Date: March 18
Time: 1:30 – 2:30 pm
Location: University of Hawaii at Manoa, REL 475 Seminar on Buddhism class
Venerable Dr. Mun is a Korean monk and a visiting scholar to University of Hawaii at Manon. He offers classes about Buddhism at the department of philosophy and religion. When he received the news about Venerable Jian Dan’s visit, he eagerly invited Venerable Jian Dan to give a talk at his undergraduate seminar class. This semester, this seminar class focuses on the investigation of Buddhism in peace. Based on this idea, Venerable Jian Dan was asked to teach basic meditation techniques and addresses the relationship between meditation and individual inner peace.
Venerable taught basic breath counting method and let the students practice twice. After the short meditation practices, students expressed the difficulty of focusing on the breath. Many indicated that their minds wondered around and were unable to concentrate. Venerable Jian Dan pointed out that we are habitual beings who are used to allow our wondering thoughts control us. We follow our thoughts everywhere but here. Most of the time, we are not even aware that out thoughts have gone a thousand miles away. By relying on counting the breath, we can gradually train our mind to be more aware, more concentrated and therefore more peaceful.Venerable stressed at the end that peace is not something external for us to seek. Inner peace is already in our Buddha nature. All we need to do is to uncover it within.
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