Sunday, 04/19/2026
One–Day Retreat at Tieu Dao Pagoda
Update: 25/07/2020
The Senior Ven was delighted to meet the Buddhists after a long time of social distance. Although our country has a well controlled epidemic, the world is still very complicated. Before preaching the dharma, the Senior Ven. talked about the situation of the world and the country over the past half year with issues of epidemics, violence, natural disasters, floods, traffic accidents, and deaths around ... that we need quiet moments to look back on life, to remember the Buddha's teachings in Eight thing Enlightenment of the Saint:
" The world is impermanent
Country is not always safe
Four elements are suffering
Five aggregates are non-ego ...”
In this retreat, all Buddhists mainly practiced the Pure Land method, specializing in reciting the name of Amitabha Buddha, vowing to be born to the Pure Pland. Therefore, the Venerable clearly explained the Pure Land Sect for Buddhists to understand and practice properly.
There are three things a Pure-Land's practitioner must have: Belief – Vow – Practice, to be summarized as following:
Belief is a firm and immovable faith. The Avatamsaka sutra teaches "trust is the mother of merit". We have belief in the Buddha, believe in Him as a wise, compassionate, enlightened person who saves all beings. He loves all beings, so He shows sentient beings a peaceful pure land for sentient beings to cultivate.
Vow is aspirations, wishes. Each practitioner who wants to achieve, must make a vow, must establish firm aspirations. The aspiration must clearly identify to practice, reciting the Buddha's name to be born in a Buddha realm.
Practice determined to make a vow, solidly and respectfully cultivated, diligently determined not to abandon.
King Tran Nhan Tong, the first Patriarch of the Truc Lam Zen, taught as following: “The pure mind is the Pure Land, we don't need to come to the Western. The bright mind is Amitabha Buddha, we don't need to return to the Pure Land.” (Cư Trần Lạc Đạo poem).
Intellectual practitioners do not wait until dying, they will have been born in the West Realm, but always cultivate for happiness and peace in this life to build the "Pure Land" in the present. When the mind is pure and clear, we will know how to look at people and see life with understanding and love, and then build a healthy family and a peaceful society. As a result, this impure land will become the Pure Land. Each thought on each person should convert bad thinking into good ones, the actions of our body and words will change in a good way, then the pure land is not far away.
The Senior Ven wished the mass diligently and built the peaceful and prosperous Pure Land in the Quang Ninh land where Buddhists live.
Ending the lecture, the participants began to the repentant rite.
Some images recorded:
