Opening the 101st Seven - Day Retreat

From Dec. 23rd, 2023 to Dec. 30th, 2023 Hoang Phap pagoda officially opened the 101st Seven-day retreat with over 1100 good men and believing women everywhere returning to attend.

At the lecture halls in the morning, the Organizers guided practitioners in places to listen to dharma, eating, and sleep, as well as the necessary rules of Buddhists when attending the retreat, such as: clasping hands, greeting, bowing; rituals offering a meal in the lunch.

 Head of the Organizers, Junior Thich Tam Truong had some sharing words to the mass in the afternoon.

When coming to the temple to attend a seven-day retreat, we are learning and practicing renunciation, practicing to gradually let go of attachments from daily habits in eating, sleeping, and family attachments.... Therefore, practitioners try to practice diligently, feeling the joy and freedom when freed from worldly constraints. If so, we are winning against ourselves. In the Dhammapada, the Buddha taught:

103. “Though thousand times a thousand men

in battle one may conquer,

yet should one conquer just oneself

one is the greatest conqueror.”

He shared about Eight cessations of worldly things quoted in Madhyama Agama Sutra.

The saints' dharma precepts, there are eight-part cessations of worldly things: leaving killing but eliminating killing, stay away from taking things without permission and eliminate taking things without permission, stay away from adultery and abandon adultery, stay away from lying and eliminate lying, leaving greed but eliminating greed,

leaving dudgeon and eliminating dudgeon, leaving envy and eliminating envy, leaving pride and eliminating pride.

Last, he popularized rules with the purpose to help the mass understand, and diligently practice to get benefits of peace and happiness right now, being steps forward for achievement on the path of finding enlightenment.

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