The Qing Ming Bodhisattva Earth Store Dharma Assembly – Praying for All Sentient Beings

Over the course of 3 days from April 7 to 9, DDM Vancouver Centre organized the Qing Ming Repaying Kindness Bodhisattva Earth Store Dharma Assembly. The devotees made prostrations whilst chanting the Bodhisattva Earth Store Repentance and Earth Store Sutra. Approximately 280 people participated in this event. Venerable Chang Wu, the director of the DDM Vancouver Centre, led the devotees in expressing gratitude to their parents and the Buddhas, citing the "Chapter on Repaying Kindness," the Second Chapter of the Mahayana Sutra on the Contemplation of the Mind-Ground of Essential Nature. The passage states, "Without the heart of gratitude and the act of repaying kindness, it is difficult for a practitioner to cultivate the path to buddhahood."
 
Prior to the start of the Dharma assembly, Retreat Monitor Ven. Chang Hui urged everyone to make full use of this event, through the collective powers of group practice, as well as praying for blessings to all beloved sentient beings in this world. With the solemn sound of beompae chants, the devotees joined the presiding monastic and the monastics for Dharma instruments in reverent prostrations and devout sutra recitation. They also prayed that Bodhisattva Earth store would protect them by granting them mental and physical well-being, as well as karmic blessings and wisdom.
 
Ven. Chang Wu explained that there were many records in the original Buddhist scriptures of Buddha Shakyamuni's sincere teachings to the bhikkhus：The kindness of one's parents is so abundant that it is difficult to repay them! Even if one carries his father on one shoulder, and his mother on the other, provides clothing and food for his parents, personally bathes and massages them, etc., it is still impossible to repay their kindness after hundreds or thousands of years.
  
Therefore, how did the Buddha teach practitioners to repay their parents’ kindness? The Venerable cited Aṅguttaranikāya and explained to everyone how, besides supporting one’s parents materialistically and physically, one should more importantly offer spiritual guidance to his parents. If one’s parents are still alive and well, he should use expedient means to guide them to learn buddhadharma, establish faith in the Three Jewels, observe the precepts, find joy in practicing generosity, and cultivate wisdom. If our parents have already passed away, then we should keep a sincere mind and meditate on having our parents attend the Dharma assembly, listen to the Dharma, and feel an openness in their hearts after such listening. We should make various offerings and transfer our merit, to eliminate the various obstacles that may arise on our parents’ path to liberation and to allow them to soon be liberated from the suffering of samsara.
 
The Venerable also pointed out that family is the most fundamental unit of society, as well as its most stable main component. If families are harmonious and affectionate, the society will be cordial and warm, Hence, filial piety is an important principle which must be followed in maintaining social order. If we practice filial piety, we are not only being a good person, but we also instill the power of stability and harmony into the society.
 
Text, Photo: DDM Vancouver Centre 20230409
Translated by: Ariel Shen (沈純湘)
Edited by: Cheng-yu Chang (張振郁), Keith Brown