Repentance Ceremony on Sept 14th, Goat Year.

 

 

As usual, before the ceremony, all attenders were delivered a sermon by the Venerable. This time, following the instruction of the monks, Junior Venerable Thich Tam Dao delivered a lecture on the topic: "How to cultivate."

Buddhists often think cultivation means keeping a vegetarian diet, citing Buddha’s name, going to pagoda and chanting sutra, etc. In fact, if a practitioner does not know to correct oneself, he or she just scratches the surface. Hence, it cannot lead to practical benefits to oneself. If so, what is cultivation? According to the Venerable, its definition is correcting your faults, doing good things for brightening religion and life, and bringing peace for oneself and society. In the lecture, the Venerable reiterate basic concepts of Buddhism, such as what Ksamayati is; what Ksama is? Basing on these, Buddhists may come as no surprise to apply them to life. For that reason, there are no longer the cases following heresy in spiritual life, which becomes a hindrance to daily life of each Buddha, and misunderstands the cases of enlightened religion just because of misinterpretation.

At the end of the conversation, the Venerable launched a program encouraging everyone to do good. With the hope that each family monthly can save 10,000 VND to support for Nurturing Wisdom Fund, which is a fund of scholarship for poor students but having strong will and endeavor in education. In addition, the pagoda organized music concert 8th Wonderful Tune of Hoang Phap with the theme Understanding & Loving on November 8th with the aim of raising funds for scholarships and looking forward to support of all good men and believing women.