One Day Retreat for Students

Over 800 students from Colleges and Universities inside and outside Ho Chi Minh City returned to Hoang Phap Pagoda to attend One Day Retreat for Students on Dec. 29th, 2024.

 Starting the day full of energy is a meditation session under the guidance of the monks at 5 a.m. All students gathered in the lecture hall to chant the sutra named Eight things and Great compassion after breakfast at 7:00.

 

 

 

After the chanting, all students listened to a dharma talk named “Embracing ourselves” preached by Bhikkhu Giac Minh Luat is currently studying as a PhD student at MCU University of Thailand.

 

 

 

Most of us are afraid of loneliness, we go out to connect with friends and create many relationships so that we are not lonely, but the more we search, the lonelier we feel in the crowded world. It is not because the world around us is deserted but because loneliness comes from within, because of losing connection with ourselves, so we cannot link to the world, and feel lost in our own living. As the Buddha taught in the sutra "The One Knowing to Live Alone", the one who knows how to reside in mindfulness is the one who truly knows how to live alone. Living alone does not mean to be social isolation or discrimination against the crowd, but a person who knows how to live with himself, living fully in each present moment, not immersed in the past, not wishing for the future. Buddhism is the study of oneself, recognizing everything that happens in the mind world. When one understands itself thoroughly, one learns how to live for others; thus, it is knowing how to live alone, embrace ourselves in a wise and sacred way.  

 

 

Last, students had a Q&A session with the monks in the lecture halls.

 

 

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