FGS South Island Dharma Lecture - Winter Season

BLIA South Island’s Weekend Dharma lecture-Winter season began on 9th June at 6pm, lectured by temple supervisor Venerable Jue Xi and attended by 20 BLIA members. Venerable Jue Xi continued on with a publication by venerable Tzu Chuang: “Fa Xiang” (A Buddhist Practitioner’s Encyclopaedia) as a reference to the lecture on Buddhist terminology. The first lecture was on ‘Five Signs of Decay’ of heavenly beings. Once the merits are used up, Clothes become filthy, Garland atop the head fades, the armpits become sweaty, the body becomes foul-sweating, and the heavenly palace appears unpleasant. When all merits are used up, this heavenly being would fall to the ‘other realm’. If a heavenly being use up almost all merits, one would also come across the ‘Five Small signs of Decay’, ‘The music stops’, ‘The body’s radiance fades’, ‘Bathwater clings to body’, ‘Attachment to their surroundings’ and ‘The eyes start blinking’, when one’s time comes, on the brink of death. ‘Venerable Jue Xi explained that as human beings we are able to be involved in working for our own merits, however, as heavenly beings, they can merely use their merits without earning. Venerable also suggested the listeners to practice the ‘Contemplation of Impurity’, within the ‘Five Contemplations’, in dealing with desires and greed. A question was raised on how ‘attachment’ is different from ‘determination’. Venerable Jue Xi responded in a way that was understood well by all participants. Next week, all participants shall continue on with the lecture, setting a solid grounding to their Buddhism knowledge.