Gardening at KFR

A week ago, I went to Kechara Forest Retreat and I was in awe when I saw the amount of development present. The last time I visited KFR was quite a while back and I did not get to see the complete form of the Dukkar Apartments.

The Dukkar Apartments truly blossomed into a beautiful lotus. The first time I saw the empty plot of land, honestly, I did not expect such a beautiful building to arise. Then again, this is what should be expected of the fusion of hard work of Kecharians and the compassion and guidance of His Eminence Tsem Rinpoche.

So, it was 7 a.m. in the morning when I woke up that day. Sock Wan kindly picked Beatrix, Edward and I up to start a day of good and healthy labour. It was an hours journey as usual and Edward managed to keep me awake by talking with me about various animes but eventually I fell asleep halfway through the journey.

When we reached Bentong town, we went to a coffee shop near an abandoned house that was built in the year 1923. The coffee shop had amazing Char Kuey Teow, though it was a bit overcooked. The shop was quite crowded and I guess that this is because if you are in a restaurant in a small town, they will always be crowded.

After fueled up with Char Kuey Teow and coffee, we went to the KFR compound and started to help Ajai, our lovely groundskeeper with gardening work.

Firstly, we were moving some pots around to make things neater for transport into other areas of KFR. The pots were quite heavy and some required two people to carry while some only required one person to carry. After moving the pots around, we were to remove some plants from their green plastic bags into a small black plastic bag, so that they can be planted in the future.

After digging up dirt and putting it in the black plastic bags and placing the plants in them, we moved more plants around but this time, they were smaller ones. We started out by carrying them by hand but eventually, we realised that it would have been more efficient to use a wheelbarrow which we did.

A few hours of moving later, we finished most of the plants and we went for a quick water and toilet break before finishing off the remainder. When we were finishing off the remainder, we discovered two leeches. I normally hate the idea of vectors sucking blood out of me but ever since Outward Bound School, leeches have not creeped me out too much. One leech ended up on my glove, so I simply asked Edward to pluck it off my glove and thank goodness, it didn't bite him :P

When we moved all the pots in the nursery to it's allocated areas, we went for a quick lunch at another coffee shop. This time, I had Wantan Noodles without the wantan (Meat dumpling) or the charsiew (Pork). It was quite well done and was made rather quickly despite there being so many people at the shop.

After our quick lunch, we went to Dukkar Apartments to clean the railings and mop the floor. The railings were quite easy to wipe as they were not really dusty but the tables in the main dining area was quite dusty.

The tables in the dining and kitchen area resembled that of a cafe with an LED sign saying, "Be the Light." on the wall. Most of the tables had a little flower vase and a small plant on it. The kitchen was well equipped and has a water dispenser that dispenses water so cold that the Arctic Ocean would be jealous and after a hot day, a glass of cold water is what was definitely needed.

So, in a three hour timeframe, we managed to clean up Dukkar Apartments and after all that cleaning, I felt extremely tired.

But by being tired for others is a virtue. When you work very hard for the benefit of others, good karma and merits arise. When you do so much for others, the work does not seem to be work and is something that you would want to do as often as you can while the opportunity is given. So, a sweat-filled day is a good day when in a Dharmic community.

I hope those who read this post will be encouraged to go and volunteer at Kechara Forest Retreat!

http://retreat.kechara.com/

Love,
Sean