
Awakening is liberation. By awakening to our primordial awareness, we break free from all forms of attachment. My Dharma practice focuses on awakening to primordial awareness, and this practice is available to everyone.
2023 Nov 6th & 7th, we are here in Abu Dhabi to participate in a pre-COP 28 Event, Global Faith Leaders Summit.
There is a distinctive practice included in the sutra, which is the recitation of the 42-syllable Mantra of Avatamsaka.
As we live this life, none of us could be pardoned from the suffering of birth, aging, illness, and death. How should we prepare for the last moment of death? At that time, we must be ready to relax, let go, and most importantly, be grateful.
Be respectful towards every faith and difference. Let differences inspire others. Eventually, we’ll find the right direction and breakthrough for life.
At the last moment of death, how can we return to a spiritual base and not be afraid of death? Dharma practice is the answer.
The Buddha had already expounded that the purpose of Dharma practice is to be free from suffering and to obtain the ultimate happiness.
I hope that we could cherish our role as monastics. Think, we haven’t had the chance to propagate Dharma nor have we cultivated our practice properly. I hope that you could be mindful at all times.
Whatever we do, say, and think in this life would are the karmic genes for future lives. Every being we come across in the field of merit.
Should “I” be an inherent existence, what is the basis of “I”? Is it the body or consciousness?
The senior students of the NEPL led and encouraged the new participants to embrace Dharma by starting with the six fundamental principles.
Student: It seems that the flu is coming back again, what practices could we do to dedicate?
As time progresses, we must reflect on the relation between the modern age and Buddhism. Should Buddhism tag along with time or vice versa?
The 19th anniversary of the Museum of World Religions
With birth, there comes death. Birth is an alert of death. It is a calling for diligent practice. Other celebrations for birthday are insignificant.
As a matter of fact, folding palms is a way to stabilize our monkey mind so it returns to purity and stabilization. With a simple gesture like this, we start from ourselves to offer peace and stability to others.
What is the primary purpose of Dharma practice? It is to be free from cyclic existence.
Some wondered: What are the Ling Jiou Mountain’s spirit and essence?
What is the "present"? It is the state free from conceptual activity. Should you think and fabricate anything, it is unreal and imaginary.
The trust issue is one of the greatest threats nowadays.
Buildings should be integral to nature instead of destructing nature.
Being realistic and down-to-earth is also a Dharma practice. It is not to give rise to any delusional intentions and actions.
The University for Life and Peace – Fulfilling Chan and Manifesting Avatamsaka The University for Life and Peace is more than just a concept.
By practicing the Water Repentance, the intention to contrite arises. We can see the faults in our actions. Next, we can resolve the conflicts with others through sincere contrition.
Heaven or hell exists in one thought. Likewise, the difference between Buddha and ordinary beings depends on one thought.
Everywhere we go, we can take the Three Jewels as our basis of refuge. Furthermore, we can carry on the virtuous activity with mindfulness.
Everything that's happening outside has nothing to do with our nature of mind.
The idea of the Water, Land, Air Dharma Assembly emerged. It is a grand puja for the liberation of ghost beings. It went from a small puja to the annual assembly at the Taoyuan Arena.
The Lunar New Year Eve. Together, all the disciples gathered in the Hall of the Patriarchs and offered incense. We prayed to the lineage masters for the blessing so we can travel the path steadily.
On January 18th, 2020, we concluded the ten-day Winter School of the University for Life and Peace.
On the evening of January 13th, 2020, we held a lamp prayer at the Shwedagon Pagoda with the teaching staff and students of the Winter School of the University for Life and Peace.
We held a “langar”, or the “community kitchen” at the Museum of World Religions (MWR).
We held a three-day meditation program at the Chientan Youth Activity Center in Taipei.
We arrived in Indonesia. After a year apart, we had a wonderful gathering with the local students. Ling Jiou Mountain’s (LJM) first oversea center was founded in Indonesia.
