Betty , Alice and I just came back from a 5-days retreat held by Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Association (DDMBA) of Ontario. The first 2 days of the retreat was for "Living Chan" and the last 3 days, "Silent Illumination".
Meili of DDMBA wrote:
"Forwarded below is the event that I am part of in organizing. I wonder if you would like to suggest it to your friends especially the two day Living Chan retreat over the weekend July 9-11. This is a new program GuoXing fashi introduced when he visited
I attended that one day living Chan retreat in April. It was soooo good. This new workshop type of retreat works very well to those fine minds. GuoXing fashi had used various ways / exercises to help us be aware how minds function…and thus get more insight of ourselves and others. Although it requires meditation experiences, this workshop is of more teachings / module exercises, and much less on the sitting meditation."
Personally I would highly recommend the Living Chan retreat to everyone, specially my family and friends. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank GuoXing Fashi and everyone in DDMBA for organizing the retreat. I urge DDMBA to hold this kind of retreat soon in the near future so that more of us can benefit from it. I do not mind to help out in organizing or sponsoring the retreat.
In the retreat, Fashi helped us to distinguish between phenomenon and reality, to understand how our behaviors are conditioned by our memory and perception, to comprehend the interrelations among body, sensation, mind and Dharma. I specially like the example that Fashi demonstrated: "we are constantly in the state of power struggle- Who is bossing around whom? The phenomena of "I". "
Without a clear understanding of "How the mind works", or putting it deeper, how the Dependent Originality (Causes and Effects) works, all the talks on giving life or our world a solution are illusionary.
For those of us who are serious about finding out "What LIFE is all about?", I urge you to attend this seminar/retreat. Without the common (right) background, all the empty talks and actions will lead us to no where. As a Buddhist, most of us can recite the "Eightfold Right Path, the 12 Links of Dependent Originality, the Five Aggregates", but how many of us are really walking/working on them? How many of us realize their true meaning? How many of us bother to practice truthfully?
If you are looking for some insights on how to resolve the mind-body problems, the answer does not lie in words or arguments, you have to practice, experience and realize it with a humble mind...
May we all keep on practicing, keep on accumulating wholesome roots, merits and virtues; without them our resources are thin...
Be Mindful,
Lung Zhi
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