Repentance Day on 14th March (Goat Year)

As usual, every month, a Repentance Day was organized on 2nd May 2015 (it is 14th Mar in Lunar Calendar) attracting most of the Buddhists in and outside HCMC gathered at Hoang Phap Pagoda.

Before starting, Sen. Ven. Thich Tam Truc, the abbot of\r\nCambodia’s Hoang Phap Pagoda had a Buddha speech titled “Turning suffering into\r\njoy”. 

He mentioned that, in this life, each birth brings in\r\ndifferent karma, someone is born in happiness while others are born\r\nin unhappiness. Joy or suffering is a result depended on what one had acted,\r\nwhat one had said and what one had thought in the past. Therefore, can we\r\nchange this result in our current life?

The Abbot continued that in the prayer book named\r\nEkottara-agama, Buddha pointed out four kinds of person in life:

- Suffering first and then joy

- Joy first and then suffering

- Suffering first and then suffering

- Joy first and then  joy

Through the book, the Enlightenment showed to humans that\r\nthe existence of one person is the result of his/her karma in the past. Yet,\r\nthey are able to transform their consequence by doing good things in current\r\nlife. We all knew that our acts, our words, our thinking in current life will\r\ndecide whether we are happy or torment in our future. Suffering or joy will be\r\ndecided by us. We will get suffering with bad causes; we will gain joy with\r\ngood causes. Moreover, no one is “nailed” tightly on his/her destiny. Misery or\r\necstasy will not last forever as anyone who are happy of for lone eternally.\r\nLet’s try to train ourselves to be a good one. Misery or ecstacy always exist\r\nin our individual. They are not granted or punished by deities, but by\r\nourselves. At any time action, speech, ad thought are created, they cause bad\r\nkarma to doers, and vice versa, good deeds results delight.  Let the “kind\r\nseeds” of us be grown and then, we use wisdom to transform suffering into\r\nenjoyment, trouble to Bodhi, our life will lead to new direction,\r\nways happiness and pleasure.

After the speech, Buddhists took a deep bow, recited\r\nBuddha’s names and listen to Five Precepts for lay people.

\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Followings are recorded photographs: