Opening The 89th Seven-Day Retreat

On Sep. 2nd, 2018 (July 23rd, Lunar Calendar) Hoang Phap officially started the 89th Seven-Day Retreat (from Sep. 2nd to Sep. 9th) with the joining of over 1600 devout Buddhists from different lands.

On the 1st day, the monks guided all the participants how to deal with being in the temple as how to do the greeting, walking, talking, sleeping, eating… all provide the good environment for those who join the retreat course.

In the afternoon, Ven. Abbot Thich Chan Tinh presented in the main lecture hall for a short sharing before officially taking the practice course. His talk related to the Ullambana season in July. He emphasized the two sources which everyone should trace back for taking reliance: the bloodline source and the spirit source.

·For the bloodline source, one should recall their parent during the Ullambana season.

·For the spirit source, think of the grace and kindness of the Buddha, His disciples, and all the great monks…who had devout their life for the Buddhist practice to maintain and develop Buddhism, to spread the Buddha’s teaching about being good for a happy life to all sentient beings. By that, today we can learn and apply the Buddha’s teaching to our daily life for releasing defilements and preparing a happy life for later existences.

With these two reasons, Ven. Abbot recommends people to go to the temple during the Ullambana season in July for doing some good works and transfer to the passed parent. For those who still have parent in life, practicing giving, offering…and leading parent into the Buddhist way for their next living a better life. But the most important stuff he wants to address to people is the way to take care parent in daily life. As the Buddha’s words, the kindness of the parents, Buddha, and the monks are what one should remember to repay. Therefore, being the Buddhist everyone has to care about this the most. Until we play our children’s role to parent well, we can take also well the Buddhist practice.

The next, he repeats the Law of Karma, the principle of Causes and Effects for reminding all in the way of acting, speaking, and thinking. What one does will directly add to his alaya consciousness for later giving fruits. No one but ourselves will be the heir to our karma. Therefore, be careful in making karma store. Want to be happy, doing good things, want to be suffering, doing the opposite acts.

To finish the talk, he sent to all an organ performance the song named “Mother’s heart”.

Only takes 10 days of practice but he still did it well and full of touch. This is really an emotional gift to all the participants.

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