateful for Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche’s great meritorious power and deeply realized Rinpoche’s compassionate (maitri and karuna) and great vows of rescuing sentient beings.

I am grateful to Rinpoche for transferring the consciousness in the Chod puja. After my younger brother’s cremation, a round hole appeared on his skull, the manifestation of an incomparably wondrous and auspicious sign. Our entire family felt this was remarkably incredible.

On December 29, 2019, I attended the Chod Puja for the first time. When I heard the first sentence of Rinpoche’s expounding on ‘ attachment to self and self-righteous views’, I was startled; it felt as if Rinpoche was speaking about me. I was deeply moved and was grateful to Rinpoche for his selfless compassion (maitri and karuna) and for his sole purpose of benefiting all sentient beings. In this world, there truly is a great practitioner who can help sentient beings be liberated from the cycle of reincarnation in the Six Realms. I silently vowed to myself that I must implore Rinpoche to accept me taking refuge one day. In my mind, there was nothing but gratitude upon gratitude.

After attending the Chod Puja for the first time, due to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, my participation in the pujas was interrupted. In June 2020, I sought an audience again and implored Rinpoche to bestow me another opportunity to attend the pujas. Rinpoche compassionately (maitri and karuna) granted me permission to attend four pujas.

The second time, I signed up again, imploring Rinpoche to allow me to attend the pujas and take refuge. Rinpoche asked me which places I had previously been to learn Buddhism. Although I would usually go to Kaiyuan Temple to attend the pujas and make prostrations, I had not learned Buddhism there, so at that moment I answered, ‘No.’ Rinpoche instructed a monastic to speak with me. After the conversation, I went up again that same day to seek an audience once more. I am grateful to Rinpoche for permitting me to attend one puja.
 
In August 2020, I signed up once again to seek an audience, imploring Rinpoche to allow me to take refuge and attend the pujas. Rinpoche instructed a monastic to speak with me. The monastic said that if I wanted to be liberated from the cycle of reincarnation in the Six Realms, I should implore to take refuge, and that Rinpoche would observe whether I had a determined resolve to learn Buddhism. The following week, I signed up for the fourth time to implore for taking refuge and attending the pujas. I said, ‘Reporting to Rinpoche, today is my fourth time imploring for taking refuge in Rinpoche and imploring Rinpoche to grant me permission to take refuge and attend the pujas.’ Rinpoche asked the monastics, ‘How was your conversation with her last time?’ The monastics replied, ‘It is acceptable.’ Rinpoche then asked me again where I had previously been to learn Buddhism. This time I answered, ‘Kaiyuan Temple.’ Rinpoche said, ‘You have been to a big temple, yet you come to my small place.’ (I was foolish, not knowing how to respond.) Lastly, I am grateful to Rinpoche for compassionately (maitri and karuna) granting my imploration and asking me to register for taking refuge. I am again grateful to Rinpoche for granting me, whose evil karma is deep and heavy, permission to take refuge.

Following, I would share with you Rinpoche’s blessings on my family members and me after I took refuge.
 
On April 8, 2021, my husband, who had stage-three colon cancer, was scheduled for surgery. On March 27, before the operation, my husband sought an audience with His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche for the first time. Rinpoche asked my husband, ‘Have you been a vegetarian?’ My husband replied, ‘Not yet.’ Rinpoche expounded, ‘Come back to seek an audience after you become a vegetarian.’ I am grateful for Rinpoche’s blessings on my husband! That very day, we smoothly found an excellent doctor and quickly arranged the surgery, and my husband also began to follow a vegetarian diet. I am grateful to Rinpoche!

On April 3, my husband sought an audience with Rinpoche for the second time. He reported to Rinpoche that he had arranged to be admitted to the hospital on April 5 for detailed examinations, with surgery scheduled for April 8. Rinpoche scolded my husband, saying, ‘You do not believe in karma, you do not believe in the Buddha Dharma; why should Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara rescue you?’ Yet, after scolding, Rinpoche compassionately (maitri and karuna) blessed my husband for a long time and expounded that Rinpoche would not let my husband die on the operating table. I am grateful for the guru’s compassionate (maitri and karuna) blessings! The surgery went extremely smoothly. In addition to removing a large portion of the colon, over thirty lymph nodes were also excised. The doctor said it had been cleared completely and thoroughly. I am deeply grateful to Rinpoche.
 
