Santavana Forest Hermitage organized an English Dharma talk on Monday, 17 August 2015. The title of the talk was Buddhist Meditation in Modernity led by Ven. Dr. Dhammadipa. A total of 112 participants attended the talk.
The speaker highlighted the aims of his talk by asking several interesting questions, including what the participants hoped to gain from the talk. The questions provided the participants opportunities to think about the needs and functions of meditation in our daily lives. Before going into further explanation on meditation, the speaker gave a brief account on the founder of Buddhism, the Shakyamuni Buddha. He then explained the two traditions of mediation; concentration (Samatha) and insight (Vipassana). He also introduced some basic terminologies commonly used in the teaching of meditation.
Further, the speaker elaborated some important foundations in practicing meditation such as observing virtue, and practicing generosity and the four immeasurable minds. Virtue helps us to cultivate good values such as kindness, happy life andjustice. The speaker also outlined the steps ofgaining merits with Samadhi.
Lastly, the speaker called to attention the five common misunderstandings of meditation. Before the end of the talk, Mr. Roger, the Chairman of Dharma Patron of Santavana Forest Hermitage presented a special gift to the speaker, Ven. Dr. Dhammadipa. The special gift was a poem composed and written in Chinese calligraphy by the Abbot of Santavana Forest Hermitage, Venerable Kai Yin.
Reported by Jing Xuan
