Rivers flow to lakes and seas.
The moon shines everywhere.
Rain nurtures a forest.
Thunder awakens many deluded beings.
One word can stir the hesitant.
One sentence can scatter all doubt.
The mind can encompass the universe.
One compassionate thought can cure the world.
Sometimes people ask me, “Why does Fo Kuang Shan use P’u-men (Universal Gate) as a name for its temples and activities?” It reminded me of the situation in 1949 when I first came to Taiwan.
When I first arrived, I had nowhere to go or anything to eat. I remember going to a temple on Nanch’ang Road in Taipei. An elderly monk told me bluntly, “What right do you have to come to Taiwan?” Later that day, I went to another temple on Chungcheng Road, but I was turned away again. By nightfall, my clothes were soaked from the rain. I was hungry with nowhere else to go. Eventually, I took shelter under a large bell and went through the rainy night. The next day around noon, the dining hall of Shan-tao Temple was occupied by fifteen or sixteen people eating lunch at a small table for eight. There seemed to be no room at the table for me, so I left right away.
As I was wandering around, it occurred to me that I should go to Keelung to see a former classmate of mine. I walked all the way from Taipei to Keelung in the cold rain. By the time I reached my friend’s temple, it was well after one in the afternoon. When my friend heard that I had had nothing to eat for more than a day, he immediately asked me to go to the kitchen for some food. A monk who was standing nearby said, “Our master has already told us that there is hardly enough food here to feed all of us. You had better ask him to go somewhere else to look for food.” I was prepared to leave, but my friend insisted on buying some rice with his own money and cooked a pot of rice porridge for me. I can still remember holding that bowl of warm porridge with my shaking hands. When I finished eating, I thanked my friend and set out again in the cold rain, but I was not sure of where to go.
Due to the experience of those difficult times, I vowed that some day the door to my temple would be a “universal gate (p’u-men), open to all. Twenty years later, I set up the P’u-men Vihara first and then P’u-men Temple in Taipei and eventually realized my vow.
I instructed all my disciples to treat visitors and devotees with utmost kindness. I wanted people to feel happy after their visit. I also had an unwritten rule with all temples connected to Fo Kuang Shan to always have extra food in the event of some unexpected guests. Whenever monastics from other orders visited us, we always gave them NT $500.00 for travel expenses.
Subsequently, my new school or magazine would be named after “universal gate.” I hope everyone will follow the spirit of “universalism” and welcome people, not reject them.
By: Venerable Master Hsing Yun, How I Practice Humanistic Buddhism
How can you tell if a problem is Real or Imaginary?
If it doesn’t have a solution, it is Imaginary.
Cheri Huber
I have lost my favorite teacup. I have two choices.
I can have lost my teacup and be miserable.
I can have lost my teacup and be all right.
In either case, the teacup is gone.
Cheri Huber
No one can tread the path for us. The precepts can only indicate which way to go. It’s up to each of us whether we travel that path or not. It is for each of us to decide whether we create more harm, more disharmony, more problems, or whether we really begin, right this minute, from this time on, to try and create harmony, and harmlessness and a situation around us where people are happy to be in the space which we inhabit. No one can do this for us. But society is crying out for someone to move in this direction away from the general trend.
Tenzin Palmo
“…To travel with fools makes the journey long and hard and is painful as traveling with an enemy. But the company of the wise is as pleasant as meeting with friends.
Follow the wise, the intelligent, and the awakened. Follow them as the moon follows the path of the stars.” Dhammapada
Equanimity: Absence of the usual discrimination of sentient beings into friend, enemy and stranger, deriving from the realization that all sentient beings are equal in wanting happiness and not wanting suffering and that since beginningless time, all beings have been all things to each other. An impartial mind that serves as the basis for the development of great love, great compassion and bodhicitta. by: Geshe Tsultim Gyeltsen, Mirror of Wisdom, Teachings on Emptiness.
To be is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.
… As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.
Thich Nhat Hanh
A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Albert Einstein
Yin Shun concluded: “If we can observe with wisdom, we will see the impermanent nature of all things. We can then eradicate our worries and perplexity by eliminating our attachments and the bad habit of making distinctions. Once we can do that, our minds will be as composed and wise as that of the Buddha.”
(The Praying Mantis that visits our temple regularly. It is said an appearance of a mantis means meditation and contemplation. He comes to us when we need peace, quiet and calm in our lives. In fact, in China, the mantis has long been honored for his mindful movements. He shows constant respect to all the Buddhas with his palms joined. I am always humbled by his stillness and grace when I see him.)
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
Guam Buddhist Sangha 