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Questions and Answers – Retreat for Young People and Buddhist Youth Family – Bat Nha
We are at Bat Nha Monastery on the last day of the retreat for young people with the theme “Listen to understand, look deeply to love” on April 27, 2008. This is an opportunity to ask questions of the heart regarding one’s suffering and difficulties.
We begin with a question about meditation practice:
- Is there any way to stop the phenomenon of muscle tension behind the ear running down to the shoulder and heating up, causing distraction during sitting meditation?
Next are questions about the Buddhist Youth Family and social issues:
- How can current concerns about the Buddhist Youth Family be renewed, and how can the organization return to its true ideal substance?
- How can young people regain trust and restore communication when witnessing moral breakdowns in the family and at school?
- What advice should be given when a female friend who is a Buddhist has been sexually abused by a monk, leading to suffering and a loss of faith in the practice?
- How can we resolve the conflict between dwelling happily in the present moment and thinking about the future or past to generate new ideas, and why not use information technology to spread what is good?
Then there are questions about monastic life and spirituality:
- How can I communicate with my father when he opposes my ordination and torments my mother every time he receives a letter I send home?
- How can a young monastic maintain their Bodhicitta, not retrogress, and not be pulled away by the five sensual desires, especially lust and drowsiness when studying sutras?
- What should be done to have peace of mind when fulfilling the last wishes of the deceased, such as killing or burning votive paper, violates the Five Mindfulness Trainings?
Finally, a cluster of questions from young people regarding education, love, and career:
- Does Thay have any way to help apply the Dharma in schools so that teachers suffer less and the social environment has fewer social ills?
- Please give some advice to young people who often withdraw into a dark corner, do not want to share, and do not want to participate in life?
- What is affinity, how do we know when it comes, and what must we do to suffer less when affinity has not yet arrived or never arrives?
- How can one escape the impasse and feel that life is meaningful when, after achieving a position, one ambitiously seeks a higher position with jealousy?
