Fo Guang Shan Reading Club, Engineering the mind

On the evening of 27th April, Venerable Abbess Manshin led NZ North Island BLIA president Dolly Tsai and 7 other Fo Guang people to read the “Essence of Buddhism”, which is a small booklet from the “Buddhism in every step” series. Reading allows our mind that is stressed by work and daily living to be immersed in the Dharma, which allows us to engineer our mind and life positively with our Dharma friends.

The Abbess explained Buddhist concepts such as:

• Karmic forces generated since time beginning-less
• The concept of all comes to be due to the combination of conditions as according to “Causes and conditions”.
• The intrinsic nature of emptiness that change constantly and is always in transient.
• The Three Dharma Seal that are: “All Conditioned Phenomena Are Impermanent, All Phenomena Are without an Independent Self, Nirvana is Perfect Tranquillity”

Then the Abbess used the metaphor of “removing weeds” to describe that we need to completely pull out our karmic roots of afflictions that are deep within in order to purify our mind. Thus unleash the light from the ground of our mind.

Everyone contemplated what the Abbess just said with a mind that is complete at peace during this very moment. Buddhism is like a pure rushing spring that washes away our troubled state that is constantly harassed by the dust of the 5 desires since many Kalpas ago. The Dharma allows our inner world to be stable and fulfilled, and during the process of accomplishing these wholesome causes and conditions, we are actively tidying up our thoughts and engineering our life and mind.