2013
父母呼，應勿緩，父母命，行勿懶。 父母教，須敬聽，父母責，須順承。 When my parents call me, answer immediately. When they give instructions, carry them out, don’t drag my feet. When they give advice, listen respectfully. When they scold me, accept it with gratitude. – Standard for Students [Note: translation is a bit different than the one provided by the link —I think filiality looks [...]
There is a growing segment in education that is beginning to take to this more broad-minded approach, to consider content and pedagogy that place considerations like enjoyment, aptitude, and economic decision-making factors into the context of a more systematic understanding. This movement is embraced by DRBU, but it is by no means limited to our institution. A recent article posted on the Harvard Crimson reports that “Ethical Reasoning 18: Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory is Harvard’s third most popular class.” Why so popular? [...]
To be honest, I never thought about what it meant to be a "good son" until I became interested in Buddhism and the monastic life. It was an unexpected teaching that really sank in when I became a sophomore in college. [...]
Although these figures may use different words to express their ideals and look after separate communities, they all share one thing in common. They do not live for themselves. In the eight months that I have spent in India so far this year, I have encountered a number of modern day gurus. I stumbled across [...]
How does a verse communicate all of its meanings to us? With midterm break just beginning, I'll be spending the week contemplating and reciting Guan Yin's name. In some sense I feel that for every session I have to reorient myself to practice, and of course, exactly what this means is different every time. Luckily, my recent classes have been providing a lot of food for thought. [...]
I went to the City of Ten Thousand Buddha in January and most of the residents were in the midst of the final week of a three-week Chan meditation retreat. I dropped by the DRBU building and only a few staff were there. The entire building and the surrounding campus were completely silent. It was a wonderfully quiet feeling. The atmosphere was alert, clear, and crisp, yet quiet and pleasant. The spirit of shared collected effort across the campus gave it a sense of not solitude, not loneliness. I was trying to reflect on why that is. [...]
For the past several months, I’ve been part of a translation team that is working on the verses of the Lotus Sutra. I think of translating as a practice; it contains a lot of different opportunities to learn about the Buddha’s teachings and about myself at the same time. I’ve been finding that translating verses [...]