Next, I would share with you the incomparably wondrous traces of inviting my relatives and friends to donate to the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche:

Trace One: There was a believer who lived in the United States, and he donated to the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche every month. At that time, he was already 84 years old and very afraid of facing death. So I would often share with him over the phone about Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche’s great awe-inspiring power in compassionately transferring consciousness, and I told him not to be afraid. I mailed him a copy of Happiness and Suffering. From that time on, every night before going to sleep, he would recite Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche’s Dharma name. He said that Rinpoche’s appearance from the Dharma portrait filled his entire mind. Last year, at the age of 86, on the day before he passed away, he told his family that he wanted to go home. The next day, he passed away at home peacefully and with dignity. I am grateful to His Eminence Vajra Guru Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche for his boundless and compassionate (maitri and karuna) vows to rescue him. My younger brother and this believer, Dr. Zeng, did not have the good fortune to personally meet His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, yet because they had reverence and faith toward Rinpoche, they both received Rinpoche’s compassionate (maitri and karuna) blessings.

Trace two: The mother of a beautician had been in and out of the intensive care unit many times. The hospital informed her that her mother was in critical condition and asked her to prepare for the funeral arrangements. After learning this, I gave her a precious nectar pill bestowed by Rinpoche and invited her to donate to the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche. I also shared that those who donate to the Monastery can accumulate good fortune. After she donated to the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, her mother was discharged from the intensive care unit. Within one year, she did not return to the intensive care unit, and after going home, she was able to manage all her daily activities independently. I am grateful to Rinpoche.

In addition, her husband had suffered a stroke and was at home. He has also donated to the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche. His bedsores were so severe that the bone was exposed, and the pain was so intense that her husband would not allow anyone to touch him. I shared Bao Yuan Gao with the beautician. At first, she placed a lump of Bao Yuan Gao directly into the hole of the wound where the bone was visible. The next day, remarkably, her husband didn’t feel pain and was willing to let his family members apply the medicine. After one week, flesh began to grow over the area where the bedsore had been. He purchased five jars of Bao Yuan Gao at one time. For over a year, he has not developed another bedsore, and his skin has completely healed as before. I am grateful to Rinpoche!

Trace three: On February 1, 2022, the first day of the Lunar New Year, at the puja, I am grateful that Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, who is compassionate (maitri and karuna), performed the ‘Black Water Jambhala Dharma’, as well as ‘ Elephant Jambhala Dharma’, and compassionately bestowed the assembly the opportunity to implore Jambhala. I quickly implored Jambhala to help me find both people and funds so that I could perfectly fulfill my promise to participate in the project of Ten-Thousand-Person Donating to the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, and to support the various Buddhist businesses through which Rinpoche benefits sentient beings. I am deeply grateful to Rinpoche! After the puja on the first day of the Lunar New Year, I, on February 15, unexpectedly received a letter from the insurance company informing me that my younger brother, who had passed away over two years earlier, had an unclaimed insurance payment. As my younger brother was unmarried, the insurance payment was to be divided among us siblings, and I received NT$124,436. In June of that same year, when I received the insurance payment, I immediately made offerings to Rinpoche and, in the names of my parents and my younger brother, donated to the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche. I am grateful to Rinpoche for bestowing me the opportunity to donate to the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche.

There are many more incomparably wondrous traces about receiving Rinpoche’s help because of the donations to the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche. If there is an opportunity, I will share with you another time. Once again, I am deeply grateful to Rinpoche for bestowing us the opportunity to support the construction of the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche.

On August 14, 2022, His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche personally presided over the incomparably wondrous Three-In-One Puja of Amitabha Buddha, Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, and Padmasambhava. After finishing performing the Dharma Protector that day, Rinpoche expounded that the heart meridians of two disciples who were coughing had problems. Rinpoche instructed a doctor-disciple of Chinese medicine to immediately take their pulses free of charge. After checking their pulses, the disciple reported, ‘For one person, there is insufficient heart qi in the heart meridian, and for the other, there is coldness and obstruction in the heart meridian.’Rinpoche smiled and said, ‘I can see it from such a distance, yet you still need to take the pulse!’ I was one of the disciples whose heart meridian had a problem.

I am grateful for the compassion (maitri and karuna) of His Eminence Vajra Guru Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche who teaches the disciples like a parent, loving deeply and therefore admonishing earnestly. At my age, to still have a guru as if an elder teaching me, I was so moved and stirred that I burst into tears on the spot.

