Lay Dharma Teacher Eric Chang speaks at Fo Guang Shan – “How to cultivate during everyday life”

On 24th June, BLIA North Island invited the Lay Dharma teacher Eric Chang to give a lecture at Fo Guang Shan. On the day, 150 people came to listen, with the main topic being “How to cultivate during everyday life?” Eric presented the lecture in a lively and colourful manner to show the close knit relationship between the Dharma and our everyday life, and methods of application. This is the second time Eric came to New Zealand to give teachings. Last time was in 2003, where he gave 13 lectures.

The lecture started with a brief introduction by Abbess Venerable Manshin, who described Eric’s rich experiences in his field. Eric begins by describing a rainbow he’s seen earlier, which led to describe many places in life where we can discover joy. We should use the mindfulness of living in the present to experience beauties in life. The Dharma we’ve learnt from the temple should be applied to our mundane activities.

Eric uses the example of intergenerational differences on views and values to describe sources of vexation for our everyday life. We have these conflicts and misunderstanding with our parents and our children because we were not “living in the present” moment when we are communicating. During these critical moments, we need to use empathy, compassion, gratitude and contentment to defuse each other’s extreme emotions. By doing this we can use these unhappy moments to improve ourselves, thus turning negative conditions as opportunities for us to learn how to handle conflicts.

Eric mentioned that positive psychology experts in America have recently spent millions of dollars in research to discover how we can achieve happiness. Their findings are:

• Keeping positive attitude and communication skills
• Help others
• Find life’s meaning and values etc

Interestingly, these discoveries are almost identical to the “3 good deeds” and “4 giving” proposed by Master Hsing Yun many years ago. Eric encouraged everyone to constantly self-reflect and live in the present moment, this will let us to be in accord with the Dharma and live happy lives. Eric’s humorous and charming style caused the audience to constantly laugh out loud and clap with wonder, there were not a dull moment throughout the joyous lecture.