Daily Dharma practice puts our active mind on pause and rest. Like meditative stabilization.
Learn the loving-kindness of Buddha cultivates our wisdom and compassion. Which our wisdom and compassion grow.
“Awaken from suffering, walk the right path in joy” is to learn Dharma and follow the Three Jewels.
February 4th, 2019 was the Lunar New Years Eve of Pig. Monastic and lay sanghas gathered at Ling Jiou Mountain to celebrate. By welcoming a new year, we can’t stop to work hard on our practice.
January 22nd, 2019, was the closing ceremony of the Winter School of the University for Life and Peace. My sincere thanks to the participating professors and students.
On January 5th, 2019, we’ve returned to Mahā Kusalā Yāma Monastery Elementary School to visit our samaneras to see their progress in learning and the Three Higher Trainings (ethical disciplines, meditative stabilization, and wisdom).
We held a Food Offering Ritual at Ling Jiou Mountain’s U. S. Head Center in Manhattan, New York. This office will focus on the development of the University for Life and Peace and the promotion on Peace Meditation.
Master Hsin Tao’s prospect for the Agama Stage is to “cultivate virtuous qualities” within individuals through everyday activities. Agama Stage sets the vision and mission in constructing guidelines of living.
Practicing Dharma is to see the benefits and origin of life holistically.
Today at LJM, there are the Tara statue and a Vairotsana Guan Yin statue from Mt. Putuo in our shrine hall. Guan Yin safeguards and guides us to see the clear light nature of the mind.
How fortunate we are to be connected with Guan Yin (Avalokiteshvara). She is also called, “the nature of space” because her presence is pervasive in the entire space.
Guan Yin (Avalokiteshvara) has the greatest connection with us. Sentient beings in places flourished with Dharma are closely connected with Guan Yin.
Together, let’s aspire and accomplish the compassionate Dharma door of Guan Yin. By reciting the mantra, let’s dedicate the merit for world peace and the welfare of beings.
Padmasambhava taught extensively about the nature of the mind. One teaching points out that failing to realize this nature is a grave fault and great shame. It has always been present, yet we perceive it only as phenomena.
Without contemplation, Dharma practice becomes impossible, leaving merely intellectual knowledge. However, knowledge itself is a conceptual mind that discriminates and attaches.
To further explain this third level, it is the "original face" that has always been unchanging, even before our parents brought us into this world. This original state is what we must uncover.
We often speak of letting go, but ignorance strengthens our attachments. That is why Buddhism teaches the solution of realizing the buddha-nature within every being.
Starting from February 17, 2025, LJM commenced the annual Spring Term Monastic Retreat. This year, we welcome returning students from Germany and Austria. Their journey from such distant lands is truly precious and commendable.
Among the four steps of the Chan meditation that is also referred to as peace meditation, the first one is to deeply breathe in and out from the point under our navel (Jap. hara, Chin. dantian).
Why do we feel deprived? Because the mind is.
We need to apply hearing, contemplating, and practicing Dharma during peaceful meditation. Wherever we are, we'd be at ease.
Through Chan practice, we can uncover the source, the spirituality, the original face.
Spring Term Monastic Retreat –with Chan practice, we can realize our mind or our original face.
Chan is the primordial awareness, the origin. What is it? Within oneself? Do we have it? Are we “primordial”?
As long as we exert in practicing Chan and observe precepts vigilantly, we can return to our origin through Chan.
Chan practice is all about returning to our original face.
Keep in mind that every being possesses the treasury of the true Dharma eye.
Sitting meditation is to see our minds. It isn't about entering any specific samadhi as there are no samadhis to enter.
In recent years, I’ve been trying to share the bliss of Chan practice to as many as possible worldwide.
Chan practice is a way to guide our way home. For too long, our minds wander around because of greed.
