I have known Erin for more or less three years. We have a common bondage, our love for Huayen.
We both benefit from the Huayen Dharma very much that we are willing to practice Huayen assiduously and enthusiastically. Moreover we like to share the gain we derived from the Huayen learning to other people by spreading the Huayen Dharma.
First and foremost we have to be a good practitioner ourselves- that is what we believe deep down inside. Then we need to conglomerate a group of colleagues with the same vision. The building of a solid foundation with good people and infrastructure is very important. We are both working in that direction gradually and in our own pace. The progress is painfully slow and full of obstructions. Maybe this is the fun part too…
What tied us especially close together is our frank and straightforward character.
Erin, thank you for acting as my big sister when I am feeble, for holding onto our dreams together and for offering your house as my inn.
(July, 22, 2008)
Showing posts with label Erin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Erin. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Encouragement from Erin
Erin wrote:
Lung Zhi e-mailed me the blog that she created, Huayen Congregation, 華嚴海會. The blog website address is: http://anuttara-congregation.blogspot.com/. I was so excited about it.
One of my wishes during my two years as the chair person of the North American Huayen Buddhist Community was having blogs on the North American Huayen website, http://www.huayen.org/. I see this blog as a starting point.
I hope that the North American Huayen website will link to Lung Zhi’s blog. This way, we can truly offer our services by sharing our personal Dharma journeys, how we practice, how we interpret/understand the Dharma/Sutra and how we apply the Dharma/Sutra.
In my personal experience the encouragement that comes from sharing and discussing will keep our faith aligned with the Bodhi journey. We will keep walking on the Bodhi path and will not be derailed from it.
Please take the time to review the blog and participate in it. I believe as a Huayen member, we love to hear about one another’s experiences on how we practice, how we apply and how we understand the Dharma or the Sutra.
I hope I did not offend anyone by suggesting them to look at Lung Zhi’s blog.
Huayen Congregation, 華嚴海會. What a great name, I love it.
Erin
Lung Zhi e-mailed me the blog that she created, Huayen Congregation, 華嚴海會. The blog website address is: http://anuttara-congregation.blogspot.com/. I was so excited about it.
One of my wishes during my two years as the chair person of the North American Huayen Buddhist Community was having blogs on the North American Huayen website, http://www.huayen.org/. I see this blog as a starting point.
I hope that the North American Huayen website will link to Lung Zhi’s blog. This way, we can truly offer our services by sharing our personal Dharma journeys, how we practice, how we interpret/understand the Dharma/Sutra and how we apply the Dharma/Sutra.
In my personal experience the encouragement that comes from sharing and discussing will keep our faith aligned with the Bodhi journey. We will keep walking on the Bodhi path and will not be derailed from it.
Please take the time to review the blog and participate in it. I believe as a Huayen member, we love to hear about one another’s experiences on how we practice, how we apply and how we understand the Dharma or the Sutra.
I hope I did not offend anyone by suggesting them to look at Lung Zhi’s blog.
Huayen Congregation, 華嚴海會. What a great name, I love it.
Erin
Monday, June 2, 2008
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
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
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