Diligently Reciting the Buddha’s Name to Show Gratitude for All Sentient Beings – DDM San Francisco Bay Area Center Organizes Qing Ming Two-day Buddha Name Recitation Chan Retreat

During the Qing Ming Festival, one normally sweeps the tomb and honors one's ancestors. The important meaning of tomb-sweeping and ancestral worship is to express one's gratitude and remembrance of one's deceased family and ancestors. From April 1 to 2, 2023, DDM San Francisco Bay Area Center organized the Qing Ming Repaying Kindness Two-day Buddha Name Recitation Chan Retreat. The Center respectfully invited the general public to come and diligently chant the Buddha's name, as well as transfer the wondrous merit from this event to one's ancestors, family, teachers, and all sentient beings with a heart of gratitude.
 
On both days, the event took place from 9 am to 9 pm, and approximately 60 devotees participated in the event. Prior to the event, DDM San Francisco Bay Area Center Resident Monk Ven. Chang Xing explained the procedure and regulations, while reminding participants that talking and usage of digital devices are not allowed. He also reminded everyone to collect themselves, be diligent and hardworking, and tie their heart to the Buddha's name at all times.
 
Although the Two-day Buddha Name Recitation Chan Retreat mainly focused on Buddha name recitation as well as circumambulation, sitting recitation, and meditation, it also included prostration repentance, making prostrations to Buddhas, and evening chanting practices. Prostration repentance isn't to request the Buddhas for amnesty, but to ask the Buddhas to be our witness, to feel shame and repent our sins, and to vow never to commit them again. Through repeatedly performing prostrations as a form of repentance, we are able to manifest our pure self nature. We should keep a pious heart and focus clearly on every movement while making prostrations to the Buddhas. During the great transfer of merit at the last incense-burning, reciting the Buddha's name and making circumambulation inspired everyone's urgent aspiration to vow to attain rebirth in the Pure Land. Lastly, each devotee represented their parents, teachers, and karmic creditors from their past lives, made three prostrations to the Buddhas, and vowed to attain rebirth in the Pure Land. The disciplinary monk chanted "vowing to attain rebirth in the Pure Land," while the devotees made prostrations to the Buddhas and chanted "Amituofo" together. Each devotee prayed for themselves, their parents, teachers, and all sentient beings to attain rebirth in the Pure Land and enlightenment, with an aspiring and profoundly resolute mind.
 
The event also arranged for the devotees to listen to three of Master Sheng Yen's sermons. One of Shifu's sermons which explained the Bodhisattva Mahasthamaprapta Speaks On The Perfect Penetration From Mindfulness Of The Buddha of the Shurangama Sutra contains the passage: "if the child remembers his mother in the same way that the mother remembers the child, then in life after life the mother and child will not be far apart." This passage reminded us it is not the Buddha who forgets us; rather, it is us who have forgotten the Buddhas.
 
The Two-day Buddha Name Recitation Chan Retreat was mutually fulfilled and completed thanks to the guidance of Ven. Chang Xing of the DDM San Francisco Bay Area Center, the dedication of the volunteers, and the participation of all the devotees. In the process, the Venerable offered appropriate guidance and explanation to allow the first-time devotees who are unfamiliar with the methods and procedures to clearly understand the meaning of Buddha name recitation. After the two-day event, the participants may have felt fatigue in their bodies, but their heart was full of Dharma joy. Lastly, the Venerable encouraged the general public, by remarking, "There are no breaks in the practice of Buddha's name recitation Dharma method; the recitation of the Buddha's name must flow forth like a gushing spring." Every one of our thoughts must accord with the recitation of the Buddha's name as well as the compassion and wisdom of the Buddha. We should also influence everyone around us with wisdom and compassion.

Text, Photo: DDM San Francisco Bay Area Center 20230413
Translated by: Ariel Shen (沈純湘)
Edited by: Denise Chuk, Keith Brown