The spirit and essence of Ling Jiou Mountain (LJM) is none other than “Chan”
Chan practice and spirituality. Through dialogue, we can take a glimpse of the original face of luminosity and spirituality. This is a reminder to reflect on the truth of reality in daily life.
How can we maintain a positive attitude in a busy life? Well, there's an excellent method, which is Chan practice.
Ling Jiou Mountain (LJM) is accentuated with our essence and spirit. “Compassion” is the attitude that we offer to all beings. “Chan” is the original taste of all. If we could return to the point of origin, we can get an original taste of life.
ThroughChan practice, we can return to our essence of luminous awareness. Call it the beautiful place of origin if you like, it is none other than our original face.
Settle down our afflictions through Chan practice. Learn to let go of the compounded and fabricated thinking process.
Ten-day of Summer Term Monastic Retreat was concluded on June 17th, 2020.
From June 7th – 17th, 2020, monastic members of Ling Jiou Mountain (LJM) entered a ten-day retreat at the beginning of summer.
We are endowed with human life, awareness, and the opportunity for Chan practice, we're very fortunate.
Chan practice leads us to a stable spirituality. It is free from phenomena and compounds. By returning to the state of spirituality, we can fully experience it. In the perception of emptiness and clarity, we'd find the stability of life.
Let us return to simplicity, the nature of spirituality. We can do this by sitting meditation. Retrieve our spiritual navigation so we can take lead in our own lives instead of being steered away by the materialistic world.
Monastic members of Ling Jiou Mountain (LJM) entered the annual spring term monastic retreat.
We held a three-day Peace Meditation at the Jianzhen Library in Yanzhou, China. Yangzhou is the hometown of the great Master Jianzhen (Ganjin in Japanese) and Hsing Yun.
From September 2nd – 11th, 2019, monastic sanghas of Ling Jiou Mountain (LJM) entered the Fall Term retreat, a ten-day course of diligence. The Four-step Technique of LJM’s Peace Meditation is our primary Chan practice.
We’re here for the annual Peace Meditation of Ling Jiou Mountain (LJM) which gathers over a thousand of people every time.
We traveled to Reichersberg in Austria for another 7-day Chan practice.
Chan practice in Europe. Our first stop is to hold a 3-day Chan in Berghof, Germany. On the first day, we were touched by the first spring snow. It signified auspiciousness for our European program.
Chan practice is a type of seclusion that prevents external influences and conditions from distracting our mind.
As a matter of fact, the best solution is Chan practice. Calm your mind down. Try not to think about anything. Allow yourself to relax in clarity.
Transform our mindstream with purity. “Our true nature is emptiness”. Habituate ourselves with this in mind. Look at our true nature without any ideas or clinging.
We attended the 5th World Meditation Congress (DMZ 세계평화명상대전) in Gangwon-do by the invitation of the Ven. Master Gaksan, Director of Chambulseonwon (참불선원).
Chan practice in order to familiarize the practice of prajna wisdom. Our contemplative awareness will enhance the power of prajna wisdom.
We will be holding the next Chan practice retreat at Benediktushof, Germany.
Ecology is the foundation of our interdependence, a true companion to life itself. Every plant and tree must be nurtured and cared for.
Chan practice constitutes the methodical comprehension of one’s mind. Through The Four-step Technique of Peace Meditation and subsequent proficiency, practitioners attain insightful understanding of their mind.
“Spirituality is ecology and Ecology is spirituality” is our viewpoint from which we comprehend how all things exist and we learn to respect the value of all lives, we tolerate the inclusion of space for others, and we show Love in sharing achievements.
To help all the people on Earth, it takes the consolidated effort of everyone to do things that benefit both the Earth and the people.
Buddhas and our patriarchs have all left behind solid examples of keeping a balance between physical labor and religious practice in daily life.
Spiritual ecology is also concerned with the protection of water resources. Mainly, it's about making sure there is enough clean water, and most importantly, allowing no contamination when protecting water resources.
