How does one attain the Buddhahood? The Bodhi-mind comes first. What is Bodhi-mind? First is to benefit others.

For the sake of benefitting sentient beings, one would not be afraid of pains and difficulties. If sentient beings can leave suffering behind, we can endure the suffering, and take it peacefully.

One who aspires to learn and practice the Dharma can be called a bodhisattva. The superior action of a bodhisattva lies in delivering sentient beings with compassion and wisdom.

(Bodhisattva's Actions by Master Sheng Yen, 1990/12/13)

7:00pm: DDM Toronto Drum Group performance

7:10pm: Lecture followed by Q&A

Helping and supporting others provides enormous opportunities to foster one’s inner compassion and wisdom when applying the Chan teaching at the same time. Thus, volunteering is an essential practice while practicing on the bodhisattva path.

In DDM, every volunteer is a Bodhisattva of Myriad Practices. Master Sheng Yen once said, “Myriad practices do not mean omnipotent, it is serving others as needed regardless of position high or low. We do whatever is necessary when no one else is doing it. We yield the way when others have been on it.”

Bring your question and learn from Ven. Guo Xing how to apply the Chan teaching while practicing on the bodhisattva path.

The lecture is delivered in Chinese with English simultaneous interpretation.

Venerable Guo Xing （Guo Xing Fashi）

Born in 1953 in Kaohsiung,Taiwan, Venerable Guo Xing followed Master Sheng Yen, the Founder of Dharma Drum Mountain, and has practiced Chan since 1984.  He became a monastic in 1986 and, later, a Dharma heir of Master Sheng Yen in 2005.  He was the guiding teacher of Nung Chan Monastery meditation group and the Meditation Promotion Centre in Taiwan, as well as the Abbot of Chan Meditation Center and Dharma Drum Retreat Center in New York. The Venerable is currently the Vice Abbot of DDM, the Chan Practice Center Managing Director, and the Chan Hall Master.

The Venerable said his life came late after becoming a monk at the age of 33.  Upon becoming a monastic, he mastered the Chinese Buddhism classics and the mind cultivation method of the Chan school.. Since 2011, he has led numerous meditation retreats applying the methods of Samatha-Vipasyana, Silent Illumination, and Huatou in Taiwan, the United States, Canada, Australia, Moscow, Poland, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.. The Venerable promulgates the dharma of no-self as taught in the Surangama Sutra, the Complete Enlightenment Sutra, the Vimalakirti Sutra, and the Sixth Patriarch's Platform Sutra, to people from all over the world.