Five Contemplations at Weekend Buddhist Class

Fo Guang Shan (FGS) South Island New Zealand conducted a weekend Buddhist Class on 17th June, 6pm in the evening. Temple Supervisor Venerable Jue Xi continued to give a lecture to 24 students. The course is based on Venerable Tzu Chuang writing “Fa Xiang” and it guides the students to understand the basic terminology which used in Buddhism. This week, students have learned how to apply the five contemplations: loving kindness and compassion to cease anger; contemplation of causes and conditions to solve our ignorance; the 3 levels of contemplating loving kindness and compassion which are: “loving-kindness for sentient beings,” “loving kindness based upon reality” and “unconditional loving-kindness.” Contemplation of causes and conditions which uses “dependent origination” to correct the ignorance of phenomena that can be destroyed or exist forever and also ignorance of truly existence and non-existence. Venerable used many examples to explain the terminology and guide the students to understand much clearly. When students asked questions based upon their doubt, Venerable used easy methods which allowed them to easily understand. Based upon the learning from study, students also stated that by hearing the dharma frequently made it much easier to absorb, and they can also apply the dharma wisdom to solve problems they facing. It also helps reduce the ignorance and problems in daily life and is self benefiting as well.