Mentors

I do not stand alone. The work I do today carries the imprint of my beloved grandmother — who first taught me to fall in love with food and culture — and after her, every guru who showed me the path, every kitchen I trained in, every chef who corrected my hand. To name them, and to honour the lessons they made permanent, is the only proper way to begin any account of the work.

My Grandmother — Where It Began — Where It Began

Before any chef. Before any guru. Before any kitchen I trained in — there was my grandmother.

She is the one who first taught me to fall in love with food and culture. With the rituals of the kitchen, the patience of a slow stock, the way a meal is the place where a family gathers and a heritage is carried forward. Everything I do today — every plate I send to the pass, every conversation about food as memory, every concept of the work — begins with her.

She is, and will always remain, the first mentor.

The Spiritual Refuge

Before the chef, the practitioner. Before the kitchen, the path.

My Root Guru — H.E. Tsem Rinpoche

H.E. Tsem Rinpoche — Founder and Spiritual Advisor of Kechara House Buddhist Association Malaysia — was my root guru. It was through him that I took refuge in the Guru and the Triple Gem — as Vajrayana practice asks — and began my Buddhist journey. He carried the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. But what he taught me was not bound to one sect. He taught me what the Dharma actually is — Buddhism for all mankind, the same teaching rooted in Lord Buddha Sakyamuni, regardless of the form or sect in which it is practised.

Rinpoche believed the Dharma had to live in the world. Dharma in motion was the phrase he used. The social work he led — Kechara Soup Kitchen, feeding people who needed feeding, without preconditions — was one expression of that. But what he gave me, more than any of that, was a clearer understanding of what the practice is. That it belongs to whoever takes it up sincerely. That a teacher’s job is to put the student on the path and let them walk it. Without that foundation, nothing I have done since would have had a place to stand.

He has entered Parinirvana — he is no longer here in person. The clarity he gave me about what the Dharma is, and is not, has held through every season since. With palms folded, I am ever indebted to his clarity, his loving-kindness, and his insistence that the Dharma is for all mankind, without exception.

See also: “Learning from awakened minds”, The Star (Wesak 2018) — “Tsem Rinpoche has always taught that true spirituality must result in the creation of benefits to the community we live in.”

My Current Guru — Master Jeff Chew

Master Jeff Chew — Founder of Bodhicitta Buddhist Association KL — is my current guru. His own teacher is Phra Thepyanmongkol, abbot of Wat Luang Phor Sodh Dhammakayaram in Ratchaburi — a Thai temple founded in honour of Luang Pu Sodh Candasaro and dedicated to the meditation tradition that monk established. Master Jeff ordained there, took his vows under Phra Thepyanmongkol, trained in the Vijja Dhammakaya practice, and later disrobed to return to Malaysia and begin his lay Dhamma work — what is now Bodhicitta. The word bodhicitta itself means the mind of awakening — the wish to benefit all beings, without exception and without condition. It is no small inheritance, and he carries it without fuss.

Across these seven years, Master Jeff has changed how I listen, how I teach, and how I cook. He is the foremost Pali expert I have known, and his teaching draws almost entirely from the Suttas — the Buddha’s own discourses — with examples taken from daily life rather than from abstraction. He reminds me to stay resolute in my work and ready to shift when circumstances ask for it. He teaches Metta — loving-kindness — as a daily discipline in body, speech and mind. But the deepest of his teachings has nothing to do with any of those. It is about how to give without keeping count. He helps people. He shows up. He does not announce it. He does not record it. The moment a kindness asks for acknowledgement, in his understanding, it stops being a kindness. I am still trying to learn this. It is the hardest part of the practice, and the part of him I most want to carry forward.

I am still very much a student. The practice continues. With palms folded, I am ever indebted to his patience, his clarity, and his teachings — the steadiest light I carry through every season of the work.

sādhu. sādhu. sādhu. anumodāmi.