I am indeed a wretched disciple. I repent for always selfishly thinking that, since I was already in my seventies and lazy about seeing a doctor, I simply let my body age naturally. I am grateful to Rinpoche for pointing out my selfish and self-interested thoughts. Because of my coughing, the puja was disturbed, and I caused trouble for all the Dharma brothers and affected the purity of the Buddhist Center. I know I was wrong. Now I am diligently seeing a Chinese medicine doctor and patiently taking the medicine. Only in this way can I live up to the guru’s concern for the disciples. Once again, I am grateful for Rinpoche’s compassionate (maitri and karuna) rescue.

I am grateful to Rinpoche for being willing to accept me, whose evil karma is deep and heavy, as a disciple. My greatest good fortune in this lifetime is taking refuge in His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche!

Rinpoche teaches us the Buddha Dharma and ceaselessly removes the obstacles to learning Buddhism for us. The guru’s compassion (maitri and karuna) is boundless; he always gives his own good fortune and great meritorious power to the disciples, clearing away their evil karma obstacles. Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche’s earnest and patient teachings are solely to rescue the disciples to be liberated from the cycle of reincarnation in the Six Realms. How can a disciple be so ungrateful, failing to spur oneself on and strive diligently? If so, that would truly betray the guru’s diligent effort to rescue the disciples. Moreover, I only took refuge at the age of seventy, so I must make more endeavours to learn Buddhism to repay the benevolence of the guru.

Rinpoche cares for the disciples in various ways. For example, in the Chinese Medicine Clinic, the suffering of the disciples from illnesses can be treated; by organizing music concerts, Rinpoche gives us opportunities to form virtuous fates with sentient beings. Rinpoche also imports many high-quality Japanese foods, such as goji berries, kaki, Koshihikari rice, and Pu’er tea from the Antique Furniture Shop; Rinpoche provides restaurants where disciples can enjoy clean, wholesome meals. All of this is to safeguard our health, hoping that disciples will have healthy bodies to learn Buddhism calmly. I am grateful for Rinpoche’s great vows to protect sentient beings! I will listen properly.

Here I repent openly. I repent for, since childhood, having eaten the meat of countless animals, harming innumerable sentient beings; I repent for having had abortions; I repent for committing theft, sexual misconduct, divisive speech, false speech, and frivolous speech. I repent for my rebelliousness. I repent that, when I worked in sales in my youth, I was not honest; that, in buying and selling land, I inflated prices by buying short and selling short; and that I used financing to trade stocks, which resulted in losing everything. I repent for the countless evil karma committed out of greed, hatred, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt, so many that they cannot be fully recorded or entirely recounted.

I repent that when I was in Sravasti, seeing insects in the bedroom, I screamed in fear, my mind full of evilness, lacking the mind of compassion, filled with arrogance, and devoid of equanimity. I repent for doing my practice with a perfunctory attitude, without a pure mind and without Bodhicitta. I am grateful to the guru for the incomparably wondrous teachings and for bestowing me the opportunity to correct myself. 

I further repent that on Saturday, March 8, 2025, when I sought an audience, as I stepped forward to make offerings to Rinpoche, I failed to extend my hands and froze myself on the spot, standing blankly. Rinpoche expounded that I was ‘putting on an act’ and said, ‘I do not accept it!’ I repent for my hypocrisy and my many evil thoughts of which I was still unaware. I deeply repent that I irreverently made offerings to the guru. I was wrong! Once again, I am grateful for Rinpoche’s tireless and patient teachings.

With utmost sincerity and a mind of gratitude and repentance, I vow that I must be an obedient disciple from now on. I will correct all the wrongs I have committed in the past and never repeat them; I will double my efforts in learning Buddhism and offering support, abide by the Five Precepts and the Ten Meritorious Acts, and use the Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas to examine myself every day, so as not to betray the guru’s incomparably wondrous teachings in rescuing the disciples. I pray that I may be reborn in the Pure Land to continue learning Buddhism and be liberated from the cycle of reincarnation in the Six Realms.

Lastly, I pray for His Eminence Vajra Guru Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche’s good health, longevity, and auspiciousness; the Dharma wheel turns unceasingly; his Buddha Dharma activities perfectly flourish; the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Monastery of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche is perfectly and smoothly constructed, benefiting vast sentient beings; His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche’s Dharma lineage spreads eternally. I thank all fellow believers and Dharma brothers for listening patiently. 

 

Respectfully written by disciple Chen Xue Zhen, Group Four, 

 on February 15, 2026

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Updated on February 23, 2026