The Challenge

My Lama gave me a private audience once, just before he travelled abroad. He said that since I would just be waiting for his return and not doing any work where I was, he would like to put me on a retreat. He said that my family had a strong affinity with a particular Dharma Protector and since I was now going through a challenging period, this practice would be very beneficial for me on all levels. It was a time of financial crisis where many businesses were hit by the credit crunch and currencies were very unstable. I wasn’t spared from it.

That was the first time I heard the name of Dorje Shugden. I remember that when I first heard his name, I thought, “Wow, what an interesting name!” It rang a bell. Even today, I still feel excited whenever I say the name “Dorje Shugden”. My Lama told me to complete 100,000 of this Protector’s mantra by the time he returned which I did happily.

The first few days were quite challenging as it was my first retreat. Everyday, after completing my sadhana, I would recite the Protector mantra. I must admit that I did the retreat without any visualisation and did not fully comprehend what it was all about. I did it because there was nothing else to do at the time. I also had a lot of trust in my Lama and since he had prescribed me this method to clear my obstacles, I was very diligent in wanting to complete it… and I did complete it by the time he came back 10 days later.

However, there was not much improvement in my financial situation after this retreat. A few months went by and my frustrations grew. I was without a maid and I remember vividly doing housework and sweeping the floor one morning after my kids went to school. I was feeling very sorry for myself and, at the same time, frustrated with the situation I found myself in. Then my untamed mind challenged the Protector, saying to him that if he was real, then he should show me a sign.

A few weeks later, on a Saturday morning just before my husband went to work, I told him angrily to remove my jewellery from the safe in the house as I did not know how to open his safe. I was annoyed that each time I wanted to wear any jewellery, I would have to wait for him to be around. I used to collect a lot of watches and jewellery during my better days but by this time, I had sold most of my things to convert them into cash so that we could start a new business in money lending. I think that the jewellery I had left in the safe at the time would have amounted to about USD150,000.

That evening, my husband took me and the kids out to dinner. He came home late and we rushed out to dinner the moment he came back. He barely had time to leave his briefcase by the side of the door. The briefcase contained several legal documents of the clients who had come to him for financing during the day in the office; he would usually keep these documents in the safe as they were highly confidential.

We returned from dinner at about 10pm and noticed that our gate was unlocked. I remembered clearly that I had locked it before we left. When I tried to open the grill door, I found it had been left ajar. I panicked, realizing immediately that someone had broken into our house. I freaked out as it hit me that my husband’s briefcase had been left by the front door and all my jewellery was stored in my unlocked bedside table! That was all I had left! And what about the documents that belonged to our borrowers?!

We called the security guards who were assigned to watch over our gated community. They came immediately, but couldn’t open our main wooden door. We feared the worst which was that the robbers were still in the house and had locked the door from the inside. Finally, the guards had to break down our door and charge into the house…. From a distance, where I was watching and waiting, everything inside seemed intact, just as how we had left it a few hours ago!

The guards searched everywhere; they opened up the wardrobes and even went up to the ceiling to check if anyone was hiding. Everything seemed normal. A neighbour, upon hearing the commotion, came over and said he saw four well-dressed Chinese men getting out of a white car and walking into our car porch as soon as we left for dinner. The neighbour had thought that they were our friends who had come to visit!

We found the broken lock left by the robbers in our shoe cabinet in the car porch. The next day, we called the locksmith over. He checked the broken lock and told us that we were indeed very lucky. According to him, the inside of the lock jammed when the robbers tried to open it with a master key. If they had succeeded, they would have gone into the house. Imagine the horrifying episodes we would have had to face had the robbers taken not only the remaining jewellery I had left but our borrowers’ documents too! My husband looked straight into my eyes, and asked me frustratingly, “Well, happy now?! So now tell me, who saved us?” It was obviously our Protector, who I had challenged to show me a sign of his presence.

I am relating this with a lot of remorse. Imagine, I had had the audacity to challenge an enlightened being, demanding he prove himself to me!

My faith in him has not wavered since. I know that he is with me all the time, watching, guiding, protecting…

~ Anonymous ~