'Loving the Earth with Veganism' is highly hopeful of being actionable and deliverable with religious communities as the messengers to lead by example.
Buddhists are naturally environment-minded, as our lifestyle itself has been a manifestation of environmental activism long before all the crises.
Thus it's obvious that we'd be best advised to acquire the proper mindset for a simple and frugal lifestyle. Excessive consumption or downright senseless waste are counterproductive sins we denounce.
Everybody leaves sooner or later except for faith. Faith nurtures the virtue in us, which in turn makes it a matter of course that we serve without automatically expecting any returns.
War destroys communities and causes deaths and casualties besides collateral damages. Nuclear war inflicts hundreds/thousands of times that much destruction of a cosmic magnitude and can wipe out ecology as we know it.
When we return to the origin of spirituality to immerse in the power of an all-knowing awareness, we will tangibly perceive the Earth as a living community.
The origin of all lives stems from the innate spirituality that intersperses all lives for interconnections that link all together and hardly ever break down.
In my early childhood, I unfortunately had to witness war and the suffering people had to endure. Oftentimes I reflected on the reasons war breaks out, and always ended up yearning for lasting peace.
Within the time-honored wisdom passed down through generations of aboriginal peoples, a wealth of invaluable civilizational laws are preserved, representing precious assets of human civilization.
Cross-disciplinary domain research findings have time and again asserted that the cyclic development of civilizations on Earth almost certainly pre-dated the oldest of our time by more than tens of millennia, or even longer still.
The Five Poisons - Greed, Hatred, Ignorance, Arrogance, and Doubt - that preoccupy most people are the root cause for all our sufferings besides giving rise to ecological crises.
The deterioration of the environment demands not just environmental protection for the exterior, but also attention to the awareness of its root cause.
The pursuit of Dharma ultimately returns us to the origin of spirituality to finally realize that all forms of existence stem from one source called “the community of life”.
Home-coming as a Dharma term refers to returning to the abode of Tathagata, which is also the dwelling of spirituality. The homestead of spirituality usually remains unattended until we reach the stage of awakening.
Spirituality is Love as well because there is no spirituality without it. Love applies to everyone and everything, it is all-encompassing in other words. Our endeavors in protecting ecology yield a lot more efficiency in the presence of Love.
Dharma has it that all things, i.e., all phenomena, are the creation of spirituality.
To say that ecology and spirituality is one can be referred to as stating that all people have a cognitive capacity. What, then, is cognition?
Spirituality equals ecology and vice versa. Ecology and spirituality are each other's spit image, and all forms of existence originate from spirituality.
The bulk of ideals of environmental protection focuses on the symptoms instead of the root cause - which to us means we need to resort to spiritual ecology that necessitates a different mindset...
If the world remains humankind-centric, man will inevitably do as pleased and that is not right. Instead of allowing man the stage center spot, giving it to the world of sentient beings makes an appropriate and necessary change.
Increasingly and year-on-year, the Earth's environment deteriorates and not much time is left for fundamental changes to be achieved. Catastrophes follow one another, until the whole world crumbles and falls apart.
Ecology is a diversified symbiosis and an inter-reliant equilibrium. It is not a purpose-built mechanism, and its diversity is natural. If there were no plants, trees, or other forms of substance, there would be no ecology to speak of.
"The Earth Is an Organic Structure" in Spiritual Awakening Embracing Ecology (part of "The Spiritual Ecology" Series by Master Hsin Tao)
We’d experience oneness of interdependency of oneself and others. Serenity doesn’t mean stagnation. It is a holistic power that is positive and innate. When being serene, one can release the maximum energy and drive.
Ling Jiou Mountain (LJM) has been actively promoting activities of “Love Earth, Love Peace”.
Everyone else is I and vice versa. All is me and I am all. This is the Realm of Avatamsaka.
Mankind must be humble and cause no more harms to planet Earth.
By embarking on the journey from this very “mind” of ours, we can certainly create stability of life and advance towards world peace.