Every year when I rejoin the XGVT program, I feel like returning to my sweet childhood home full of warmth and happiness because I’ve come back to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, back to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Leaving my worldly home,
I return to the ever-present home of the true mind. Downing my hair is like letting go of a heavy bag full of suffering as well as job and daily life responsibilities. Like a child coming home from a trip rushing to her parents’ arms, I happily take refuge in the Buddha and receive warmth, care, comfort, and healing from Kuan Yin, Bodhisattva, Grand Master Hsun Hua, and Shr Fu Heng Chang.
Like what parents do, Shr Fu takes care of his disciples in every way, from our sleep accommodations to room temperature, food quality, and making sure that our veggie meals are nutritious, cleansing, and healing. I don’t have to worry about what to cook three times a day. Instead, I practice repentance bowing daily to the Buddha, to Shr Fu, to my parents, and to all living beings, asking their forgiveness for all mistakes I have made due to dark thoughts created by my ego.
The posture of prostrating on the ground takes me back to a child’s position in the fetus when the true mind is still clear. Becoming gentle and relaxed, I can feel my true nature that has long been buried. By taking refuge in the Buddha and Shr Fu, I can absorb more dharma and the teachings of the highest truth to equip myself on my journey along the Bodhisattva Path.
When participating in the XGVT program, in addition to receiving ten precepts for a novice, I also receive transmissions for the Precious Bowl Dharma and the Six Hands Dharma. The Precious Bowl Dharma helps me practice the serenity of the great earth to open my heart and mind, embrace all things, accept all life experiences, and to transform all my karmic forces. The Six Hands Dharma helps me recognize the ability to use my hands as expedient means and my eyes as wisdom in outlook and viewpoint when engaging with the world to save life and living beings. I feel better equipped on my mission to do good deeds.
This year, I’ve been told that all XGVT participants will receive the special dharma of the Four Lotuses. We’ll practice visualizing the process of the lotuses from the mud rising above the water surface, similar to the process of our consciousness moving from the subconscious to conscious, then to super conscious level, helping us develop the intuition to recognize the ever-present principle of cause and effect, of seeds growing to become lotus flowers.
Every year when I return to the XGVT sangha, I have the familiar feelings from the first time I joined. As soon as we get off the bus or car, dharma brothers and sisters from all over the world rush over to hug us warmly like family members and dear friends. Perhaps because we all belong to the same web of affinity from many lifetimes and our subconscious has been awakened that very moment.
Like a worry-free child in a big family, I just follow the schedule, bell, or group leader to wake up, go to dharma class with a notebook, eat, sleep, practice CK10, and exercise for a healthy body and peaceful mind. There are times when we do walking meditation in the forest, sitting meditation on a rock by a hilltop, feeling close to nature and far away from the mundane world. We are mindful when meditating, listening to dharma lectures, cultivating, and eating. But there are times when we’re quite playful, climbing up and down the bunk beds like young kids, sharing joy and laughter, taking care of each other, and developing genuine love for those we meet and live with during the short-term home-leaving session. This is the special characteristic of the sangha in the 21st century, a very loving, open, friendly, and congenial sangha.
That’s why XGVT participants keep coming back to the program as if they are “addicted”! Like a dish of food, you have to taste it yourself to feel all the true flavors. The same with XGVT, a path that many people have described to us, but only when we go on this path ourselves can we feel all the wonderful things about it. It is a sangha that unties all knots and weaves a web of lights from hundreds of precious jewels of the True Mind.
Lê Mẫu Đơn