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Protection and Transformation
First is the practice of the second body during the spring retreat:
- Today or tomorrow, each practitioner must choose and diligently care for a new second body, based on the experience of previous retreats, in order to deepen this Dharma door.
- At the end of the retreat (in May), each practitioner must write a detailed report on: how they have helped their second body; what benefits they themselves have received; what difficulties have been overcome; and how the second body has also overcome difficulties.
- The practice should not be superficial, but should aim at deep and direct realization.
Second is the method of Sangha meetings to enhance the quality of gatherings:
- Organize Dharma discussions that are brief, filled with ease, joy, and smiles, without tension; everyone contributes to bring the meeting immediately back to the main topic.
- The facilitator must guide with loving speech, invite the bell when needed to cool down tension, just like the abbot inviting the bell for “compassionate discussion.”
- Before each meeting, recite the Invocation for Sangha Meetings, which includes a vow to practice deep listening, loving speech, pausing when tension arises, and immediately making repentance to restore an atmosphere of harmony and mutual understanding.
- Appoint a mindfulness keeper responsible for recognizing and “releasing” tension; anyone feeling tension has the right to stand up and report it.
The section on Protecting and Transforming reminds us to practice guarding the six sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind) to recognize and transform craving, anger, ignorance, pride, etc., into insight. The chant consists of four verses:
- Recognizing beginningless birth and death, renewing our life through repentance and vowing to uphold the precepts established by the Buddha.
- Praising the radiant wisdom like the sun and moon, and boundless compassion that saves all beings.
- Taking refuge in the Three Jewels, crossing the ocean of suffering with the boat of compassion and the torch of wisdom, practicing listening, contemplating, and practicing in the light of right view (the Four Noble Truths or the Four Nutriments).
- Each step enters the Pure Land, each look sees the Dharma body; contemplating body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind, guarding the six gates of the city, transforming old habit energies so that the garden of insight blooms with a hundred flowers.
