A Thank You Note from Erin

To My Dear Huayen Members,

I wanted to thank each of you, especially HeShang (Ven. Haiyun) and the Great Huayen Monastery of Taiwan for your mental and spiritual support during Kristen’s cancer ordeal.

Kristen has finally finished her second cancer treatments on May 29th. She has gradually regained her strengths and has started to enjoy her hobbies and friends. She is going back to school this fall and continues to pursue her civil engineer degree. She has always kept her sprits high and her ability to face each step of the cancer treatment has been beyond her age during the six month treatment. She is a very brave girl.

The merits of your prayers and Circumscribed practice have made her endurance of each harsh treatment smooth and successful. We encountered very little unexpected side effects. Even when we did, the outcome always was favorable to her.

I would like to give you an example of what I mean by “the outcome was always favorable to her”. Kristen needed an operation during her initial four rounds chemo treatments. The purpose of the operation was to get several tubes implanted into her central veins so nurses and doctors could directly get the blood out of her to do laboratory tests, administer drugs without sticking her all the time, and harvest (collect) her stem cells ( I hope that I was not too technical for you).

After the operation and before the harvesting of her stem cells, the blood bank technicians informed us that the tubes that the doctor just put in did not work (in other words no blood would come out.). That meant no collecting stem cells that day. By then, it was six o’clock in the afternoon and the O.R was already closed. The blood bank doctor decided to harvest the cells form her arm vein instead. The harvesting procedure was normally a four hour procedure. Using the arm veins turned out to be a twelve hours procedure and did not know how much they could collect from Kristen. The blood bank technicians finally finished the harvesting at two o’clock in the morning the next day. We went home and both of us were exhausted. However we had to be in the hospital early in the morning of the next day. We were told by the doctor the next day that Kristen had the highest yield of stem cells in the history of the local hospital. The doctor told her that she had so many stem cells that he wished that he could give some of hers to the kids could not get enough through multiple stem cells collections.

Finding the right method of practicing Dharma has saved me from many of the ordeals that I went through. I am so glad that I did all these years of Hua Zang workshops. Through following HeShang’s teaching and participating in the Hua Zang workshop’s discussions, I have since found my way to practice the Dharma. It is a very simple way to apply and I have been doing it every day. My practice has made me mindful. But I realize that I have a hard time to let go of the attachments and to achieve “the freedom and independence” in handling and dealing with things. I understand only through deeper dharma practice will I be able to do the later two parts well. Kristen’s ordeal has let me knew what level my practice was in. I have also learned that my understanding of sutra is deepened by applying the teaching of the sutra to my daily life rigorously.

I wish that no one would have to go through what I have been through. However, I do wish every one will find a method to practice the Dharma regularly and to do Hua Zang workshop at your local chapter regularly as well.

I would like to thank HeShang for his relentless Huayen Dharma teachings and in laying the foundation of Dharma for us to learn.

PS. The stem cells I was referring above are autologous (donated to yourself), bone marrow stem cell that forms all the blood cells (red cells white cells and platelets). After the stem cells graft to the bone marrow, the stem cells start to produce red cells, white cells and others. A transplant patient who has more stem cells will likely to recover from his/her transplant faster, with less infections and other unpleasant conditions.

Erin