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Ktmt 94 Phap Hoi 1 (Sang)
The session concludes the Autumn Retreat with a Dharma festival featuring songs, poetry, and personal insights on the practice. Reflections include the imagery of brown robes fading in the sunlight, symbolizing the warmth of a second mother and the reconnection with one’s homeland through the community. Faith is restored through contact with nature and the Sangha, transforming feelings of isolation into a state where upstream and downstream are both joyful. True happiness is explored as a self-generated security, independent of others’ emotions, and realized through giving without expectation. Daily affirmations help nourish joy and avoid the extremes of craving and aversion, with a conscious decision made every morning to choose happiness over suffering.
Experiences of impermanence reveal that while joy and sadness are transient, mindfulness allows one to be sovereign over these emotions, preventing them from dominating life. The illusion that material objects or prestige bring happiness is dismantled, replaced by the appreciation of unbought gifts like nature and the act of being there for others. Personal transformations are shared regarding healing childhood wounds and reconciling relationships with parents through dream analysis and prostrations. Resistance to practice is likened to an insect flying against a closed window pane when freedom is just an inch away; taking the step toward the unknown leads to connection and freedom.
The Three Joys (Three Refuges) are identified as:
- Taking refuge in the Buddha, the inherent capacity to understand.
- Taking refuge in the Dharma, the practice of stopping habit energy to look deeply and love.
- Taking refuge in the Sangha, the support of those walking the same path.
A Dharma talk is defined not as the transmission of information, but as the offering of insight born from personal practice. Like a silkworm that eats mulberry leaves to produce silk rather than simply outputting leaves, a speaker must digest the teachings to offer something capable of transforming suffering, rather than simply regurgitating knowledge.