RT's Homepage

Welcome!

Be sure to check out my playlists and favorites at YouTube.com.  I've gathered info about my root guru 蓮生活佛 below.  

Upon reading the The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra - Chapter 6: Repentence and Reform, it affected me so much that it must be posted here (text).  Kobo Daishi or "Kukai" also holds a special place in my heart.  Also check out Thomas Chung's website http://students.washington.edu/atchung for some more Buddhist material.  

Background

Here are reasons why these four texts are posted on my index page.  Because they helped guide me in my most unbearable and hopeless times during my youth, high school, and college years -- they are sacred to me.  They are my guiding light in a hopeless world.  The texts were discovered, selected, studied, and applied in life without partiality from others.

• Tao Te Ching (taoteching.txt) - This is my life guide and power.  I first came across this book in my high school days at a bookstore.  I still remember vividly the first time I picked up this book and read it.  It was like finding a long lost treasure.  With no knowledge of its connection to Buddhism and Taoism I didn't know how to respond when my friend saw me with the book and asked, "I think that's a holy book on the monastery altars.."  It didn't feel like a worship object.  It was more like a handy text to study and use in everyday life.  I discovered later this text to be dated from the 6th century BC (600 BC).

• Eight Realizations of Great Beings (theeightrealizations.doc) -  This sutra was translated to Chinese during the late Han Dynasty (140-171 AD).  It's my indispensable guide because it's practical and concise, and I made a two sided print and laminated it for my regular reference.  I always wondered what the Six Paramitas were, but never got a clear understanding during my school days.  I just kept my constant references to the Eight Realizations of Great Beings and after more than 15 years, it should be noted the Mahayana Buddhist practice of the Six Paramitas is contained in this Eight Realizations of Great Beings sutra.  It was a shocking discovery. (Six Perfections | Six Poisons)

  The 1st Paramita: giving = the sixth realization The 2nd Paramita: observing the precepts = the second, third and seventh realization The 3rd Paramita: diligent effort = the fourth realization  The 4th Paramita: endurance = the eighth realization The 5th Paramita: concentration = the first realization The 6th Paramita: understanding = the fifth realization

• Wealth for the Warrior (wealthforthewarrior.doc) - Great reminders given with humility to check my state of mind.  It's only after a decade that I realized Lama Atisha (982-1054 AD) is an original lineage holder in Tantric Buddhism.  At the time of youth, it just felt very perfect as a daily reference because it was written in a down-to-earth fashion and short.  Lama Atisha is the source of the the Lam Rim (i.e. Je Tsong Kha Pa's Stages of the Path of Enlightenment).

• Voyages to Hell (voyagestohell.txt) 840kb - I first ran into this book accidentally in the religious section at my local library when I was a teenager.  After many years the book was either lost or removed from my library.  It took me ten years to find this book again.  It is a very special document because it is written in the light of our current day, completed and published in 1978.  The downloadable word document highlights sections missing from the original Chinese version (地獄遊記).  Homage to the first website I could find with the English translation posted by www.bloodredfiresword.de.

There is actually a "5th" text called Four Essays on Karma that also influenced me greatly and is listed in my books section below. This link is to the electronic copy of the published book, which was long overdue.  Unlike the other sources on the web, this one above is true to the printed publication. I created this to dedicate it to my uncle, Bo Bun Lee who passed away on March 10, 2014.

Selected Readings

• An Interview with the 16th Karmapa

• The Four Immeasurable Thoughts

• The Eightfold Path

• The 13th Dalai Lama

• Mastery of Life and Death

Books

• Grandmaster Sheng-yen Lu

• Four Essays on Karma by Yuen Liao Fan

• Freedom in Exile (Autobiography of the 14th Dalai Lama)

• The Path to Enlightenment (14th Dalai Lama)

• The Life of Milarepa (Lobsang P Lhalungpa)

• U Thant in New York (Ramses Nassif)

• Kukai: Major Works (Yoshito S. Hakeda)

• Path of the Bodhisattva Warrior: The Thirteenth Dalai Lama (Glenn H Mullin)

• The Bodhicaryavatara

Practices

• Preliminaries to Formal Practice

• Four Fundamentals

• Great Homage

• Bell & Vajra Lessons

• Merits of the Local Earth God Mantra

• Mahamudra of Eternity, Bliss, True Self, and Purity

• Kalachakra Practice

• My Empowerments

• 23 Questions and Answers

Links

Miscellaneous

• All I Every Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

• Dalai Lama visits UC Berkeley!

• Assigning Drive Letters to a Partition

• Lady Justice - The Importance

High School & College

• Like my root guru, my teachers have given me lessons that one cannot put a price tag to.  I don't know how I could every repay the efforts made by all my teachers, and below is just a short list of a few.  My Alhambra High School math teacher Dr. Michael Palmiter, Ms. Helen Ligh (economics), and college professors Dr. Laura Starkey (most beautiful OChem teacher inside and out), Dr. David Mylander (physics), Dr. Winthrop Aldrich (my advisor), Dr. George Stoll, Dr. Chris Caenepeel, Dr. John Prausnitz, Dr. Martin Head-Gordon (p-chem), Dr. Phillip Felton.  

  Dr. Michael Palmiter

  Mr. Palmiter as he preferred to be called in high school was a local graduate in the city of San Gabriel, the town I grew up, attended local college Cal Tech in Aerospace engineering, followed by a Ph.D. in Math from U.C. Berkeley.  He taught me Calculus and laid the foundation for me in engineering.  The blend of jokes, discipline, and stories at JPL and silly college experiments made his classes very memorable.  He is one of three programmers who landed the first man on the moon using less than 500 kb.  He is one of my great teachers and a humble man.  He was featured in Scientific American in May 1989 for authoring the program Simulated Evolution.  (Web link to Simulated Evolution)

  Professor John Prausnitz

Professor John Prausnitz revealed the reality and importance of other dimensions in life.  He's a pioneer in thought and progress.  Others know him as the founder of molecular thermodynamics.  He solved problems in the petroleum industry that corporate oil companies with all their money could not.  I failed his first 3 quizzes and remember going to his office for assistance in fear of failure.  He said, "Give it one more try, then maybe consider changing studies." His 2008 College of Chemistry Commencement Speech really shows he's not an indulger of ignorance, but a proponent of truth and happiness.

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Last edited March 18, 2014