Theme Speech at the Dharma Meeting celebrating
Chinese Lunar New Year and Birthday of Maitreya Buddha
5th February, 2000 -
Chinese New Year Day of the Year of Dragon
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We recognize that we are living in an Australia dominated by Christianity. We hope that the
relationship between Christianity and ourselves is one of peace, rapport, and cooperation. We look
forward to discovering our common ground, and contribute to the peace and prosperity of the
society through wisdom, coordination, cooperation, harmony, and compassionate love. In its development, in adapting to the modern society, Buddhism should leave the forest behind, and approach the common people. It should discard its original practice of avoiding people, avoiding sentient beings, avoiding politics, and avoiding modern society. Every Jin-Gang brother and sister, as well as every Buddhist, should understand that, as long as sentient beings' sufferings and distresses are unending, our Buddhist aspirations for their deliverance must never cease. We must establish bodhicitta (the wish to attain Buddhahood to help sentient beings) and be generous with the resulting boundless love. |
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