The 3rd Nikāya Retreat

Junior Ven. Thich Minh Thanh, Abbot Linh Quy Phap An instructed the 3rd Nikāya Retreat at the 5th floor of Dharma-Wheel Building of Hoang Phap Pagoda for all practitioners to attend on Nov. 22nd, 2020 (lunar Oct. 8th, the mouse year).

Next, practitioners performed the rituals: paying homage to the Three Jewels, announcing the rules before preaching dharma. Starting the Dharma talk, all attendees watched together a video about the scenes of the Covid - 19 pandemic, famine in Africa or the pains caused by natural disasters ... for the mass to observe the nature of this life is misery, impermanence and non-self.

The Junior Ven. guided the practice of loving-kindness towards all sentient beings and  should practice deep loving-kindness towards oneself the first. Human beings always seek happiness and pursue outer vanity, forgetting their minds are suffering from greed, hatred, and delusion. Only when we practice looking deeply into the unsettled feelings, the anger is present in the mind to neutralize, eliminate them, make our body and mind calming, comfortable, and cute, then we will have our energy to give others.

The participants practiced together to open up  kindness, remind of a genuine, vast love coming from within each of us. The Junior Ven. advised the followers to cultivate diligently, get bored of desire, envy, anger; living a life without delusion, humility to serve sentient beings, walk steadily on the path of Dharma, penetrating the sutras.

After that, the monks and nuns instructed to recite the Basics of Wisdom 1 and eat meals in righteousness.

After the period of metta meditation in the afternoon, there are instructions about cultivation and explanations of problems.

At the end of the day, the mass paid homage together to the virtue of Sariputra Saint and dedicated merit.

Some images recorded: