One-day practice 22.4.2018

On April 22th, 2018, thousands devout Buddhist came to Hoang Phap for the second time of One-day practice in 2018.

After breakfast, people gathered at the lecture hall for listening Dharma took by Ven. Thich Chan Tinh _ head of the practice course and the temple’s abbot.

Venerable presented the four methods mentioned in the Anguttara Nikaya: cultivating body, mind, rules, and wisdom. To get more efficient in a practical way, practitioners need to improve their knowledge to take more advantages in cultivating.

Body cultivating is the practice of keeping well the four postures of walking, standing, laying and sitting with mindfulness. Besides that, we need to regard our look as clothing style, hair style, make-up style,… for the most suitable. Try to do good things for a happy and ease life for oneself and others.

Precepts cultivating is the way to restrain the five precepts for lay people. Be careful of what we’d done for a happy instead of suffering life. To be a true Buddhist, each practitioner needs to live with the rules without neglect. These five precepts are the five virtuous norms to fulfill one’s dignity and to arise mindfulness and wisdom, bring about a happy, joyful and awakened life. Cultivating on the five precepts is three-part practicing among the eight of the Noble Eightfold path including right speech, right action, and right life-living.

Mind cultivating is the practice of the mindful of thoughts to restrain from the bad thoughts and develop the beautiful thoughts by cultivating the four immeasurable minds, effort, patience, and heedfulness…To keep a good mind and always in calm, one needs to observe their mind throughout cultivating the right effort, right meditation, and right mindfulness.

Wisdom cultivating is making advanced wisdom, increasing right view and taking the right dharma to practice. The Noble Eightfold path said to cultivate wisdom we have to practice right view and right thought. Right view for seeing what leads to happiness, and suffering…, right thought for nourishing what’s unharmful for oneself and others, thinking how to depart from attachment and angry.

By taking these four practices, we advance discipline, meditation and wisdom, our three defilements are purified, give a happy life in present and future, show a good sample for people to follow. If we do the opposite thing, we produce a suffering life at now and in future, create a bad image of Buddhism in others’ eyes.

Finishing the talk, people take the practice of chanting Amitabha Buddha name as usual. 

In the afternoon, they take a sitting meditation after hearing the five precepts reciting from the monks.

Photos from the course: