In Search of Life's Beautiful Mission
Life's mission, have you found it yet?
On April 7-8, the " DDM for Young People in Malaysia" (法青會馬來西亞分會) organized “In search of the beautiful life mission" workshop, and invited the representatives from DDMBA, Ven. Guo Chan (果禪法師)and Ven. Chang Ji (常濟法師), to lead the workshop.
Let’s follow in the Young Buddhists of self-discovery, feel the vitality of the maturing souls from this new generation.
Photo by: Lee Fan (李東陽)“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it, because what the world needs is full-of-energy people.” For the following 2 consecutive days, at the
" In search of the beautiful life mission: we are prepared" workshop, Ven. Chang Ji quoted African-American author Howard Thurman, taken this inspirational statement as the opening lines to the first topic of
"Let the individual come alive", and directly pointed out the importance of living an active life.
Self reflection – Be alive
What kind of a person are we? Who do we inspire to be? The Venerables first let the students to answer, without hesitation, all seven "soul resume" questions and shared their life's missions.
10 distorted thinking were later introduced, such as jumping to conclusion, labeling people, emotional reasoning etc.; where if one immersed in such thoughts for a prolonged period of time, these thoughts will eventually rule over oneself. To experience the effects of distorted thinking, the students were put into groups, and enacted 6 different thinking pitfalls.
When Buddha was alive, a person tried all means to slander him. Buddha asked him, "If someone gives you a present and you refuse to accept it, who does the gift belongs to?" That person answered, "It belongs to the giver, of course." Buddha smiled and replied, "That is correct, and if I refuse to accept your verbal abuse, then are you not slapping yourself?"
We cannot please everyone; if we can be aware of our own chains of thought (face it, accept it), then respond and overcome (handle it), and finally not dwell on it (let it go), we can avoid these pitfalls every time, which also conforms to Master Sheng-Yen's teaching of the "Four Its".
Cohering the forces, let the generation come alive
Ven. Chang Ji used the documentary film "Six Degree" as a reference into the second topic
"Let the generation come alive", where the rise in climate temperature of one degree can have a geological, biological and social impact. In this information age, the need to join together our different cultures is ever more pertinent, Ven. Guo Chan introduced to the students
"The World Cafe", a platform for interactive ideas where participants may converse in real-time, reflect on issues, share knowledge, find opportunities to act together; Ven. Chang Ji on the other hand, used Malay cuisine dishes, namely nasi lemak, satay and tau fu fa as an analogy on cultural immersion, encouraging the students to embrace and promote multivariate harmony in life.
"Failure is actually not so scary; what is most frightening is insisting on completing oneself, pursuing perfection, yet not taking any action." A grievous malady awakened the member Huang Jun-Jie's quest for a mission in life, he no longer seeks perfection after joining the workshop but acknowledges Buddhism's self-less equality, treating all phenomena around him with the mind of wisdom and compassion.
What is the utmost important matter for this generation? How to create an environment without fear of failure, and the courage to try? The members were grouped in fours, utilizing
"The World Cafe" method to hold discussions on subjects such as educational reforms, environmental protection, creating borderless action platforms for the youths etc. They amassed many new ideas, and aspired to take small steps in implementing these conceptions. While putting these significant plans into practice together, they may gather forces to create an environment with a sense of mission for everyone involved, leading to self-improvement, improve our society, and eventually spreading this goodness to the world.
Texts: Luo,Shi-Hao (羅士豪) Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Centre Malaysia
Photos: Guo, Zi-Wei (郭紫薇)
Translation: Chang, Cheng-Yu (張振郁)
Editing: DDM Australian Editorial Team