Abbot President Presides Refuge Taking Ceremony at DDM Vancouver

Abbot President Presides Refuge Taking Ceremony at DDM Vancouver

On the morning of 2 June 2013, Venerable Guo Dong, Abbot President of Dharma Drum Mountain, gave a Dharma Lecture on “Realize Freedom of Mind”, which was followed by a Refuge Taking ceremony at Dharma Drum Mountain Vancouver Center. Four hundred people, including volunteers, attended this significant yearly event.

Abbot President shared his personal experience about how to transform one’s mindset into positive thinking through offering cares and concerns to others. He encouraged the audience to focus on the power of their minds in any circumstances, favorable or adverse. “Whenever you maintain a pure mind, the world you perceive will be pure.” We should keep on the practice with repentance, humility, and gratitude, to generate our minds of great compassion; as a result, we will experience the purity of mind. Venerable Guo Dong advised the audience to selflessly dedicate themselves to various roles playing in life and concluded the speech with the theme sentence of the year, “When the mind is free, the body is free. When mind and body are free, wisdom and blessings abound.”

After the lecture, fifty-three participants took Refuge in the Three Jewels surrounded with the most sincere blessings from the rest of the audience. Venerable Guo Dong gave a brief talk on the meanings of Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels before the ceremony. He said that taking refuge in the Three Jewels will bring about the utmost merits and is also the first step to become a Buddhist. Subsequently Abbot President imparted Three Refuges and Five Precepts to the new Buddhists on behalf of the Sangha of Dharma Drum Mountain; he also congratulated the participants on their first step on the journey of cultivating on the Path.

Inheriting from teachings of late Master Sheng Yen, founder of Dharma Drum Mountain, Abbot President Venerable Guo Dong has been leading the Sangha and the laity followers to study, support, and promote the correct understanding of Buddha Dharma for years. At the end of the event, Venerable Guo Dong expressed his appreciation to all volunteers for their efforts in supporting Dharma Drum Mountain Vancouver Center; he also expected that more and more people in the Greater Vancouver District will benefit from the joy and bliss of Dharma in their life.


(by DDM Vancouver)

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