Pilgrimage Greets New Year-May Everything go Smoothly

To welcome the arrival of the new year, FGS South Island held a pilgrimage from Jane Dean Close to the Buddha Hall of the Temple. Setting out at 6:30 am on the first day of 2010, 60 devotees began the pilgrimage by reciting the Heart Sutra, and then performing the “taking three steps and prostrating once” procession in-tune with the chanting of Sakyamuni Buddha’s name.

The one hour long pilgrimage concluded as the devotees arrived at the Buddha Hall. There, Venerable Juexi delivered a Dharma talk, describing the pilgrimage with analogies of: far to near; outside to inside; low to high; dark to bright; and from cold to warm; from hard to soft; and from arrogant to humble and compassionate.

The Venerable explained that through taking part in the pilgrimage with a sincere heart, one can repent their sins, develop a compassionate mind, make firm resolve to improve oneself and enhance their cultivation.

After having breakfast, everyone congregated again at the Buddha Hall, where they enjoyed a documentary on the Buddha Memorial Hall which explained the purpose of copying sutras and the merits of supporting the construction of the Hall. Following on, the session of sutra transcribing commenced, and everyone used their most sincere heart and all their focus to copy the Heart Sutra, word by word, one stroke at a time.

At the completion of the transcribing session, merits were transferred to the families of those who participated in the transcription. Venerable Juexi explained that copying sutras can purify body and mind and benefit others as well as oneself, and wished everyone a happy, successful and clean start to the new year.