At the feet of our teachers we serve…

Recognising my most significant teachers thus far on my personal Transformative and Spiritual Journey.

1993 – Dagpo Lama Rinpoche Jampa Jamphel Gyatso and the Vajrayana Buddhist foundations

Dagpo Rinpoche, also known as Bamchoe Rinpoche, was born in 1932 in the region of Kongpo, in southeastern Tibet. At the age of two, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama recognised him as the reincarnation of Dagpo Lama Rinpoche Jamphel Lhundrup, Pabongkha Rinpoche’s root guru. When he was six years old he entered Bamchoe Monastery in Dagpo Region where he learned to read and write and began to study the basics of Sutra and Tantra. At age 13 he entered Dagpo Shedrup Ling Monastery (also known as Dagpo Dratsang) to study the Five Great Texts of Buddhist Philosophy.

Having studied eleven years at Dagpo Shedrup Ling, Dagpo Rinpoche left to attend the great monastic university of Drepung near Lhasa where he entered one of its four colleges, Gomang Dratsang, and remained at Gomang Dratsang until the communist invasion in 1959 when he followed his masters into exile in India. Less than a year after his arrival in India, he was invited to France to assist French Tibetologists in their research. He taught Tibetan language and Buddhism at the school of oriental studies (INALCO) connected to the Sorbonne in Paris for almost thirty years. Now retired, he continues personal research and study. He has co-authored several books on Buddhism and has participated in numerous television and radio programmes.

In 1978 he founded a Dharma centre which later became the first Buddhist congregation of the Gelug Order to be recognized by the French government, Ganden Ling Institute. Rinpoche has taught extensively ever since and is often invited for that purpose to various cities in France, to Italy, Switzerland, and Holland, as well as to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Now he also has centres in Bordeaux, Holland, Malaysia and Indonesia. For more information about Dagpo Rinpoche and the Malaysian based centre Kadam Tashi Choe Ling

Rinpoche taught me everything about being a good human being, learning how to discern between what are ethically and spiritually healthy practices for oneself and how to discern with wisdom and taking decisions and actions based on the foundational teachings of the Buddha. All the good that I have attained today, I thank Rinpoche.  It is based upon these early teachings that my subsequent learnings on the yogic path, and of the inner dance and energy healing work were subsequently established. For this and much more, I owe my life to Rinpoche!

2012/2013 – David Goutlet and Pyramid Yoga school

In 2012 I had the great fortune to meet my yoga master David Goulet, first in Pahlawan, Philippines, then took his Yoga Teacher Training in early 2013.

David Goulet started his yogic journey in the 1972 at Ananda Ashram in Pondicherry, India. He studied for two years with “Dr. Swami Gitananda who was a medical doctor and Yogi world renowned for his huge smile and unique teaching style who offered the traditional teachings of Eastern Yoga in combination with Western Medicine Principles. Those students of Dr Gitananda, like David, who were able to deepen, concentrate and purify themselves sufficiently were led along an amazing path of raja yoga practices, were initiated into the psychic world of the Chakras; the spiritual energy, colors, forms, sounds and shapes that sensitise the seeker to the meditative qualities of mind and matter. Elaborate methods of contemplation, visual and verbal concentration, and meditation were taught and practised, bringing the students to an experience in higher states of consciousness. This is the true purpose of yoga – going beyond the limitation of the body senses and into the limitless realm of cosmic awareness.”

David’s strong foundational understanding of the Ancient Chakra System provided the basis for much of his present day teachings. Through exploration, examination and a healthy curiosity, David’s subsequent travels in Mexico, Guatemala, Egypt, and South East Asia only further affirmed the wisdom he received from Swami Gitananda which he now shares with his students.

In 2002, David and Marina (his former partner) founded Pyramid Yoga Center Thailand, which has been offering a unique and intensive Teacher Training programme based on the Chakra Yoga system that David studied in India and applied to his life for over 45 years. For past 15 years based on the Science of Yoga, and through various Yogic Healing courses, Retreats, Therapies and much more, the knowledge has been passed on in a traditional guru-chela yogic way.

For more details on David Goulet and his school Pyramid Yoga

David opened my life up to new possibilities not just in the spiritual world of yoga but in honouring myself as a physical being and learning how to respect my body as equally important as my spiritual body. I truly began to understand Yoga as the union of body, mind, spirit and energy in a more profound way than ever before after studying with David in 2013 and continue to benefit from his classes and teachings whenever he visits Penang. Thanks to David, the possibility of a longer and more full and vibrant life is becoming a reality for me! This is especially significant for someone who prized spiritual progress over material well-being, and whose body had suffered many years of physical pain and discomfort thereby losing faith in the body and my material life. For this and more, I honour you so much David!

2012/2013 – Pi Villaraza and Inner Dance – the convergence of teachers and teachings

Synchronicity and destiny led me to Pi Villaraza, founder of the INNER DANCE school and modality in late 2012 at about the same time I was readying myself for my Yoga Teacher Training. I met both Pi and David on the same day within the first hour of arriving on the island of Pahlawan in the Philippines where Inner Dance was born and where David’s second school is located at Port Barton. I realised instantly that these two teachers were meant to weave something special into my life. Now, after a number of years journeying with both of them in the yogic path and the Inner Dance process, I have been increasingly integrating both traditions of form and flow into my own practice laid over the earlier Buddhist foundation taught so authentically and beautifully by my heart teacher, Dagpo Lama Rinpoche.

I have never met someone like Pi before, so young, so wise, so human, so down to earth, so loving, so expansive, so brilliant and open all at the same time! Pi does not come from any established tradition, yet combines all traditions. His is the sacred school of self discovery after leaving his marketing career and becoming a nomad on a desert island for two years in his spiritual quest for going deeper into his Soul. His discovery is what we today know as Inner Dance, which has now becoming a global movement for inner transformation.

“At the age of 25, Pi left his career in integrated marketing to listen to a persistent guidance from an old grandmother spirit that he would one day walk away from everything and find himself. Walking for one year without money and later living for two years as a hermit on a coconut diet, Pi awakened a powerful energy system within him, and inner dance would later travel around the world as a path to transformation and healing for countless people.

“Pi’s life and the inner dance have been documented in newspapers, magazines, radio, television and books around the world for its capacity to heal and transform. Pi has facilitated over fourteen thousand people in the last seven years, and has conducted numerous teacher trainings around the world. His healing center, Bahay Kalipay and his community, Maia Earth Village act as the primary training base for inner dance process, where guests and a resident community live within the principles of the inner dance process amidst nature.”

For more information on the Inner Dance Process.