COVID-19

Chan Hall is where meditation retreats take place in a monastery. However, our home becomes a Chan Hall when we meditate at home. To encourage everyone to keep a habit of meditation at home when monasteries are closed, Dharma Drum Mountain Meditation Activity Department (法鼓山傳燈院) organized a series of videos demonstrating full guidance of meditation. It includes Eight-form Moving Meditation, Guided Exercise prior to sitting, Guided Exercise for Meditation, Stillness and Silence, Massage to conclude the sitting, and a Dharma Talk. We welcome everyone to continue practicing with us and maintain a calm and peaceful mind in everyday life.     Episode 2: The Steps of Chan Practice

2020 Online Tuesday Sitting Meditation Sharing (Article by Hang Yeung; Photos by Yin Ting) 2020 was a year full of great disasters and unprecedented challenges. The fear of the pandemic, the anxiety of the unknown, the inadaptability to the change of daily life... I also stayed at home for a long time for the prevention of infection. During the time of facing an unpredictable external environment and unstable mood and feelings, I couldn't help missing the time of group practices in CMC, which were warm and peaceful memories. Very grateful to Venerable Chang Zhai and the volunteers of the meditation committee, they arranged the wonderful online Tuesday evening sitting practice by ZOOM meeting elaborately. Then we were able to continue practicing meditation together, settle down our body and mind, and ensure safety at the same time.  Because of the transportation, I used to look forward to attending the group practice of mediation on Tuesday evening, but I didn't get a chance. Fortunately, online meditation overcomes the limitation of space. Therefore, many Eastern and Western Chan practitioners were attracted and participated actively. Every time, Venerable Chang Zhai led the moving meditation, sitting meditation, and chanting the Heart Sutra, helped us to relax our tension and bring up mindfulness; In the meantime, by listening to Venerable's Dharma talk, we learned wisdom from the Buddha and the Great Masters, which benefited us a lot. It corrected the contemplation of practice, dissolved our vexations, and let us feel at ease and stable even in such difficult situations. Through the successful attempt of online group practice, I also deeply realized that the "Chan hall" is not only located in the temple but also located in every practitioner's home and heart. No matter what kind of situation is, we should remind ourselves to stay aware and relaxed. Even in such chaos, we should still remember to come back to our method

​Chan Meditation Center _ Reviews on Online Tuesday Sitting Session Article By Yvonne  Photos by Yin Ting Starting from this March, Tuesday evening sitting has gone online. Instead of commuting by train and bus, I can participate in the event by joining in the zoom meeting just a second. Like other human activities, so many things around us have changed. Some are temporary and some are permanent. And this transformation makes me to think a lot in the sitting meditation sessions.  In the first Dharma sharing class after this pandemic, Ven. Chang Zhai guided us to practice gratitude and repentance, which I started to realize how important these practices are to us human beings, especially during this chaotic time. We all know that our daily lives depend on many people's hard work to fulfill our daily needs and we probably think of this as just part of the economic activities. But think of those healthcare workers in the hospitals. They choose to risk their lives staying in the hospitals and treating people in sick out of their kindness. This could not be just an economic activity.  All phenomena depend on causes and conditions. I, me and self as well as money and materials are just a little part of the causes and conditions if we think of things throughout. So, with the logic of how we live in this world, we human beings could not ignore the rest of the world and separate ourselves from others. Therefore, gratitude is not just the virtue we learn from books, but one kind of natural quality of human beings that we already have. And we can cultivate our gratitude mind by practicing in daily life, such as observing causes and conditions more behind things as well as doing sitting meditation with a grateful mind.  On the other hand, we see many animals come out from where they originally stayed to the cities and to the streets where human beings occupied all the time. Sky in many countries turns blue. Rivers have become clear and