Dharma Talks
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Taking the Precepts as Your Master
Taking the Precepts as Your MasterApr /1/ 2023 – Apr / 2/ 2023 Hello everyone, welcome to our Dharma talk at Great Thunder Meditation Center. The Shurangama Sutra says: Controlling your heart as the precepts, reaching the samadhi due to the precepts and getting the wisdom because of samadhi. We call it Three Non-Outflow studies. In April, May and June, we will discuss the precepts, samadhi and wisdom. It is well-known that the precepts, samadhi and wisdom is a summary of the Eightfold Path. They are three weapons to deal with desire, anger and ignorance, helping people ultimately relieve the afflictions and attain nirvana. The three are mutually reinforcing and…
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Trin Guhyani Being Oneness
Trin Guhyani Being OnenessMar /25/ 2023–Mar/ 26/ 2023 Hello everyone, welcome to our Dharma talk at Great Thunder Meditation Center. Buddhist often say: “Trin guhyani are the oneness”, but what exactly Trin guhyani are? According to the Mahā ratna kūṭa sūtra, Bodhisattva jiyi asked Guhyapada: “how many secret Dharma does Buddha have?” Guhyapada answered:” listen without your idiot thoughts, think about it after you hear it, I am going to tell you Buddha’s secret Dharma now, it has three kinds of secret, one is kaya -guhya , two is vag -guhya , three is mano -guhya.” After that, Guhyapada talked about the meaning of three different secret Dharma: kaya -guhya…
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The Secret Teachings from Buddha Actually Has No Secret At All
The Secret Teachings from Buddha Actually Has No Secret At AllMar /18/ 2023 – Mar/ 19/ 2023 Hello everyone, welcome to our Dharma talk at Great Thunder Meditation Center. We analyzed why the Esoteric Buddhism practice is so prevalent in China and understood that the so-called Esoteric Buddhism practice is not the secret teaching from Buddha. Some people might ask, then what it is? What is the secret teaching from Buddha Shakyamuni? In which Sutra? Who took the secret from Buddha and who is keeping those secrets? Quite good questions, let us just start from here and talk about what is the secret Dharma and what is the secret teaching…
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Secret Dharma is in Wonderful Functions
Secret Dharma is in Wonderful FunctionsMar /11/ 2023 – Mar/ 12/ 2023 Hello everyone, welcome to our Dharma talk at Great Thunder Meditation Center. Some people said, since the secret teachings from Buddha actually have no secret at all, then what is the significant meaning of it? In other words, why we need the secret teachings from Buddha, and how can we use it for practice? This is the topic we will discuss today. As we said before, the way we practice Dharma is to go to the resource of the river to learn the teachings from Sakyamuni Buddha, to learn the noble behaviour of Buddha. Today, we will study Buddha’s…
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Esoteric Buddhism is not Buddha’s Secret Dharma
Esoteric Buddhism is not Buddha’s Secret DharmaMar /4/ 2023 – Mar/ 5/ 2023 Hello everyone, welcome to our Dharma talk at Great Thunder Meditation Center. Talking about Esoteric Buddhism, Some people assume that we will talk about god and ghost, all kinds of secret or wired cultivation method now, well, this is sort of the regular opinion for most people, even the Buddhism practitioners, they think esoteric Buddhism is the Buddha’s speechless teaching, is theurgy, is following root guru without keeping any precepts and more efficient than those down-to-earth efforts. We do not judge it first; let’s see what esoteric Buddhism school is. Tantra, also known as Vajrayana, is…
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Reborn to the Pure land
Reborn to the Pure landFeb /25/ 2023–Feb/ 26/ 2023 Hello everyone, welcome to our Dharma talk at Great Thunder Meditation Center. How to reborn to the Amitabha Pure Land? It is a question that every being should consider. When I was talking about our topic of pure land, some people thought about the pure land school immediately, today I would like to talk a little bit about the history of the pure land school. Just like Zen, the pure land school also came from India; however, it did not become a sectarian religion in ancient India. In China’s Buddhist scriptures translation, there are nearly 100 sutras mentioned as pure land…
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Guiding All Beings Reborn to the Amitabha Pure Land
Guiding All Beings Reborn to the Amitabha Pure LandFeb /18/ 2023–Feb/ 19/ 2023 Hello everyone, welcome to our Dharma talk at Great Thunder Meditation Center. Why Shakyamuni Buddha recommended and guided people to reborn in the Sukhavati AKA Amitabha Pure Land. How exactly is the Amitabha Pure Land? We’ve read a short description of Buddha Expounding Amitabha Sutra; you must be impressed by the world which ground is made of gold however you may still be confused by the meaning or function of the things like ponds made of seven kinds of jewels and filled with water with eight types of merits, what are those for except fitting our human…
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The Western Pure Land of Amitabha
The Western Pure Land of Amitabha Feb /11/ 2023 – Feb/ 12/ 2023 Amitabha Pure Land, we also call it Western Paradise. We saw many Buddhism practitioners who start their greetings with saying: “Namo Amitabha”; we also saw some people who cultivate Buddha Dharma by reciting the name of Amitabha, they think it is a simple but efficient way of cultivation. When we talk about where should we reborn after this life after decades of cultivation, most people would say “reborn in the ultimate bliss pure land”. This “ultimate bliss pure land” here means Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss. Amitabha Pure Land is so popular and influential in our…
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Buddha Pure Land
Buddha Pure Land Feb /04/ 2023 – Feb/ 05/ 2023 At the beginning of this chapter, let’s figure out the relationship between the “Zen”, “pure land” and “esoteric dharma”. There are some connections between the “Zen”, “pure land” and “esoteric dharma”. Last month, we understood the importance of “seeing “self-nature from Zen study, which is not only the ultimate goal of our cultivation but also the essence of our dharma practice. The “pure land” is the directions or places that we are heading to after this life. As we know, most people practice Buddha’s Dharma for specific goals, like to reborn in the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss. I…
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Zen Cultivation
Zen CultivationJan /28/ 2023 – Jan / 29/ 2023 After the previous 3 introduction of Zen history, I believe we had a better understanding of of Zen now, which is not rely on words or letters but a special transmission outside of the scriptures. It is amazing, but how to cultivate in Zen? We actually got some ideal from couple weeks ago; we call it investigating a Zen topic. Take an example for it, when Bodhidharma had a meeting with emperor Wu, the emperor asked the Bodhidharma, “Who am I talking to?” Bodhidharma knew that the emperor Wu was still struggling about the phenomenon, so he answered him as “I…
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Chinese New Year Celebration Talk
Chinese New Year Celebration TalkJan /20/ 2023 – Jan / 21/ 2023 Hello everyone, I am so glad that we can spend Chinese New Year here in the Great Thunder Meditation Center. Today is one of the most important days of Chinese and also for the Buddhists. From today, the spring will come back to the earth, and everything refreshes, just as our old Chinese saying goes, “spring is to one year what morning is to one day.” I sincerely hope that everyone has a bright new year and please believe that today is going to be a fantastic beginning. Before I came here, I got a text from my…
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Spreading Zen In the Orient
Spreading Zen In the OrientJan /14/ 2023 – Jan / 15/ 2023 There was a young man who was living with his mother; the only way he made his living was selling firewood. One day he delivered some firewood to a shop when he was about to leave; he heard a guest was reciting a sutra. As soon as he heard the text of this sutra, his mind at once became enlightened. Thereupon the young man asked the guest the name of the book and inquired whence he came and why he recited this particular sutra. The guest replied that he came from Dong Shan Monastery in the Huang Mei…
