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Incense Offering and Praise
The eighth part of the liturgy is the invocation, distinguishing between two terms: tổ sư is a Sino-Vietnamese term referring to ancestral teachers, while sư tổ is a pure Vietnamese term carrying a familiar nuance like family. Each person has two families: a blood family and a spiritual family. Our soul and every cell contain what the ancestors have transmitted, including the Buddha, Bodhisattvas, and ancestral teachers. The practitioner is aware that a tree has roots and water has a source, vowing to receive, preserve, and cultivate the spiritual heritage consisting of three substances:
- Insight
- Compassion
- Peace and happiness
Continuing the aspiration to help living beings by transforming suffering within oneself and helping people of the present time. It is necessary to recognize the new sufferings of the era to open up appropriate Dharma doors applicable to all fields such as economy, politics, culture, and education. Practicing dwelling happily in the present moment helps one live peacefully right in the present, nourishing the two substances of solidity and freedom. The Sangha looks upon one another as brothers and sisters in one family, using loving speech and listening to nourish brotherhood and sisterhood, while accepting the Dharma door of Shining the Light to recognize strengths and weaknesses.
The ninth part is the praise of the ancestral teachers through a chant recalling the story of holding up the flower and understanding the meaning at the Vulture Peak assembly. Zen here is understood as the practice of the three trainings (precepts, concentration, insight) encompassing all schools, leading to dwelling happily in the present moment and making the true Dharma shine brighter than before.